Personal Higher Power

Questions are like Pandora's box. . . .once they're opened, the question can't be unasked. . . .and once the mind has begun to question, there is nothing less than the truth that will suffice and answer.

The question asked of me was about how I envision my personal higher power, that spiritual presence that loves and cares only for me. . . .and I was left feeling silent and empty within. I mean, I believe in God, because I have experienced God in very real and personal ways, but to believe in a spiritual presence that loves and cares for me personally? Well, I have just never experienced anything at all even remotely resembling this kind of spirituality.

I have heard people talk about their personal relationship with God. . . .or the personal Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. . . .so I can't help but wonder if these are the answer for other people, but I have just never experienced a feeling of being held or contained in a spiritual sense in a way that makes me feel personally loved and cared for. I feel loved as a part of all things, but never have I felt loved and cared for personally.

The unsettling part of the question is in the truth that I don't believe in this kind of God, and I never have. I look out at the world and see the amazing dance of life and there is no question that divine intelligence is behind this magical creation. I have experienced Grace when I have not deserved it. . . .I have felt protected in ways that I can't explain in human language. . . .but to believe in a spiritual presence that loves and cares for me personally? I just don't believe in this kind of fantasy. . . .and, yes, I do believe this is a delusional fantasy, a wishful thinking on the part of human beings.

How could I possibly believe in a God who loves and cares for me personally, and then juxtapose that belief with all of the "evidence" that belies this kind of love. When people love and care for one another, they don't stand by and just watch while "bad things" happen. . . .at least not the way I define love. So if God is so powerful and omnipresent, then how can this all loving, kind, and compassionate higher power just watch and do nothing to intervene?

God doesn't intervene, because God isn't an interventive God. . . .how could I possibly believe that God who makes choices like that? People talk about God's plan, and how we can't understand it, and I don't judge anyone who believes this way of conceptualizing God, but it makes no sense to me on any level. If God has a plan, then that plan includes cancer and the helpless being tortured and abused by those with a greedful lust for power and control? God's plan involves war and murder and genocide and being hung from a tree because of the color of your skin?

If all of this is part of God's miraculous plan, then I want nothing to do with this kind of God, and that's the deepest most heart felt truth I can speak, and I don't give a flying rat's ass what God thinks about my refusal to get on board with this kind of world, if this is, in fact, the great plan of God. So, yes. . . .I absolutely question God's plan, and I have no problem doing so. . . .because if all of these experiences are part of God's great plan, then the promise of heaven is just one more layer of the great lie.

. . . .and just when I have resigned myself to the life of a spiritual orphan, the unexpected happens, and turns everything upside down. . . .

I am literally in the middle of writing this blog, preparing to type the words, "I am nothing but a spiritual orphan," when out of the blue I receive a text message from my nephew (whom I rarely hear from) that reads:  "Hope ur doing well. Thought I'd drop u a line and let you know that I'm thinking about u =]" and my heart is cracked wide open. Is this text message a mere coincidence? A random act of kindness? Or did something greater than the both of us motivate my nephew to send me a text message with exactly the words needed to challenge my lack of belief in a spiritual presence that loves and cares for me personally?

So, I don't know. . . .if there is a higher power that loves and cares about me personally, then I would really like to become personally acquainted with this love, because walking through life as a spiritual orphan is not always a warm and fuzzy way to live the journey. . . .and if you are out there, then I really do want to know you. The funny thing is that I have always thought that I did have a personal relationship with God, but I am just now, in this moment realizing that I have never felt (or even considered) that God might want to have a personal relationship with me.

Port au Charles

Some dreams stay with me longer than others, and this dream remains vivid and alive with information and insight. . . .

I dreamt that I awoke to find myself flying an airplane, but I'd been asleep in the cockpit for an unknown length of time, so I had no idea where I was, but I knew I needed to get out of the clouds, so I dropped down to find that I was just above the ground and able to land quickly and easily. The place where I found myself was at the very bottom of the world, a place called Port au Charles, in a land of paradise for people with disabilities, a place where they were accepted just as they are, with support for what they need, and jobs aplenty that they were able to do, and everyone walked around full of joy and warmth.

