Soul Voice: What I Know About Nothing

Copyright © 2013 Linda Taft Walburn.

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ISBN: 978-1-4525-7038-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4525-7039-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013904420

Balboa Press rev. date: 03/19/2013

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

Chapter 1    Ready, Set, Flow!

Chapter 2    What Would You Have Me Do?

Chapter 3    Did You Call Me Crazy?

Chapter 4    Doomsday Movie Or Godgod

Chapter 5    Wobbly Legs

Chapter 6    The Art Of Slogging

Chapter 7    Are You A Lemming Or A President?

Chapter 8    You Are Not A Funnel

Chapter 9    Shrink To Fit

Chapter 10  Running With The Wolves

Chapter 11  Hey, Stupid, Listen Up

Chapter 12  Merry-Go-Round

Chapter 13  I Can’t Draw

Chapter 14  Elephants And Balloons

Chapter 15  Clogged Drain

Chapter 16  When Your Tank Is Low, Appreciate

Chapter 17  Lords Of Darkness

Chapter 18  Comic Relief And Other Serious Stuff

Chapter 19  Blessed Be

Chapter 20  Lions And Tigers, Oh My!

Chapter 21  Are You Keeping The Stream Clean?

Chapter 22  In Case You Do Want To Save The Planet

Chapter 23  There’s No Time Like Now

Chapter 24  Worn Habits

Chapter 25  Poor Baby

Chapter 26  Sparkle On

Chapter 27  Once Upon A Time

Chapter 28  Wipe The Slate Clean

Chapter 29  E For Effort

Chapter 30  Gee You Are You

Chapter 31  Threading The Needle

Chapter 32  Boldly Go

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

To My Family

PREFACE

S oul Voice: What I Know about Nothing was born out of nothing. The nothing I speak of is the unseen world of unformed energy I affectionately refer to as the great creative universe of all or the great all for short. The great all is the big nothing of the invisible world. It is the creative universe’s inhale and exhale from which everything on planet earth and possibly everything everywhere has come. It is the source of all that is important to me: ideas, dreams, creativity, imagination, spirituality, and feelings. How humans have come into being from the big nothing is not my focus. How you and I use the great all’s never-ending breath is. It is where Soul Voice began—as an idea in my soul.

What is soul voice? Soul voice is your personal and infinite connection to the great all. It manifests in as many ways as there are people, yet it has the same purpose. Soul voice is much like an umbilical cord. Please do look down. No, you will not see your soul voice dangling there, but it is a reminder that you have one. In the beginning, all people had an umbilical cord that attached them to their mothers, and everyone was fed pretty much the same diet, depending on the mother’s intake, of course. Once life outside the womb began, you grew in your way, and I think I’m safe in saying you are unique. The same is true of your soul voice. Your soul voice is your divining rod for your true north. She or he (from here on referred to as she for ease of language) will aid you in finding or staying the course of your best-self life—a course that will bring you to your greatest potential, your everlasting peace-of-mind happiness.

Soul Voice is what I’ve come to know about the big nothing while holding hands with my precious, unconditionally loving soul voice. It is also a guide to help you find yours. Finding your soul voice leads to knowing and expressing your highest potential; expressing your highest potential leads to a life of unconditional love, peaceful happiness, and unabashed joy; unconditional love, peaceful happiness, and unabashed joy feed the great all; the great all is where it all began; and thus you have entered a loop of everlasting love, peace, and joy. Now that is really something.

My soul voice prodded me for years to write from my heart and soul. She did not push or shove. She persisted. One day the time was right for me to finally set aside my unexplainable resistance and say, okay! It was only a matter of days, during one of my usual journal-writing sessions, that words started to fly. I felt like Alice in Wonderland chasing the White Rabbit. Those words ran across my computer screen like a hungry jackrabbit. First came a word or two, then sentences, then paragraphs, and before long a chapter. Like Alice, I went tumbling down a strange rabbit hole into mysterious territory. What kept me writing was that I had my soul voice to break the fall. I landed on a thought that I would write about soul voice and the big nothing out of which life on planet earth has gloriously come—the cosmic breath of life from which you draw your own. I had spent many years picking up the pearls of wisdom my soul voice had dropped at my feet on my best-self journey. Ms. Soul had an opinion about what I should do with them.

Dear Heart, she said, it is time for you to share those pearls with others. She wooed me to her side and away we went.

