“Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and an appeal to the essence of being.”
― Albert Camus
We have been told by Jesus, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3). I see this message as both as an admonition and an invitation. In fact, at this time in human history, in the face of meanness, corruption, natural disasters, terrorism, and utter disconnection, I believe it is imperative to remember who we are.
An innocent child does not judge her experience, nor does she have the impulse to control it. Life is simply happening, and the veiling function of the brain that separates us from experience is not fully in place. The innocent child simply feels what is happening. As long as there is no distress, the child lives as an expression of pure love.
There is that part of each of us that longs to surrender—to return to that innocence, which is a presence of profound depth. It is who we are before we contort and conform. It is essential that we learn to be a trustworthy witness to this part of us, which is earlier than the mind, before knowledge. It is the “felt sense” and to be in touch with it is to feel alive, for it is more real than any story we have about it.
A great tool of awakening is to witness this aspect of ourselves without judgment, for in doing so, we begin to connect to who we are. Innocence, or felt experience, contains within it a power and a purity that could change everything.
The power of innocence
The Innocent as an archetype is known by many names: Child, Utopian, Mystic—and it embodies all that we long to return to in old age, a soul untarnished by the harshness of this world. The Innocent traditionally longs for paradise not just for itself, but even for its enemies. The ideal is born of innocence, from the Zero Point Field, carrying the creative spark that brings innovation. The motivation is pure, and the Innocent knows only truth. Children dwell in this state when allowed to be free.
In her book Sacred Contracts: Awakening Your Divine Potential, Caroline Myss says that we are each guided by a sacred contract to fulfill a certain destiny that our soul made before we were born. There are many archetypes that get activated for us to come to know and fulfill our sacred contract, and there are four that are universally involved in the most pressing challenges related to survival: the Child, the Victim, the Prostitute, and the Saboteur. Each one of these carries different fears and vulnerabilities that we need to confront and overcome in order to embrace the true essence of our sacred contract.
The Child archetype has different aspects, and it is the Magical Child that is most associated with innocence. The Magical Child is connected to the Innocent and embodies the qualities of wisdom and courage in the face of difficulty. This is an essential aspect to grow if you are to cultivate wisdom.
Anne Frank is a good example of this aspect of the Child. In spite of the hardship and terror her family endured while hiding in an attic from the Nazis, Anne wrote in her journals that she still believed in the goodness of humanity. Those who embody this archetype are gifted with the power of imagination and the belief in the possible.
The opposite of innocence isn’t maturity, but bitterness – no longer seeing with fresh eyes, but through the lens of disappointment.
Becoming a master of the moment
Seeing in the moment without resistance and with fresh eyes is the expression of a Master. Children up to the age of six are naturally magical in their thinking and if they are not shown otherwise, they carry the amazing belief that they can make life be anything they want it to be.
A person who has matured with that innocence in tact often carries that belief as hope in future generations, realizing that they are part of the “procession” of life, as my dear friend K. B. would say.
K. B. was a larger than life woman in every way, over six feet tall, a lesbian Presbyterian minister, and when she wore her long black robe she was utterly handsome. In the last years of her life she put her affairs in order and focused on nurturing and watering her loveseed, that part of us that carries the infinite love and potential of life. She began to speak in her writing and sermons about life as procession, sweeping her long arms upward and outward to symbolize this ongoing movement of life. In fact, she began to embody this quality of procession, to which she brought a sense of innocence.
Before her sudden death at age 54, K. B. called each of her close friends and shared unabashedly from her heart what we each meant to her. She completed her bucket list of things to do, and painted all her finger and toenails gold, before embarking on a vision quest with a group of women in the mountains of California. On the day of her solo quest, she suffered a pulmonary embolism, and the women she was with carried K. B. down the mountain singing her spirit back home in a procession of love.
When you can feel yourself as part of a procession, you feel both necessary and humbled at the same time, doing your part in the sacred movement of the evolution of humanity. You are brought back to innocence, which is the ability to be fully present with clear eyes to what is happening now. I will forever think of my dear friend K. B. when I reflect on procession.
The shadow of innocence
The shadow energy of the Magical Child shows up in pessimism and the refusal to believe in miracles, which requires the flexibility to shift one’s perception. Depression can easily set in alongside a kind of hopelessness, and often this shadow manifests as a retreat into magical thinking and fantasy, where the person fails to take the action necessary to harness the power of intention. Hallmarks are denial, repression, childish behavior, blaming, conformity, irrational optimism, risk taking, and addiction to consuming substances and habits of every sort.
Closely related to the Innocent and Magical Child, the Divine Child is associated with purity and redemption. This divinity is a reference point that you can return to over and over as you must make the choice for love or fear. Indeed, there is even a shadow to this divine energy, in the inability to defend against negative energies. These are people who are unable to access healthy anger that can be expressed as divine strength when confronting injustice and other manifestations of evil.
Trauma cuts us off from these innocent aspects of our being, which leaves us with the challenge to face, embrace, and integrate our Wounded Child. Trauma has the effect of keeping us locked in shame, which short-circuits our ability to learn and transform. Trauma expert Peter Levine says, “Trauma is not what happens to us, but what we hold inside in the absence of an empathetic witness.”
It is essential that we develop the Compassionate Witness, so that we don’t become identified with the Wounded Child, which is an aspect of the Victim archetype. Rather, we must penetrate more deeply beyond the trauma to the love at the center, to the loveseed. The journey looks different for all of us. To not take it is to close the door to joy.
In a very real way, our innocence protects us from evil, not because we are not affected by it—we all are. It is because our innocence does not judge it and cause us to resist it. Some so-called spiritual people would like to believe that we don’t need to deal with the darkness any longer, and that we can go straight for the light. Beware. There is still much dense energy to release from our energy fields, and knowing with the mind is not enough. We must feel our way to true liberation.
In the future it may be possible to live in a true abode of love, free of the suffering that arises from the eons of fear that have formed Earth’s history until this pivotal time. For now, I suggest that we look darkness right in the face, while holding the vision of paradise.
How to cultivate more innocence
- Getting into nature is one of the most direct ways to embody your own innocence, and return to the love that each unfolding moment offers us. No cell phone, no music playing, but slowly walking, listening, seeing, touching, smelling.
- Playing with children or even simply observing them, will fill you with wonder. If you deeply connect, you will experience a felt sense of yourself as an innocent child.
- Moving your body to music in a slow and organic way, preferably with no one around, so that you can be totally move away from being self-conscious, and rather, conscious of how you feel in your body.
- Spend a few hours when you are not at work or needing to accomplish tasks with people. It would be better to do this alone or with a friend or spouse you have informed of what you are doing.
You will drop all parts of speech that have to do with I. me, or mine. For example, you can be driving and note that “driving is happening.” You may be with a friend, and say, “Hunger is happening.” You may be gardening, and say, “These flowers were planted.” You take a sense of “self” out of everything, and become more aware of the actual experience as part of an unfolding of life itself. This is much like an innocent child, who brings awe to every moment.
- The most important thing you can do to cultivate wisdom through innocence is to invite innocence into your life. Take time every day to be grateful that you are truly of child of this Universe. Remind that child in you that that you not only do not have to but also cannot control all things. Encourage your innocent self to show up as fully as possible in every moment, expecting miracles.
May I see with the eyes of a child and the heart of a master.
May I step into each moment in the procession of life with willingness and love.
May my felt experience of life liberate me to bring forth my true self.