I don't even know what I would do in a place like this, a place where everyone was accepted even with their limitations, and provided with everything they need to succeed and be happy all of the time. Could there actually be such a place?

This dream has allowed me to ask some different questions about the nature of my journey, questions about what my needs really are, and what I would need to feel supported to succeed and feel happy all of the time. Happiness isn't really something I put a lot of stock into, but from this dream I could see more clearly that the people of Port au Charles were happy because they were accepted as they were and supported with what they needed to succeed. . . . and this kind of environment was what brought about their happiness rather than what they did (or even why).

It also makes clear that happiness is not a direct need. To make the statement, "I need to be or feel happy" is a meaningless statement, because there is nothing directly to be done to meet this need. Now I see that happiness is something that arises on its own when my needs are met, so my focus naturally shifts away from the desire to feel or be happy to looking at what my needs actually are, and then how they can best be met. I think it's very possible that a lack of happiness is really nothing more than a chronic environment that is unable (or unwilling) to meet my needs, and this awareness will change everything. . . .

The other surprising truth emerging from this dream is that I have not been acknowledging the needs that are being met by the environment I currently find myself in. . . .but that's because I haven't been focusing directly on what my needs are, but rather on how miserable and unhappy I feel. . . .so I'm embracing this wonderful new place I have discovered in my dreams, this Port au Charles at the bottom most part of the earth, a paradise for the people of special needs. . . .lol

Unpacking

When I moved to Forest Falls (back in 1995), I noticed something peculiar about the way I move, something I had never noticed before. But this awareness clarified a habit that I've had my entire life, and that is that I don't "unpack" after a move for at least six months. Oh, the big stuff gets unpacked right away. . . .all of the stuff I need and use on a daily basis, but everything that makes a home a home? That stuff stays boxed up for at least six months before the slow process of creating a home begins.

What I am realizing this morning, is that this habit doesn't just apply to a geographical move. I've had a bag of "stuff" from when I was staying down in Prescott during my leave of absence, and it was only this morning, now 3 months past when I have returned home, before the bag was finally unpacked, sorted and purged.

Old habits die hard, I guess.

It's like I somehow don't "trust" that a move is going to "stick" unless a certain amount of time has passed. . . .a remnant from all of the moving we did during the first 12 years of my life, I'm sure. But it's like all of the anxiety also gets boxed up with the stuff, so much so that it takes months before I can open up these boxes (or bags) and unpack them. I always feel better, though. . . .once they're unpacked and everything has found its new place in my home. . . .just an odd thing, how the anxiety gets all packed up with the stuff.

I think it's more than this, though. There is a part of me that does not want or like to move, and when I look back over the very long history of moves that I have made both as a child (when the moving was in my mom's control) and as an adult, the general reason for most of the moves has been a form of solution to some problem that needed to be solved. . . .so we moved. . . .problems solved. . . .lol.

As a child, I hated moving. . . .it generally meant leaving behind anything of personal meaning. . . .going to new schools. . . . .making new friends. . . .but also having no choice or say in the matter. . . .so all of that sadness and anxiety got boxed up just like everything else that couldn't be left behind. But as an adult, I have taken on this form of problem solving into my own way of being. . . .but I don't think even my adult self enjoys moving, either. . . .which explains why I am dragging my feet to leave the canyon, even though another part of me feels ready to move on. . . .I just don't want to move again. . . .I'm too tired from the long string of moves to solved problems of both choice and circumstance.

Life isn't always linear, as memory spirals through our life like the emotional DNA that defines who we are across both time and geography. . . .and sometimes we have to dive down below the surface of the memory before we discover who and what we really are.

