Guide-Letter #8 - The Celtic Body-Angel, The Souls Path To Purpose

Read time approx:​ 13mins

"Happiness is alignment with purpose"​

- Father Sean O'Laoire

Welcome to another Slí na Croí - Way of the Heart guide!

Before I start, I just want to thank you for being here as a subscriber! I’m here to give you the best information and knowledge I know to help you take your life to the next level of vitality and purpose and well, just feeling like you are truly living! If you have questions for me fire me an email any time dillon@tatu.ie.

Have you ever wondered why you just start longing for certain things seemingly out of nowhere? The longing of your heart is a signal from your soul.

The things you're feeling you really need in your life right now, a sun-soaked holiday, the thrill of driving a sleek new car, the quest for a fulfilling new job, a great mountain hike, or even the dream of reinventing your entire life and finding your purpose, are all signals from your soul about the kind of vibrancy it wants to experience on Earth right now.

It is not so much the material thing or destination, you’re projecting those as the vehicle for the expression you want to feel - when I get there or have this, I will feel more happy, more alive. Our days in work can make us feel caged and weary so the soul sends us messages on how to escape. It calls in new experiences, but really all of these experiences boil down to one thing - finding feelings of aliveness on Earth! When we get this, we also feel total freedom.

Sometimes we can get pretty desperate and buy something spontaneously that’s random and a bit ridiculous, only to be very disappointed because that wasn’t it at all.

So often we sabotage the real inner message, and we can’t just go out and buy a new sleek car or holiday, so we compensate by over-eating, drinking, sugar, caffeine, sex, etc the list is a long one.

Life isn’t a straight line, sometimes we can only manage with what we have in front of us, and so there is a time and place for coping mechanisms. But we must go deeper, or coping “tools” will turn into very bad habits that lead to much bigger problems down the line.

It is well established in ancient knowledge of the Irish and the Celts, and indigenous peoples the world over (to my knowledge without exception), that the body is only a temporary vehicle for this Earthly ride. 

The ancients knew our soul is immortal, experiencing many lifetimes on Earth, some texts say millions, and the callings it gives us are exactly what we are here to do in this lifetime. They’re very real!

The soul is the true essence of who and what we are and when we find expression for it, everything falls into place in an instant. It's immediate alignment and we become more fully alive! This expression can take on an unlimited amount of forms, there is no one thing only.

As children, we often think our dreams will come true when we grow up, but instead of dreams, we grow up and don’t even feel like we are truly alive! Many of us find ourselves completely adrift as we grow up and get older into adulthood. I certainly did. That’s what we call the journey, but on the journey we have to decide if we are going to answer the calls or not.

The Celtic Body-Angel

The human body is well known as the temple of the soul and while this is a lovely analogy, the Celtic World has a different concept where it has been said the body is the angel of the soul. The angel minds over the soul while in this Earthly lifetime. I love this way of looking at it, because it makes us view our bodies as the special constructs they are and by extension makes it harder to abuse them because who wants to abuse an angel!

Expression is Everything

It’s all about expression and you don’t have to wait for new car or holiday to be in either. Those things might remain, especially if they are authentic needs, the soul always wants the highest forms of feeling alive possible, but we can to be in expression every day and that is a great teacher about our true nature and leads to much higher quality of living, of life.

Expression Through Movement

One basic, immediate way to express our soul’s needs is through the movement of our body-angel. If you feel called, connect to your body-angel and ask what way would you like me to move right now? You will feel the answer. If you move that way you will not only be moving your body in the way it needs for better function, but you'll also be in soul expression because the soul works through the body-angel. Your body-angel will be happier and so will your soul.

A more advanced version of this is dance. When we dance, we dance to music, and music is the language of the soul. It’s sound vibrations talk to it directly, with the body-angel being only the conduit. So when we bring the power of sound vibration into us, we really start to move our body-angel in a powerful way that our soul desires and it will start releasing visualisations and new dreams like fireworks in our minds, which otherwise would never be seen. It likes this and wants to go bigger! We should do this often and not be too inhibited.

