Filed under: Chanting, Everyday Spirituality, Sufi | Tags: Allahu Akbar, courage, fear, mountain driving, snow, wazifa
Yesterday began the first snowstorm of the year (that I’ve been in town for) here in the mountains. We knew it was coming – we knew when it started coming down, around four p.m., where we live, even though down in the city it was still just gray and rainy. My car, though functional (and cute), is not the most winter-adept. The “smart” thing to do, I thought, would probably have been to hurry home right after I was done teaching, while the sun was still out – while, hopefully, it was still just light flurries that weren’t piling up as mounds of slush or freezing into sheets of ice. But it was also the last day of my guitar 1-A class and our music-school recital — a big deal for me in terms of personal accomplishment and heart-goal follow-through, though nothing any musician would be impressed by. I thought about skipping it for about two seconds but knew I would be really sad if I did – so that meant facing worse weather on the mountain roads going home. Oh well. I am a little squeamish still, since my ice accident last winter when I totaled my beloved red pickup truck by crashing it into a tree. But I’m not a person who ultimately says no to things just because they’re scary. (Or, for that matter, just because they’re stupid.)
I was with my partner, who, in his extreme sweetness, actually came to my recital. Afterwards, we discussed which route we were going to take home. We were in separate cars, so we decided to caravan – I would follow him so that his ridiculously bright headlights wouldn’t blind me (but WOULD help me to see where I was going, as MY lights are ridiculously DIM). We decided to take the winding canyon road instead of the main freeway. He felt it would be easier because it is less steep. Personally, I find that road quite scary to drive on in the snow – with all its twists and turns and cliffs with no guard-rails – it is hard for me to keep from imagining my light little car sliding off the road and going down, down, down. I imagine that there are patches of black ice everywhere, that no matter how cautiously I drive, Nature can still screw me if that is what is meant to be. So I started out this drive biting my nails, or I would have if I were a nail-biter. Mentally, that’s what I was doing. Biting my mental nails.
I said a little prayer asking the angels to assist me in getting home safely. Then I took some deep breaths. And I noticed my breathing becoming more rhythmic. I have been reading Hazrat Inayat Khan’s writings about the rhythmic breath. He says the breath is not just air moving in and out, but a current that flows from the (supposedly) “external” world, through our bodies, and down into our deepest levels of being – it’s a mystical current – not made of air, but a stream of energy. And in touching our souls before flowing out of the body again, it actually flows through the Divine Source, which is what our souls are always in contact with, and emanating from. I will be honest – I do not really grasp this concept. I only even sort of get the idea of what he is talking about. But so many messages have brought the rhythm and depth of breath to my attention lately that I am convinced it’s something I need to be paying attention to. And sometimes I find that resting my attention to something that I want to understand, without probing or puzzling over it, but asking it to unfold its meanings – invites little bubbles of sudden comprehension to rise up silently and unexpectedly from those soul depths, that connection to Source, to which I was just referring.
So one practice is to place a mantra or wazifa (in Sufi terms) on the breath, which both helps to draw one’s mindful attention to the breathing itself, and also helps to cultivate or draw out the qualities expressed by that wazifa. And the phrase that came into my mind was Allahu Akbar. Usually translated as “God is Great” (or God is the Greatest), this saying has also been said to refer to God as the quality of strength (and, I have heard some say, specifically the incredible strength that is peace). Not one I usually use, but I thought, Okay, this is what came to me. I began inwardly chanting Allahu Akbar on every inbreath and outbreath – not saying the words aloud but saying them in my mind, speaking them to my inner self. And I did immediately notice myself becoming much calmer. My posture relaxed and straightened – no longer hunching tensely over the steering wheel, now I sat up with chest expanded, shoulders back, eyes clear and focused on the taillights ahead of me. Though I did encounter deep piles of slush and whited-out surfaces, I felt if I just held steady and followed those red taillights, I would be just fine. It was the regal quality of Jupiter flowing through me as I thought these words over and over, continuing to bring my attention back to the phrase when it wandered (to things like – the hundred-foot drop-off to my right). I released myself to the strength of God to carry me home. I felt the column of gold light I’ve been cultivating in meditation enter through the crown of my head, flow down through my spine and firmly anchor me to the earth even as I moved along the road. I allowed myself to trust in the strength of the Divine and let myself be carried in arms of ultimate strength.
