Conversations with a Soul Read Online Free PDF

this place, so too the romantic, and when we yield to their influence we grow in stature; when we despoil either we know ourselves to have betrayed something important.
    In this place courage is crafted from cowardice, and inspiration forged from boredom.
    Whatever vitality we find in life is a reward for spending time here while whatever despair burdens our journey is a summons to come back here and deal with our unresolved anger. Here we are encouraged to explore and name the things that hold us captive, cages crafted from fear and failure, sometimes arising from our own foolishness, sometimes from the weakness of others.
    In this place the voices of our Wisdomkeepers can be heard most clearly and their presence experienced with compelling certainty.
    We are all explorers and pioneers in this land and sooner or later, frequently or infrequently we have to journey through its depths.

How might your life have been different if, once, as a young girl . . . when you wandered alone in the woodlands not far from your mother’s house . . . you had come upon a small glade you had never seen before. If, as you listened to the wind blow mysteriously . . . you had seen, there in the shadows, a circle of rough hewn stones? And, as soon as you saw the stones, you sensed a wisdom waiting there . . . knew that this was a place where women had gathered throughout the ages to reflect upon their lives. And you sat down quietly on one of the stones . . . as if the stones, themselves, would teach you what you needed to know. 11
    Deep within, in that secret, personal territory where the endless noise and demands of everyday life fall silent, high pitched squeals of delight and riotous laughter announce that we have arrived at the land of enchantment .
    To all who’ve become prisoners of the mundane and whose lives no longer sparkle with anticipation; who’ve resigned themselves to life without vitality and feel crushed by obligation, here’s a place that promises re-enchantment .
    In this land imagination reigns supreme, just as it did when we were children. Was ever a forest more alive than when it was populated by wizards and heroes, when we could come across a secret glade as if set there by an invisible hand, and where life refused to be reduced to mere existence?
    Of course the
adult world
will try to squeeze out the language of enchantment from our vocabulary and replace it with matters of ponderous importance. They will prescribe more pills and potions to eke out yet another year of boredom. Work, not play, will suck dry the wellsprings of laughter, and speeches about 'the real world' will seem designed to introduce guilt whenever pleasure becomes an option.
    Is the world that exists outside our inscape such a garbage dump, that only despair and hard work, sacrifice and pain have any value? Why should the real world be one bereft of dreams and beauty, of inspiration and laughter, of playfulness and spontaneity?
    The Wisdomkeepers, who take me by the hand and lead me to experience the land of enchantment, are always persons who know how to play and who understand the importance of playing. They question my addiction to worry and the persistent anxiety that gnaws away at me and easily imprisons me in fear.
    My Wisdomkeepers know how to laugh and can be caught dancing on the wisdom stones. They work to convince me that throwing myself into the dance is a an act that frequently witnesses to great wisdom.
    Some of the richest moments of my life have been initiated by my children and grandchildren when they have insisted that I enter their world, which is always enchanted, and they have restored playfulness to my understanding of being alive.
    What a pity that so many toys are marketed today on the basis of being 'educational.' Red fire engines were never supposed to teach children, or grandfathers, the mysteries of quantum physics; they have a far more important role - they bring imagination alive, and teach us how to play.
    But the land