Reflections

I spent the past few days in South Carolina for my cousin’s wedding and I have some observations about my experience with prayer during the ceremony.

I was raised to believe in God, but I didn’t have what I what consider to be faith. As a child, prayer meant bowing my head and closing my eyes while someone else talked. I wasn’t comfortable saying, “Amen.”

When I was about 16 years old or so, I chose Christianity. My prayers became heartfelt.

When Christianity no longer appealed to me, I went through a few different prayer styles. The first was something like respectful defiance. I would not lower my head during prayer, but remain silent while others offered prayer.

The second was respectful silence. On the outside, I appeared to be praying like everyone else. On the inside, my mind was quiet.

The third style was real prayer, but I refused to think of it as prayer. I bowed my head and silently offered my wishes or energy or whatever to the prayer, but not to God.

During the prayer on Saturday, I had a new experience. When I was asked to pray to God to bless my cousin Ryan and his new wife, I did. I offered my prayers to Ryan’s God because he asked me to.

And it felt right, but I’m not sure how to explain why. I guess I feel that even though Christianity is not my religion, I want to honor and respect Ryan’s choosing of the Christian God to be the catalyst between my prayer and Ryan’s marriage.

To say it another way, I’m going to offer my good wishes/energy/prayer to Ryan anyway. And because he chooses to receive his blessing from God, then it is God who should be the one to receive and use my prayer.

I feel calm and grateful for the opportunity to let go of the bitterness I’ve felt toward God and Christianity for so long. My understanding of the Divine has risen to a new level because I’ve forgiven God.

I’ve gained understanding of Truth and of multiple Truths.

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Days of agonizing over a new name for my new business have drained me. When the name finally found me, I wondered why it took so long. It was so obvious.

Tonight, I’ve been feeling distracted. Too many things are competing for my attention and I can’t focus. Internal things. The full moon has been a ghost in the Eastern sky all day. Has she been competing for my attention too?

When it was dark, I gave the moon my attention. The chatter in my mind has stopped, and I feel drowsy. Now I can rest.

Thank you, Moon. I owe you another one.

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I’ve been so busy this week, I haven’t had time to work with my animal totems. Like Hawk, Moose appeared for me again to confirm our relationship. Being busy is good, but I miss my spiritual work. It’s like being newly in love. I want to spend all my spare time exploring my spirit, and I feel frustrated when I can’t. I’m full of the kind of happy energy that makes me want to twirl.

I think I may return to my yoga class next week. I’ve been considering it for a while now, and I pretty much talked myself into it last week. Not only did I enjoy my yoga sessions, but I felt like I had a spiritual connection with someone there. I also think forcing myself to get out and socialize with people would be very beneficial to me. I tend to be a bit antisocial and it’s very easy for me to isolate myself, but I get a little lonely.

Several months ago, I started using a program called Pzizz to help me sleep. I use it for both naps and regular sleeping. I love it. This week, I decided to try listening to music combined with subliminal messages to enhance my creativity and to help me work longer. I’ve had success with both.

I ordered some pillows (zafu and zabuton) to help me meditate more comfortably. I’d also like to set up a dedicated meditation spot in my office. Right now, I have a small space on my desk, but it’s not quite right. Ideally, I’d like to get something resembling a low tv stand with storage for my pillows.

Reading different theories about sleep requirements has me entertaining the idea of sleeping on the floor. I tried it for my 20 minute nap today, and I can see how it could eventually be a good thing. I think I may try taking my naps on the floor to see if I can get used to it before trying to sleep a full night on the floor. I worry more about getting cold than I do about the hardness of the floor.

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All of my entries about my rediscovered path of spirituality seem to have a common element. They’re all about trust, or rather, a lack of trust. Intuition, gemstones, animal totems, Akashic records, deity, meditation. I don’t trust myself to do them right. Even if I believed I was doing them right, I don’t trust I would get answers from a place beyond my own imagination. And I don’t trust any answer I might get from my own imagination is truth.

I’ve read several different sources that say it’s natural to feel like I’m making up the answers when I first start practicing meditation. The same sources also say that I will eventually learn to trust my intuition. There’s that damn word again!