Shantra

Many years ago I had a dream about an older, wise woman who was aged and bed ridden, but she was singing this amazing and beautiful song throughout the dream, a song that I had never heard before, and her face was illuminated with a radiance of inner peace that made her glow in her beauty. And at the end of the dream, after several queries on my part about her beautiful song, she whispered into my ear that I needed to learn how to sing my own shantra.

I have always loved this dream, a dream about learning that song that only emmanates from within one's own soul, a song that each of us has to learn how to sing for ourselves. But I have also always thought it was sort of a play on words, a "she mantra," if you will. Yet today I stumbled upon the Sanskrit word "shanti" which means "peace, rest, calmness, tranquility, or bliss," a translation which completely changes how I now understand what the woman in my dream was really trying to tell me.

Shantra. . . .the mantra of peace, rest, calmness, tranquility, bliss. . . .that song of personal truth each spirit needs to learn how to sing for its self. . . .the song that God sings each of us into our own unique existence.

I love when my world gets shaken up in wise and wonderful ways. . . .

One of the "process tools" used in the women's group I facilitated in my private practice is called the Shantra Journal, a tool used to separate one's personal shantra from the "truth" that other people try to impose upon our personal truth, a tool used to help focus the mind on how to listen to one's inner shantra. I really miss my women's groups. . . .that amazing process of helping other women learn how to sing their own shantras.

I know that I'm here at this amazing canyon for a reason, and that reason has not fully run its course, but my shantra is calling out to me, begging to be heard, and I am craving an environment where that deep calm within myself is free again to sing herself back into existence. . . .

All You Need is Love

I have come to an unexpected conclusion about my place in the world, and how I create meaningful purpose in my life. When I look at the list of more "traditional" ways that people create purpose, I have none of these contingencies, so I feel outside of my self and in search of meaning. But when I look at this list without judgment, I can see clearly that the common thread running through is love. Human beings create meaning and purpose around that which they love, whether that love be for child, significant other, family, or friends.

So why are other pursuits of love any different?

I'm not sure why it feels frivolous or narcisistic to create a meaningful life around pursuits of love, rather than persons I love. I don't have children, or grandchildren, or spouses to love, so why should this mean that the places where I find love are any less meaningful than these? If God is love, then I think the point should be simply to fill one's heart and life with love. . . .do the things we love. . . .be with the people that we love. . . .eat the foods we love. . . .and be in love with whatever life we may find ourselves a part of.

The problem is that I am nothing more than a cog in the wheel here. I'm not doing what I love. . . .I'm doing what keeps me under the radar and behind the scenes so that I can focus on me for a while. And even though this may be what I need right now, the work that I'm doing is not meaningful to my spirit at all.

So what I'm saying is that I think the point of all of this crazy thing called life is nothing more than finding what we love. . . .even when we do not always love what we find. Some people find love in their children, or grandchildren. Other people find love with a soul mate, or soulful friends. And others find love in the meaningful work that they do. Why is one source of love better or more right than the other?

Does it really matter to God where or how we find love?

Love is such a loaded word. People can say, "I love you," but does it make it so? I've been "loved" in ways that left me deeply scarred for life. . . .was that love? I've also been loved in ways that suffocated me because the person was so emotionally needy. . . was that love? I've been told, "I love you," then never heard from the person again, or only heard from them when they wanted something from me. . . .was that love? I've also been told, "I lied when I told you that I love you". . . .so, was that love? If someone does something they love, but it ends up harming someone else, does that qualirfy as love?

I think human beings can throw the word love around the way a hockey player shuttles a puck across the ice, so perhaps I have some work to do before I can feel "warm and fuzzy" with the idea of finding love in the realm of human relationship. But in the meantime, I'm going to let myself fall back in-love with my life. . . .eat the foods I love. . . and do the things I love to do. . . .because these are the reasons (at least for now) why I am motivated to get up each day.

