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Spiritual Genealogy


Spiritual Genealogy

 I mentioned my thrill at finding in John O'Donohue's "embers of kinship" quote the idea of "spiritual genealogy," some mysterious non-physical connection which may click or spark like two magnets smashing together.

This connection may be some sort of "blood link" similar to D. H. Laurence's "blood memory"--the idea that within us are mysteries, often unknown to us consciously, which we have inherited through the blood and DNA handed down to us. Or possibly, sucked into our essence by osmosis from, through, physical places or things.

When we encounter strangers within whom exists some of our own inheritances, we sense a connection. O'Donohue calls this person an "anam cara" or "soul friend" which, by definition, implies that we are already aware of our own "soul" and that we recognize within some Other some aspect of our selves. 

 This is why I see the idea of a soul friend as connected to a mirror. A person who reflects back to us some aspect of ourselves. Or a person/Other who helps us see and love some aspect of ourselves we may have been unaware of, oblivious to, before.


I think it may also be John O'Donohue who gave me this definition of "soul" which makes sense to me for the first time in my life. That soul is the presence of the divine within. And divine? Something beyond the human, with some sort of connection to our origins on this planet?

 When we feel as if we have found a soul friend, we have found someone who understands some of the experiences we have experienced. Who appreciates some of the things we appreciate. Who "gets" some of the "low level ecstasies" we get. That Other with whom we feel "at home."

A soul friend does not have to be a lover. It is deliberately not a soul mate. Nor does he/she/it/they even have to be of a specific (opposite) gender. And each is/would be a gift, not an entitlement. Not everyone is so lucky. 

 I did not want nor intend to write a story about a lonely woman finding a lover or a soul mate. Never. A lonely woman finding herself. Now that's another story. And what Wyn finds is both physical and spiritual, a kind of genealogy which helps explain her own emotional history.

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