The Inner Landscape of your Soul
“I broke through another layer into joyousness. That I am part of the plays of this game makes me amazingly happy.” #Rumi
Imagine standing, facing another human. Behind each of you is a doorway that leads into an exquisitely unique landscape, marked with varying terrains and cavernous depths. One might have a dense forest veined with creeks and rivers, or perhaps an expansive ocean with vibrant coral reefs beneath it. Another may have a desert landscape adjacent to a jungle. Every human has an inner landscape, whether we have explored it or not.
Just because I have not traveled to Thailand, doesn’t mean Thailand doesn’t exist on this planet. I might read about it, explore Lonely Planet books and articles, watch youtube videos all about it, but I can only really know it by having gone there. So too it is with the landscape of the soul. Without a willingness to explore within, we can’t map out our own inner landscape, and therefore can’t really communicate about it.
Soul cartography takes time and attention. We can only really go as “deep” with another to the extent they have been willing to go with themselves. Imagine you have spent hours alone in meditation, journaling, yoga, tai chi, dance, or any various other pathways of self-discovery, and have created a map of your experiences to be able to share. Then you encounter another person, who perhaps has only just walked through the doorway of their inner landscape, not quite stepped foot into the forest beyond the pasture.
It may feel like a depth discrepancy. However, one is not more right or more wrong than the other. There are a thousand pathways through the terrain of a soul. Pacing discrepancies are a natural part of being human on a planet and sharing space with others. What can a slower paced person teach you? Just like we as adults might learn something from the innocence of children, every person at every point on their path, has something to share.
When you find yourself frustrated with the surface level conversation around the temporary and fleeting things of the world, I invite you to go inward. Journeying into the quiet is a space only you can go to, but you can play with the cartography of that landscape and map out the various parts of yourself. When we haven’t taken the time to get to know our inner landscape, we might be tempted into using gossip as the currency for connection and seek out stories on the external of what we see to try and communicate with others. We might even seek the counsel of others to overlay their map onto our own, to try and access our inner landscape for us, which can leave us untethered and wanting.
It is a beautiful thing to meet someone in this moment in time and space, and to share your knowing of your own inner landscape with theirs, when your wild meets their wild. There may be vast deserts of despair, seeds of yearning, forests of mystery, and great wonders. But to know another starts with knowing ourselves.
There was a season in life when I sought the guidance and wisdom of everyone else; I outsourced knowing to someone else who might know more but found myself often left wanting. Through my own commitment to my practices, I have found it is much more empowering to find the answers within. I find my job is holding the veil back to the illusion of the material world and helping others to see their inner truth, versus me telling them their truth. I invite you to journey into the expanse that is you today. Spend ten minutes with a journal, imagine mapping out an inner landscape that is just for you, and find the space within that feels like safe harbor for when you need it. You are a journey and a universe unto yourself, wildly unique, and wildly One.
