The writings of therapist Marion Woodman talk a lot about the Sophia principle guiding women doing their inner psychological work to break free of patriarchal wounding, once they can own their wounds and look to a source of healing from within, often a loving inner figure of presence and understanding will show up and that can prove to be transformative, especially if we suffered with so much internalized self criticism, shame or blame.
As humans we are never perfect, we have patterns that can damage both ourselves and others but the more that we can look upon those patterns with love, acceptance and understanding the more peace we may find, even as we struggle to transform them. Often a lot of suffering may have to happen in order for us to find wisdom and understanding.
A follower I cherish and respect so deeply mentioned in a comment a week or so back how she feels the Holy Spirit resides deep inside our hearts, and Sophia is another name for the feminine side of this force, some call Sophia wisdom, the associated priniciples may be grace and mercy.
So I was so grateful to receive my copy of Thich Nhat Hanh’s book, Living Buddha, Living Christ, this week in which he speaks of this force in association to the Holy Spirit and mindfulness. He sees it as a force of love and understanding. So much lately I notice when my own heart or the heart of another hardens mostly in fear. This makes us tend to shut down, when staying open may feel terrifying. And this is, at base, an issue strongly associated with Scorpio energy, where we harden to protect and may even strike to wound out of hurt or fear, we may hurt our own selves too with our internalized hurts if we cannot show softness towards our frustrations or problems, or ongoing hurtful patterns..
I found these words from the book so beautiful :
To me mindfulness is very much like the Holy Spirit. Both are agents of healing. When you have mindfulness, you have love and understanding, you see more deeply, you can heal the wounds in your own mind. The Buddha was called the King of Healers, in the Bible, when someone touches Christ, he or she is healed. It is not just touching a cloth that brings about a miracle. When you teach deep love and understanding you are healed.
For many of us understanding may only come through pain.. We have to take some actions that may lead to regret in order to learn and also to deepen in compassion for our human condition.
I watched an old episode of Vietnamese painter Ahn Doh’ Brush With Fame this week where he interviewed and painted the Australian actor Samuel Johnson. Samuel began his acting career in his twenties and lost his mother to suicide when he was very young.. One of his sisters, Connie then suffering three separate bouts of cancer and Samuel started doing a round Australia uni cycle ride to raise funds for her when her conditioned progressively worsened.
Sadly Sam lost his sister to the disease (he also lost his first girlfriend to suicide) and he spoke of how the pain over the second loss only tended to grow deeper and more profound with time.. Yet he was full of joy in the interview and has not given up his mission in raising funds and awareness.
Part of the interview that resonated was the one in which he said that he does not believe in a person saying they live a life of no regrets. We are human, we stuff up, to me being able to own that fact and keep moving forward is what counts, and in the end it is mindfulness or the loving Holy Spirit as an emissary of divine love that helps us to hold open a peaceful accepting place for both our own wounded hearts as well as the wounded hearts of our fellow humans.
Sophia is the receptive Being
in whom divine and human meet.
Through Sophia we enter into the mystery.
It seems to me a lot of pain may be reconciled or deepened into within this place, for, in truth, not all wounds heal but our attitude towards them can and does transform as we open our hearts and souls to a healing, reconnecting force of understanding and love that fills us with the capacity to fully embrace everything.
Emerging From The Dark Night 