The Spiral of Illumination: Go Deeper: Part 1: Introduction and the Arc of Unwinding into Presence
A Path of Illumination
What follows is an attempt to articulate a holistic and compelling vision of a spiritual life path: a life well-lived, and what it means to awaken to the nature of reality while progressing toward self-actualization, that is, to manifest your truest dreams in the real world.
This work has been shaped by many influences: Buddhism, Taoism, archetypal and depth psychology, personal trial and error, and countless conversations with fellow seekers. My hope is that this map serves you well, as its implications, for you as an individual, for society, and for the planet, are immeasurable.
On Paradox
The universe is made of paradox and duality. This is not a flaw in the fabric of reality but the fabric itself: dark and light, fear and love, self and no-self.
At the beginning, nothing negated itself to become something. Paradox is not a mistake to be fixed or solved, but a mystery to be lived and explored with curiosity.
What does this paradox point to? What does it mean to be both the drop in the ocean and the ocean within a drop?
Part of being human is living within constraint. We are bound to these fragile bodies with all their limitations, yet within the same form we can encounter magic, beauty, and love. Perhaps embodiment is how the infinite becomes intimate, how our vast nature remembers itself in exquisite detail.
You, dear reader, are a convergence point: a vessel through which love remembers itself in form. Through you, the infinite feels its own ache, its own longing, its own delight. When this truth is glimpsed, even pain and sorrow begin to feel sacred.
The Duality of Presence and Flow
Can you sense both the urge to rest in peaceful stillness and the ache to create something beautiful? Do you often feel a tension between these desires or do they naturally flux and flow? These two impulses—being and doing—are the heartbeat of life.
The spiritual path, or what we might simply call a life fully lived, moves naturally between stillness and movement, presence and flow. Through somatic awareness we learn to sense and respond to what is needed in any moment, turning inward to replenish and outward to serve.
These states can be understood as yin and yan energies, or selfless presence and soulful action. Life itself is a sacred dance between them.
The Path of Presence
Traditions like Buddhism remind us that, at the deepest level, there is no fixed self: only the seen without a seer, the sensed without a sensor. Although we habitually see ourselves as the center point of existence (a subject), it can be revealed, often in meditation, that this is not the case. Seeing this truth can bring immense freedom and spaciousness. It helps us to see clearly, and then disidentify from our stories and patterns, to release what no longer serves, and to discover the quiet joy of simply being.
This is the yin state—restful, peaceful, and natural. It is the realm of “being in the now,” where we stop grasping at the past or chasing imagined futures. Yet few of us linger long enough to truly absorb its sweetness, the profound energetic changes, and mental and emotional intelligence it can cultivate. Most touch stillness only briefly before hurrying back into motion.
The Trap of Over-Balancing
Too much stillness can become stagnation. When energy is held too long in one polarity, it begins to sour. Even presence, when clung to tightly, can lose its vitality.
For about a year in my own journey, I dedicated myself entirely to presence—to simply being with every sensation and sound. I felt the water on my hands, the birdsong through the window, the texture of each bite of food. At first it was beautiful: luminous, peaceful. Over time it became tedious, even heavy. I found myself wondering, What am I doing? Is my only goal to exist? I kept at it anyway, and eventually slipped into depression.
Looking back, I see that I had unconsciously turned “being” into the endpoint of the path, forgetting the creative pulse of “doing.”
Some of us lean naturally toward yin energy: peaceful, inward, and reflective, but hesitant to act. Others are dominated by yang: driven, busy, and uncomfortable with stillness. Each side holds both gifts and shadows.
The Art of Shifting
The key is discernment: the ability to sense when energy wants to change direction. To live skillfully is to cultivate balance and responsiveness to this energy.
As our somatic sensitivity deepens, life generally begins to move with more ease, grace, and vitality although we can become acutely sensitive to pain and suffering too. The long trajectory of the path is that we become capable of holding both suffering and joy without turning away. This is true freedom.
The Spiritual Journey
In addition to responding to life in a moment-by-moment manner, there are also longer arcs that shape the spiritual life: seasons of presence and seasons of expression. Some traditions speak of this as honoring the natural rhythm of life: fall as a time for letting go, spring as a time for generating new ideas.
There are times when it is fitting to withdraw, meditate, or rest deeply in being. At other times, life calls for creation, service, and bold participation. Only you can learn to sense what is true in your own unfolding.
In my framework, there are two overarching arcs of the spiritual journey. I refer to them as the Arc of Unwinding into Presence and the Arc of the Soul’s Return. They represent the great rhythm of awakening and embodiment—a path of illumination that is not linear, but more like a spiral or infinity loop.
The Arc of Unwinding into Presence
This first arc is the journey of learning to rest in the present moment, allowing awareness to replace our habitual identification with the small self. It involves shedding the layers of delusion that come from forgetting our true nature—childhood wounding, ancestral pain, cultural conditioning, and the many patterns of the chattering monkey mind that keep us bound to fear or control.
