Why Don’t We Start Out Awake?

So what’s the point of most of humanity remaining spiritually “asleep” for years or even decades of their lives? Why can’t we all just be born wide awake? Wouldn’t the world be a better place if we were? Is it natural to start out asleep, or is it a consequence of living in a fear-based culture that stunts and restricts us? *Do* we need awakening as an initiation on its own, and if so, does that mean that all the things that have wounded and repressed us before are actually good and necessary?

These are questions that I wrestled with for a long time. After all, it seems like one can get so much more done in the world, can live one’s purpose so much more fully and vibrantly, after undergoing an awakening– so was everything before that just a waste of time?

In the end, I genuinely do not believe that any experience in life is a waste of time (even if it’s hard to see its value just yet), and I’ve come to believe that there actually is good reason for spending the first part of your life asleep.

Let me say up front that I don’t think this justifies the ways that we as a society hurt, limit, disparage, and bully each other into being mere shadows of our true selves, nor does it mean we should shrug our shoulders and overlook those unhealthy, cruel behaviors. Just as we can have a productive, restful night’s sleep or a troubled, stressful night’s sleep, there’s a big difference between a natural journey towards awakening and a death march through life in which we can only hope that some form of awakening comes as a crisis intervention.

Soul-food Reading

My poor neglected blog!

It’s been an unexpectedly busy summer, leading up to a couple of big projects in the fall. I’m off this weekend to Free Spirit Alliance’s Fires of Venus gathering, where I’ll be teaching sacred dance, presenting a sensual puja in honor of the Divine Beloved, and co-running a Trance Dance for the spirits of love, beauty, romance, and sensuality as a lead-in to that night’s fire circle. Fun stuff! I’m looking forward to a weekend of intense fire dancing and spiritual sublimity on some of the most beautiful and energetically-charged land in Delmarva.

So for now, I offer a couple of links to some good-for-your-soul reading that I deeply enjoyed:

Tom Robbins on the nature and feeding of the soul (I love that nutty bastard)

Karen Salmansohn in the Huffington Post with advice on winning the “happiness lottery”. Probably not anything you haven’t read in many other places, but it’s a good summary of key steps to a happier and more soulful life.

Enjoy!

Zen and the Art of Texas Hold ‘Em

Last week a friend of mine made a comment about tournament poker being a good metaphor for life. I assumed he was just being cynical, but when I thought about it, I realized that the current Texas Hold ‘Em craze does, indeed, have some valuable life lessons for the budding Romantic.

I won’t belabor the metaphor, because I’m at best a casual hobbyist at poker. There are just two things that really stand out for me:

First, you play many fewer hands than you are dealt, and even the ones you play, you don’t always see all the way through. Even a relative novice should know enough at the table to look at a hand, recognize that it’s crap, and junk it. And there’s going to be a lot of crap hands.

Second, in order to win, you need to know when it’s worth it to put your whole bank on it.

In the first case, the thing to take away from it is that you need to get in the game, but you don’t have to play every hand. Life demands engagement. The bare minimum is for you to sit at the table and ante up. Most of us approach life as though we are only willing to put up the ante if we can guarantee we’ll get a hand worth playing. We cling to our chips, unwilling to suffer a bad hand, and so by default we become non-players in the game of life. Actually playing means we get out there and try things out, invest some time or money or effort into taking a small chance on something new and interesting on a regular basis.

And a lot of the time, you might drop it. You take a semester of French and hate it. You buy a tennis racket that becomes your prize dust collector. You start dating someone and then decide you’re just not that into them after all.

We tend to, unkindly, refer to people who habitually do these things as “dilettantes” or “wannabes” or “flakes”. What happened to good old fashioned stick-to-it-iveness? Commitment? Perseverance?

Those things are great, but they should be reserved for the worthwhile investments. A smart player learns how to quickly assess what’s worth her time and what isn’t. She’ll give the hand a try, give it the benefit of assessment, maybe even follow it for a little while if there’s a glimmer of promise, but she doesn’t force herself to stick with a bad hand to the bitter end just because it’s the one she was dealt, nor would any sane aficionado expect her to. She saves her resources for the hands she thinks she can win, so she has something substantial to put into that calculated risk.

