She is Me - soul encounter & mythopoetic identity
Image by Anahata Giri: She is Me
The soul carries the ego-self or small self throughout our lives, like a star wrapping us in the luminous cloak of who we truly are.
-Anahata Giri
Ask any parent - growing up as a human takes a long time. The first task in the human psyche’s development - to grow a rounded egoic self - takes decades. The developing ego-self is formatively shaped by family and culture. The egoic self carries the child into adulthood and, for most people, there is little questioning society’s values and goals. For others, a deeper life beckons. This deeper life revolves mysteriously around a deeper self, the soul-self, revealed through dreams, intuition, deep imagination, synchronicities, strong emotions, embodied experiences, heart-knowing and liminal, consciousness altering experiences.
Within this soulful journey, some are blessed to have a conscious, luminous, life-shaking encounter with their soul-self, what Bill Plotkin calls a soul encounter (1). Plotkin describes a soul encounter as an experience that reveals one or more aspects of the essence that you were born with. A soul encounter is deeply experienced, yet symbolic, for the language of soul is based on image and metaphor. A soul encounter is seen, felt, heard, intuited, dreamed or envisioned.
Through these revelatory encounters, we meet a self much deeper than personality, an essential core self, the soul. This is at one end of a continuum of spirit and soul. Whereas spiritual experience connects us with a transpersonal, universal essence of self, the soul is the essence of the wild, exquisitely unique individual self, with a psycho-ecological niche or place of belonging in the web of life. The soul carries the ego-self or small self throughout our lives, like a star wrapping us in the luminous cloak of who we truly are. The soul also carries our unique soul powers, essence, values, ways of knowing and being, and soul gifts. The soul knows the deepest significance and purpose of our individual lives, what Michael Meade describes as our unique genius, the gifts that only we can give to the world.
Sadly, in the modern world, most people never come to know their soul-self. What makes soul encounter rare? Firstly, it requires a lot of healing, wholing and souling practice to sustain a conversation with soul, which creates the ground for soul encounter. Souling includes developing an intimate and ongoing practice of connection with nature’s beings and elements, to evoke ecological awakening, that helps us move beyond the ego-mind and discover our place within the web of life. We also need to explore the conditioned beliefs, often stemming from childhood, that underlie our inner protectors, parts of ourselves who behave in ways to protect the ego-self. Inner protectors can veil the full expression of our deeper self. Soul work includes getting to know our conditioned self more intimately, with kindness and clarity, so that we can hold the hand of our limited self, and bravely take steps toward our deeper soul-self.
Souling is the process of walking the soul path, of immersing in the underworld, with practices and experiences that are finely attuned to the individual. Souling requires a paradigm shift from the everyday, strategic, often overly conceptual, structured mind of everyday life or the middle-world, to intuitive, imaginal, full-bodied sensing and presencing ways of knowing. The gateways of the body, heart, spirit, soul, mind and nature are waiting for us to step through.
A word about the struggles of the middleworld or everyday life. Whatever is emergent in the individual’s middleworld life can also be a powerful gateway to soul - yet it is often dismissed. Middleworld struggles might include: despair and frustration from unfulfilling work; chronic illness or health conditions; the resurfacing of childhood trauma; grief and loss; shame and a sense of unworthiness; relationship endings or difficulties; loneliness and isolation - and the list goes on. When we sit with, feel deeply, inquire into and intuit the meaning, role, source and the ‘underneath’ of these life challenges, we are usually returned to either our conditioned self, or our soul-self or, most likely, both. These middleworld challenges can seem external but underlying them are almost always narratives of our wounded parts. If we are returned to our conditioned self, we have the opportunity to understand our limited self more deeply. When we turn to these wounded parts and conditioned narratives, we may make the remarkable discovery that the way we have been wounded is itself a potent gateway leading into our soul’s unique ways of being and soul gifts.
I will give some examples of middleworld gateways from my own soul journey. This will appear like a neat journey, because I am summarising extensive inner work done over 30 years. In fact the journey is meandering and messy, like all deep journeys are!
