The Countenance of Sophia

Charlotte Hough

Sophia Awakened

 Sensing Sophia opens through us as we consciously allow her invisible radiance to teach us how to see, recognize, and trust her "ground" of emanation.  Light in darkness, Sophia comes as she is called, and often when we experience the greatest challenges.  The imprint of Sophia's pathway through our lives is pressed deeply into the folds of the heart, the iridescent (oceanic) eye, the silence of her soundless soundings, and the touch of her wave as it passes through and around us.  Conscious expression of Sophia utilizes all of our senses to create and dissolve, fill and empty, rise from and return to her awakening within the momentary.

Healing through the activity of Sophia's awakening transmutes our experience of being and having in the world.  From the very first moment that we encounter her, we can be unmistakably certain of her presence, for the activity of the Divine Mother is a dynamic current of energy that raises our eyes, heart, body, and mind up so as to discern, trust, and humble ourselves within her hands.  Discernment follows recognition and revision.  Integration often arises when we find ourselves the least capable of realizing Sophia's purpose in our life.  Entering Sophia's threshold does not destroy the balance of her world.  The activating principle of integration is relationship to wholeness, the seed force of the Divine Mother at her highest expression.

Stepping into a relationship of wholeness began for me when in the aftermath of an automobile collision I lost the usage of my legs.  Even though I could not sense my legs as that which allowed me to stand upright in the world, they were still attached to my body, and therefore, my spirit.  To walk again was to move my legs through the usage of my spiritual legs.  I could not physically feel the earth beneath my feet, but the vibration of the earth as felt by my spiritual legs gave me the inner fire to walk as though walking between worlds.  I can gratefully walk today with both sets of legs.

Integrating the invisible aspect of Sophia's wholeness with our life purpose appears deeply mystical at first glance, and yet Sophia's unfinished aspect is what allows us to walk with her.  To quicken our intentions through the fire of her grace, and to move toward the horizon of her desire is to step into her intended relationship.  To discover the open spaces in our senses and world as filled with the living current of her grace is to experience the heart and soul of Sophia.

A Light in the World

A very bright light shines through the world.  This light turns into view as one turns to it.  The light that shapes the mind in study, contemplation, and our awareness of the nature of change is ubiquitous--everywhere present and freely given.  How each individual resonates to light differs infinitely, and that experience of uniqueness goes in search of a shared resonance in the world.  The way that we experience that resonance, how it expresses or is developed within our life journey, provides meaning which is then placed in an order of ideas and relationships in the world.

The first time I experienced the living brushwork of Sophia's light, my eyes opened to an invisible, glistening pulsation that I could sense emanating from a grove of trees.  The pulsation was not separate or distinct from the trees, but an unveiling of the living energy of the trees to my eyes.  The very moment that I encountered Sophia, so simply and exquisitely given, the world of nature and vision took on an added dimension for me.  My eyes sensed the auric field resonating from the trees by shifting from one level (the tree as object) to another (the auric field of light as pulsation).  The inner resonance of the trees expresses through the energetic pattern of light, creating a distinct attribute or characteristic that manifests in physical form as the trees.

Every atom and particle in the natural world is filled with Sophia's light and vibrational pattern.  How we as individuals experience the resonance is shaped by many factors, and limited by others.  Sophia's impulse carries the whole of nature as well as the entire spectrum of light and resonance in the world, and yet within each particle or aspect she expresses uniquely.  The power of Sophia's love impulse ignites the "turning into view" of light; spark of all creation that sees with our eyes and the eyes of nature, creating out of love for a shared resonance in the world.  Love to love, not this not that.  Love to love, light in the world.

Remembering Sophia

Sophia's sacred expression of wholeness does not disavow an awareness of loss, especially the loss of Sophia.  The movement of Sophia's impulse through/as our desire and breath of life is a delicate activity.  The subtle manner in which our union within her arms is shaped may appear to be erased by an unconscious shift in the aftermath of trauma, abuse, or injury.  The tears that flow out of her divine lake serve to cleanse, release, and allow a restoration process to occur as a deeply embodied experience that is also encountered in the body of nature.  Animals grieve for the loss of their young and habitat, as do fallen trees echo the sense of absence when exploitation offsets the ecological balance of a geographical region.  Echoes of absence can be heard and felt around the globe, but the divine impulse cannot be separated from itself, nor can it be completely rendered unconscious except by choice.

To follow Sophia beyond the appearance of loss or displacement of wholeness is to acknowledge those feelings to not be separate from her, but as pathways that reopen us to her return.  Sophia's response to our prayers for her remembering in our life precedes the form or avenue of her manifestation.  As Sophia's divine impulse increases within our conscious experience, we may re-experience events from our present and past lives in which the intensity of the event shifted our awareness from wholeness to absence.  The purpose of this activity is to reach closure with the experience without closing ourselves off from Sophia.  Returning to Sophia remembers the loss as it simultaneously fills us with a deeper penetration of Sophia in the life of the soul.

As we remember Sophia from "before" the experience of loss, and what we sensed as her path of expression in our life, we confront an expanse of time and energy (which may be brief or encompass several years) in which our sense of the world has greatly changed.  Changed world, changed body, and changed body of affairs.  Sophia's return may come when all that once was is no more, but for the desire of Sophia.  Silent gateway of the mind, our path of expression is not concept-driven.  We can only know this knowing through Sophia.  Hands that write the night in stars, the world may come and go, but Sophia holds the yet-to-be.

Long before earning her doctorate in Humanities from The University of Texas at Dallas, Spring 2003, Charlotte sensed the call of Sophia's healing work in her life.  As the "whole" within which Charlotte's intuitive, hands-on approach toward recovery from physical injuries and trauma, and work with flower essences/aromatherapy have taken place, the integration of Sophia's visible and invisible countenance forms the path of healing work and education she hopes to offer others in honor of her gratitude to Sophia in the world.