I live on the slopes of Haleakala, the primary mountain of Maui, in the town of Kula, at 2600 feet. Haleakala translates as "House of the Sun"; it's to the east of most of the populated areas of the island, so we see the sun rising over it each morning. House of the Sun is also a good name for my blog; my name, Apollo, is based on Apollo the Sun God, who drives the sun across the sky each day in a chariot. (Apollo is also the god of healing, and of dreams and intuitive revelation... more about that in a future post...)
My life's work at this point in my life - my mission and purpose - is to support healing and awakening in as many people as possible, with as much ease as possible. What I've seen in my own life is that transformation and growth doesn't have to be hard. It has hard moments in it - moments of doubt, of fear, of having to face terrible feelings or seemingly overwhelming challenges. It may have periods of time that are harder or darker than others. But the overall path, the formulas of transformation, are not fundamentally hard, and the life that results can be beautiful, meaningful, and largely easy.
Understanding how to transform requires knowing "which way is up" - having the best map we can have of how human psychological and spiritual development proceeds, what levels are higher, deeper, and fuller than others, and practical techniques for moving into greater wholeness, realization, and understanding. Here is a little bit of my "map" of transformation:
- I see healing and spiritual awakening as different parts of the same spectrum - both are about coming in to greater wholeness and integration with all of who we are. The lower levels of this spectrum we label "healing", because they relate to coming back to some basic level of integration and functionality that we already believe we should have. When we move beyond that - when we move from being fully healed to being more than healthy, to developing extraordinary capacities for peace, truth, love, and connection, this is what we label "awakening". But it's all one growth spectrum, and the processes for moving forward are very similar.
- I'm a strong believer in the usefulness for growth of working with shadow. We all carry shadows, places where we've put the parts of ourselves we don't want to look at, don't want to own. Recognizing, engaging with, and ultimately integrating these shadows is not always fun, but there is rich spiritual gold in all of them. Similarly, I have come to understand that resistance is an extremely useful tool for understanding how to move forward. It's like a compass of personal development; where the needle of resistance points, is exactly the place with the richest rewards.
Much of my work is related to sexuality. Sexuality is a vital and fundamental part of who we are both as human beings and as spiritual beings, and yet it tends to be overlooked or set aside in many modern spiritual paths and perspectives. There's a great deal about love in contemporary spirituality, an amazing body of material dealing with compassion, but sex tends to be left behind. Bringing spiritual awareness and embrace to this part of our being creates a wholeness unlike anything else. Healing my relationship with my own sexuality, and with who I am as a masculine sexual being, has been fundamental to my own process of awakening. It's brought me to a peace with myself and a sense of safety and connection with others that I could not have realized in other ways. So I share this beautiful work with others, in individual sessions and workshops related to enhancing intimacy, healing from sexual abuse, and releasing sexual shame.
Thank you for joining me on this first outing. May you be well, whole, and happy in your journey through this day. See you again soon.
-Apollo
core-light.com
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