RONDA'S WRITINGS, TEACHINGS, EXERCISES

Reflections on Life Crossroads, Inner Wisdom & Whole Living Arts

A living archive of writings, dialogues, exercises and creative inquiry developed across more than three decades of work with people navigating change, loss, relationship, purpose, identity and spiritual awakening.

Quoting or distribution of this content is permitted only by written request and responsible attribution to the original copyrighted work. Thank you.

I. LIFE CROSSROADS, PURPOSE & THE NEXT CHAPTER

Much of my work begins in the places where an old way of living, understanding ourselves, or making decisions no longer quite works. These writings explore the thresholds created by change, loss, retirement, identity shifts, uncertainty, and the question of what we want to do with the life that is still ours.

» At a Crossroad in Your Life? Finding the Hidden Gift

» Renewal: How To Reconnect With Your True Self

» What is Happiness?

» Zen and Your Life as "The Supreme Meal"

» How Do You Want To Live The Rest Of Your Life?

» Getting Unstuck When the Head and Heart Disagree

» "Life Gets Interesting When We Fail..."

» Making a Quest of Financial Fear & Job/Identity Loss

» Whole Life Wealth from an Integrated Financial Planning / Tracking Perspective*

NOTE: This link leads to selected contemplative articles co-authored with my husband, Matt Clements, Managing Principal of Clements Investment Management.

» The Art of Following Life's Genius

» Retreats & The Art of Self-Love, Inner Peace, and Life Purpose

» Investing In Your True Self. If Not Now, When?

II. RELATIONSHIP, LOSS & HUMAN BREAKTHROUGH

Relationships often become the places where our deepest patterns, hopes, wounds and capacities are revealed. These writings look at betrayal, grief, conflict, love, loss and the difficult moments that can unexpectedly become openings into a more honest way of living.

Couples in Crisis & Relationship Breakthrough

» Healing from Lies and Betrayal in Relationship

» Couples Healing Part 1: When Confusion and Crisis are Partners in Breakthrough

» Couples Healing Part 2: Early Inoculation and The Wizard of Oz

» Couples Healing Part 3: Lights Up On Center Stage!

» Infidelity and Relationship Honoring — Testimonials & Inspiration

Creativity, Grief & Healing

» The Healing Power of Creativity

» Personal Example From Sudden Death of a Loved One

» Client Example of Healing Early Childhood Abuse

III. THE SOULARTS WAY OF INQUIRY

SoulArts grew out of my own lifelong fascination with what happens when we stop treating our lives as problems to solve and begin paying closer attention to the deeper patterns, contradictions, images, impulses and questions already moving through them.

The work draws from creativity, depth psychology, symbolic inquiry, contemplative practice and lived experience. Its purpose is less about arriving at a prescribed answer than learning how to recognize the particular intelligence of your own life—and how to enter into a more conscious relationship with what is trying to emerge.

These writings offer different doorways into that process.

The Journey Beneath the Story

» What is the Hero's Journey?

» At a Crossroad in Your Life? Finding the Hidden Gift

» Getting Unstuck When the Head and Heart Disagree

Following the Deeper Thread

» The Art of Following Life's Genius

» How Do You Want To Live The Rest Of Your Life?

» "Life Gets Interesting When We Fail..."

The Healing Power of Creativity: The SoulArts Process

» Part I: The Healing Power of Creativity

» Part II: Personal Example From Sudden Death of a Loved One

» Part III: Client Example of Healing Early Childhood Abuse

The Art of Living as Practice

» Zen and Your Life as "The Supreme Meal"

» Renewal: How To Reconnect With Your True Self

» BOOK: The Art of Living (is) Your Destiny

My second book brings much of this inquiry into a more concentrated practice. It explores one of the central ideas beneath SoulArts: that the shape of a life is continually revealing itself through the material already present—our gifts, conflicts, relationships, losses, intuitions, circumstances and the strange recurring threads we may only recognize in retrospect.

The book includes reflections and exercises for learning to recognize those threads and engage your life more consciously as a creative process.

IV. DIALOGUES ON FEAR, FAITH, EGO & WHOLENESS

Some questions refuse simple answers. These dialogues enter the territory of fear, belief, surrender, ego, freedom, responsibility and wholeness through conversation rather than conclusion—allowing the inquiry itself to reveal something.

» What is Faith? Giving Up Belief

» The Holy Grail: The Search of Mastering Fear & Living Wholeness

» Quitting the Struggle and Non-Effort

» On Ego and Soul (Conversation with 2-Year Apprentices)

» Social Responsibility, Belief, War and "Right Action"

V. SPIRITUAL AWAKENING & NON-DUAL INQUIRY

These dialogues enter the territory of fear, belief, surrender, ego, freedom, responsibility and wholeness through conversational dialogue, allowing the inquiry itself to reveal something essential to the journey itself...

» The Dark Night of Soul: Gift of the Darkness

» The Mystery School of You

» Living the Love Affair with Life

» The Secret of Meditation

» The Great and Godly Game of Hide & Seek

» What is a Mystic?

» What is Enlightenment?

» "3 Reasons"...

» BOOK: ReMembering Who You Really Are

A memoir of my own passage through the Dark Night of Soul, written from the crossroads that changed the direction of my life. At the time, I was working in business and corporate consulting; what began as a profound personal undoing eventually led me toward the deeper path of mentoring, creative inquiry, art and the work that became SoulArts.

VI. WORKING WITH A GUIDE, MENTOR, TEACHER

» Part I: How to Find a Spiritual Mentor

» Part II: The Responsibility of Exchange

» Part III: Working with a Spiritual Mentor

VII. POETRY, PRAYERS & PORTALS

» Spinning on a Prayer

» Mating Calls

» Birthing Narcissus (including a reader's penetrating critical analysis)

» The Invitation (Poem set to song with images)

From Poetry into Song

These earlier poems, prayers and image-based works were, in retrospect, something of a forerunner to what has now become my SoulArts Studio work. I have long been interested in the place where lived experience, poetic inquiry, image and sound meet. Today that thread has moved more fully into original song works—using lyric and music to carry personal experience, memory, cultural observation and the questions that sometimes reach us more deeply through resonance than explanation.

» Enter the current SoulArts Studio

VIII. BOOKS BY RONDA LARUE (AT AMAZON)

» Remembering Who You Really Are: Awakening from the Dark Night of Soul

» The Art of Living Your Destiny: A Brief Home Guidebook

» "U-Who!" A Playful Romp for a Meaningful Party Hosting