Imagine…
You’ve signed up for a space exploration program. You are going to visit a recently discovered planet. You’ve been told that it is very similar to life on Earth- same atmosphere, same carbon-based life forms with humans as the most conscious on the planet. However, unlike the current difficult conditions on Earth, on this new planet all species live in harmony with each other, collaborating and cooperating in a balanced way that preserves the environment, provides for every creature’s basic needs, and allows all inhabitants to survive and thrive. Let’s call this world “utopia” as that term already has an association for most of us as an ideal and perfect place.
The Utopians look like humans, but the similarities end there. When you meet your first one, a woman, shortly after landing on their planet, you are struck by how clear her skin is and how radiant her energy. It’s like she is glowing from the inside out. Her body is healthy and vital. Her movements are fluid and relaxed; she feels grounded and centered in her female body.
Beyond the physical differences, you immediately notice that her language is different when she greets you and welcomes you to her world. This Utopian woman, let’s call her Eve, asks you if parts of you feel ok if she gives you a hug to welcome you to her world. You aren’t sure what she means but, suddenly, you’d like very much to receive a hug from this vital and warm woman. She embraces you and you feel a warm and loving energy spread from the top of your head to the bottom of your toes.
“Your energy is a bit lacking and heavy,” She says, looking you deep in the eyes and smiling. “I can feel how it’s been hard for parts of you to leave the home that they know. But, please know that we will provide the space for them to be felt by us in these reactions. They, and you, are welcome here.”
You don’t know what she means by “parts of you” but, again, you are reassured by her mere presence and the gentle yet firm way she holds your hand. You begin to suspect that the warmth coming from her hand is helping you feel more relaxed and energized at the same time, yet you aren’t sure how that could be.
A Utopian man comes up; we’ll call him Adam (of course!), and puts his arm around the woman. “I see Eve has you in good hands,” he says, laughing at his own joke, flashing beautiful white teeth and a spontaneous smile that has you laughing and smiling along with him. Still grinning, he looks you deeply in the eyes and repeats Eve’s welcome. “It might take parts of you awhile to acclimate to being here,” he says, suddenly more serious.
He studies you some more and tears spring into his eyes. “I feel the pain that is in in your heart; I feel how parts of you are afraid. What I want to remind you is that this is how things were meant to be for you. How it is here. Not like where you come from. This is how things were meant to feel.”
Tears start streaming down your face, seemingly against your self control. You don’t understand why his words hurt and feel comforting at the same time. Your mind can’t comprehend really anything that he is saying or what it means, but it feels good to feel his eyes on you and to see the tears of understanding in his eyes.
“I’m feeling you,” he explains, taking your other hand in his. “This is what it feels like to be felt by someone who can feel you. Your parts are drinking it in. The tears are a sign of their defenses melting. You and they need much, much more of this. It was what you were meant to have.”
You nod, again, not sure what it is that you are agreeing to. Yet, you are here with Adam and Eve, bright sun shining on your skin, birds chirping in the background, waves crashing against the shore as you stand on a pristine, white sand beach, feeling the warmth of their hands on yours, feeling their tears as they focus only on you, feeling the love so easily coming from them to you. This does feel like how it was meant to be. This does feel like home.
Adam and Eve walk you to an airy and spacious one room hut made of bamboo and dried palms. There’s an open living space with a kitchen, living room, and sleeping area. It’s cozy, warm, and right on the beach so you can still hear the waves outside. It is decorated in natural fabrics, shells from the ocean, with healthy and vibrant plants tucked in every corner and big cushy pillows on the floor in the living area.
They tell you that they’ll be back in a couple of hours, so you may take this time to relax, rest, and adjust to your new environment. They point out that there is a journal and a pen on the nightstand by the bed if you want to check in with any of your parts about the journey and how they are feeling.
“What do you mean by ‘checking in’?” You ask them as you sit down on one of the cushions on the floor, feeling that same sense of confusion yet familiarity.
Adam and Eve smile and look at each other with empathetic grins, then back at you. “We’ll explain it all to you after you’ve rested more. But, we won’t need to explain much because this will all be natural for you. After all, it’s what you were…”
“Meant to do,” you finish their sentence.
“Yes! You are getting it!” exclaims Adam, flashing his wide grin again. Eve nods happily and exits, leaving Adam standing in the doorway. He gazes at you intensely again, seeming to look straight into the heart of you, peeking at your insides in a focused yet loving way.
“So, why don’t parts of you believe in God?” he asks, his tone innocent and curious, no judgement in his tone that you can feel.
You sigh, memories of Sunday mornings spent in church or synagogue or at temple running through your mind. You remember boredom, disconnect, and an underlying feeling of wrongness about yourself related to God. Or, you have no connection to God at all. It’s a blank canvas, nothing written or imprinted.
“Part of me hates the God of religion,” you answer, using their language despite yourself. Well, using “part of me” seems appropriate in this case because of course not ALL of you feel this way.
