Stepping Stones
The Ruby Slippers - Connection v. Separation
As Dorothy is reminded of the ruby slippers she symbolically connects with the power of her own soul, and in the process, she recognizes her own Buddha or Christ consciousness. Spiritually, the God transcendent—the God outside of us—is suddenly recognized as the God immanent—the God within—the God who lives and breathes and works through each of us as we find our way in the world.
This jewel of the hero’s journey is connected to the seventh chakra of the eastern traditions. Through the consciousness of the seventh chakra we become aware of our connection to our Soul and to All That Is through the manifest and unmanifest power of God. The seventh chakra is located at the crown of the head and is represented by the color violet. At this stage of the spiritual journey, God is no longer a static being in the sky but the active principle behind all things and within all beings. With this consciousness-altering awareness from our seventh chakra, every act of human creation and expression now becomes an act of God seeding the evolution of consciousness in the world through all. We begin to see all things entwined in a powerful field of unity and connection. The world takes on a numinous quality as we see and experience the light of God within all things.
The shadow of the seventh chakra is the illusion of separation and the denial of the divine unity in which we participate in every moment of our lives. As the magician floats away in his balloon, Dorothy’s growing awareness of her Soul Self fades in an instant as the fear of separation and abandonment takes hold. Like Dorothy, when we see ourselves as separate and alone, the world outside appears to be a place of chaos and confusion where we are lost and vulnerable. Like Dorothy, when we get lost in feelings of vulnerability and abandonment, we quickly forget all the lessons of our journey that have pointed us toward a very different reality.
But also like Dorothy, we come to know the God within only through our own experiences and through our own seeking. As we move through our life journey, we will all have experiences of deep connection and we will all have experiences of separation and suffering. But if we practice looking deeply, even in times of suffering and confusion, we will glimpse the presence of God in all things, in all experiences and in all beings, and through these experiences we discover the God within. Our ability to maintain our awareness of this connection to our soul, and to see every experience of life from this perspective, fundamentally changes the way we walk in the world. Now we walk through life as a mystic, always looking beyond the surface of things for the ineffable presence of the Divine.
Weekly Stepping Stones
When in your life have you experienced a profound sense of connection to the mystical or transcendent? What feelings, insights and perceptions about yourself grew out of those experiences? When in your life have you experienced a deep sense of separation or suffering? If you counseled yourself from the wisdom of the seventh chakra (if Glinda floated in on that pink bubble in that moment to help you move forward), what hidden truth might you discover in your experiences of separation?
