From Call to awakening

When we first awaken, it is as if we are catching a glimpse of light at the end of a long, dark tunnel or watching the first rays of sunlight penetrating the darkness of a seemingly endless night. The sense of relief is palpable. For a few moments, the impenetrable grey cloud we have been living under for so long dispels, leaving us standing awed and breathless and more fully alive than we have ever felt before. Awakening is, however, more of an ongoing journey than a one-off happening and it is one that takes many years to unfold. It has often been likened to waking from sleep for we do not only awaken from something. We awaken to something.

For most of us, it is an awakening not only to soul, but to many other aspects of our being. For writer, Christine Paintner, it brought an awakening to her body. In her book, ‘The Wisdom of the Body’, she writes movingly of her lifelong struggle with her body. By the tender age of eight, she had learnt to use food ‘to fill the pain’ of living with addicted parents. And when she was only twenty one, she was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, the same autoimmune disease that had crippled her mother’s body. As she saw it then, her body had betrayed her and she battled for many years with a deep loathing of her physical self. Paradoxically, however, it was her experience of chronic illness that enabled her to re-awaken to her body and in time, to come to see it as a gift despite its vulnerability and imperfections.

For psychologist, Steve Taylor, it brought an awakening to his senses. It happened for the first time while he was spending time alone in the countryside. After walking through the fields for a while, he experienced what he calls 'a sudden shift in my perception.' Everything around him seemed more real, more vivid and more beautiful. It was as if his senses were coming alive, as if he were seeing, hearing and smelling what was around him for the very first time. In those moments, he caught a glimpse of what it is like to see the extraordinary in the ordinary, to see ‘the more’ both in ourselves and in all that is. He was learning what it means to see through the eyes of the soul.

For Sue Monk Kidd, it brought an awakening to her brokenness as a woman. In her book, 'Dance of the Dissident Daughter', she describes it as an awakening to 'the feminine wound' that all women carry to some degree. Having been brought up in the patriarchal American South, she had experienced first-hand the misogyny that is still prevalent in that part of the world. She calls it 'holy misogyny... sexism mandated by scripture, church doctrine, or divine decree.' It was not until midlife, however, that she finally awakened to all that she had lost as a woman along the way. For her, it was a powerful dream that led her into a collision with patriarchy not only within her culture, her church and her marriage, but also within herself as she embarked on the journey of reconceiving herself as a woman.

And for philosopher, Henry Thoreau, it brought an awakening to his longing to learn how to 'live deep'. In his late thirties, Thoreau went to live for two years in a cabin he had built in woodland beside Walden Pond, some two miles from where he lived in Massachusetts. He went to the woods, he said, 'because I wanted to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and to see if I could not learn what it had to teach... I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.' His was an awakening to one of our deepest longings: a longing to break free from everything that limits or constrains us, to find freedom from all that traps us in a smaller self. It is an awakening to what John O’Donohue called ‘the wild possibilities’ within us. It is a call to embrace the freedom that draws us towards new beginnings, new horizons, new adventures of the spirit.

For me too, awakening to soul has brought with it an awakening on many other levels – an awakening to parts of myself as yet unacknowledged, to gifts and callings as yet unrecognised, to deeper needs and longings as yet unmet, to woundedness as yet unhealed and to a whole new way of seeing and relating to the More. What I have realised along the way is that each of these different awakenings plays its own part in our soul journeying. Awakening to our senses and our bodies deepens our awareness of what is happening in our inner world and enables us to hear the quiet whisper of our deeper self. Awakening to our woundedness throws light on what it is within us that prevents us from seeing and being all that we are. Awakening to our gifts and callings gives us the sense of purpose and direction that shapes our soul journey. And awakening to our deepest longings energises and sustains us as we walk the path that will bring us home.

Bibliography

Sue Monk Kidd (2016) Dance of the Dissident Daughter. HarperSanFrancisco

Christine Paintner (2017) The Wisdom of the Body. Sorin Books

Steve Taylor (2018) ‘An Awakening’ in The Psychologist, August 2018, British Psychological Society

Henry David Thoreau (1995) Walden: Or, Life in the woods. Dover Press

©Copyright Kaitlyn Steele 2025

Kaitlyn Steele

www.insearchofsoul.co.uk

kaitlynsteele16@gmail.com