Adam nods, as if he deeply understands. “Yes, part of me hates the god of your religions too. Not a God that I would want to get to know.” He moves across the room and sits by you on the cushions laid out on the floor. “We don’t have religions here. We have only experience of That Which Made Us. Our Creator. It is our Mother and our Father. Both.”
“Our religions only have a male God. Our Father. And male prophets too.” Bitterness has crept into your tone. You don’t know where it’s coming from.
Adam looks confused, but you can tell that he is trying to understand and feel where your pain comes from. “But, that would exclude half of your people from having a Creator that matches their own face and bodies! That would make women feel as if they were less than men! As if only men were worthy to be represented by Creator! That would make men feel as if they were better somehow than women. Or that they would have a right to control or dominate the women! And, putting a male face on Creator would make It seem like a human rather than That Which Made Us All!”
You nod sadly, feeling sorry that his grasping of your reality is tainting his own sense of joy and goodness. You begin to worry that you will cause him pain somehow by bringing your life into his.
He picks up what you are feeling and takes your hand. “It’s ok. For the part of you that wants to take care of me, I want to tell it that I am fine. My trust and connection with my Creator runs very deep. Yes, I am shocked and feel very passionate about the picture of your religions being off and hurting many people in its distortions. But, I am here to offer you and any others who would like to receive it, a new experience of their Creator which is not like this one at all. Would you like this?”
You swallow a lump in your throat. It has been a long time since you have felt any longing for God. Or, maybe you have been a spiritual seeker for a long time but have abandoned the idea of a creator and embraced the non-dual or sagely teachings this life. Or, you are connecting to God despite the picture of religion and understand exactly what he is offering. Although you probably wouldn’t be reading this if you did.
“Yes, I would like this,” you say, tears beginning to fall again. “Part of me is afraid of it. Part of me feels very angry at the religion’s God, as I said before. And part of me…maybe this is me, feels very much like the Creator you describe is what I was meant to experience.”
“Yes, it is,” Adam says, wiping away your tears with his hands. “This, as all things, will be negotiated with your parts at a rate and pace that you and they can bear. This is the mercifulness of my Creator and especially the Mother’s face of the Creator. She holds us as we feel our pain and makes it possible for us to bear it. She wipes our tears and She will help you get to know the most sacred and precious aspect of you called your Daemon or Soul Guardian. This part of you will become your collaborator, your muse, your pipeline to Divine guidance, and help you open up access to your soul gifts. As you feel this Daemon part of you, you help it heal from past life pains and traumas. It needs your human heart and compassion in order to heal.”
You nod, as if you have any idea what he is talking about. But, again, it just all sounds right even if the words are foreign. Mother’s Face of the Creator. Daemon. Past lives.
“Is there a young part inside of me too?” You ask, already knowing that there is. You have heard of the idea of having an “inner child” and this is something that you’ve felt inside of yourself in response to doing fun things or eating particular foods from your childhood. Or you’ve felt this part in response to your own children.
“Of course, yes,” says Adam, gazing at you again. “This part of you is very sweet. Very innocent in its’ nature. Yet, also, it is in much pain and very shy. This part of you suffered much in your childhood and your caretakers, even if they love you very much, weren’t able to feel you while you were experiencing those pains. So those pains get stuck at certain ages and places. This young part of you may actually be several parts stuck in different times because the pain was not able to be digested by you and so it remains subconsciously stuck there.”
“Do you have parts? Or were you felt by your caregiver while you were feeling things?”
Adam looks down for a minute, as if contemplating how to answer. Then, he looks up, more serious again. “Eve and I are the first of our kind. We are the only humans on Utopia. This is why we’ve invited people from your world to join us, even though we can feel how different we are from you right now. Our Creator has guided us to bring others this picture of life that we were just born into. Our Creator offers that some people will respond to it and come along although it will be much harder for you because you will need to heal from the pains that you brought with you rather than just your reactions in the moment, as Eve and I do.”
You realize now that there were no other Utopians to greet your ship as it landed. Only Eve and then Adam came along soon after. You realize that you have not seen any other Utopians since you have arrived there. You realize that actually there were no other people from Earth who came along with you on your journey. You were the only one who answered the call for adventure, journey into the unknown, and took the risks that that choice required of you. You feel a rush of loneliness and homesickness, suddenly thinking of your family. Or maybe your children. Or your husband, wife, girlfriend or boyfriend.
“You and Eve must feel so lonely!” You exclaim, again feeling an impulse to take care of this wonderful and strange man that you’ve just met.
Adam gazes at you. “Yes and no,” he says. “Our love and connection with each other is very deep and rich. We are individuals as our Creator intended us to be. Yet, our intimacy ground, our “usness” as we like to call it, is a third entity that we both serve love to and respond to on a moment by moment basis. I do not own Eve nor does she own me. We have a commitment to serve love in the moment, that is all. We do not understand what you call “marriage contracts.” You cannot guarantee something such as love. It arises or it does not. You cannot control it. You can open your heart to let in more or you can feel where you do not feel connected in love anymore.”
