The Divine Child

The caricature of the adult who works a 9-5 and walks through the world disgruntled, perhaps enjoys a beer at 5 pm, ‘gets’ to enjoy life in the small moments between responsibilities has become a staple example of the norm in conventional society. We are told that to do anything else is frivolous and irresponsible. So we double down, work harder, try to achieve more, please others, have some semblance of “adultness” in our lives.

But, when we were quite young, the ways in which we filled our time, however that may have looked for us, is the Divine key to our nature as adults. The Divine Child moment on the Wheel of the Year teaches us, among many things, the incomparable appreciation for who we were, what we were like, and most significantly, what we really, deeply loved. This was the time before the adults around us, and society at large, told us how we should be, what we should do: “Sit up Straight. Smile. Say ‘Thank you.’ Be nice to your sister. Do your homework.” It was a time filled with instructions. We were instructed in the ways of the external life, and so we followed these rules, quite understandably, to be acceptable and palatable, in order to survive. Meanwhile in our moments of freedom and self-discovery we knewexactly what it was we wanted to be doing. For many of us this became a quite hopeful endeavor when our parents and teachers would give us their permission to be ourselves. At least in small moments. It was a kind of negotiation with life: Can I be myself, and will those in “charge” allow me to?

We are born into this world and experience it through the kind of duality that the Nature/Nurture paradigm holds. The Divine Child invitation at our April Ritual Therapy Group, invites us into the world of our inherent Nature: The one that we were born with, that we expressed, in our divine essence, since we arrived on earth. As adults with burdens of responsibilities, we have lost track of this Divine essence of ourselves in the early years. We might have fond memories of what we liked to do and our favorite pastimes, but we have likely lost track of the knowing we had at that time, of who we really were. We knew who we were through the lens of what we loved most. To get in touch with this knowing is the focus of our process: to bring our inner children into the room with us, to invite them on our daily chores and errands, to ask them how they’re doing, invite them to share with us what they want to do~ these are all keys to unlocking the kind of authenticity we so deeply crave.

Children bring us the gift of remembering how to play. Unless you are so blessed as to have young ones in your life, you might feel a kind of ache for the innocence of the exploratory, intuitive and fun experience it is to be a kid. To play, to be spontaneous, to be wild, to be intuitive, to center joy at all times.

The significance of The Divine Child cannot be overstated. Oftentimes we think back on this time of childhood with nostalgia and sweetness, or perhaps if our lives were filled with tumult, it will feel painful. Through the gestures of ritual and sharing our truths with others, we remember that those beings we were, are still very much alive in us today~ not metaphorically, but actually. The gift of interacting with our inner child now as adults, is that there are no longer parents or guardians around us giving us instructions: the bittersweetness is that we are actually free now to entertain this little one, although we have likely lost touch with what the freedom they embodied.

Freedom and authenticity is our innate birthright. To be fully ourselves, in each moment, is what we all truly deserve to experience. In Sacred Attention Therapy, we are encouraged to remember who we are and to bravely live that self out everyday. It may seem simple, but it is actualy much harder than we think, to feel so free of the masks that we wear that we can inhabit our true nature. The reason for this is both internal and external: externally we are conditioned and re-conditioned all the time by society to “act appropriate” and show up on time, complete our tasks, be responsible to others. Internally we also have many voices still telling us what to do, how to act and what will be acceptable to others. The Divine Child does not care what is acceptable to others: only to themselves are they true. We invite their deep wisdom into our field of awareness at this Springtime and the awakening of the earth. The earth is new, fresh, and our children may come out and play!

We can do this at any moment in our lives, it is never, ever too late to live the wisdom that our inner children bring to us. It is the opposite of silly, or trivial. It is vitally important, serious business to be a child. There is nothing more urgent to the young child than the blocks they are balancing, the cars they are zooming down the hallway, the ants they are observing walking in a line. They are living the epitome of “Be Here Now.” What we can learn from them is vast. And they are also us. We only have to say Yes to them, and they appear, ready to play and delight in the wonder of their existence.

“I asked my inner child: What do you need in order to feel safe?

My inner child replied:

Always be there for me when I need you.

Don’t abandon me.

Love me as I love you.

Think about me, care for me.

Prefer me, make me ‘special’

Be my companion, my nurturer.

Admire me.

Protect me.

Be tender towards me.

Don’t punish me, hurt me, wound me.

Accept me... totally.

Help me to grow and mature.

Help me to help myself”

~Poem by my teacher, Richard Harvey

Blessings on your child’s homecoming!