Updated: Finding "the pearl" (within and without) and understanding motives better Part One

Updating on The Enneagram as one of many tools for self-discovery - Here are a few sources which may help with background if you have the time (remember if you are new that lots of short dips over much time work pretty well for most people with whom I've spoken. Keep in mind there are many variants within this system: here and here

Find here some nuggests to help three types with more yet coming....

Here is a little reflection about finding the pearl within ourselves and our cultures once in awhile as we go about making personal decisions:

To help us out - here are three sources for starters among our inherited wisdom - tried and true over many generations from many places. Two of these "wisdom threads" are certainly Rumi and the Enneagram and a third "thread" might be the vast body of our treasured literature as well as what is archived from our print media.

Jeanine Siler Jones, a teacher of the Enneagram, has put the first two together in a lovely manner and then there are a few items from literature and the printed page for a third type of "mirror". These are selected and placed here without planning or intentions yet as perhaps some small places to go and from which to depart.



This source is new to me and I am trying to find the exact link so I will try to give that or offer the little sampler of "solutions" for the other five "types in Part Two. While this source is new, I am hardly new to the Enneagram system and find it fun and revealing as a family pastime. You may have or find "translations" of both this system and of Rumi you like better. If so, please share these.

(Two) There is a force within that gives you life - seek that. In your body there lies A PRICELESS JEWEL - seek that. Oh, wandering Sufi, if you are in search of the greatest treasure, don't look outside, look within, and SEE That.

(Six) Keep walking, though there's no place to get to. Don't try to see through distances. That's not for human beings. Move within, but DON'T MOVE the way FEAR MAKES YOU MOVE.

(Nine) The breezes at dawn have secrets to tell you...DON'T GO BACK TO SLEEP. You must ask for what you really want. Don't go back to sleep. People are going back and forth across the doors where the two worlds touch. The door is round and open. Don't go back to sleep.

(Eight) Be helpless, BE DUMBFOUNDED, unable to say yes or no - then a stretcher will come from grace and gather us up.

The remaining NINE coming in one or several more parts soon...

Perhaps these few samples from hundreds if not thousands of Rumi and Enneagram sources today might cause Rumi and his scholars to writhe in agony? Yet for our purposes these may suffice as conversation starters with each ourselves and with one another? And do keep the conversation going...

The nine Enneagram personality types are divided into three centers of knowing: heart, head, and body. Every type resources all three centers but tends to rely on one of the centers more than the other two. For instance, if your Enneagram type is 2, 3, or 4, the heart center, you will rely more on your emotional intelligence, processing reality through this lens more often than through mental faculties used most by types 5, 6, and 7, or the body’s instinctual knowing relied upon most by types 8, 9, and 1. Developing all three centers gives us greater resources to broaden our perspectives and allows us to have more equilibrium when that is what may be needed - at least as a respite.



A few items perhaps "evocative" of memories or "wishes" to some with which to wrestle when there is plenty of space, comfort and equilibrium to be had...and then to say hello to your dark shadows (perhaps over much time) and see them slip away little by little (at least those certain ones?) Oh the healing to recognize the unhealed places and address them before the shadows grow...A tortured soul - perhaps the soul of many women worldwide? What could she have one differently or might there have been no other way? What could society have done differently? How might our passions be directed, redirected, transformed and when fully embraced to our betterment and that of the whole world's - not to forget the priceless children of us all? here

New York Times - Early 1900's here

And here are a few remarks about The Pearl by John Steinbeck (for me this is a favorite little story and an admired author for many years). This is a small tale with a universal impact and seems to fit well with this little reflection:

Patrick Shepherd:
Most people born and raised in America cannot even imagine the depths of poverty that most of the rest of the world are forced to live with. This story illuminates this fact, as we enter the world of Kino, a pearl diver and occasional fisherman, his wife Juana, and their baby son, Coyotito...

But Kino and his family, far from being depressed or unhappy (about their poverty) have a great treasure, the love they have for each other and their satisfaction with life as it is, with few disturbing dreams of greater things. But their quiet, routine life is turned upside down the day that Kino finds a Great Pearl..

...As a parable...the characters are exquisitely drawn...it is very hard not to get drawn into their lives, where their dreams and their pains very readily become your own.



From another top reviewer called "Taking Rest":
"...often when you feel something good is about to happen, a positive change for his characters that have struggled, and fought to survive, he slams you face down on bedrock's reality.

This book is very brief, but it communicates as much as a novel 10 times its length. The ending is brilliant, tragic, and redemptive. It is a story that few could write, and even fewer could make work. The emotional scenes he brings the reader to are at times almost violent...And then with a turn of phrase he can change the mood time and time again.

A wonderful novella from an Author known for sweeping sagas

End two reviews..

Let me add...this work has most universal implications like so much of John Steinbeck's writings...I read him all the way through high school and into married/family life...films made of us work are stellar even when stylized like -East of Eden- try to dip in a little bit...The Pearl is a great place to start and you will find many ways to do so for free Online...

Please keep the Conversation going here and with one another and thanx for this community of Peace and Kindness!