Excerpt from SPIRITUAL TURNING POINTS: INTRODUCTION

Excerpt from 

Spiritual Turning Points: A Metaphysical Perspective of the Seven Life Transitions 

by Victoria Marina-Tompkins  c. 2011

INTRODUCTION

"Spiritual (adjective): Of, relating to, consisting of, or having the nature of spirit; not tangible or material.

Turning Point (noun): The point at which a very significant change occurs; a decisive moment, a crossroads.

The human evolutionary process includes a series of seven spiritual turning points that we all have the opportunity to process in every lifetime. At each threshold, we are challenged to move from one state of consciousness to another as we make the transitions that are the cornerstones of the human maturation process in physical, psychological, and spiritual terms.

Spiritual Turning Points is based on twenty-five years of experience with both clients and personal studies. Each chapter includes authentic stories that illustrate how the transitions were engaged, ignored, left unfinished, or completed, providing a complete look at the transitions from many different viewpoints. This metaphysical perspective is based on a combination of causal plane studies, astrology, and shamanism that together have served as the anchors in my private practice, providing a lens through which to understand the process of life. While the human being is maturing in tangible, physical, and psychological ways, the soul is also evolving as it experiences all there is to learn on the physical plane before returning to the Tao, the universal creative source from whence it originally came. The cycle of reincarnation includes experiences of separateness while in human physicality, but you are always connected to the divine through your own essence even if you forget during the course of your everyday life.

The Greeks used a literary device, deus ex machina, or god from a machine, when they would lower actors playing gods and goddesses on a crane onto the stage, thereby solving human dilemmas with divine intervention. Later, Horace, a first-century BCE Roman lyric poet, would argue in his Ars Poetica that using a technique such as this actually defied logic and that the resolution of the conflict needed to come from within the characters themselves rather than by the intervention of a god. It is human nature to look outside the self for reassurance, but learning to resolve the conflicts, to move through the discomfort, and then to emerge with a new state of awareness is an integral part of the evolutionary process. The seemingly random events of life are in most cases not random or accidental, and we always have the choice of how we will respond to any external stimuli, eventually learning through the totality of human experience.

The ideas presented in Spiritual Turning Points are to some controversial and to others, reassuring. Many of the concepts may be thought-provoking, encouraging the readers to contemplate their own relationship to the universe and the choices they make. The stories may then be considered tangible evidence of soul evolution in action, illustrating metaphysical concepts that can serve to open the doorway for increased personal awareness and the validation of higher spiritual truths."

Victoria Marina-Tompkins

El Granada, CA

c. 2011 All Rights Reserved