The drive took something like forty minutes, and after a while I began to struggle to keep my focus on the wazifa. My mind wanted to daydream, especially as it began to feel more relaxed and confident. I did not think that would be a good idea. I tried to keep returning to the phrase; I tried changing where I placed it on the breath. I noticed my breathing was not as deep and peaceful as it had been at first. It was hard for me to maintain that sweet, surrendered state for the whole drive. Like in sitting meditation – sometimes it can be hard work to just direct the attention to one word, one concept, one stimulus, and keep herding it away from distraction, which, in this case, I thought would be detrimental to my safety. I felt as though I had been holding on to an invisible cord that was pulling me up the mountain more gently, lovingly, and securely than I could do for myself. I did not want to break that cord by breaking my concentration on the Divine strength that held the other end.
But as I finally turned off the canyon highway onto the county road to my place (the road on which my previous accident had occurred), and as I watched the heavy snowflakes swirling wildly through the sky in front of me, as I saw the snow already piled on the branches of pine trees, and as I felt the drafts of cold wind though the leaky places in my car, one of those bubbles came up from below. Allahu Akbar – the Greatness of God – wasn’t the feeling of confidence and support that I had clung to all during my drive up the mountain. Or it was, but that was only a tiny part of it. The Strength of God was visible all around me in the snowstorm itself! How powerful it was – making people afraid, and altering all the terrain; but its mightiness was part of the great wheel that moves the earth through its right cycles and seasons, and all of us with it. It came to me that relying on the Divine to support me through frightening natural events, like holding my grandfather’s hand, was one thing, but a whole other way of looking at Allahu Akbar is this: the Divine Quality of Strength is inherent in all things, because all things are emanations of the Divine. If I look honestly and without fear at the snowstorm, I can see Divine Strength evidenced there in a form that is awe-inspiring and beautiful. I can connect with that essence of strength as I see it in the storm.
I suddenly recognize that I am actually part of that snowstorm. It is happening all around me and I am not just in the midst of it but part of it – like I am part of my environment, not just being impacted by it. The quality of Divine Strength is in me just as it is in the storm – we are not separate. Why should I be afraid? The storm and I are part of the same being.
The moment of clarity quickly faded after I got home safely and was reabsorbed into the general distractions of life. But I hope I will remember in the future to look at those things around me which frighten me, which I perceive as outside of me, threatening me – and remember that we are one in essence, and there is no need to not be at peace.
Enjoy your day, whether it is snowy or sunny!
The view from my window
Filed under: Everyday Spirituality, Life, Practices | Tags: breath, love, mantra, meditation, negativity, spa, unworthiness, worry, Writing
Yesterday I went to a day spa to use the gift certificate I got for my birthday from my partner’s wonderful sister (I guess I can’t say sister-in-law, even though that’s how I think of her, because “in-law” is exactly the one way we AREN’T related!) two months ago. And man was I ready for it — I work in a spa so I see the fancy ladies come in for their multiple services and float out the door five hours later looking absolutely blissed out. A month into the semester I was ready to be blissed out too.
But sometimes when I do things like that, i.e., go to the spa by myself, I DON’T leave floating on a cloud; instead I feel like the cloud is inside my head. And it is: my negative thoughts, my undeserving thoughts, my recurrent thought that I am doing everything (even relaxing) all wrong. I had really been looking forward to this day and I really didn’t want to sink myself with self-criticism. So while I sat in the waiting room I tried to think of a mantra for the day — something I could direct my mind to whenever it started to go off on an unhelpful track; something my brain could hold onto like the hand can hold a pebble, to ground it when it starts to worry. The mantra I chose was simply “I love you,” repeated on the in breath and the out breath both. Later, when I was, indeed, so relaxed that my posture resembled that of a cooked noodle, this writing came out:
I love you I love you I love you I say — to myself, I love you as I breathe in, drawing this truth up from the ground beneath the floor beneath my slippers beneath my feet — finding the love in the energy that radiates from the earth — the Earth is the “I,” the mother Gaia. I love you I breathe out, filling the bubble of my aura with this phrase — now I am the “I” and the “you” is me too. I just want to fill my own field with the pink glow of loving but I know that as it fills with light it will shine those waves out and have an influence on the air, the crowd, the trees, and the earth all around me — so really I am breathing out “I love you” to the whole world.
Love!
