The way of the growing soul is not a linear path.
We do not slay dragons one after the other, proceeding in a clear and chronological line towards wholeness or enlightenment.
We do not tick off learning experiences as we go, ticking our way to virtue.
We are not made like that; we are messier by far. It takes us time to process material, for damage to be noticed, understood, dissipated and dissolved.
Damage lingers, in hidden places, appearing suddenly from the deeps. And what I thought I had sorted this morning may well return this afternoon.
Or next year.
Personal growth is not a linear event. But neither is it a circle – a despairing and closed circuit in which we return again and again to the same experiences, as on a treadmill.
‘It’s going wrong, just like it always does! Nothing’s changed! Nothing ever does!’
The way of the growing soul is neither linear path nor closed circle. Rather, it is a spiral way, spoken of by Evelyn Underhill…circular, but with ever changing vistas.
On the spiral way, we may appear to return to old scenes or meet again with old dragons.
‘Ahh! You again!’
We return to them in our thoughts or feel the force of old feelings, over which we have so little power.
But each time we return, we do so as different people, and from a different place.
The experience is familiar but not the same:
‘I am here again – but I can see it differently.’
‘I am here again – but the feeling does not hurt as once it did.’
‘I am here again – but I have never been here before.’
The growing soul may say things like this on the spiral way.
Instead of slaying old dragons, we simply view them differently, with less fear, even to the point of offering them a home.
On this path, old dragons – which once terrified and oppressed – are increasingly revealed as toothless.