Although I did not realize it until well into the writing process, the initial spark for Soul Voice was struck many years ago. I asked my then-close circle of friends: Do you believe we learn about life only through difficulty?

Well, yes, was the universal reply.

I countered, Why can’t we learn how to have rich and full lives through love, peace, and joy? They smacked that idea down as fast as Alice shrank after drinking a magical potion from the Drink Me bottle. My idea was simply not to be considered. Life was hard, and that’s how you learned—period.

I did not let my friends’ responses shrink me down or away from my idea. I knew a thoughtful, examined, happy life could be attained through love, peace, and joy. I have held that carrot in front of me for many years. However, achieving a life of everlasting love, peace, and joy has been a tad messy. I could not have done it without the steady guidance of my soul voice. I was able to remain upright and moderately peaceful even when an elephant-sized vortex filled with all things difficult and dastardly, stalled over my life for eight years, for instance.

Before you decide to dive into Soul Voice, you might like to know a little about the person who is asking you to embark on a journey that could transform you into a really happy person—okay, if you insist, transform you into a happier person. Here are a few words that say volumes about me: artist, writer, teacher, mother, wife, sister, niece, grandmother, friend, intuitive advisor, traveler, avid walker, tree lover, and social butterfly. I definitely have feet of clay. I have been fooled, blindsided, and stabbed in the heart. I have dodged more than a few slaps intended to knock the joy out of me.

I have also had much of the good stuff in life: love, awards, family, meaningful work, travel, and a variety of physical and spiritual adventures, to name a few. The most important, however, is that for most of my life I have been persistent and committed to my lifelong journey of living my best-self life. My wide-eyed Alice-in-Wonderland focus continues to be on living a life filled with everlasting love, peace, and joy.

My trek of self-discovery and transformation began one night in 1962 at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. I was nineteen and had decided to become an English teacher. Because I was attending classes at night, the student population was varied. I sat next to a woman who was older, probably thirty. She introduced herself as an artist. Oh, I said. Before I could ask her the usual questions people ask when you say you are an artist, like, Do you paint? she asked, Do you want to see what I do? Well sure.

Out of a mammoth handbag that was not in style at the time, she pulled a photo album of her work. Bam, like a book dropped in a quiet library, holding her photographs of abstract oil paintings, I thought, Now that is what I want to do. What was that? It was not the voice of my parents, culture, or society. It was not the voice of reason that would have me select my life path from only three choices—nurse, secretary, or teacher. It was my first conscious memory of a passionate response to a thought that expressed who I was. It was also my first memory of what I now call soul voice.

I do not pull rabbits out of a magic hat. However, I do have an imaginary magic hat out of which I pull creativity, imagination, dreams, ideas, beliefs, love, peace, and joy, and once in a while, fear worms its way into the mix. In Soul Voice, I share the pearls of wisdom I have picked up on my best-self adventures that I believe will help you find your own. I sincerely hope Soul Voice will give you a chance to contemplate that navel of yours that is a constant reminder of your connection to your soul voice and the great all. It is your best chance for making decisions that lead to everlasting love, peace, and joy.

You will not be left in the clouds, wondering what you can do to find, connect with, or more firmly snug up your connection to your soul voice. I make few promises, but this one I surely can make: my soul voice and yours will never ask you to shrink to fit another’s limited opinion of you. Our soul voices encourage us to grow a heart big enough to love all. All means all. Soul Voice provides you with many Thoughtful Moments that asks you to contemplate yourself, your beliefs and attitudes; Thirty-Two Pearls of Wisdom and fun Activities that will aid you in developing a regular spiritual practice.

Happiness is in your hands. Get ready to flow with your soul voice into a life of everlasting love, peace, and joy.

Sally forth

Out of darkness,

Through fire,

Over stone.

Steady on

To your

True north.

1

READY, SET, FLOW!

Where Does a River Start?

T o start, initiate, or commence on a path, a road, or a trail for a voyage, a journey, or a passage, you must begin somewhere. There is always a first step. The question that keeps you from beginning is always, what is that step? A physical journey, hiking a long trail, for instance, requires preparation. You would want to make sure you had at least enough supplies for basic survival. It would be helpful to know the distance from one water hole to the next. Learning how to make a fire, fending off large animals, and repairing your tent might be a smart first step. Although you could, and many do, more likely you would not tackle an arduous physical journey just by putting your bare foot on a path and going for it.