Filed under: Life, Music, Spiritual path | Tags: Michigan Womyn 's Music Festival, Writing
One of the trips I took this summer with my partner was up to Hart, Michigan for the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival.
MichFest has always been my partner’s thing, from long before we got together. He liked to go every year, and so I’ve gone with him every year since I’ve been with him. (He? Isn’t that festival notoriously womyn-only? You may remember my partner’s a female-to-male transsexual, and he started going to this fest back in his angry lesbian days. Hey, we’ve all had them, right? Anyway, you may also know this fest has an official ANTI TRANS policy, so you can imagine what a can of worms it is for him/us to be there. He’s been productively processing that, with amazing wisdom and beauty, in his writing since we’ve been back. It’s been cool to see.)
Well, because I am working two part time gigs, neither extremely well paying, and I was making less as a part-time community college teacher in the summer, I was unsure about laying out this big chunk of dough to go to something I knew from experience would be simultaneously both a good time and major drag. Last time we went, right after his firing from Women’s Studies, between the trans hate, our own issues and the thunderstorms, we un-pitched our tent a night early and departed, growling that we would not be back for a long time, if at all. Two years later …
I know I tell way too much of the story and take too long getting to the point. Okay, since I was committed to going but feeling ambivalent, I decided I was going to make the whole journey (we were planning to travel around for another week afterwards visiting friends, culminating (for me anyway) with seeing my Sufi friends and teacher in MO) a sort of vision quest, less in the Native American sense than like Parsifal and the knightly quests of the Grail days. Since I was going into a big festival of music, getting the opportunity to see a lot of shows, hear a lot of musicians and artists talk about their process, go to workshops like the intensive drumming class I took, and basically be surrounded by creativity in action, I wanted to open myself to greater knowledge and clarity of my creative vision. I have known I have been pursuing something, but it has been more of an unnamed feeling than even a thought. I’ve been after something, trying to develop something in me, it has to do with playing and writing music, and maybe other writing too, and teaching (and doing) chant … but it was starting to get a little crazy-making so I decided to make the whole trip a spiritual quest and to seek in all things, from acoustic stage folk music concert to Twilight Zone panty party, whatever information or insight might be there to be found for me. I tell you, it made things very interesting for me. It really made me pay attention – I had my antennae up all the time. I found myself savoring the times I walked alone on the paths – in the company of truly magical trees, mulling over the bits and pieces that came to me. Though there was definitely upset going on around me, I was having a very close, intimate and sweet time with myself.
I am sure I will refer to more stuff from this time, because it brought a lot that I am still working with (yay! that was what I was hoping for after all), but I wanted to share one of the things that seemed both the most “duh” and also perhaps on some level the most important: and when this came to me I was, in fact, sitting on the grass at a concert at the acoustic stage. I don’t remember who was playing or what prompted this thought, just that it suddenly occurred to me, It seems I have a lot of anger in my life, and one of the main things that anger attaches itself to is this idea that I don’t have time to play music or write or learn how to play the guitar better, etc. etc. I would like to reduce the anger in my life because I don’t enjoy being in fights, either with myself or with others. So – maybe if I devote more time to music and writing, I will actually have less anger in my life. OMG! This was like a lightning bolt to me (and incidentally, lightning did actually strike a tree the second night we were on the land. I brought a piece of it home with me “for use in magic” as they said). It seems very simple, almost stupidly so – like, why does this seem so profound to me?
I guess it seems profound, even if obvious, because its implementation makes such a huge difference. I really did/do have a ton of anger – which is frustration at not following what my heart is pushing me to do, aka my inner guidance, which is strongly suggesting I work on developing my music and writing, counterproductively turned against my own self (if I am self-hating) or my external circumstances (if I am blaming). It is the blocked energy that has been wanting to go toward these things, becoming something else. Because I have not been able to honestly acknowledge the importance of those things to me, and the role I really want them to take in my life – as a big part of what I am doing on this planet. Putting myself out there and committing publicly to the fact that I am pursuing a creative dream of some kind – well of course it raises all sorts of terrifying anxieties of the “who do you think you are, lame-o?” variety. But when it came down to a choice between actual greater peace of mind and continuing to thwart my own energies, well, one just sounded a lot more enjoyable so there became no excuse not to go for it.
So hence the guitar class that I enrolled in immediately after I got back from this journey. Hence new commitments about writing, and a lot more experimentation, and, of course, the revival of this blog. Truthfully the main reason I didn’t want to give it up even though I haven’t written all this time is because I like the name. Hey, whatever works.
