The only beloved is the living mystery itself."
___ Kathleen Raine, "The Lion's Mouth"
The incarnation of love in our lives is a special miracle. Our capacity to recognize and receive love is closely associated with the soul's beloved - the spiritual being whom our soul recognizes as supreme. The soul's beloved is not an earthly or human lover tht we may have - although we may look for the features of the spiritual form in the human perosn; it is a spirit. For followers of defined religious paths, this figure will be the lord, lady, or spirit from whom spiritual revelation flows; and this figure will be central to their prayers and practices. Religious iconography may provide specific, traditional images of this figure, or the practitioner may have his own special insight into the appearance of his soul's beloved.
There are now many among us without any formalized spiritual path, people who are still traveling between the rejected images of childhood faith and the unknown potentialities of their soul's country. They may be unaware of any living mystery. This is nothing less than the inapprehensible glory and splendor of spirit that is both formless and has many forms, that is immanet and transcendent, known and unknown to our experience.
The conscious awareness of the soul's beloved is not a continuous awareness for the majority of people: it is fleeting, glancing, glorious, exciting, rapturous. The methaphors we draw upon to describe the feelings and perceptions that we have of this beloved are not always human: sometimes a beautiful animal, a shining lamp, a great tree, a planet, a complex pattern, or a subtle music in the soul is a true reflection of the mystery that we each experience.
Contemplate your soul's beloved. Even though you may have no form or name for that beloved, be still and ask your soul to help you share this living mystery."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]
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