The value of those folded hands, then, is that it keeps us in the game so we’re already playing when that killer hand is dealt. Sure, so we tried out sixteen things that we didn’t stick with. We had fun along the way, right? Learned something new about ourselves? Got a bit of knowledge to apply to future situations? And, on top of that, we were there and open to it when a great new passion grew from one of those relatively low-risk attempts. *That* was the hand we followed to the river. That hand didn’t get dealt to the guy next to us instead while we were too chicken to play.

Which brings me to the second big lesson offered by Texas Hold ‘Em– when the situation warrants it, don’t be afraid to go all in. Put your whole heart and soul into the thing you truly believe will pay off in your life (and I HOPE you know that I don’t mean “pay off” in purely monetary/competitive terms!) Holding back, wussing out in the face of a big raise or a bluff, is bad strategy. You’ll never win, and losing is a bitter pill washed down with the salt water of “what might have been”.

Yes, maybe you’ll lose if you go all in. But you know you played your best, and it brings up one more piece of poker wisdom to play us off: There’s always another game.

The Shadow Side of Awakening

Following up to my post titled “What Is Awakening?”, I wanted to address the down side of soul awakening, because it’s very real and, for many people, it is a very confusing and painful time.

First let me say that it isn’t always traumatic, especially for someone who’s “hit the snooze” a few times and because of it, has started to become aware of what’s going on; or for someone who is fortunate enough to have an experienced teacher capable of answering questions and guiding them through the experience. (If there’s one need in this world I’m certain of, it’s the need for compassionate, wise, strong spiritual teachers who are not in it for mere ego gratification…) Some people do experience it as a predominantly joyful and exciting time, or they feel relief because things make so much more sense now.

However, living in a world where there *is* a dearth of real teachers, where religions have become politicized bureaucracies, where there are few remaining rites of passage and our public rituals have become commercialized within an inch of their lives, and where there’s so much information with so many competing agendas, most of us are left feeling alone and bewildered. We hack our lonely way through that wilderness, often frustrated, eager for any tiny sign that anyone has gone ahead and left a path. And when something extraordinary happens within us, we may not know how to handle it.

What Is Awakening?

“Awakening”.

It’s a word you’ll hear tossed around a lot in spiritual circles, often sounding like a New Agey version of Eastern concepts of enlightenment. It’s a word you’ll hear a lot around here.

But what, in practical terms, does it mean? How does one awaken? How does one know if awakening has occurred?

I’ll start with that last: Like with orgasm, if you have to ask if you had one, you probably haven’t.

That’s not intended to be as flip and unhelpful as it sounds, but rather to assure you that it definitely won’t pass through your life unnoticed.

Back in the saddle

Hello again!

I put this blog aside for a while, not entirely intentionally, as I made my way through an incredibly busy several months. Much of that time has been great– I’ve been teaching, writing, organizing parts of events, doing some very exciting work! Some of it has been not so great; but then, I’ve never claimed that living a life devoted to Love was always going to be glitter and roses…

I’m looking forward to updating this space a lot more often, as I evolve its voice and style, and post things that I hope will be beautiful and meaningful.

I also wanted to announce that I will be teaching a track on Sacred Romance at Free Spirit Alliance’s Mythical Journeys event, which is a long weekend of very focused, intense spiritual work. I’m thrilled to be doing it, and excited to share the news!

Be welcome here, all, and enjoy!

Muliebrity

I love that word…muliebrity. A friend taught it to me many years ago, when she made it the name of a grrl-power mix tape she made for me. It is to “woman” what “virility” is to “man”. And that’s what this entry is about—how to be a woman, in full possession of her feminine power. (For the inspiration and reason for writing this piece, read How To Be A Man at Steve Pavlina’s site.)

There are many ways to be a woman, more than I will list here, more that will no doubt be discussed by many other fine writers participating in this friendly competition. The ones I list here are the ones that I have witnessed and admired in many women in my life, the ones that I strive every day to embody, the ones that resonate also with the principles of a Romantic life (as I began to explore in this post).