That’s all for today. Peace be with you!
What a year it’s been. Moving to Colorado, many ups & downs (and not just my commute over the mountains ha ha ha) … a lot of fodder for thought packed into a relatively short amount of time. You could say the stimuli have been highly concentrated for the past while.
Lately I’ve felt my pendulum swinging from a strong drive to go out and meet people, join groups, visit family and friends all over the country and interact constantly with others, to a definite and un-ignorable desire to go inward. I have really felt most like getting down on my hands and knees and digging around in the muddy earth that is my brain. Since May (spring Sufi camp, actually) my main desires have been to pray; to chant; to push deeper into understanding, even just a tiny bit more; and to create and create and create! The feeling of fertility in the inner landscape has lasted a long enough time to surprise me. Though I hold the awareness that it IS a cycle, and it WILL end, and swing in perhaps a third, as yet unknown direction — I still fear its end because I don’t have faith in myself to make the most of it.
Instead of just sitting down and making stuff, which is what I want to do, instead I sit down and ponder how best to divide up my time, and then I have a discussion about it, and then I dust my furniture, and then I remember something I need to do for work, and THEN I might squeeze in half an hour of letting neat things flow from my hands. But really, even those half hours, even those fifteen minutes sometimes, they come around more often than is normal for me and so *I* feel like it is a rather lavish abundance. So, that’s a good thing!
The more I decide to let myself be absorbed in what I really want to do, the less fear will have room to rise up and distract me. So, that’s what I’m working on right now.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Well, I took a lot of trips this summer and I really enjoyed the heck out of them. I got to see all of my family in the whole USA, and then I immersed myself in the worlds created by my spiritual families out in the woods somewhere, bringing back so much learning, so many insights about my path, and so many new projects that I want to pursue. In the process, I used up all my vacation days and spent all my money, so now I am saying “sorry, I can’t” to a lot of fun plans being made in my vicinity.
When my partner told me the dates he planned on going to California for our only niece’s first birthday, I got a little bummed. And when I thought about what it’s gonna be like around the holidays when he is all excited about the music he’s singing with the choir, I felt a little bit panicked. Like, sure, right now I feel like I need to scale back, cut down, and prune some things out of my life, but what about when the fun is actually happening … somewhere else? How am I going to feel then? will I be kicking myself for the decisions I’m making now?
So I guess I need to get clearer on my motivations. And I can’t put the blame for my choices on external circumstances — like whether I have a lot of money or not. (The real question, anyway, is whether I feel myself to be abundant or not.) I have this nagging fear that if I let my negative perception of my financial condition to determine my choices, I will be making all bad decisions. Really I have to ask what the voice in my heart is telling me.
And she says, “Stay home.”
I am afraid of missing out on stuff, especially social stuff. I don’t have sufficient confidence in my own social abilities to think that I will have “enough” friends, “enough” interactions with other people, to keep me from feeling isolated, depressed, sad, jealous. So really it comes down to an inner battle between two scarcities — scarcity of money vs. scarcity of friends. And if that is the level on which I deal with the issue, NEITHER choice is going to feel quite right — I will end up with a nagging anxiety that the other scarcity is going to get out of control.
What I really must investigate within myself is what I am going to do about the pressing need I feel to go within, to explore the boundaries of my creativity, to see what is there on the edge of my awareness, wanting, waiting to come through. Is it worth it to cut fun trips and social activities in an attempt to bring the muse to the foreground, to listen to what is there? It’s an unknown. What if it’s nothing? A false alarm?
Maybe I just need to trust that there will be “enough” in the future — “enough” opportunities for connection — in fact, the opportunities are really infinite. Choosing to go within now, to pare down my activities, doesn’t have to mean I will have no friends.
And loneliness, jealousy, feeling left out — these are not unproductive states, maybe. They are teachers. They will teach me to have confidence in what is within me: infinity.
I feel like a dork sometimes, admitting the things I don’t know how to do. Like, for example, praying. I am learning to pray. Last night I went to Bible study at my church for the first time (the first time I have been to a Bible study since college) because I was drawn to the topic — “Purpose, Power and Practice of Prayer.” It was described as being for anyone who wants to improve and deepen their prayer life in any way. When I saw that, I thought, Cool. That’s me. I want to improve and deepen my communication with Spirit.