From this unwinding arises the second arc: the soul’s return or rebirth. Once the harsh and self-defeating voices soften, the mind that was once tangled begins to open like a garden. Within that clarity, a deeper voice can emerge. Sometimes it speaks as resonance in the body; sometimes as a crystal-clear voice that speaks in simple yet bold phrases, This is the path. This is what you were born for.
When we are ready to act in alignment with this voice, we begin to serve in a way that nourishes both soul and community—not out of fear or deficiency, but out of authentic love.
Initiation into Unwinding
The Arc of Unwinding into Presence can begin in many ways. For some, it is initiated by loss such as grief over the death of a loved one, a divorce, or the crumbling of an important aspect of identity. For others, it begins with a subtle question born of divine dissatisfaction: Is this all there is? Why, when everything seems fine, do I still feel so unfulfilled and bothered?
It can also come through moments of awakening that feel spontaneous or mysterious—a near-death experience, a psychedelic journey, or a quiet insight that changes everything.
However it arrives, this arc involves a deep letting go. The identities and beliefs that once felt solid begin to dissolve. We see how we have been grasping for certainty, driven by inherited fears or ideals that never belonged to us. Eventually there is surrender, a recognition that fighting upstream no longer works.
This process often feels like a death, perhaps a series of small deaths of the part of the mind that is always evaluating, protecting, and criticizing. Yet each death makes space for something more alive to emerge.
Four Components of Unwinding into Presence
1. Recognize and Soften — An Admission
This is the moment of recognition, the crack in the armor. It might sound like, I don’t have everything figured out. I’m not in control. The way I perceive myself and others, and the stories I am telling are making me miserable.
It is an admission that we have been living in delusion—believing ourselves to be the center of everything, mistaking thought for truth, and suffering because of it.
In this phase, it is vital not to rush to fill the void with a new identity. Let the old patterns unravel. Let humility open the door.
2. Understand — Observing the Nature of Mind
Recognition must be followed by understanding. It is not enough to glimpse the truth once; we must investigate it gently and repeatedly. This can happen through meditation, therapy, journaling, floating in sensory deprivation tanks, or any method that allows honest self-inquiry.
When we begin to look clearly, we see that the mind is a builder, spinning narratives and patterns,and often repeating the same familiar stories. On long meditation retreats, one may even watch the mind exhaust its usual repertoire and begin to churn up nonsense, simply because it cannot stop building.
At the heart of Buddhist teaching lies this truth:
“In seeing, there is only the seen. In hearing, only the heard. In thinking, only thought. Thus you should see that there is no thing here. This alone is the end of suffering.”
When this is seen directly, not as a concept but as lived experience, a profound release occurs. Awareness expands. The grip of identity softens. While this realization brings immense freedom, it is misleading in that it does not permanently end all suffering—it opens the door to meeting it with more grace and spaciousness.
3. Feel and Embody — Awakening Somatic Intelligence
Pause for a moment. Breathe.
What does your body know that your mind has dismissed?
Awakening the body’s intelligence is a core part of the unwinding path. It may arise through qigong, yoga, ecstatic dance, or through a reckoning with the grief and joy of being alive.
A person who begins the spiritual journey from a place of pleasure will eventually meet pain; a person who begins from pain will eventually discover joy. This is the duality of experience.
To feel fully is to remember impermanence. No emotion or state endures forever. Fear and sorrow pass, and so do ecstasy and delight. When we neglect this step, when we refuse to feel, the body stores what the mind avoids, and the pattern returns later.
Through feeling, we open a dialogue with the soul. The body does not lie; it reveals truth through resonance and dissonance. It is true that it is not always straightforward to interpret the body’s signals.
Awakening is not a purely mental event. It is a process of embodying wisdom.
4. Repattern — Learning and Integrating New Ways of Being
Understanding the nature of the mind and reality prepares us to live differently. Beyond the meditation cushion, there is still a self with a body, a personality, and a soul that longs to express itself. The challenge is discernment: learning to distinguish between desires born of fear or conditioning and those that arise from the soul’s call.
A rare few may develop clear intuitive knowing- the knowing is just there- but most of us must rely on somatic intelligence—the felt sense in the body that reveals what is true.
Try feeling/experiencing the difference between these two thoughts:
“It’s too late. Don’t bother; you’ll never get it right.”
“You are taken care of. Everything is working out for you. You are right on time.”
Each carries a distinct vibration. The first tightens; the second softens.
Repatterning involves learning to recognize these subtle differences. It may unfold through therapy, parts work, plant medicine, or any practice that helps transform fear-based voices into allies of sustainable growth. The goal is not to erase the protective parts of ourselves, but to help them evolve—to let the soul’s fire burn bright without consuming all its fuel.
Courageous action also re-patterns us. Each time we act from the soul, and then celebrate that act, the new pattern strengthens.
This leads naturally into the Arc of the Soul’s Return, where presence becomes participation, and insight becomes creation.