Over my adult life I have had bouts of anguish about not knowing who I am or why I am here. These bouts are extremely painful. I feel profoundly confused, like I am twisted up inside and I cannot see a way out. There is an existential fear of not being able to see myself, of not really existing. Accompanying this anguish is a strong narrative of self- doubt. My most common response in younger adult years was to ignore these feelings and embark on the next project or activity. By feeling the deep pain of my anguish, I was able to understand more clearly how this arose from not being seen, witnessed or mirrored effectively in my childhood, alongside patterns of hiding, invisibility and of ‘being good’, all in response to my father’s violence. I was able to befriend my self-doubt, and my inner protectors, including the controller. This is ongoing work. Even as I write this, my self-doubt babbles away. I hold her hand and write anyway.
Most importantly, I befriended the anguish about not knowing who I am and, lo and behold, this anguish was a gateway into my deeper self, a powerful catalyst right before a soul encounter. There are many other ways my wounding has mirrored my soul gifts. Probably one of my deepest wounds of childhood was the wound to my heart, from experiencing many years of Dad’s abuse. I began my healing journey when I was 19 years old. It took many years to recognise that my own heart is my deepest resource and gift to the world. My wound of not knowing who I am has given me a capacity to help others uncover who they are.
So here you are, following the call of soul, descending into the underworld, befriending your inner protectors, exploring core wounding, following what is emergent, practising a wide range of soul-craft practices and following the whispers of soul wherever, whenever you can. What then is most likely to evoke a soul encounter?
My main suggestion has five important aspects: spend extended time in soulitude, in nature, attune to your deepest longing, explore soul-based practice and develop your ways of knowing. Soulitude here refers to moving yourself away from human company but welcoming in nature’s wild beings. Nature reminds us of the present-centred, conversation that we can have with our wildest self and with nature wilderness all around us. This nature-based soulitude could be a soul quest, as I describe below, or at least a day in nature. Longing is a powerful portal to soul. Connect with your full-bodied, wholehearted experience of longing for a deeper life, in whatever way this longing has meaning for you. Then alchemise your longing, and whatever is emergent, with soul-based practices, attuned carefully to your individual path. Develop all your wild ways of knowing - your deep imagination, full embodiment, intuition, deep awareness, full emotional expression and so on - to uncover the underneath of whatever is emergent. Trust what is emergent. When we trust whatever is emergent in our path, whether it is painful or joyous, then the next step is revealed. Soul only shows us the next step and, as always, the next step is right where we are, not where we want to be. You may need guidance from a soul guide who can help you stay on the wild track of soul.
How do you know if a soul encounter is a soul encounter and not some other creative, cathartic, shadow or mystical experience? To summarise some of Bill Plotkin’s ideas (2), a soul encounter: sinks the roots of ego more deeply into soul; reveals something about your unique essence, expressed symbolically; is profoundly moving; is mysterious or numinous; shakes the foundations of your world; is experienced during non-ordinary states, such as trance, fasting, a dream, a waking vision and so on; evokes a second wave of profound emotion such as hope, gratitude, joy, grief or fear; evokes in you a desire to embody this in your life, alongside fear; shows you how to serve a whole community, not just yourself; resonates with other numinous events and gives meaning to your past and to your life going forward and is confirmed by your joy in living it and confirmed by the way it serves the world. You will see many of these points reflected in the soul encounter description below. In essence, “ an experience of soul encounter allows us to see the thread of meaning that runs through our life like an underground stream.” (3)
Soul encounter provkes a profound shift in identity. As Bill Plotkin writes: “her ultimate place is identified not by any social forms or roles, but, rather, by the symbols, stories and archetypes unearthed from the deep structures of her psyche and by the way the world invites her to belong to it.” (4) We step into what Bill Plotkin calls our mythopoetic identity. A mythopoetic identity is the way we experience and identify with our own soul, in the form of a mythic, poetic, symbolic expression of the soul-self. The soul, like spirit, is beyond definition or explanation, but our mythopoetic identity mirrors back some of the essential symbolic features of this soul-self. I like to think of a mythopoetic identity as the individual archetype of ourselves that is utterly our own.