The Point is Navajo Point

I remember when I was five years old, how I would lie on the bottom bunk trying to figure out if I was awake or dreaming. . . .and if I was dreaming, I wondered how far through the night it was (and how I could know). Had I just fallen asleep? Was it midnight? Was I just about to wake up? At five, I didn't understand that I was asking a fundamental existential question that plagues even the best of philosophical minds. . . . .I just wanted to know if I was awake or dreaming. And although I never really found a meaningful answer to this question, this fact never stopped me from asking.

Half a century later, I am still asking questions about the nature of my existence. . . .with no better answers, unfortunately, than found by my five year old mind. . . .

I'm not depressed. . . .and I'm not suicidal. . . .but I just don't understand what the point is to my life. If I were to disappear in this instant, there would be no significant change to the ebb and flow of the world. . . .none. Someone else would be hired for my position at the switchboard, people who knew me might feel a moment of sadness at the thought of me being gone, but my place in the world offers no significant daily contribution. The only part of my world that would be significantly impacted by my passing would be my cat, as she would need a new home.

As I said, I'm not depressed, and I'm not suicidal, I'm just questioning my place in the world and searching for that thread of purpose that gives me reason to get up each day, something more than just another day's struggle with anxiety, panic, and chronic sleep deprivation. I don't have children to raise. I don't have grandchildren to enjoy. I don't even have a spouse to love and cherish, so where is the purpose and meaning to a life if there are no contingencies to connect with?

Is it enough that we are created?

Thinking fondly of the cow I met down in Prescott last fall, the blissful cow eating grass as the sun set, oblivious to anything going on in the world. The cow doesn't think about its place in the world. The cow doesn't search for meaning and purpose. Is that kind of peace and serenity even possible on the other side of an existential crisis nearly half a century old? And, if not, then what's the point? Is happiness the point? Is life satisfaction the point? Is survival from Point A to Point B the point?

I don't know, maybe I am just depressed. . . .but being depressed (even if that is the case) doesn't change the essential need for the question to be answered, because I don't like the fact that any inherent meaning to the course of events in my life boils down to what I do to make a living in this God forsaken world I find myself living in.

Finding the Home Within

I've posted previously about this book I've been readong on the archetypal heroes within. . . .January processed through The Innocent, and February is the month for processing through The Orphan. This is definitely a dominant archetype of mine, especially in its shadow aspects. But surprisingly, what I'm finding is also a lot of warmth and hope on the other side of researching the exiled parts of my life.

The Orphan manifests as either the Exile or the Rebel, and I have strong tendencies for both manifestations, but the one that's rising to the surface first is clearly the Exiled Orphan, that part of me wandering in search of home and that deeper sense of belonging. . . . the part of me who feels perpetually alone in the world. . . .without home. . . .without a safe harbor to retreat to. . . .and without any hope of every finding that which I so desperately seek.

When my Exiled Orphan brought me to the canyon nearly two and a half years ago, my life had just been pulled out from underneath me, and I needed a place to let the dust settle for a while (which it has). What I didn't know then was that having the rug pulled out from beneath me was going to only be the beginning, as there was still much more of my life that needed to crumble away before I would begin to find my bearings.

But I am honestly starting to feel grateful for how my life has fallen apart around me, because I can sort through the pieces much more easily this way, and when I move on from here I will be a different person all together, and I mean that in the most wonderfully positive way that I can. My Exiled Orphan may have been the archetypal force that delivered me to the canyon, but it will be a different archetype who leads me to the home I will create for myself and all of my little exiled orphans within. . . .lol.

It is a wonderful thought, that I can be my own hero and create the home of love and warmth that my little exiled orphans have craved and longed for through the long, slow years. . . .sort of like my own personal orphange. . . . the spiritual house I have personally been granted deed by God :)

Emotional Field

I learned in my process group that "escape" and "avoidance" are two of the most significant ways that trauma can manifest, so I've been diligently observing my responses for signs that I might be avoiding or trying to escape uncomfortable and undesirable situations or circumstance. It's shocking (to me) just how much I actually do so. I'm also amazed by the invisible "emotional field" of my orphaned exile that sits in wait for these opportunities of potential liberation from the exiled life.