They are the things that I would teach to my daughter or to any girl who came to me seeking advice on the path to womanhood. Whether you agree or disagree with me, I hope they inspire you to contemplate what you believe about womanhood, regardless of your gender.

Love Bhakti #15: The Light Within

I just read this story about a pastor challenging his parishioners to use a small sum of money (that he gave them from a loan) to go out and do something with it that would double the money, in order that it then be given back to the church and from there donated to three very worthy causes. (Warning– the end of the article made me cry.)

What really struck me about the story was the way that it pushed people to look at themselves and their gifts in a new way, making them see what they really have inside them and to use it creatively, to share it with others. The money was, in a way, incidental. People take money seriously, so being handed the seed funds really just ensured that they would take the challenge seriously and not just blow it off as impossible or whimsical.

Last night was the winter solstice, Yuletide, the longest night. This morning, marking as it does the return of the light, seemed like an opportune time to talk about returning to the “light” we each have within us.

Everyone’s heard the saying “Don’t hide your light under a bushel”, meaning that each of us has gifts and talents that are meant to be shared with the world, and that it’s a sort of false humility to pretend they don’t exist. But that’s usually as far as it gets taken– so no wonder people still dismiss it! It sounds like it’s saying that you have to put yourself out there and take the risk of showing what you can do, what you love to do, and opening yourself up for judgment for no reason other than “just because”. (Or, for some people, “Because God gave you those gifts so it’s wrong not to use them.”)

The implications of that truism run much deeper, however. It’s not about showing off for its own sake, or for ego’s sake, or as a holy dog & pony show. Shining your light on the world not only brings you the joy of doing something you love, but also does great things for the world around you. Your joy is infectious; it creates joy and love wherever it touches. The work you do out of this shining is much more powerful than work done out of rote obligation or resentment; it ripples through the world in ways you may not even be able to predict.

Going back to the article, one of the most beautiful things about that story was how the challenge made people experience, tangibly, that doing what they love can be a way for them to help others and benefit the world. It was a glimpse at the kind of talent and beauty that lies beneath the surface of every community. These people all turned to the things they loved to do, things that in many instances they had never thought of as being worth anything to anyone else, and shared them with the people around themselves. They poured beauty and love into the world, and reaped a tangible return that would have a measurable effect on the places to which that return was given– hard evidence of the worth of their lights.

Steve Pavlina has a thought-provoking article on contributing to the world through your career that is a terrific take on what I’m talking about here. One of the difficulties many of us encounter, I think, is that we are taught to undervalue our gifts. In an unhappy culture it becomes necessary to cut each other down out of the fear of what it might mean for us if everyone around us took the risks and lived their love. Those with artistic gifts or talents that are equally difficult to measure in monetary/hierarchical terms are particularly discouraged from trying to make a life out of them. They aren’t “real” or “practical” (or dreary?) enough. Just to be safe, we should get a “safe” career.

Can you imagine Louis Armstrong choosing to spend his life as a factory worker?

Yet that’s what so many of us do. We relegate our loves to small corners of our lives and try not to get too cocky about them, and spend the bulk of our time doing things we dislike or at best tolerate, feeling that we are somehow fulfilling a vague sense of obligation through our martyrdom. And it impoverishes the world around us.

Suppose the pastor had gone to his congregation and said, “Here’s fifty bucks. Go out and donate it to a worthy cause and come back and tell me how you spent the money.” Everyone who participated would’ve dutifully picked some recipient for the cash, handed it over, and been done, and gotten very little out of it. Instead, by being challenged to double the money through use of their talents, they opened up their lives, hearts, and imaginations. They forged friendships, started new businesses, gave each other gifts, created exciting memories, forged whole new identities for themselves.

And when they nearly tripled, instead of just doubling, the money they started out with, the money that was offered to charitable causes was infused with the energy of love and joy, with the commitment and excitement of the participants. In a metaphysical sense, it’s like receiving a handful of fresh seeds versus a handful of old dry ones. The dry ones might sprout, but the fresh seeds will probably take root more quickly and yield much more.