This mythopoetic identity is not created with the thinking mind. It is received through the grace of soul encounter. It might be received in one sudden revelatory encounter, or pieced together gradually over months or years, by weaving symbols and insights from several soul encounters. You might notice the emerging of mythopoetic identity in the soul encounter below, reflected in the exclamation, “She is Me!”
It is my deepest heartsong to help others know their personal myth, their unique gifts for the world, and the love that lies in their own heart and soul. To inspire your pilgrimage of soul discovery, I share below an excerpt about my own solo soul quest, undertaken during Covid lockdowns in Melbourne in 2021. I was 52 years old when I met my wild and true self. It is never too late - and midlife can be a ripe time for soul encounter!
Meeting her has set off a metamorphosis, as slowly I come to understand how to live as Her. She has become the mythopoetic identity that my life revolves around. Drawing, writing and becoming her has been a slow process over three years, so far. She is both a mythical and poetic expression of my soul-self yet also real, true and lived in this breathing world. Meeting Her has given me my myth - and much work to do in this turmoiled and precious world. She has given me the courage and boldness to serve a revolutionary Love that the world desperately needs. She is Me. I am Love’s apprentice.
She is Me: Soul Encounter 2021
My life is not my own.
This was confirmed when I met Her, that day by the river. I had spent two nights and a day alone in a sit circle on deep moss, surrounded by ti trees. I was on a solo quest, to discover a part of myself that I had only glimpsed. I longed to meet my soul-self, my wild self, to know the essence that is me.
Within a protective circle of stones, with an aching heart, I called out to the universe, to my own soul, to the wild web of life all around me. After a first night of profound fear, I shared my deepest wounds, threw away old names, named the narratives I had struggled with, of hiding, invisibility and self-doubt, pounded the ground with my stick, danced with fear and anger, sobbed, dreamed, napped, listened and called out again and again and again. Please show me who I am. What do I do with this life? Who am I? What is my place in the world?
The next morning I walk through pre-dawn darkness, to the Birrarung River. It is my fourth day of fasting and I am hungry, exhausted, ragged and lost. I sit on the rocky bank, filled with wretched longing. I gaze across at a huge gum tree, rising up from a small almond-shaped island in the middle of the river. I look, rather forlornly, at its swaying branches, filled with shimmering leaves. I notice a large dead branch, eroded into intricate carvings. I look at the shapes and the lines and in an instant they morph into Her. I cannot un-see her, though my disbelief has me rubbing my eyes, too afraid to look away even for a second, in case she disappears. She is vivid, enclosed in the almond shape of the branch. She wears a long green cloak and is leaning over the river. She is luminous.
Just as I am wondering who she is and why she is here, I see that she is carrying a stick - just like the stick I had been beating the ground with for hours. I gasp as I recognise that She is Me. “She is Me!” I call out. Tears stream down my face as I soak up the vision of Her. In the centre of her chest is a deep imprint in the shape of a heart icon. I fold at the knees and sob. She is Me. She is a guardian of Love. She is here to Love the river of Life. Somehow, I will live as Her. She shows me I am here to follow Love wherever She will take me. She is Me.
O holy woman, in your long green cloak, Love has branded you deeply, through bark and wood, with a heart carved inches deep. It will take time, O Heart, but I will come to know you, as birthmark, as sacred wound, as scar, as ceremonial tattoo. O Heart, I will carry you, the crown I wear on the inside. I am Love’s apprentice. She is Me.
Anahata Giri
October 2024
(1) See two books: Bill Plotkin, Soulcraft, New World Library, 2003 & Bill Plotkin, Journey of Soul Initiation, New World Library, 2021.
(2) Summarised from Bill Plotkin, Journey of Soul Initiation, New World Library, 2021.
(3) Bill Plotkin, Nature and the Human Soul, New World Library, 2008, page 270.
(4) Bill Plotkin, Nature and the Human Soul, New World Library, 2008, page 252.