Where does a river start? It starts where rain collects and runs downhill from there. A journey of self is similar. You are like a river, as in having collected your rain—your life force; let’s hope not the going downhill part. You began collecting your life force in childhood. Childhood was where you first learned what was possible. If you were as smart as I think you were, you also learned there were consequences when you tested those theories. Don’t worry, I am not going to ask you to rehash your entire childhood or subject you to mine. Childhood is simply where your river began. It is also where you prepared for the direction in which your river—your life—would flow.

One of the first places children begin to gather their rain is on a playground. I still get chills and sometime nightmares just thinking about the many summer days I spent at the playground. The playground down the street at the neighborhood school was frightening and at the same time exhilarating. I was somewhat of a daredevil and loved to climb high on the jungle gym. I’d shout at my more timid friends who would cower at the mere sight of a tall slide, Look at me! We were a motley bunch of boys and girls who also loved to play tag and kick the can in the street. Some of us threw rocks at the others. One of the kids teased me relentlessly. At that time, the early 1950s, no one knew, or at least didn’t talk about, bullies and psychological personality types. In hindsight, I can see I learned how to manage a wide variety of personalities on that playground. I gathered a lot of rain there.

Not only did I learn about personalities, but I also learned about gravity, a fact of life on planet earth over which I had no control. When I jumped off the swing at its highest point… well, I was lucky not to have broken any bones. The playground taught me that fun was mixed with fear, and it was often hard to tell the difference. Having friends to play with was fun. Having friends who threw rocks at you was not. I’m sure my friends would have tagged my personality type as the sensitive one who tries hard not to cry. Do you hear something? Is that my soul voice singing, Cry Me a River? Or was that you? Very funny. Frankly, as my river began to gather its rain, mud, and tears, I felt like I had a leaky bucket. I felt vulnerable, alone, and helpless. I could have used some help.

Help did eventually come. My bucket had one less leak. It came by way of my family’s religion, Catholicism. A catechism (religious education) teacher introduced me to the idea of a guardian angel. A guardian angel would protect me, look out for me, and give me support. The teacher showed me a holy card with a picture of a guardian angel on it. How did Catholicism teach children about the big nothing? With flash cards. It was a brilliant idea.

Do I have a guardian angel? I asked.

My teacher smiled a smile that became emblazoned on my memory. She kindly and firmly asserted, Yes, you do.

Wow, my very own beautiful, winged woman as a protector and champion, I thought. I was ready for her. I needed her. I accepted her. When I knew I had my special, darling guardian angel with sparkling wings, wearing a dress more stunning than anything I’d ever seen and a halo, no less, to watch over me, I felt freedom to be more daring. I was definitely smitten. I breathed a little easier. My river flowed a little faster. I felt I was in safe hands.

As you might expect, my river meandered until it hit a boulder. I diverged one way around the big rock, and Catholicism tumbled the other way. My interest in the unseen world, the world of spirit and spirituality, went with me. As a child, I was able to put a dress, wings, and a halo on a female image and imagine she was helping me.

As a young adult, my Alice-who-cried-buckets-of-tears personality lost a bit of her wide-eyed innocence. Along with Santa and the Tooth Fairy, the idea of angels became another childhood casualty. However, my mother and paternal aunt loved angels, even into adulthood. After my aunt retired, she developed an extensive business making craft-style angels. She sold them at craft fairs to people who believed in the power of angels. My mother loved angels too and joined my aunt in the craft business. They were known as the angel ladies.

But for me, the idea of angels as guardians was no longer a comfort or a source of awe. I shed a tear or two when I had to let go of my dear guardian angel. Her face still smiling and her halo, although a bit damp, remained radiant as she flowed one way around another a boulder and I flowed the other way.

My way flowed pretty quickly after that. Interest in the unseen world of spirit flowed with me. I had decided the idea of angels was just one story people used to explain what they felt but could not see. The scenery through which my river flowed was more like a movie than it was my actual life. I encountered strange ideas. Some people believe in the idea of soul groups. It is the idea that many people decide to incarnate (come to life) at the same time because they have a strong soul bond. When incarnated, some may recognize another as part of their soul group and some do not. What I gleaned from this idea was that it was too complicated for me.

