Friday, October 25, 2013
Anne Baring's new book
October 25, 2013
Anam Cara Meditation Foundation
Perennial Wisdom For The Soul's Journey
by Lawrence Edwards, Ph. D.
Dear Friend
The great quest, the archetypal journey that infuses our lives with meaning and soul-fullness, gives us a context within which we can discern the deep meaning and purpose of life. It has been written about for countless ages and depicted in cave paintings before written language even existed.
Without an understanding of these great mythic journeys, the quest of Christ, Buddha, Mary, Inanna, Moses, Mohammed, Mirabai, Rumi, Kwan Yin, and on and on, we fall prey to the prevailing cultural and family myths of life's meaning and purpose, along with all the limitations that come with them which imprison the heart and mind in such tragic ways.
Anne Baring, a senior Jungian analyst in Great Britain, has written one of the wisest, most inspiring and insightful books on the soul's journey that I have ever read, titled: The Dream Of The Cosmos: A Quest For The Soul.
Anne truly fits the archetype of the wise old woman, compassionate, brilliant and clear, a deep scholar whose breadth of learning, contemplations and meditative knowledge she makes available to us through this work. It is the pure distillation of a rich life lived with profound commitment to knowing directly the ways of the Divine, especially the Feminine ways of the Divine, and serving others by selflessly passing on her wisdom jewels to us all.
This work is especially important and timely because it calls attention to the life-threatening global problems that have evolved from distortions and limitations of the solar, masculine myths, while pointing to the ways of the Divine Feminine, whether related to as Holy Spirit, Shekinah, Great Mother, Tara or Goddess Sophia, that can save humanity from this course of destruction. The world is matter, mater, Mother. Destroy Her and we destroy everything.
Whatever your path may be, even a pathless path, reading this book will illumine your way.
Open to any page and you will find wisdom. Here is one excerpt.
The Dream of the Cosmos: A Quest For The Soul
Anne Baring
The Shekinah is named as the Divine Spouse, the indwelling Holy Spirit and divine guide and immanent presence who delivers the world from bondage to beliefs that separate it from the source, restoring it ultimately to union with the divine ground....
I was amazed to discover that the Shekinah was called "The Precious Stone" and "The Stone of Exile", which at once connects her with the image of the Grail, described as both vessel - source of boundless nourishment - and stone. She was called the "Pear", and "The Burning Coal". To the opening eyes of my imagination, she appeared as the glowing gold of the hidden treasure at the heart of life, the jeweled rainbow of light thrown between the divine and human worlds, the seamless robe which unites the manifest and unmanifest dimensions of life. Here, at last, was the crucial missing piece of the puzzle that I had sought for over fifty years.
Anne Baring
pp 50-51
