Love Really is Eternal

The intention of this blog is to provide a place for sharing around common interests and in this way to feel more closely connected to life and to others. It is about building a sense of our common humanity, what we call community.

Otherwise, or if in isolation for too long, a sense of alienation may creep in. The image that comes to mind is of Adam and Eve cast out–banished–from the garden. (Chagall’s Expulsion from the Garden is shown below, and below that the opening of my Return to the Whole Garden chapter.)

chagall's expulsion from garden

Eden was a protected enclosure. Within the verdant garden’s boundaries God’s first children lived without fear of bodily harm or the pressures of necessity. They lived in a paradise of contentment and comfort. For companionship Adam and Eve had one another and God. For amusement they had the friendly animals. For nourishment they had but to pluck the sweet fruit of their choice. The idyllic innocence of their beginning was the kind we would wish for every child. In truth, life began for each of us within an enclosure comparable to Eden. The maternal womb provided for our every need. There we knew contentment and comfort, until the time came when we had outgrown our protective walls. Then the necessity for expansion pressed in upon us. Instead of a place of comfort the womb became a constraining vise. A principle of life was at work. An inherent wisdom had taken over to apply increasingly greater pressure against the uterine limitations that now had become barriers to further growth and therefore to life itself. As with Adam and Eve, so for each of us the time came when we had outgrown our primal maternal paradise. We, too had to suffer the trauma of expulsion into a larger and ultimately more needful and demanding world.

The story of physical birth, of psychological birth, and of spiritual birth all follow a similar pattern. Psychologically, we are born again and again. In fact, as someone has observed: “We cannot be born enough.” Spiritually, too, the need is to die, again and again, or order to be born anew in spirit.”

See Return to the Whole Book One Part I

If you are a new or old acquaintance of the Murray Creek web pages, you know that Bob (to whom I had been married for fifty-eight and a half years), on the Spring Equinox of last March experienced the ultimate rebirth–from an ensouled body to a soul now en spirit. And my greatest surprise and continuing source of gratitude has been coming to know–experientially–that love really is eternal.

His transition has been for me a profound re-perception of reality as I have recorded the frequent telepathic communications that have passed between us. My intention in sharing around the topic of love being eternal is to invite others to add their experiences and comments, and in so doing help strengthen our collective sense of connection. Your input (below) is therefore encouraged.