Once upon a time, I had faith. If I had a problem, I prayed to God to ease my distress, then I let it go. I trusted it was being handled by someone else. Christianity was easier on some level. But is it faith? Or is it really the willing suspension of disbelief?

This new path feels very hands-on, which works for me. I’m a diy sort of girl, so a diy spiritual path is a good fit. :) But faith? I don’t know if I’m ready to trust like that again.

I suspect it’s my lack of trust—lack of faith—that’s causing my spiritual anxiety.

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I’m still having difficulty clearing my mind. I shift continually between elation and hopelessness. It’s been suggested that this could be a sign of my spiritual growth. It’s also crossed my mind that I may have a mental illness. I’m only half-way kidding when I say that.

I feel like I’ve outgrown myself. I’m a snake trying to shed its skin. Elsewhere, I’ve described this event as “the most demanding, stressful, uncomfortable, and frustrating internal struggle I’ve experienced.”

I’ve always thought spiritual growth led to enlightenment. I don’t feel enlightened. I feel confused, insecure, and uncertain. At times, these new ideas I’m exploring resonate with me so strongly I accept them without question. Then I wonder if I’m just a fool buying into an elaborate hoax.

I want to learn to trust my intuition. First, I need to learn to believe I have intuition. Sometimes, I have moments where I know something. They’re never important things. The instrument you played in high school band. The tv will show a program’s specific episode I’m thinking about. An actor whose name I’ve never known suddenly becomes know to me. And even if any of this stuff has to do with intuition, I have no idea how to use it. Besides being trivial, it happens without any help from me.

People who talk about trusting our intuition seem so sure of themselves. They get feelings about things. They can point out when listening to their intuition worked for them, and when ignoring their intuition turned out badly.

I’m looking at the world through a dirty windshield. And I’m out of wiper fluid. The more I use the wipers, the worse the view gets. It’s frustrating and unsafe.

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I’ve long wanted a symbol or icon which felt personal and important to me. So far, the symbols I’ve found to represent religion and/or spirituality have not been mine. Nothing has felt right.

During one of my ceramics classes, one of our assignments was to create a personal object using porcelain. We were supposed to take a ball of clay and carve personal and important symbols and ideas into its surface. I immediately felt this assignment was very special, and I longed to create my own spiritual stone. But I was also paralyzed with the fear of being unable to undertake this project. I couldn’t even verbalize the mystique I felt, let alone turn my swirling nebula of abstract ideas into symbols. I managed to avoid the project, but with great disappointment.

Through my recent art, I’ve gotten closer to finding meaningful symbols. My jewelry is moving in a new direction. I’ve also longed to revisit my abandoned porcelain project.

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I’m waiting. I’ve spent nearly every day this week sitting for hours at a time while waiting for something to happen. The imminence is very strong. Yesterday especially I felt the need to remain in this spot at my desk in complete silence. There was no music or television to distract me. I ate very little. I ignored the boxes and piles of stuff needing to be put away.

I’m listening for something, though not with my ears. I don’t want to do anything because I’m afraid I’ll miss it, whatever it is. I told Rob I was waiting for an email with the answers to the universe. Before I slept last night, I tried to clear my mind so I could be receptive to whatever it is I’m waiting for. It still hasn’t happened, but I was able to relieve enough of the agitation to get some of the boxes unpacked in my office.

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Many Pagan ideas have been part of my personal belief system for as long as I can remember. The one idea which felt sticky to me was the personification of Deity. I grew up thinking of God as a person. When I started questioning this idea, I found the concept of the Christian God didn’t mesh well with what I held to be Truth, so I half-heartedly sought a replacement Deity among the Pagan gods. Unable to find the right fit, I concluded I was not a Pagan, but an Atheist with Pagan tendencies. A Pagatheist?

In the book Paganism: An Introduction to Earth-Centered Religions, authors Joyce and River Higginbotham employ the use of a God Map to help their students gain perspective of their beliefs about Deity. One part of the God Map measures the view of Deity ranging from “transcendent” to “permeating”. The other part measures the range from “concrete” to “abstract”. This last point, that Deity can be abstract, was one I had never considered. Or rather, the concept of an abstract Deity was not one I had considered to fit within the realm of Paganism.

Answering the question of Deity was my last hurdle before being able to fully accept myself as Pagan.

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