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SOUL VOICE What I Know About Nothing Linda Taft Walburn
PREFACE Soul Voice: What I Know about Nothing was born out of nothing. The nothing I speak of is the unseen world of unformed energy I affectionately refer to as the great creative universe of all or the great all for short. The great all is the big nothing of the invisible world. It is the creative universe’s inhale and exhale from which everything on planet earth and possibly everything everywhere has come. It is the source of all that is important to me: ideas, dreams, creativity, imagination, spirituality, and feelings. How humans have come into being from the big nothing is not my focus. How you and I use the great all’s never-ending breath is. It is where Soul Voice began—as an idea in my soul. What is soul voice? Soul voice is your personal and infinite connection to the great all. It manifests in as many ways as there are people, yet it has the same purpose. Soul voice is much like an umbilical cord. Please do look down. No, you will not see your soul voice dangling there, but it is a reminder that you have one. In the beginning, all people had an umbilical cord that attached them to their mothers, and everyone was fed pretty much the same diet, depending on the mother’s intake, of course. Once life outside the womb began, you grew in your way, and I think I’m safe in saying you are unique. The same is true of your soul voice. Your soul voice is your divining rod for your true north. She or he (from here on referred to as she for ease of language) will aid you in finding or staying the course of your best-self life—a course that will bring you to your greatest potential, your everlasting peace-of-mind happiness. Soul Voice is what I’ve come to know about the big nothing while holding hands with my precious, unconditionally loving soul voice. It is also a guide to help you find yours. Finding your soul voice leads to knowing and expressing your highest potential; expressing your highest potential leads to a life of unconditional love, peaceful happiness, and unabashed joy; unconditional love, peaceful happiness, and unabashed joy feed the great all; the great all is where it all began; and thus you have entered a loop of everlasting love, peace, and joy. Now that is really something. My soul voice prodded me for years to write from my heart and soul. She did not push or shove. She persisted. One day the time was right for me to finally set aside my unexplainable resistance and say, okay! It was only a matter of days, during one of my usual journal-writing sessions, that words started to fly. I felt like Alice in Wonderland chasing the White Rabbit. Those words ran across my computer screen like a hungry jackrabbit. First came a word or two, then sentences, then paragraphs, and before long a chapter. Like Alice, I went tumbling down a strange rabbit hole into mysterious territory. What kept me writing was that I had my soul voice to break the fall. I landed on a thought that I would write about soul voice and the big nothing out of which life on planet earth has gloriously come—the cosmic breath of life from which you draw your own. I had spent many years picking up the pearls of wisdom my soul voice had dropped at my feet on my best-self journey. Ms. Soul had an opinion about what I should do with them. Dear Heart, she said, it is time for you to share those pearls with others. She wooed me to her side and away we went. Although I did not realize it until well into the writing process, the initial spark for Soul Voice was struck many years ago. I asked my then-close circle of friends: “Do you believe we learn about life only through difficulty?” “Well, yes,” was the universal reply. I countered, “Why can’t we learn how to have rich and full lives through love, peace, and joy?” They smacked that idea down as fast as Alice shrank after drinking a magical potion from the “Drink Me” bottle. My idea was simply not to be considered. Life was hard, and that’s how you learned—period. I did not let my friends’ responses shrink me down or away from my idea. I knew a thoughtful, examined, happy life could be attained through love, peace, and joy. I have held that carrot in front of me for many years. However, achieving a life of everlasting love, peace, and joy has been a tad messy. I could not have done it without the steady guidance of my soul voice. I was able to remain upright and moderately peaceful even when an elephant-sized vortex filled with all things difficult and dastardly, stalled over my life for eight years, for instance. Before you decide to dive into Soul Voice, you might like to know a little about the person who is asking you to embark on a journey that could transform you into a really happy person—okay, if you insist, transform you into a happier person. Here are a few words that say volumes about me: artist, writer, teacher, mother, wife, sister, niece, grandmother, friend, intuitive advisor, traveler, avid walker, tree lover, and social butterfly. I definitely have feet of clay. I have been fooled, blindsided, and stabbed in the heart. I have dodged more than a few slaps intended to knock the joy out of me. I have also had much of the good stuff in life: love, awards, family, meaningful work, travel, and a variety of physical and spiritual adventures, to name a few. The most important, however, is that for most of my life I have been persistent and committed to my lifelong journey of living my best-self life. My wide-eyed Alice-in-Wonderland focus continues to be on living a life filled with everlasting love, peace, and joy. My trek of self-discovery and transformation began one night in 1962 at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. I was nineteen and had decided to become an English teacher. Because I was attending classes at night, the student population was varied. I sat next to a woman who was older, probably thirty. She introduced herself as an artist. “Oh,” I said. Before I could ask her the usual questions people ask when you say you are an artist, like, “Do you paint?” she asked, “Do you want to see what I do?” Well sure. Out of a mammoth handbag that was not in style at the time, she pulled a photo album of her work. Bam, like a book dropped in a quiet library, holding her photographs of abstract oil paintings, I thought, Now that is what I want to do. What was that? It was not the voice of my parents, culture, or society. It was not the voice of reason that would have me select my life path from only three choices—nurse, secretary, or teacher. It was my first conscious memory of a passionate response to a thought that expressed who I was. It was also my first memory of what I now call soul voice. I do not pull rabbits out of a magic hat. However, I do have an imaginary magic hat out of which I pull creativity, imagination, dreams, ideas, beliefs, love, peace, and joy, and once in a while, fear worms its way into the mix. In Soul Voice, I share the pearls of wisdom I have picked up on my best-self adventures that I believe will help you find your own. I sincerely hope Soul Voice will give you a chance to contemplate that navel of yours that is a constant reminder of your connection to your soul voice and the great all. It is your best chance for making decisions that lead to everlasting love, peace, and joy. You will not be left in the clouds, wondering what you can do to find, connect with, or more firmly snug up your connection to your soul voice. I make few promises, but this one I surely can make: my soul voice and yours will never ask you to shrink to fit another’s limited opinion of you. Our soul voices encourage us to grow a heart big enough to love all. All means all. Soul Voice provides you with many Thoughtful Moments that asks you to contemplate yourself, your beliefs and attitudes; Thirty-Two Pearls of Wisdom and fun Activities that will aid you in developing a regular spiritual practice. Happiness is in your hands. Get ready to flow with your soul voice into a life of everlasting love, peace, and joy. Sally forth Out of darkness, Through fire, Over stone. Steady on To your True north.
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