About ann

When Bob and Ann Elliott purchased their sixty acre Murray Creek property in 1974 their purpose was to establish a retreat center for Inner Healing. This was the beginning of Creative Living Center and later the home of CLC Press which gradually evolved into an on-line means of sharing what they were learning and experiencing about the processes of becoming whole. Ann was born in 1929 in Holden, Missouri. Her parents were both journalists and co-published the local newspaper. They had met in Mexico City where her father was on assignment for a Washington DC newspaper and where her mother was doing advanced studies at the University of Mexico. When Ann was six they separated and she moved to Kansas City where her mother began a long career in radio and television. In high school Ann was sent east to Penn Hall in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. And that is where she met Bob who was attending Mercersburg Academy, the nearby boy's prep school. Bob was born in 1927 in Washington, DC. His mother had been a librarian in Hammond, Indiana before coming to Washington during World War I where she met his father, a young Marine who became an attorney when the war was over. Bob attended Sidwell Friends School in Washington through eighth grade and went on to Mercersburg, and from there, near the end of World War II, into the army. The war over, he began pre-law at Northwestern where Ann was studying journalism and doing secretarial work for her mother who was then Woman's Editor of American Broadcasting Co in Chicago. In the fall of 1947 Ann and Bob were married and the following spring left for Stanford University where Bob finished his undergraduate and went on to earn his law degree in 1952, by which time they were expecting the second of what would be their six children. During Bob's years at Stanford Ann studied and worked in the field of design. This led to her interest in symbolism, and the study of symbolism awakened her interest in spirituality, a combination that led to an interest in Jungian psychology at about the time Jung's writings were beginning to appear in English. It was through the writings of Christian Jungians such as John Sanford and Morton Kelsey that Ann became interested in the psycho-spiritual approaches to inner healing. Eventually she would connect with the three grand women founders of the San Francisco based Guild For Psychological Studies, all of whom had studied with Jung in Zurich. Together the three--Elizabeth Boynton Howes, Sheila Moon, and Luella Seibald--had established the Four Springs retreat center in Northern California where they conducted seminars based on "The Records of the Life of Jesus of Nazareth" according to a modified Socratic method. Ann participated in the Records and other related seminars at Four Springs during the 1980s. In the meantime, Bob was equally involved in pursuing his special interest in music as a means of furthering and deepening meditation. He was also studying shamanism with Michael Harner and the Institute for Shamanic Studies, and with Ira Progoff through his Intensive Journal Workshops. All this time, of course, he was carrying on a busy law practice in Lodi, California, some forty miles commute from Murray Creek. From 1984 until his retirement in 1998 Ann served as Bob's legal secretary. Ann, with both of her parents writers, had been writing off and on for a number of years, with numerous writings on symbolism published in magazines and journals, as well as two books on the use of symbolism in Christian education. In 1996-7 Parts I and II of Return to the Whole were published on the C G Jung Web Page, and this was the beginning of web publishing for Ann as a means of sharing the synthesis of ways to inner healing and wholeness she and Bob had experienced and been sharing throughout their years at Murray Creek. With their retirement in 1998 Ann began writing and editing full time, with her in progress "opus" being the series titled Return to the Whole, and including the full length book titled Higher Ground, offered here in its entirety. In 1992 Ann learned she was eligible to "test her vocation" as an Anglican Franciscans and after an inquiry and formation of some five years was, in 1997, professed. These are the TSSF initials that follow her name--The Society of Saint Francis--and for which order she now serves as a formation counselor. Additionally she is a Benedictine trained spiritual director and serves in this capacity also to whomever is willing to make the narrow, winding trip out Murray Creek Road.
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5 Responses to Love Really is Eternal

  1. Annie Kurteff says:

    Hi Annie,

    Wonderful Blog! I will write soon!

    Love, A2

  2. Gerry Cartier says:

    Welcome home! I’m so happy to hear that you’re thinking of re-starting the crones. It’s been sorely missed. I connected to the remarks made earlier about the fear of death and how our culture reinforces that fear. I have a sister recently diagnosed with lung cancer and she has been showing a lot of anger. It seems that fear and anger are some how related, blocking the possibilities of experiencing the presense of eternal love. Thank you for a beautiful blog. Love, Gerry

  3. So glad to see the direction your life is taking. Your words connect to deeply held but long repressed and unfinished ideas I have held about the afterlife. At this time, I don’t want to open that door again, but my sense is that, as it seems with you, things open to us “in their season.” Blessings on you and many thanks for this beautiful work. Love CA

  4. Helene Joy says:

    Annie, I am thrilled with your blog. How beautifully and in what depth you’ve shared your learnings. And how welcome your reassurance about what I call “the spiritual being having a human experience” (Teilyard?)—the Bread and Truth—balance and the connection between the realms. Thank you so much for this amazing sharing–and with illustrations!

    Love,
    Helene

  5. Dear Ann

    I’m not a Christian, yet will gladly use your seven stages of Jesus’ mission within the seven-stage Jerusalem Games System (You can see my stance on Christianity, past and future, in my recent book “The Truth about Judas – Mysteries of the Judas Code Revealed”). I shall read it attentively.

    A side note: In appreciation of your sources (like Jung, Teilhard and Mira Elphassi) it seems a pity your knowledge of Qabbalah extends only as far as Suare, which isn’t much. I guess I could help you a bit on this front (for example Abba can be written like that for reasons of correct pronounciation, but in the original Hebrew-Aramic, this is a three-letter word ABA (value of 4), which should actually better suit your scheme.

    In amity
    Yitzhaq (Isaac) Hayut-Man

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