Jul 10 2026
Dorothy Walters – They Speak
They Speak
by Dorothy Walters
They speak of enlightenment.
Can darkness
dispel Darkness?
light illumine Light?
O, My Invisible,
you and I know the secret ways.
— from The Ley Lines of the Soul: Poems of Ecstasy and Ascension, by Dorothy Walters
/ Image by Ricardo Gomez Angel /
A short one today from my beloved friend Dorothy Walters who passed away just a few years ago.
Dorothy and I connected in the early 2000s, around the time I started the Poetry Chaikhana as a website, and she was first blogging about her experiences of spiritual opening. She reached out to me and we began a correspondence. Not long after, she moved back to Boulder, Colorado, where she had lived and taught for many years previously, and where I was also living at the time. So we had the opportunity to meet regularly for brunches, laughter, discussions of poetry, and the movements of spirit in our lives.
We were in different phases of life. She was already retired and several decades my senior. Now, many years later, as I approach 60 and begin to imagine my own elder years, I look back upon my time and friendship with Dorothy as a source of inspiration, a template of sorts for how I might integrate the outpourings from the inner world with a still active outer life.
It’s a question most of us deal with at one level or another. What is the ideal work-life balance? Of course, work is not somehow separate from or contrary to our life. For most of us, it’s a hugely important aspect of our lives. But what is that inner-outer balance?
In some ways, this question is up for me more than it has been at any other point in my life. For much of my adult life, I’ve tended to view my work as a necessary chore, necessary to my life role, but always secondary. Spirituality, poetry, my immediate relationships were always primary in my mind. Interestingly, work has become more prominent in recent months for me. This is why the Poetry Chaikhana emails have been less frequent. I’ve been particularly busy with my work as a computer programmer. Right now, I’m especially focused on preparing for an upcoming conference.
While many around my age are perhaps winding down their work energies, my work focus is ramping up. It’s both enlivening and challenging to feel more engaged in the outer expressions of my life. It brings me back to that question of inner life, outer life, how to be fully engaged in an active outer life while remaining well-centered in a vibrant inner life. Some days that conscious integration, acting on all those levels in a balanced way simultaneously, seems effortful, perhaps beyond my immediate capacity. Then, on other days, I’m naturally in the flow and I don’t see a real separation; even the outer life is really just a further expression of that radiance within.
So I come back to the words of this poem by Dorothy. Can… light illumine light? It’s all there radiant at every level right now. Do I need to add effort in order to integrate things? Or do I simply need to remember to pause and see that it is already all illuminated?
We’ll see in the coming years how this plays out in my life. How prominent will my work remain? Will I eventually shift my activities more to something similar to what Dorothy did late in her life, meeting with circles of people on the spiritual journey, lovers of the arts and poetry, hoping to be a gentle light that inspires others? Dorothy spent most of her life teaching others, so sitting in on small social groups felt natural to her. I’ve tended to be a quiet, rather private, individual. So perhaps my pathway will be different. Or perhaps through my evolving work activities, I’m cultivating new qualities and skills that will lead to my own unique ways of connecting and sharing in my later years. We shall see. I am curious. I remain open.
you and I know the secret ways.
Have a beautiful day!
Recommended Books: Dorothy Walters
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Dorothy Walters
US (1928 – 2023) Timeline |
Dorothy Walters, PHD, spent most of her early professional life as a professor of English literature in various Midwestern universities. She helped to found one of the first women’s studies programs in this country and served as the director of this program for many years. After an extended residence in San Francisco, she spent the later years of her life in Colorado, where she had a close relationship with the mountains as well as various streams and canyons.
Ms. Walters underwent a major Kundalini awakening in 1981 (a phenomenon totally unfamiliar to her as well as to most of her contemporaries at the time). Following that experience she devoted her life to researching and writing about this subject and to witnessing the unfolding of this process within herself as well as assisting others on a similar path through writing and other means. As someone who made her extensive journey without the direction of any external leader or guru, church, or established order, she was a strong believer in the “guru within,” the inner guide rather than the external authority figure or institution.
She felt that universal Kundalini awakening is the means for planetary and personal evolution of consciousness, and that evidence of planetary initiation is becoming more and more prevalent. Her Kundalini awakening and subsequent process of unfolding are described in her memoir Unmasking the Rose: A Record of Kundalini Initiation. Her poems taken from her four previous volumes are published as Some Kiss We Want: Poems Selected and New. Her article on “Kundalini and the Mystic Path” was included in Kundalini Rising, an anthology from Sounds True Publications. Her poems, which have been included in many anthologies and journals, have been set to music and sung at the Royal Opera House in London as well as Harvard University, used as texts for sermons and read aloud in churches, included in doctoral projects, been frequently quoted, and have given inspiration to many.
The Poetry Chaikhana publishes her best-known collection of poetry, Marrow of Flame.
She often gave counsel and referral free of charge to those undergoing spontaneous Kundalini awakening and/or spiritual transformation.
Dorothy Walters published her blog, Kundalini Splendor, at www.kundalinisplendor.blogspot.com.
She passed away in 2023 in Colorado.