This book is apart of a series of books that have transformed my spiritual life and my views on raising children called The Ringing Cedars Series. The first book is titled, Anastasia by Vladimir Megré, which I read in college. This book began the journey! The Ringing Cedars Series can be found here.
I continued through the series and came to this extraordinary book, The Space of Love. There is a special excerpt that I would like to share which so adequately describes a young girls exploration to defining the soul.
A bird for discovering one's soul
When I grew some — by this time I was three years old — Great Grandfather asked me a question:
“Tell me, Anastasia, do all the creatures like it when you stroke and caress them with your hand?”
“Yes, they all do. They keep wagging their tails to show how much they like my caressing. The grass and the flowers and the trees like it too, but not all of them have tails to wag, to show how good it feels to be stroked.”
“So, everything desires to feel the embrace of your hand ?”
“Yes, everything living and growing, small or large.”
“And the wide Earth also wants to be caressed? You have seen Earth, how wide it is?”
“At this point I recalled the vivid experience I had with the eagle as a baby. The size of the Earth was not something I knew just from hearsay. And so I answered Great-Grandfather with out hesitating:
“The Earth is wide, you cannot see it’s edge. But if everyone wants to be caressed, that means the Earth must want it, too. But who would be able to embrace the whole Earth? It is so great that even your arms, Great-Grandfather, would not be able to embrace the whole Earth!”
“Great-Grandfather stretched out his arms to either side, looked at them, and nodded in agreement.
“You are right. Even my arms are not long enough to embrace the whole Earth. But you said that the Earth, like everyone else, wishes to be caressed?”
“Yes it does. Everybody wants to be caressed by Man.'
“'So you, Anastasia, should embrace the whole Earth as well. Think about how you could do this,’ Great Grandfather said, and walked away.
“I began thinking a lot of the time about how to embrace the whole Earth. And I could not think of anything. And I knew that Great-Grandfather would not speak to me —he would not ask me any more questions — until I had solved this problem, and so I kept trying.
“More than a month passed, and the problem had not been solved. And then one day I found myself looking tenderly at the wolf, from a distance. She was standing on the other side of the glade.
“All at once, sensing my gaze, the wolf started wagging her tail. Then I began to notice how all the creatures were so delighted when I looked at them with joy and tenderness. How big they were or how far they were was not important. They were delighted just from my looking at them or thinking about them with love. I realized they were just as happy as they had been earlier when I was stroking them with my hand.
“Then I became aware of something: Here was ‘I’ with my hands and feet, and yet there was also this other me, larger than could be shown by someone’s hand. And this larger, invisible entity was also me. That meant that every Man was set up just like me. And this larger me was indeed capable of embracing the whole Earth.
“When Great-Grandfather showed up, I was all bubbling with joy, and said to him:
“‘Look Grandpakins, see how happy all the creatures are — not just when I touch them with my hand, but also when I look upon them from a distance. It is invisible, but something of me is embracing them, and it can embrace the whole Earth too.
“‘I shall embrace the Earth with my invisible self! I am Anastasia. There is the little me, and there is the greater me. But how this other me is called, I do not yet know. But I shall think about how to call it properly, and I shall say its name and give you the whole answer, Grandpakins! Then will you begin talking with me again?
“Great-Grandfather began talking with me right away, and said:
“Call your second self, dear granddaughter, soul. Your soul. And cherish it, and act in accord with this limitless soul of yours.’
I thought this was such a beautiful approach to teaching a child to realize for herself how to discover her greater self. It is a lesson to us all to know the power our soul's have, the depths we may uncover, and the love we can spread to every living entity. Find The Space of Love by Vladmir Megré here.
