Jean Shinoda Bolen

This is a book for any person who is living with a life-threatening illness and for anyone who is caring for and/or loves a person who is ill. Bolen affirms that the price of going into the scary places, of feeling like a piece of green meat on a hook, is high, but worth it. We have no choice. We will all face health crises--our own and others. We can try to bury our heads in the sand. Or we can travel to the underworld. We can probe. We can listen. We can connect to what we know in our bones. In the ten years since the original publication of Close to the Bone, Jean Bolen has continued to explore the impact and the possibilities for finding purpose that confronting a serious illness and possible death present us. This expanded edition includes a new section about forming circles in the time of crises, plus more stories that support the process of hope and the desire to live and change as well as a very personal passage in which Dr. Bolen tells the story of the death of her son. This book is meant to help and heal, to make people less afraid, and to encourage them to trust the wisdom they have inside--what they know in their bones. * 10th Anniversary revised edition, with a guide for those who want to form support circles.

Life-Threatening Illness As a Soul Journey

Close to the Bone

Laura Mei

𝘓𝘪𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘭 comes from the Latin word for 'threshold'. Whenever we participate in something that will change us, and change how others relate to us —  that experience is a liminal one. Whenever we are initiated into knowing something we did not know before on a body level, we cross a threshold. Here the mystical, spiritual, or psychic awareness of what is happening, however, determines its significance as a soul experience. When life is lived at the edge — in the border realm between life and death — it is a 𝘓𝘪𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘭 time and place.

The reality and possibility of serious illness evokes soul from the first moment it registers. Whenever or however that line from health to illness is crossed, we enter this realm of soul. Illness is both soul shaking and soul evoking for the patient and for all others to whom the patient matters. We lose an innocence, we know vulnerability, we are no longer who we were before this event, and we will never be the same. We are in uncharted terrain, and there is no turning back. Illness is a profound soul event.

The underworld is also a soul realm, a place of great inner richness. This is the psychological layer that contain the potentials we have not developed, the talents and inclinations that once mattered to us, the emotions we hid from view and lost touch with. Beyond this personal level lies the richness of the archetypal or symbolic layer of the collective unconscious, where patterns, instincts, all that is human resides, a deep core of meaning that dreams and creativity draw from. Here are the wellsprings of the soul, the spiritual instinct that directs us toward divinity in the same unconscious way that flowers turn to face the sun. 

On the spiritual journey, death of the old personality is required for an initiation, transformation, rebirth, or resurrection. For the ego that had maintained the illusion of control over fate, this is often the lowest point. For the person, if ego turns to soul to lead the way through the underworld, there will be unexpected discoveries. For it's not what happens to us, but how we respond that ultimately matters and shapes who we are from the inside out.

People who have made a descent consequently know the value of the inner world and the nearness of the other world, incorporate what they know into conscious life. Soul is a presence in them, and somehow others feel the authenticity that accompanies soul. When life is lived superficially or is almost entirely outer directed, something has to happen that leads to soul-searching. Until then, there may be very little communication between the upperworld and underworld, between the inner world of the personal and collective unconscious and the outer-world concerns of the ego. Layers of facade, entitlement, and privilege that were built up over the years have no bearing. Years of taking care of the needs of others, or of devotion to work or to a cause, during which there has been virtually no attention paid to inner life or spiritual life, come to an end.

Illness raises questions: 𝘞𝘩𝘰 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘱 𝘥𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨? When you cannot be productive or are no longer indispensable to others? When you can no longer go on as before because you are sick. When you lose status? Who are you when you can't be a caretaker or a boss or do your job, whatever that might be? Do 𝘺𝘰𝘶 matter?

Harmony is being on the right path, being one with it — making a living doing work that is absorbing and consistent with your personal values, doing what you have a gift for. Harmony is being with a partner or companions or alone, with animals or with nature, in a particular city or country or place, and having a sense of "ringing true" there. Harmony is experiencing deep grief that corresponds to deep loss. Harmony is uninhibited, unself-conscious spontaneity, the immediacy of laughter, the welling up of tears. Harmony happens when behaviour and belief come together, when inner archetypal life and outer life are expressions of each other, and we are being true to who we are. And only we can know: "I feel at home here," "I am totally absorbed doing this," "It gives me joy," "This is bliss." It's when we are most authentic and trusting, and feel that whatever we are doing, which can be quite ordinary, is nonetheless sacred. This is when we sense that we are part of something divine that is in us and is everywhere.

Be someone who can see beauty, vulnerability, and courage and can care for these qualities in others.

As spiritual beings on a human path, relationships present us with the greatest opportunity to grow and learn, and the greatest potential to be psychologically wounded and then to act defensively or in retaliation, hurting others and damaging ourselves at a soul level. It matters how we respond. We cannot treat another person shabbily without that shabbiness sticking to us; we cannot respond generously without our hearts expanding and nourishing the soul. It is a risk to be authentic and shed persona, armor, defenses; and it is a loss if we do not take the risk, for there is no possibility of intimacy.

I don't remember exactly when it dawned on me that nothing in my life goes to waste, that 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 that has ever affected me deeply might someday be an empathic connection to what someone is telling me. It was more than an insight; it meant that anything that I have lived through might someday be redeemed if it enabled me to help someone else. I could see that this could be true for everyone — anyone who was able to see both the uniqueness of their own suffering and the universality of suffering could grow in compassionate understanding, which would be reflected in their actions and relationships with others. Soul has a growth spurt when we feel for ourselves and others and 𝘥𝘰 something. At a soul level, compassion leads to helping others, to creative work that expresses and taps into emotional depth, and to community. To care for others as you would want them to care for you — to love one another — grows naturally out of compassion.

Close to the Bone quotes

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