You are amazed by his description of love and intimacy as it is so different than the mainstream picture of marriage, divorce, and expectation of lifelong commitment and staying together no matter how unhappy you are. Yet still, he admitted to being lonely even with his connection with Eve?
“Yes, Eve and I felt a growing desire to share our love and goodness with others. To invite, as I said, others into our garden of love and invite them to eat the fruit of the Creator’s love with us.”
You are suddenly reminded of the Garden of Eden and the serpent and the apple and original sin. You are reminded of the fall of humanity from the grace of God. You are reminded of Original Sin and the twisted way that religion has presented the very thing that you are now being invited to become part of.
“That story has indeed been twisted,” says Adam, seeming to read your mind. “The garden of Eden is not a place, although where you are now comes close. The Garden of Eden lives inside of your heart. It lives as a seed, planted inside of you by your Creator. Planted inside every person as a reflection of the sacred human essence for which we are all made is the template of your own expression of an Adam or an Eve. Your seeds just need water to grow and bloom into the sacred human you were meant to be. But the false self part of you which is created in order to fit into the barren world for which you are born keeps you small and denied of this food. Your false selves use stories such as the distorted one that we just mentioned to keep you from letting in the love water and food that is actually always available to you.”
The Garden of Eden lives inside your heart, you think about this. You like the idea of it and you like the idea of having a seed of sacred human essence that is just waiting to bloom. The idea of a false self, for now, is one that is hard to digest.
“How do I get the water for my seed to bloom?” You are already wondering how bloomed your seed is compared to Adam’s. To your husband or wife’s. To your other family members or friends.
Adam gets up, beginning to head for the door. “It’s not something that you can get,” he says. “It’s only something that you can let in.”
He turns to you one last time and you miss his warmth and comfort already. “And, to be able to do that, you need to feel the parts of you who are afraid to let it in and why they are afraid,” he says. “This is a process of healing that will take some amount of time, energy, and passion for you to be part of. In the meantime, you will have to give up some things that you are currently very attached to because it is most likely your false self which is attached to them. Any relationship, things, or belief systems that are used to keep you from feeling what your parts and you are authentically feeling will need to be felt into being let go off. There will be many of them and it will be very, very hard. You would only choose to do this if your desire to bloom into your sacred human essence is strong. You would only choose this if you feel a deep loneliness and also a desire to be in deep connection with a heart mate like I described. You would only choose this if you want to deeply know and love your Creator in way that goes much beyond what your religions have offered. You would only choose this if it feels like the only and best way that is being offered to you at this time and if, it feels as if you were meant…”
“To choose it,” you say, finishing his sentence.
He nods softly, saying, “Take your time to feel into this choice, especially now that you and parts of you know what is at stake. Now that you know that basically everything that you have known from your world will be questioned and felt into and potentially need to be let go of, even if for only a phase of time, if that’s what feels right. Now that you have met and experienced Eve and I, take your time to feel into if you want to stay with us and continue your journey.”
He puts his palms together and bows in your direction. You return the gesture, your head spinning and heart churning with all that you’ve experienced and taken in already.
He continues, “If you decide not to, we will send you back to your home with some sadness but also complete acceptance of your decision. If you decide to stay, I promise you that you and your life will not remain unchanged. I promise you that you will experience love in ways and in depths that you cannot even dream or imagine possible at this moment. And I promise you that Eve and I will be there to support and guide you all along your journey and so will your Creator so, in that, you will never really be alone again.”
He leaves you alone with your choices and your possibilities. He leaves you to take your time to “feel into” if you will say yes or no. You curl up on the pillows, wrapping a blanket around your body even though the tropical breezes keep you perfectly cool. You close your eyes, imagining how it would be to leave everything that you’ve come to know as your world and potentially the people in it in order to embark on a new adventure into the garden of your inner Eden. You imagine how it would be to get to know these parts of yourself that Adam has described: your inner child, innocent and shy; your Daemon, tortured yet beloved soul guardian; your false self, self-protective and wanting to keep you safe.
You begin to hope that your husband or wife or girlfriend or boyfriend would want to join you too and that maybe you could have the kind of relationship that Adam and Eve do. You begin to hope that you could feel the Creator the way that Adam described and perhaps feel the part of you that hates God. You begin to wonder how and if you could ever give up that hope and risk to let anything and anyone go who doesn’t serve your most authentic self.
Or maybe you feel only like resting and sleeping for a while. Letting the love and possibilities seep into your starved heart and soul. Doing their magic while you sleep in the arms of unseen angels. You fall asleep resting into the sense, at least in the moment, that you are exactly where you are meant to be.
And, you are.
Divine Self Embodiment Blog (Formerly SoulFullHeart) 