I was reading one of my favorite books that I haven't looked at or even thought about in about 12 years. A friend suggested I take a look at it again based on a conversation we were having. It's called Care of the Soul by Thomas Moore. It's fair to say Moore should know something about the soul because he lived as a monk in a Catholic religious order for 12 years.
In it there is a reference to the bardo state. It says that The Tibetan Book of the Dead describes this state as a time between incarnations; the period before the next birth. Bardo takes time, it can't be rushed. There's no point in premature birth.
That's where I feel I am at. It's why finding "a job" is not happening the way it should: with ease. There is no reason on the surface of my life why being employed should be a difficult thing for me at this point in time.
However, what is happening on the surface is insignificant in a way compared to what is happening deep down and that, in my own soul, I know is the real reason why this transition is becoming in the words of another friend "biblical" in nature; the stuff of Greek myths.
I have often been Saturn's child and Saturn according to Moore, locates identity deep in the soul rather than on the surface of personality. We know who we are because we have uncovered the stuff of which we are made, sifted out by melancholy or depressive thought and experiences then reduced to "essence".
This description makes so much sense to me at the moment. It's a time that stops in time. You are apart, separate, forced to look at what you have not looked at while your life has been light and happy, full of activity, purpose and the stuff of dailiness.
During those times things are going well and you no longer must think very deeply at all because there is no time, there is no need really and with ease all the right people and experiences are flowing towards you. It's good. It can't last long enough especially for one of Saturn's children. And, inevitably it never does even if years unfold and it seems like you'll never go to that place again. All your lessons have been conquered. Or so you were hoping.
This may not be true for everyone. Some might say, a consistency of spirit and a life of little reflection is part of their own dilemma even though, on the surface, there appears to be no dilemma at all.
Have they ever been forced to ask difficult questions; to move closer to their own essences in order to transition to that next place where there soul will not be completely abandoned, left to wait, feeling an opportunity has been lost even though, on the surface, where life gets measured by others, everything is going so well.