Last night’s study was a beginner’s lesson in praying, addressing common fears and hangups that tend to block people’s growth and risk-taking in that area (which I never would have even thought about). The study leader (the pastor of the church) talked a lot about the ways that some people make prayer out to be very difficult, tricky, or complicated, with specific skills required for the prayer to count, and he emphasized instead simplicity and the need to find the right way for you personally to talk to and with God. I would say that over the past few months I’ve been becoming more comfortable talking to God in a heartfelt, sincere, and conversational way, spontaneously, with words coming from my heart.
Something I have not really understood, though, is how to pray in a group, as they do in the church I go to – what is the attitude, the intention one should have, how do I align myself with the person who is praying aloud? Do I silently repeat the words they say, in my head? Do I mentally and with my heart respond, “Yes, yes, yes, yes…”? Sometimes I felt like I was pretty much saying to God, “What she said,” and I felt like I just wasn’t getting it. I wasn’t feeling satisfied with the experience I was having, wasn’t feeling linked up.
Tonight, after choir practice ended (with closing prayer), I was pondering this question and something came into my mind which helped me to connect with the practice. When praying as part of a group, being led in prayer, the person can join with the circle — truly become part of it. Become no longer the individual self. Then the circle or the gathering becomes as one body, praying with the voice of the person leading as the voice of the body itself. It came to me that the more I can feel the reality of being part of one body, united on a deep level in the act of prayer, the more I (or anyone) can touch the edge of the experience of the elimination of the illusion of separate selves. It is an opportunity to communicate with God as a larger, many- souled being. That kind of blew my mind when I stopped to think about it — the idea of a many-souled being, and being a part of that.
So that’s the way I found in to group prayer, and it resonated with me as a way to express myself in prayer with God in a way that is right for me. I offer it in case it resonates with anyone else in a helpful way – just a different take that turned my head as it was passing through!
Blessings and love to all, and may you all have an ever-deepening and ever-evolving relationship with Spirit!
Peace,
Heartland Soul
As all the trees together are one forest ... (This is at Split Rock in MN)
Filed under: Everyday Spirituality, Life, Marriage | Tags: collaboration, grace, Prayer
A moment of grace happened tonight, that I thought I’d share:
My partner Hawk and I are planning a church service together. We’re co-leading the service at his aunt’s Unitarian Universalist church. I think it has come as a surprise to both of us that the planning process has been fairly contentious. I.e., on most things we are not tending to see eye to eye. From how we were going to actually compose the sermon to which affirmation to use for the benediction, we’ve been disagreeing on everything.
Things had gotten out of hand, to the point where it seemed like every time we sat down to actually plan the thing, we ended up having a big fight! I kept thinking, For crying out loud, this is supposed to be a sacred occasion and an opportunity to be of service (to the Great Love, no less) and here we are fighting! What is going on? But I also knew that I was as responsible as anyone for the condition our process was in. And, truthfully, I didn’t really have any faith in my ability to not start or engage in arguments with Hawk over bits and pieces of the service. I could see that something was pushing my button for “feeling threatened and powerless” — I didn’t know why it had come up, but I was stuck in a pattern of feeling like all my opinions were being steamrollered, if that is the right word — feeling like I didn’t have any say and my creative contribution ws going to be lost. This is something from my childhood. I don’t really know why it’s been coming up at this particular moment or what triggered it in the first place, but I was definitely feeling stuck, and I was really suffering because of it.
I have, however, been praying for grace — this was both strongly encouraged by Hawk and inspired by the Caroline Myss book I mentioned in the previous post (in response, in fact, to just such fears as as I described). Once I humbled myself enough to be willing to let go of the pain (and to try something Hawk suggested) I prayed for my heart to be strengthened enough that I would be able to choose things that were harder but right. And I prayed that my actions could be aligned with God’s will. (This phrase, for me, expresses my knowing that I am out of alignment and also not honestly knowing how I will — or can — bring myself into re-alignment; I guess it is an expression of trust in grace, that somehow even if I don’t actually think I have the strength of will to always do what is of the highest good, it can — somehow — end up being done through me.)
