Sofia Bothwell

 Life is a stage and all of us are actors. Now who said that?  This noble truth is certainly a mystical truth and so are the various stages of life that we go through as human beings. As we get older the stage and scenery change, even the costumes and makeup change with the set. From the beauty of youth which brings its' blessings and its' drawbacks, to ripe old age with its' blessings and drawbacks too, we all must live this life which we have been given as some sort of a Cosmic Gift which few understand.  So, in the stage of youth we have to realise that beauty and slimness have negative connotations as well as positive? Yes! Unwanted attention for one. Feeling you would have no substance, no grounding is another. For example, in the subconscious many have the idea that being beautiful and slim is dangerous, too much power, the fear of being promiscuous, and facing jealousy from other women and unwanted advances from other men and women even. So the beautiful one must a...

 The thing with addiction is when an unpleasant emotion arises you are focused on feeling better. The panic, the discomfort then the craving to feel better.   When feeling better  becomes your only focus, you are off the mark, on the wrong road so to speak.  Whereas when you know there is a dynamic at play with the arising of an uncomfortable emotion, you are in a more authentic position from which to relate to that emotion. The uncomfortable emotion must be experienced, felt, and gone through in order to get to the feeling better. This going through the uncomfortable emotion is necessary to avoid addiction and also the way to give up addiction. We go through rather than suppress . Why is going through an emotion preferable to suppressing it? Well, when you suppress anything, it gets worse. The uncomfortable emotion looks to an issue in need of resolving. To suppress it is to ignore it, not address it; and we all know that issues ignored or dismissed as unimpo...

 Dylan Thomas wrote - 'We sail a boat upon a path, paddle with leaves down an ecstatic line of light.' This is an amazing line of poetry engraved on the side of a fountain in Swansea's Castle Square.  What caught my attention was the concept of sailing a boat upon a path. Who sails a boat upon a path? You sail a boat upon a river, or sea, or other body of water, not a path. A path is a material thing, it does not allow flow, it is hard and solid and does not allow sailing in a boat in any conceivable way. What idea was the poet trying to convey? Who is the 'we' who is sailing this boat and has such miraculous powers as to be able to sail it on a path?  The 'we' is our soul or spirit. The poet automatically propels us to the Cosmic Truth of our being Spirit in material form. We sail the boat, the boat being the material body, upon the path which is the material world, but is fundamentally underpinned by the light of creation - that Cosmic Source. The human co...