Michael Lindfield: And so there I was with a job and a house. I was able to give the shipping company a real address. Two days before my wife and children were scheduled to fly out west, I got a call from the shipping company saying that my belongings had arrived in Vancouver, Canada and that they would be trucking them down. So the following day I helped unload the boxes. I managed to get everything unpacked and put away so when the children arrived they had all their familiar bedding, all their toys - everything. It was perfect timing.

Tammie: How wonderful.

Michael Lindfield: And I just said, "Thank you, thank you." For me, that whole experience was a sign of being in the right rhythm. There are other times when it’s like pulling teeth and nothing seems to work. Sometimes, you just have to let go, and know that it’s simply not the right timing. Other times, one actually has to push on through because the resistance may be a barrier of one’s own making.

Tammie: Yes.

Michael Lindfield: That’s where the discrimination lies. When things don’t seem to be working out, it is useful to ask if these signs are really coming from the Cosmos telling us the stars aren’t right so don’t do it. Or is it more a question of, "No, I need to push on through because this situation is of my own making and I am the solution." So for me timing is very important. The whole of life is built on rhythm and timing. It’s the in-breath and the out-breath - the sense of knowing when to breath in, when to breath out, when to move, when to be quiet.

Tammie: Right.

Michael Lindfield: Yeah.

Tammie: I'm struck as you share your story by how much synchronicity there seems to be flowing throughout your life.

Michael Lindfield: I always get one-way tickets to places.

Tammie: Now that's faith!

Michael Lindfield: I am one of these people who grew up in Britain and didn’t complete high school. I left school in 10th grade to try and figure out what I wanted to do. I looked at my situation in Britain and didn’t get a sense of anything opening up. I kept getting this strong impulse that I should go to Scandinavia. So I am 16 years old at the time, I sell my record collection, my record player, a bike, and buy a one-way ticket to Gothenburg on a ship leaving from London.

Tammie: That took courage!

Michael Lindfield: I packed a suitcase, and with $50.00 in my pocket, headed off to Sweden and the unknown. Since early childhood, I’ve always had a sense that something is moving me. It used to really scare me and I would ask, "Why am I doing this, why am I going?" But there was something inside that said, "Trust all of this. It is part of your education - part of finding out who you are and where you need to be in life. There is really no way that you can logically sit down and figure this out – follow your inside."

Acting this way is not logical if you compare it to the way that you and I have been trained to think rationally about things. This is a different way of operating – it is an inner rhythm, an impulse that compels us. And sometimes, one picks up the signals very clearly, but other times, they are more distorted and we find ourselves bumping into things because we have the wrong coordinates. It sometimes turns out that it is not the right place nor the right time. But basically that’s how I have attempted to live my life, right from the get-go.

As far back as I can remember, there has always been this inner guiding star that says, "Follow me." It was only later in my life when I reached my early 20’s, that I began to realize that this wasn’t just some sort of fantasy. This was reality, or more correctly, this is reality. This is how celestial navigation works - we each carry our own guiding star. And we can navigate to that inner star.

And it’s all a question of practice. We have to practice the art of inner listening to acquire the confidence and capability needed on the journey through life. It means daring to do it. It means going through all the pains involved with learning to live a soul-directed life. I am so grateful for this journey and the way I feel supported by life. Life has also given me a lot of hard knocks but those have been of my own request really.

I invoked the lessons - even though I haven't always consciously called for them. They have come from the deep part of me that says, "I want to be whole, I want to move on, I want to find my home." In response to this cry for wholeness, I am presented with all those aspects of myself that have been banished to the shadows of my being. To be whole, and to truly come home, means to embrace these shadows and bring them into the light of my Soul. I believe this is the eternal quest that we all find ourselves on - the homecoming, the search for home. So, that’s how I see it.

Because of the particular philosophical framework I live within, one that acknowledges the creative rhythms and cycles of Spirit, I embrace the concept of reincarnation. So the process of living many lives to reach maturity as a soul, and find my way home, is such a natural thing.

I see the perennial shrubs in my garden going through it. They do things in the winter that look as though they have died back, but up they come again in the spring. It takes many seasons to mature and to really bring something to fruition. So how arrogant on the part of us humans to think that we are so special that we can do it in one lifetime or that we are so different from the rest of nature. For me it’s not even an argument. This is the divine mechanism that I, as a soul, use to fully express in time and space.

In order to grow, I go through many seasons and these seasons are called lifetimes. It takes a certain pressure off to know that this is one step in the journey, but it also adds another pressure to make the most of this lifetime, as it does have an effect on the overall journey. Belief in reincarnation means that I don’t have to pack it all into a few years because after death there is oblivion or some static state called heaven or hell. That must be a very frightening worldview to have. I could see how that could cause a lot of despair. Much of this understanding and knowledge I received from nature. I can talk more about that when we talk about some of the experiences that have helped shape my life. But basically that’s how I move and choose to move through life.

Tammie: It sounds like this perspective has worked very well for you.

Michael Lindfield: It works well as long as one is clear and listens deeply within. When I’m not clear and not listening deeply within, it doesn’t work as well. If it’s not working, I say to myself, "You’re not listening". So I straighten myself out and do whatever it takes to be receptive to those subtle signals from inside.