And also I took a page from the AA book — one I never really got into while I was going to AA, but which felt appropriate now — and prayed that God would take away my character flaws. Jealousy, for one, and the fear of being overshadowed (itself actually an expression of choosing the ego over the higher self). I did not groove on the language of “character flaws” in my AA days, let me tell you. But I’m at a place now where I see the value that concept can have … I can see how such a prayer could really be the gateway to having a big step up. (I think the twelve step program is actually a wonderful path of prayer, self-knowledge, knowledge of God, and service — not unlike the path of mysticism that I was talking about before. Note how I never got a sponsor or did the twelve steps, either. 
)
Anyway, when I wasn’t actively engaged in prayer, I wasn’t really thinking about these things as I went about my day, but I gradually realized that a shift was happening in the way Hawk and I were working on the service — or rather, in the way I perceived the process. I actually started being able, when I noticed a potential conflict coming up, to not start a fight! Sometimes this meant just letting something pass by without question or comment, and sometimes it meant telling Hawk that I wasn’t thrilled with some element he was proposing, but I was willing to go along with it if he was excited about it. I felt glad that we seemed to have achieved some degree of peace, though it felt precarious to me.
then we got to the subject of the affirmation to use in the benediction. Hawk had proposed something; I had objected on the grounds that it wasn’t specific enough to our topic; yadda yadda yadda; I had made a whole fuss about it the last time we tried to have a planning session. This time, I said to myself, I will go with the strategy that seems to have been sorking so well — just go along with whatever he proposes for the sections he’s in charge of. So when he brought it up, I just said, Ok, sure, that’s fine.
But even though I said it was fine, he went on to explain why he liked it, why he felt like it was a good finish to the service, and how he thought it related to our sermon. At first, I started to get a little defensive — I could feel some resistance coming up. Then the thought occurred to me — and this, I think, was the moment of grace — like a little voice in my head: “Wow, ok, he’s trying to share with me why he thinks this would be a good fit, and I’m just dismissing it because I still want to hold onto my feeling of being right, regardless of whether we use it or not. What if I just — allowed myself to listen to his reasoning? What if I opened just that much?” And … as a matter of fact … I did start really listening to what he was saying. And I did feel my heart opening — and I did get where he was coming from. Really.
So I was able to say, Yes, let’s go with that, and actually mean it. And some peace was sustained. But really the true moment of grace was in the sudden flash of light with which I saw that I was really attached to the feeling of being right — that up to this point I’d been choosing that over my love for my partner. And once I am able to see that that’s the choice I’m making with my actions (in this case, my words as actions) — I definitely do not want to stay there! But I might still not have the moral courage to change my direction — in essence, admit that I was wrong, and change my actions and words accordingly – were it not for God’s grace and the strengthening of my heart that I prayed for. In fact, it may be that every time I admit to being wrong, and that someone else was right (or even just that they have a good point!), that is happening because of an intervention of grace. Because the habit of clinging to the sense of rightness is very strong in me. And I think that much of the time I don’t even realize I’m doing it — let alone realize what choices I’m making from that place, and what those choices say about my priorities! I’m saddened every time it strikes me how far away I am from the ideal … but I do have faith that I can get better, step by step. And moments of revelation like this one tonight, where I realize how much I am reliant on grace for any change I make for the better in my self … are really pretty mind-blowing to me, pretty heart-filling. And I just have to say I’m grateful for being shown a glimpse of what I was actually doing, difficult though it may be for me to witness, and I’m grateful that although I didn’t know if I would be able to do it, the right thing happened through me.
Good night and love,
H.S.
Filed under: Marriage, Spiritual path | Tags: courage, destiny, fear, mysticism, Spiritual path, surrender
I’ve started in a book group that’s reading Caroline Myss’ book Entering the Castle — it’s based mainly on the writings of St. Teresa of Avila (along with drawing on other mystics in other religious traditions). The idea of the book is to teach readers how to follow the mystic’s path while living in the modern world — to become “mystics without monasteries,” as she puts it — ultimately to arrive at the mystic’s true goal, the life lived in identification with the divine soul. Which is, in essence, union with God.
You know, within the last couple of months I committed myself, with witnesses, to a path of mysticism and a path of ministry. I did these things because I felt a strong inner call, and praying about it, I felt I received clear and abundant signs that it was the right thing to do. I can admit now that I did not make these commitments with a full understanding of what they would demand of me. I also felt I could not choose otherwise. It was not a question of logical consideration. In fact I find it really hard to explain the reasons why I chose these commitments, and so I am more comfortable keeping them to myself.
