With the stock market having lost some 40% of its total value in the last year, and millions of homeowners having lost their homes or about to, the doom-and-gloom has really gotten to many people, The song "Is That All There Is?", popular a few decades ago, sung by Peggy Lee, has prevaled on the minds of many. Casual and defeatist as it sounds at first listening, the song has nonetheless a hidden wisdom.

If that's all there is, then lets keep dancing. . .

What is it that we do when we dance? We have the opportunity to be open, to our internal selves and to the world about us. We could surround ourselves with deafening music and many do, or we could dance in silence or near-silence, so that we may hear our inner selves and the inner essence of the world about us. Yoga and dance meditation are among the options. When our goals seem hopelessly far off, our horizons are nebulous and we cannot "accentuate the positive" because we can see no positive, it makes sense to put ourselves in a listening mode. It is not easy, to be honest; it is much easier to just rant on and be a victim. But in being receptive, in living in the present rather than the dead past or the unknown future, lies the wisdom of this surprisingly wise song. Now to be true I would sidestep the "break out the booze" but, if you can experience "having a ball" you just might experience the positive you think you cannot see.

It may seem incongruous to suggest that a Bible story may align itself with this issue: the story of Noah. If you would accept that in the Bible stories are parts of ourselves: a part of us is Adam, a part is the serpent, a part is Noah. At the start of the story God finds all mankind hopelessly bad and morally corrupt. But in Noah He found the exception to that, and so He called him. More importantly, Noah was listening, notwithstanding that he probably felt similarly about the world of his time, and so heard God's call. If we do not listen, we will not hear His call. His call may be as simple as to give a person a heartfelt smile, a person desparately needing at that point of time a 'guardian angel'. Or it may be for something more ambitious. Probably not to the point of building an ark, but then- who knows?

When I was in Spain doing my Camino pilgrimage there were several instances where I was saved from serious trouble by a 'guardian angel'. In each case it was a total stranger who came forward with a combination of skill and compassion at just the right moment to avert a calamitious situation. To give just one example of many: one night I was lost in the city of Pamplona, looking for a particular pension(pilgrim hotel); it was a rainy night, but I didnt know just how lost I was. Although I was not thumbing a ride, a total stranger in a car asked me where I was going, who spoke English well enough that we could converse. When I told her where I wanted to go she told me that was several kilometers away, and in a direction different than what I thought it was. She gave me a ride to where it was; not only that but helped me find a pension that was open and willing to receive guests. She inquired at three places that she knew before she found one. Talk about miracles!

I know nothing about what this person was like elsewhere in her life, nor whether she consciously thought that she had been called upon to be a 'guardian angel'. But if anyone who has an 'ear to hear' could so be called, that person's moral state elsewhere in his life doesn't matter. For all we know, Adolf Hitler could have been called at some point in his life to be a 'guardian angel'. I wouldn't put it past God to do that.

Of course it is only common sense to reach out and plan to achieve our goals with daily and effective activity. But the time will come when we will feel defeated, without energy or ambition to go forward. We then have the time and opportunity to listen. Although we should always listen, at these times we have no excuse not to.

Knowing the parts of ourselves that listen

At TCM and SPT we study "voices", that is, parts of ourselves that have recognizable characteristics and are present, more or less, in all of us. There is the Controller, the Critic, the Cynic; and then there are archetypal voices like Earth Mother, Warrior, Aphrodite, the Crone. All of these voices are primarily expressive rather than receptive, that is, they are stronger at talking and taking action than they are at listening, although each of them can and do listen. There are other archetypal voices that are stronger at listening: there is the Judge, which can also be an analyzer and evaluator; there are various child-voices, and there are voices that listen to the spirit world. It is these latter that could and would hear calls to help and assist, create, be a guardian angel - or just give that heartfelt smile to a passerby. None of these voices are 'good' or 'bad' in themselves; it is our moral state that calls upon each of them to do good or bad things. It is always our choice what archetypal voice to step in to - a primarily talking voice or a primarily listening voice. But if you are to ask "is that all there is?", you had better be in a listening voice if you expect any kind of an answer.

Living with these different archetypal voices within yourself can be a daunting task at times - especially if times are tough. If sorting out your internal voices is confusing and challenging, coaching is for you.

Copyright (c) 2008 Dave Smart