Other ideas were more familiar. I felt praying to deceased ancestors for help and guidance in the here and now was plausible. Relying on the communications between the human world and plant world for your sustenance seemed less plausible but at least possible. I did not believe in the idea of fairies, but I did consider the idea that trees and plants have a way to communicate with humans if we take the time to quiet our minds enough to hear or sense them. I could understand that. My Catholic family believed in saints, very holy people who have passed on to the big nothing but can still help you with physical world difficulties if you pray long and hard enough. To this day I remain fascinated by the vast number of ways people’s minds shape the big nothing.

•   A Thinking Moment: Where did your river begin? From your childhood experiences, what have you learned that you have taken with you around your boulders?

Is there help for those of you who have no idea what has been flowing in your river? Yes. Look down at your navel, and be reminded that you are connected to something that is greater than you and has wisdom that is just right for you. Help is present in the form of your soul voice.

Is the idea of a soul voice simply a guardian angel all grown up? Perhaps. However, it is the idea that has washed downstream with me from my river’s source in childhood. Like gold, the idea of soul voice has sifted through the mud and tears and has become precious and valuable to me.

Soul voice is at its best when you are flowing with the joie de vivre of childhood. Soul voice is the clearest when your natural tendency is to allow the freely flowing energy of the big nothing to express through you. Often childhood whips the creative juices out of you. Parents almost always mean well, but they often stop children from their free-form play because they make a mess or are too noisy. Allowing children to daydream all day does not exactly get the parental stamp of approval in the United States, circa 2012.

It is true that children’s soul voices are always part of them, but they can get buried. When it comes time to throw these children to the wolves, so to speak, when they must fend for themselves, the real world of mostly bad news wears down their natural joy. If children are not left alone long enough to wander in the world of nothing, they will not experience creative flow and will not recognize their soul voice’s unique qualities. The perfect world according to me would be to give children plenty of opportunity to wonder and sit quietly. It encourages them to communicate naturally with their soul voices. Children who live according to soul voice become adults who live in harmony with themselves, with others, and with the natural world that sustains all of us. All means all.

•   Another Thinking Moment: What kind of child were you? Did you have any time to think or daydream?

Has your spunky child become a stuffy ol’ adult? How did that playful child become jammed into a corner and abandoned like old shoes? It is not too late to rekindle or discover the joys of discarding your must-do list and allowing your imagination and body to move with the energies of creation. Yes, as an adult, you can find your soul voice. Yes, you can retrain yourself to flow with creativity and joy. After all, you have created your life from your childhood to whatever hood you are in now. Your life is in your hands.

I do not make light of your serious life. Your life isn’t about crayons and dabs of paint any longer. You have a job and loved ones; you have responsibilities. Indeed, you have learned a thing or two about the great creative universe of all without having had one thought about soul voice. Being thrown into the deep end of the pool is one way to learn how to swim. It could be so much more joyful if you had some water wings to help you float down your river in the direction that is perfectly suited to you without having to feel like you are constantly on the brink of drowning.

Allow me to draw a new picture for you of your soul voice wearing water wings wearing her pearls of wisdom that hang down to her knees. She comfortably holds a paddle in one hand and a pack of bubblegum in the other. You are ready to naturally flow downstream. Once she pops that bubblegum into her mouth, you are set and can let one hand dangle in the summer-warmed water because your soul voice is doing the heavy paddling. You can go easily and lazily drift downstream on your way to your best-self—your highest potential.

Pearl of Wisdom: Flow Like a Child

Below are a few activities that are intended to coax you into being a carefree kid again, at least for a few moments.

Activities

•   Make a paper plate into a mask, bunny ears, or a huge nose. Color it as you see fit.

•   Look at yourself in the mirror, make funny faces, and laugh.

•   Smear your face with molasses or peanut butter. Cover your face with Cheerios or popcorn. Do it quickly and take a picture of yourself before the cheerios and popcorn slide off. Have that picture handy as a reminder of how silly you can be.

•   Walk around a playground and feel the energy there. Be careful not to look like you are casing the grounds, please.

•   Be really brave and put on some music and dance wildly.

Summary

Children are connected to their soul voices, and unless they are thwarted, they can learn from the unseen world—the place where soul voices thrive. They learn what river to follow and what to take with them around their inevitable boulders. In so doing, they reach their full potential. The same can be said for adults. The difference is that often you have become frustrated with the boulders in your rivers. You haven’t known which way to go or what to take with you. With guidance from your soul voice, you will go in your right direction around the boulders of your