It's one thing to know "intellectually" that humans beings experience life within the context of an emotional field, but it's quite something different to observe that emotional field when it's in motion and affecting my responses to what's happening around me. So I am getting all kinds of practice on observing this process without needing to act on the immediate reactions, although I don't like the fact that there is so much practice to be had. . . .

God Wills It!

I recently watched Kingdom of Heaven, and what keeps haunting me is how these men justified their actions by yelling out, "God wills it!" It's offensive, to me personally, how so many wars have been waged in the name of one God or another based on the justification that God wills it.

How do people know the difference between God's will and their own will?

I had an epiphany earlier about my epiphanies, and all I can think about now is how much of a slave or puppet I have been to my epiphanies! I have these powerful moments of clarity, and somehow whatever "truth" emerges takes on a higher level of meaning and purpose. And not only that, but they very often motivate me to realign with them because they somehow feel more like what I am "supposed" to be doing than whatever it is that I am actually doing!

Why do these epiphanies feel more important, more substantive, more clarifying of what I am "supposed" to be doing?

I don't know how other people determine what is their will and what is God's will, but in this moment I honestly have no clue how to discern this for myself. I think I have been interpretting my moments of clarity as somehow God (or the Universe) intervening in my life direction to make corrections and adjustments (because they feel so much "larger than life"). But after today's epiphany about my epiphanies. . . . the truth is that I just don't know.

There is a scene from Gray's Anatomy when one of the cheerleaders tells the head cheerleader (who has been injured in a bus accident that will take her out of cheerleading for a while) something to the effect of, "I asked God what to do, and God said I should be head cheerleader." How does a person argue with that? How does a person question God's will, especially when God's will is revealed to and through another person?

In the film, Kingdom of Heaven, if anyone questioned the proclamation of "God's wills it!" they were accused of blasphemy, so what is left if God's will is revealed to some, but not to others? The king tells Balien that "A king may move a man," but goes on to say essentially that the soul of the man still belongs to the man, and the man must account for his own actions before God, and cannot justify his actions by what he was told to do by someone else. Powerful stuff.

I'm not trying to define truth (or Truth) for anyone else but me, so I make no judgments about how anyone else builds thier relationship with God or determines how the will of God moves through their lives. But in this moment I honestly have no idea how I am supposed to "know" the will of God for my own life. So the bottom line is simply this: If I am going to have a personal relationship with God and live as a spiritual adult within the house that God has granted me the deed, then no one else can tell me what the will of God is in my life, especially if I can not even discern this truth for my self.

Epiphanies...

Today I wrote a letter to a young person who is experiencing a difficult life transition, and when I finished, I walked along the rim like I was walking through the landscape of an ephiphany. It's like somehow I keep forgetting who I am, and need occasional reminders of not just who I am, but where I'm supposed to be. I sobbed my way along the rim and all the way to the post office, all the while planning my new life reorganization, but that's when the real epiphany occurred. . . .

Ephanies (for me) are like little ground hogs that pop up from my soul and reveal something important in the light of day. . . .they're larger than life, and feel more present and real. But I've been taking these moments of clarity literally, rather than understanding them like dreams that use symbolic images to express what my deeper self needs me to know in that moment. If an epiphany involves images of living in a specific place, I've been interpretting that to mean that I am "supposed" to be living there, or doing something that also emerged as part of the epiphany.

Oh, my goodness. . . .I've been getting my epiphanies all wrong!

So, moving forward, I'm going to take the images that emerge from my epiphanies and work with them the exact same way that I work with my dreams, and seek to understand them as nothing more than my deeper self expressing feelings and desires in a symbolic language that exists outside of words and logic. Because, perhaps it's not always about uprooting and repositioning. . . .perhaps it's more about revisioning and rearranging :) What a wonderfully fresh way of looking at my epiphanies!