For the ancient Celtic person, dance was a way of life. And in Ireland today, we still have the ancient tradition of Irish Dancing. The people always played music, and they always loved to dance to it. It was pure soul expression.

Expression Through Creativity

Authentic creativity is the one of the highest forms of soul expression. When we are creating from our hearts we are in a pure state of deep soul expression, we are flourishing! Whether its building a new area in the garden, painting a new room in the house, writing music, or inventing something new in your job for work purposes, creating always makes us come alive. If we’re feeling really low in life or just stuck day to day, its almost certain that we are not authentically creating anything new. Be in your creative self more!

If you don’t know where to begin with the creative aspect of yourself, an amazing book with detailed techniques on how to unlock your creativity is The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. It really inspired me!

Expression Through Growth

“When you are faithful to the risk and the ambivalence of growth, you are engaging your life” - John O’Donohue.

To grow is to change, to stay the same is to stagnate. When something is stagnating it is losing life force, it is decaying or is already dead. 

If you keenly observe nature, get up close to the leaves and the buds, the smells, listen to the wild bird song, you will soon notice that nothing stays the same for long. It is always changing, moving, flowing in the great cycles of the seasons, and the universe. 

When we change we are experiencing inner growth, and inner growth is soul expression. We often resist change because of the risk, but the soul adores risk and wants it precisely for the experience of aliveness and freedom it delivers.

Expression in Stillness

In the Celtic world there was always a recognition that silence was a great companion on the human journey. Getting still gets us closer to the voice of the soul, to listen and remember what it is we're meant to really be doing. 

When we do find clarity on what we’re meant to be doing, one of the great ironies is that sometimes in order to grow and change, we have to get very still in doing it.

Think of all the writers, composers, painters, inventors etc. They had to sit or stand in the same place for very long periods of time in order to bring their souls calling out into the world. Just constantly returning to and being in the same one place, hour after hour, day after day. Often for YEARS.

Creating from our deepest hearts desires is an advanced form of soul expression, its our biggest dreams and aspirations and the place where we can grow the most by far. However its the hardest one to do, and many people never get there in a lifetime.

Many resist the hardship in the stillness, even if its really what their soul desires. This is because its a kind of a threshold, ceiling or wall, and without guidance or encouragement we don’t know how to keep going. Lets be honest, dancing is a lot more of a fun quick hit fix!

But we want to reach our biggest dreams, we’re going to have to get still and go through ceilings we have either been putting off, or not recognising as the way forward, for a very long time, precisely in order to move, change, flow and GROW into our true potential. 

The Purpose Puzzle  

The wonderfully intelligent, insightful and learned Irish “renegade” Priest Father Sean O’Laoire, brought up in Ireland under old Celtic traditions, says that real happiness is alignment with purpose. This rings so true to me. So we have a definition for happiness here, being in purpose, but what is the definition of purpose?

I have come to understand that purpose takes on many guises. It can be a lifelong endeavour or something far more temporary. It also changes totally over time, as we change over our time.

But there is something in common behind every purpose, and that is a feeling and emotional states. Any feeling of truly living, feeling like we're really alive on Earth and we're not wasting any time because we're living NOW, is a form of purpose. So purpose can be defined as something that makes you feel truly alive. Then there are scales within that from little to large.

When we're feeling truly alive because we're living our purpose, we experience such a rich and pure form of happiness that it is hard to disguise. It's intoxicating and electrifies our whole being. This is what we all want!

One day we will reach the end of this journey, and when we look back we may ask ourselves if we truly lived our lives.

Be in the movement of your soul, and don’t postpone the dreams of your heart! Have fun along the way!

“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” 

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Cheering you on!

Grá

Dillon

Today's Irish Proverb from our Ancestors:

“Maireann croí éadrom í bhfad” - a light heart lives long