I agreed to marry my partner after only two and a half weeks of dating for similar non-reasons — realizing well into the journey that my commitment to this union would really require of me that I grow a lot, that I face my own buried dysfunction, that I learn to think less of my small self, to become more selfless. And to be extremely flexible.
So now that I have been a spiritual bride and taken new vows, first of all, I find all my shit getting stirred up — all that stuff that keeps me from truly being available for service. In the last few weeks I’ve had some really painful experiences of struggling with lack of forgiveness (for myself, others, situations…). Another area that’s been triggered is my old social anxiety, feeling ill at ease and self-conscious in social situations, like I’m always making the wrong move. And of course, writing all this and recalling the ways I have been chastising myself reminds me that self-acceptance remains one of the big areas where I still have a lot to learn.
In the midst of all this, Caroline Myss’ book comes along. I find as I begin to read it that the promises of the introductory chapters comfort me in some deep way — they seem to hold out hope to my soul that there is direction and guidance available — that there is peace that can be found — indeed, by following a path the entry gate of which I’ve already passed through.
They also kinda scare the crap out of me.
I realize that I actually am not a little afraid of going down that path. I’m a little scared of the journey in and of itself. What will it reveal to me about myself that is not acceptable to God? What will it insist that I do? What will it force me to give up? Will I feel those things as difficult or painful, or will they simply arise in their proper time as natural next steps, easy and joyful to take?
How will following this path change me? … I notice that this human life of mine, with its aesthetic arrangement of material comforts, its intellectual pursuits, and its interpersonal relationships organized into the predominating social structures of the day … this small life of mine, put together with so much energy and attention … it’s compelling, it distracts me away from the spiritual path. It pretends to be in competition. My small self reads of the union of the soul with God through the effacement of the ego, and thinks of its comfortable apartment life, and thinks that that would be painful to sacrifice, it would be hard to let go, and my small self is unsure that the metaphysical rewards will be worth the discomfort of growth and change.
I wonder now if this is what The Lord of the Ringsis really about. I’ve been re-reading the series this summer — I read it all the way through several times as a teenager, but haven’t looked at it for a long time, and I just got the urge to revisit it and see what my current self makes of it. I was curious to see if I would find its meanings and lessons changed as I read them from a new vantage point in life. So now I’m thinking about Frodo’s journey as a nice metaphor for the journey of the soul. (I know lots of people have suggested religious interpretations of the series before — I’m not arguing for a critical interpretation — just saying that as another version of the archetypal story of the Hero’s Journey, as a story, it can help us understand that othet heroic journey that is inward, toward the divine spark within.) Frodo signed on for a dangerous journey into a completely unknown wild, answering, when called, from his heart, not his head. He took it on for the good of all — surrendering his own will and accepting that his death was likely with deep courage and faith. There was something in him that was unwavering — that, when he was surrounded by total darkness, and all of his hope was gone, that nonetheless continued putting one foot in front of the other, until there was nowhere further to go. And when he got there it turned out that the goal could not be accomplished by his own power at all, but only through the intervention of a power greater than himself — what might have been called, in the context of the story, destiny.
I don’t think, here in the West, that we really understand the meaning of destiny anymore. It’s only through reading the works of Indian and Middle Eastern writers that it’s even beginning to dawn on me that there is a big gap there in my (and our) cultural understanding. But there is something about both the way I met and married my partner and the way I came to the spiritual path I’m embarking upon today that has a feel of destiny. What that means to me is that I have a feeling that there is some purpose in these meetings, that some piece of some plan is clicking into place, that, to put it simply, some good will come of it. At these times I’ve felt the elusive edge of a sense that all our souls are part of a great … perfection, an extremely complex and delicately balanced story that is unfolding exactly as it should, the only way it ever could, toward our evolution, toward our highest good.
This barely-touched sense of rightness, totally inexplicable though it may be, still gives me enough willingness, courage, and excitement to put one foot in front of the other down the path into the utter mystery.
Thanks to you for allowing me to share this with you.
Love and blessings,
Heartland Soul
Filed under: Everyday Spirituality, Life | Tags: change, coping, doing your best, surrender
I just drew this angel card:
BLESSING IN DISGUISE
“What appears to be a problem is actually part of your answered prayer. You’ll understand the reasons behind your present situation as everything resolves. Trust in heaven’s protection and infinite wisdom to answer your prayer in the best way.”
