The Starlit Path Magazine Volume 2; issue 2 – Summer 2019

The Way of the Simple Soul

Catherine Grace Landry

“An elderly man lay dying. His long life had been eventful and fruitful. He was tired.

He sensed his time on Earth was finished; he had experienced all that he needed, for now. He believed within the deep, secret spaces of his being that it was time for his soul to move on, so he humbly asked his God to make it happen.

His request was granted.

His eyes were closed, his breathing unlabored; he was cocooned in an aura of peace. After some time, as if responding to a celestial signal, his eyelids flickered, his fingers twitched, and his chest shuddered.

At that moment, I felt an overwhelming impulse to lay my hands on him, in part from a sense of awe and reverence for his final earthly rite of passage, and in part from a greater urge to somehow ease his transition.

Between one breath and the next, his soul separated from his body, which stilled forever.

 As he found the Light, I found the Shadow.”

 (excerpted from The Way of the Simple Soul)

 

There is an extraordinary gift to be found from sifting through the shadows that lurk in our minds and hearts. Ultimately, we find our light. The magic of this end-of-life connection pitched me headfirst on a journey unlike any I could ever have imagined. It was a journey to fully understand the message he had for me. The serendipity at the end was finding my own light.

The Way of the Simple Soulis the story of that journey. It winds its way through strange happenings, dreams, multi-dimensional visions, fearsome jaguars, whales, tiny girls and Shining Ones from the Illuminated Realms beyond ours, metaphysical meanderings from NHL hockey games to Amazonian fire circles and ancient ancestors. It follows the nudging’s of my soul, the nudging’s of the elderly man’s soul, and the physical, mental and emotional chaos that played out within me. 

All this pieced together the meaning of the message, bit by mysterious little bit, until it blossomed forth in full-blown heart-warming detail and I finally understood the beautiful truth he wished me to know.

My hands on the body of the elderly gentleman created a conduit for a part of his soul to attach to me. It was not a random event, though sometimes these things are. His soul had a message for me. Now, we are not structured to carry the intensity of another’s energy – not even a tiny filament of their soul such as was the case with this event. My physical body reacted like a volcano had erupted inside.

The mysterious symptoms that resulted rampaged through every system of my body. Medical tests showed I was completely healthy. The doctors told me there was nothing they could do. In desperation, I sought out alternative medicine and, to be truthful, anything that was suggested to me. This eventually led me into the hands of energy healers and shamans catapulting me into the previously unknown world of metaphysics. They steered me though the shadows stuck like muck in my deeper self. I learned how to excavate all these and heal. Here I found a deeper, richer, more intimate spirituality – which brought me face-to-face with my soul! Here also was the elderly man’s soul waiting to communicate to me. It was he who asked me to write the book and it was even his choice of title!

His gift was to show me our soul-human fusion. He was saying it is critically important for our soul self and human self to reach a harmonious relationship with each other. He showed me how beautifully simple this is. Our soul is not some mythical, external, hard to understand, foreign being. It lives within us. It gives us life. Our human self is intimately entwined with our soul. We are it, it is us! It communicates to us all the time. When we learn its language and unlock the flow of vocabulary our daily life becomes so much simpler.

Our soul’s vocabulary is very visceral and physical. From its resting place within our bodies it channels its voice through our bodies. For me that means various types of shivers, shudders, involuntary breaths, tickles in my solar plexus, words or phrases that pop out of nowhere and resonate deep within my abdomen and not from my mind. Each of these has a particular meaning to me. My soul speaks to me in sensations such as density or lightness. I may feel lead-footed, unable to stand straight, chest caved in or strange aches and pains. The volcano of fiery acid in my digestive system was one such communication.  As I sense or feel something I now stop and assess whether there was a natural or human reason for it, like a breeze wafting by that made me shiver. If not, then was this a soul message. I drop into my quiet inner space and ask my soul some questions. The responses are usually immediate.

This soul-human connection allows more fluidity along our life’s path. Our soul came to Earth wanting certain experiences. Our Earth is the only planet in the solar system with the right ingredients for physical life.  Physical life forms have senses that can touch, smell, see, hear, taste. They can translate all this to emotions like love or fear, anger or joy.

Our soul looks in from its ethereal home and thinks what a wonderful place to physically feel all the things that it can only imagine from afar. It chooses something specific, links with human parents and is born.  From this moment our soul is launched into the arena of feelings and sensations. Watch a baby adapting to being human. It is in sensory overload. Everything goes into the mouth or the ear, on the hands or the feet, in the nose! It stares intently, fascinated by colours, shapes and movement. It exercises its vocal cords just for the fun of hearing and feeling the frequency and vibration. As we grow out of babyhood our soul becomes ever more insistent in trying to get us to understand what it came to experience so we can get on with it.

The human body that houses our soul has genetic tendencies. We are raised by a family that has traditions and certain types of conditioning. In the soul-human fusion, it helps to see these for what they are. These elements are not necessary to carry through life unless they serve our soul. As an example, perhaps our soul wants to experience feelings of lack and we were born into a wealthy family. Following the tradition of going into the family business is not going to satisfy the soul, though it will surely keep the human self warm at night!

Our life becomes less complicated when we communicate with our soul and allow its voice to direct us. Rather than fight against the reason we are here, we flow with it. We understand that our human life is but a tiny blip in the eternally long life of our soul. Clearing the muck from our hearts and minds clears the channel to our soul’s voice. By muck, I mean everything conditioned or self-imposed resting in deep-seated memories that do not serve our soul path. I found that meditation was the quickest route to my soul-human harmony. Each can find the route that works best for them.

I can tell you that my life has become so miraculously uncomplicated and clear now that I am talking to my soul.  I know what it is here to experience and this simplifies all my daily human choices. This was truly life-changing for me. I no longer struggle with what-ifs or what-fors. It does not matter what I doas long as what I choose allows my soul to manifest what it is here to experience. This brings true peace. Soul and body in harmony. Best friends forever.

I sincerely hope you can take a few moments to read The Way of the Simple Soul. It is an easy read and there is much more to the elderly man’s message than what I have highlighted here! Although I tell the simple soul story in my own voice, it is a truly universal human journey. One we all take at one time or another. It is my deepest wish to give courage to those who are hesitating to step into their quiet internal space to find their soul.  It is possible to figure out why we are here and what to do with that information. It trulyispossible to wade through our personal muck and feel whole – a complete and unified soul-human. A journey begun is a journey with an end. Despite the shadow-boxing along the way, the destination of this journey is joy.

                                             

Catherine Grace Landry

Catherine Grace Landry is a qualified shamanic practitioner, crystal energy therapist, Kundalini yoga instructor and personal power guide. She was a marketing, communications and fundraising executive for over two decades until her muse took her out of the corporate arena and into the beauty of our natural landscapes. She loves to travel the world, soaking up the inspirational magic of its people and places. Currently resident in Ottawa, Canada, she is writing the second in the Way trilogy, The Way of the Lightkeeper.

More information can be found at www.catherinegracelandry.comand through her publisherwww.satiama.com. FollowThe Way of the Simple Soulon Facebook.The Way of the Simple Soulis available through Amazon in paperback or e-book formats.

 

What readers are saying:

“Is offers the reader an indescribable and permanent sense of wonder.”

“Hypnotically written.”

“You will never forget this book once read.”

“A stunning and evocative book.”

“No need for a glossary of spiritual terms, this was written for the everyday person.”

“A must buy for those who are beginning to question if there is indeed more to life.”

 

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