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Florence Nightingale: Soul Type 4 (Alignment)
When a person truly speaks from their soul what she or he says or does is completely selfless, resulting in clear benefits for everyone. This looks different for each soul type. Soul type 4, for example, puts us in touch with our feelings and emotions by aligning our body, our soul, and the source. This allows us to feel who we are and makes us more aware of the effect of our experiences.
Until the late 19th century, nursing was not a respectable profession. Florence Nightingale's parents were extremely distressed that a young woman of high society, as she was, would consider this occupation.
Florence Nightingale transformed the nursing profession from one that attracted disadvantaged women, in which alcoholism and prostitution were the norm, to one in which care and concern for the patient became the paramount criteria for hiring nurses.
She not only brought her loving care to people in need, she also changed nursing techniques, which resulted in dramatic reductions in the death rate. For example, during the Crimean War, the nursing methods she introduced were responsible for reducing the death rate from 42% to 2%.
Florence Nightingale had her first profound experience of her soul's calling on February 7, 1837, at the age of sixteen. In the introduction to Letters From Egypt, by Florence Nightingale, Anthony Sattin writes: "In a private note Florence Nightingale recorded that, 'On February 7th, 1837, God spoke to me and called me to his service.'" It is important to note that the soul of a teenager has the same wisdom and capacity as the soul of an adult and can produce an equally profound effect.
In the beginning Nightingale did not know what her calling was, but as she grew and matured and had more experience of living directly from her soul, she became aware that nursing was her calling, and this profession would give her a way to bring her love into the world in the service of all.
In the introduction to the book, Florence Nightingale, Mystic, Visionary and Healer, Barbara Montgomery Dossey writes:
Like a fiery comet, Florence Nightingale streaked across the skies of l9th-century England and transformed the world with her passage. She was a towering genius of both intellect and spirit, and her legacy resonates today as forcefully as during her lifetime.
We know Nightingale best as the founder of modern secular nursing, but that is only one side of her many-faceted life. The source of her strength, vision, and guidance was a deep sense of unity with God, which is the hallmark of the mystical tradition as it is expressed in all the world's great religions. This aspect of her life has been vastly underestimated, yet we cannot understand her legacy without taking it into account.
Evelyn Underhill, one of the most respected authorities on Western mysticism, described Nightingale as "one of the greatest and most balanced contemplatives of the nineteenth century." This conclusion was based on Nightingale's life work of social action, which she considered her way of honoring "God's laws in nature."
Although Nightingale was deeply religious, she was extremely tolerant and honored the beliefs, rituals, and practices of all cultures under the British Empire. Her embrace of cultural diversity was ahead of its time and is particularly apparent in her 40 years of work to improve sanitary conditions in India. She stressed that all the world's great religions should be studied because, as she put it, this gave "unity to the whole-one continuous thread of interest to all these pearls."
Dossey goes on to write about the effect of Nightingale's work and the way it was regarded by others in the following passages:
Nightingale worked sometimes 20 hours each day. Soon even the most hardened officers noticed the effects of her commanding authority and healing presence. She had an utter disregard of contagion and spent hours over men who were dying of cholera or other fevers. On one occasion, surgeons laid five soldiers aside to die, deeming their condition hopeless. Nightingale and a few nurses got permission to care for these men through the night, and by morning they were fit for surgery. p. 129
Nightingale's compassion and care elicited the appreciation and admiration of the soldiers. Whenever a new group of sick and wounded soldiers arrived, she was often up for 20 hours at a stretch, dressing wounds and tending to dying patients without stopping. She was especially attentive to the severest cases, often asking to take care of them. When she walked the wards at night with her lantern, the soldiers saluted her.
She talked to the soldiers and cheered them with her calm voice, warm smile, and gentle touch. p. 153
The soldiers she so caringly ministered to and many of the medical officers and surgeons she worked with sang Nightingale's praises in letters to families and friends, which were then circulated to others. Florence Nightingale became a household name in all the villages, cottages, and factories of England. One soldier wrote home: "What a comfort it was to see her pass even. She would speak to one and nod and smile to as many more; but she could not do it to all, you know. We lay there by hundreds; but we could kiss her shadow as it fell, and lay our heads on the pillow again, content."
By all accounts, Nightingale had a rare healing presence among the soldiers, conveying hope in a way that helped them endure pain and suffering. Member of Parliament Augustus Stafford, who had assisted Nightingale at Scutari, told Richard Monchton Milnes, her former suitor that "Florence in the hospital makes intelligible to him the Saints of the Middle Ages. If the soldiers were told that the roof had opened, and she had gone up palpably to Heaven, they would not be the least surprised. They quite believed she is in several places at once." p. 154
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Copyright © 2000 Alan Sheets and Barbara Tovey