This was in response to a request for information about the overall lesson I’m supposed to be working on through all of this upheaval, the bigger picture. Oh, those angels.
I must believe this on some level, because I say it all the time, and it comes out easily, like something I believe. I especially say it in regard to my spouse’s future. I know it will come out all right — I know his star is headed up — that he’s moving on to something that’s a better match for him (though I don’t know what that may be). I noticed I don’t say it as much in reference to myself, my own future. A major era is coming to an end for me in ways that are totally unrelated to Hawk’s job. It’s time for me to be moving from “student” to “professional” as I finish grad school and massage school within the next month. I’ve been freaking out for the last couple of days about all the change … worrying.
I think some of what I’m experiencing is just natural grief as some important things pass out of my life — a part of life’s cycles, the dying of each moment into the next. And another big part of what’s been getting me down is worry, the irritation and distress at not knowing what’s coming next, not being able to control or predict it, not knowing what to do in the meantime to ensure a positive outcome. Being afraid that whatever happens it’s going to be painful for me and there’s not going to be much reward at the end of it. I.e., experiencing (unnecessarily) the imagined painfulness before it happens — if it’s even destined to happen at all.
Friday I had a whole mini-lesson on this very topic. I say “mini” because it was only one day compared to the months-long transitional period we’re in, but it made a dramatic impression on me (and it did seem to go on for the entire day, repeating the theme across multiple contexts). This was a day I’d been planning for the past week — a “fun day” in St. Louis. Hawk was going to drive out to meet me in the middle of a weekend I’d be spending there for school; we’d use some free movie tickets I’d acquired to go see the new Star Trek movie, spend the night at my friend’s and generally make a day of it. A city date. And, I thought, we really MUST go to the Botanical Gardens in St. Louis — we definitely had to before leaving the state, and this would be one of the best times of year to see it, early May. So I planned this whole day around us going to the gardens, searching online for places to eat, routes to different movie theaters, gay places in the same area to go dancing after the movie. It was an elaborate itinerary and it kicked off with the Gardens and so damn it, we must have a good start! Everything must go well! With all the stress we’d been under (individually and as a couple), I thought, we really needed this day of fun.
(I hope that from my exclamation points, capitals, and italics you can gather a sense of the pressure I put on myself about this day.)
Hawk was supposed to meet me at one, after my anatomy class let out. This class begins at 9 a.m. For at least five hours straight, I kid you not, from the time I woke up in the morning until fifteen minutes after one p.m. it poured down rain in a five-hour thunderstorm. It thundered and lightninged the whole time. The sky was dark gray and the rain was pounding on the patio roof. I was sitting there for the entire class thinking, F, f, f! How can we possibly go to the Botanical Gardens in this? The whole day is going to be RUINED!!!
Well, I reluctantly patched together some backup plans. Someone told me we could still go to the Climatron (I was bemoaning this situation to several of my classmates who knew the city better). I was like, Yeah, okay, sure. We’ll do that and it will be okay. It’s sure not May flowers, though.
Well, at 1:10 I was waiting for Hawk to show up. (It’s a two-hour drive from Columbia and he’d gotten a late start.) I had to stand behind the door of my school and look out because the rain was blowing so hard horizontally into the porch.
At 1:13 it seemed like the rain might be letting up enough to actually go out to my truck without getting totally soaked.
At 1:15 the rain stopped entirely.
By about 1:30 it was completely sunny with a few fluffy white clouds, seventy degrees, with a cool, gentle post-shower breeze.
We had a fantastic time at the Botanical Gardens. It really was awesome — with all kinds of spring flowers in bloom. And we had a very fun time together. And it wasn’t hard for me to get the point of this story (you might say it was like a blinding ray of light): When you (I said to myself) are sitting there wrinnging your hands and saying Oh no, oh no, this is going to be bad, stop worrying! The very outcome you have been hoping for might be just about to explode into being — even when NO signs suggest it could even be possible. That’s the way Spirit works, that’s the way miracles work.
And I don’t want to take away the message that I am always going to get exactly what I want, that things will always turn out exactly like I plan them, regardless of the weather at any given moment. It’s more that — I’m to be reassured that things will be all right. That something even better than I can imagine is coming. And that worrying about what the future’s going to bring in the way of badness is not only unhelpful — it’s frequently irrelevant.
So — yeah. You can call me on this. Cause I don’t have it down yet.
Peace to all,
H.S.
