Kathy & Ginny, Fall 2014

My sister, Kathy, lives across town from our father, and I knew we would be spending a lot of time together while I looked after Dad.  She served as his “business agent,” while I lived with him directly.

I asked her to explain the spiritual studies she had been pursuing in recent years and to give me a couple of books that had most influenced her.

My first introduction to Soul School. I read THE INSTRUCTION just before Ainslie MacLeod came to Boulder Book Store to present and autograph THE TRANSFORMATION, which I devoured shortly.

WOW! I was surprisingly fascinated! Ainslie MacLeod was my first psychic, who wrote The Instruction, a 2007 book about what I am calling Soul School. Then he followed that in 2010 with The Transformation  about transforming our past-lives’ fears into spiritual growth.  In fact, as I add these books to my bibliography, I want to reread them right now!

And David Hawkins’s 2002 edition of Power versus Force astounded me with his scientifically-based studies on how and why so many forms of divination provide accurate guidance.

THE explanation, couched in scientific studies, of how and why intuitive-based functions/tools such as the tarot or the I Ching work accurately.

How could such unusual-to-me readings ring SO TRUE?  That was it–I was hooked!  I’ve been reading, taking notes and re-interpreting my life, taking workshops, and meeting varied practitioners ever since.  I am still feeling WOW!

For the next few summers, while I still read about what my sister was studying. I focused more on Caroline Myss’s Sacred Contracts, 2002, about finding one’s true self and purpose in life through archetypes. Selecting my twelve top archetypes took me three summers, two of Myss’s books and one audio recording, including the 2006 Archetypes, Who Are You? and the 2006 audio program (11 CDs) of The Language of Archetypes. That process was also my first introduction to astrological houses.

Caroline Myss’s books on archetypes, the 2002 SACRED CONTRACTS and the 2013 ARCHETYPES, WHO ARE YOU?” I also used her 2006 audio-only program called THE LANGUAGE OF ARCHTYPES.

A COURSE IN MIRACLES (ACIM)

The third summer Kathy and I started reading A Course in Miracles (ACIM) together. We’ve been rereading it ever since. It is THE book that I feel most strongly is Truth, and it is my spiritual baseline or touchstone. All the other books and activities I pursue must be compatible with ACIM.

When I moved in with my father to stay until death do us part, June 2013, Kathy and I took a class in Jungian dream interpretation and joined a dream interpretation group, both at her workplace in Boulder, the Caritas Center. Jungian dream symbols and Caroline Myss with her archetypes introduced me, a former geologist, to thinking symbolically—say WHAT?!?

I kept wanting to translate symbols into words I could understand. To help me with that I bought a set of tarot cards, which are delightfully artistic and full of symbols that a book explains—woo hoo! (I got the idea from my dream group, which uses another deck to help provide invariably useful insight into the dreams we discuss.)

And then an astrologer started to volunteer at Caritas. Astrologer Anand Vadehra casually told my sister Kathy much about our family that he could NOT have known! He was amazingly insightful. His approach to astrology is to see what one brings into this life and what one hopes to do with it—much more detailed than what Caroline Myss’s archetypes in astrological houses show.

So I had Anand read my natal chart, for my Christmas present to myself. WOW. WOW!! This time I led Kathy into a new line of study. Anand has taught two astrology courses at Caritas. Kathy and I took both and were continually impressed, even amazed. I took the introductory course again, to better impress more of it into my head and heart. I do not have Anand’s facility with thinking symbolically and hope to develop it.

I’m working on thinking symbolically through astrology, dreams, numerology, and tarot, all of which are completely compatible with A Course in Miracles. I have rational thinking-style in my genes and family and education. Now I am exploring the other half of life, the intuitive, emotional side—the subconscious, looking for my inner self and true nature.  Back in Fairbanks, I joined the Carl G. Jung Society, which focuses on the subconscious and its symbolism, too.  Jung’s psychology provides more credible, strong, scientific connections.

Meditation is the most powerful access technique into the subconscious, and I have been working on it for a few years, but with limited success. I have posts about my Monday Mornings Meditation  group (dated January 4) and my Taoist Tai Chi Society activity (January 8). I’ve been doing tai chi for 13 years, and it is becoming meditative. My first and most successful meditative activity is walking in Mother Nature. (My inner child is definitely a nature child.)

I am on a journey into the unknown, looking for a better me and a more meaningful way to connect with and contribute to society. Come with me! Let’s see what happens!