If you’re feeling the tug of the season and thinking about making resolutions for the new year, why not consider one along these lines: If you were given a sum of money to double through the use of your talents, how would you use the things you love to do to achieve it? Maybe even take the challenge yourself– even if you just take a twenty and use it to fund the experiment, with a goal in mind for the money you make. Do it as an offering to the Divine Wow, do it to benefit a charitable cause, or do it to give yourself a reward for taking the risk to see what would happen when you value your gifts. (If you do something like this, please post a comment with the results, or email me– I’d love to hear what happens!)

As the literal light grows longer once again and ripens the earth around us, let your metaphorical light shine stronger and brighter than ever, and ripen your life, your self, your world.

Love Bhakti #14: The Story of Your Life

I did an exercise from Julia Cameron’s Vein of Gold book some years ago, when I was still trying to get my head screwed on properly and purge the most unproductive and least interesting of my demons. It was a simple one, but lengthy, and the instructions were merely to write your own biography. But– the important part was, you had to write it from your OWN point of view. Only what you remembered and felt, as you remembered and felt it, not as it had been told to you by family or friends. The point of it was to see your life through your own lens, and therefore to realize how much of your view of yourself and your life had been made up of others’ (often skewed) perceptions.

It was a very revealing exercise; I discovered, for example, that although I had always thought of myself as being a shy child, the evidence of my memories didn’t back that up. I remembered many times when I’d made friends easily, approached people without fear, spoken up, instigated play. But because I was often quiet and lost in my own daydreams, and sometimes reserved in new situations until I felt safe there, others had labeled me shy and I’d simply accepted it.

I want to put that aside for the moment and talk about the origins of the word “romance”. “Romance” comes from “romans”, which meant “of the people” or “vulgar” and referred to the vernacular language spoken in France (to differentiate it from the formal Latin) in the medieval era. During this time, adventurous and epic stories of chivalrous heroes became popular at court. They were called “romanz” stories originally because they were written in that common language, but over time the term came to refer to tales with the elements of heroism, adventure, daring, courage, chivalry, and eventually (perhaps due to their large audience amongst the ladies of the court) courtly love. The archetype of these romances became the story of a hero who pledges his love and service to a (usually married and highborn) lady, and proceeds to embark on one or more challenging quests to prove himself worthy of her. Given that these stories flourished in the south of France where the worship of Roman and Celtic goddesses had been sublimated into fervent Magdalene and Marian cults, it is not hard to see a connection between the figure of the untouchable domina in these stories and the feminine divine; they probably struck the same chord, for example, that is touched now by Superman stories in a country soaked in Christian mythology.

A Thanks-Giving Offering

Meister Eckhart said, “If the only prayer you ever say is ‘thank you’, it will be enough.”

So in this perfect quiet moment, here is my offering on this feast day:

Thank You, Beloved, for the innumerable good and beautiful things in my life, the generous and fascinating people, the endless variety of color and music, the unseen hands helping, the benefits and triumphs. Everywhere I turn, everywhere I look, You have left me gifts that take my breath away, that teach me expansiveness and kindness and make me free. Thank You for the things that prove to me that life is beautiful and that this world’s natural condition is happiness and joy.

Thank You, Beloved, for the hardships, the sorrows, the times of loneliness and pain, the fear and rage, the injustice and cruelty. Each of these things has shaped who I am; has strengthened me and taught me compassion; has taught me what it is to be completely and fully present in every moment; has forced me to search for truth, and allowed me to see hidden saints among us. Thank You for the initiations I would never have asked for but that I have faced and come through, more than I was before.

Thank  You, Beloved, for the mysteries and puzzles, the things whose role in my life I cannot understand or explain. These are the things that draw me ever deeper into the experience of this life, into the search for wisdom and meaning and higher knowing; they teach me patience and paradox, offer me adventure, keep this world always new and interesting. Thank You for the things that ask me simultaneously to seek answers, and to learn to sit peacefully within mystery.

Thank You, Beloved, for this life, and this world, and this Love that runs through everything like sun-warmed honey. Thank You for this moment, this breath, this pulsing heart, this self, this infinity.

Thank You.

Thank You.

Thank You.