The Sublime Passage

For a long time, I’ve been feeling increasingly drawn to the idea of writing, and I’ve started to write more and more through journaling, attending a monthly writing group and of course this blog. Lately, I also experience a lot of spontaneous acts of writing, when paragraphs, phrases and sometimes entire pieces seem to write themselves in my mind. It can happen anytime. I could be in the shower or driving down the highway. It’s even happened when I’m sleeping.

Last year I began working on a non-fiction book, but I was quickly stymied by my feeling that I wasn’t “qualified” to write. Who would read it?. What made me think that what I had to say had any kind of value?

I’m still learning how to  live into my questions, so I’ve just been doing my best to hold this question of what I might write, without getting frustrated by the seeming lack of answers. (more…)

“If my mind is crowded with ideas or thoughts or plans or other people’s creations there is less room for my own.  And it is my own mind and journey that I wish to experience, because it is from this vantage point that I can most truly engage others.

Alice Walker
We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For: Inner Light in a Time of Darkness

Today I was inspired by the latest post, entitled “Be the Real Spiritual You”, at Lola Fayemi’s blog Nourishment for your Spiritual Awakening.  (Thanks Lola).

I consider myself to be a spiritual student/seeker/being.  More importantly I consider myself to be a “conscious” spiritual student, meaning that I now understand it to be the very foundation of WHO I am. I choose to focus energy on nurturing and developing in this area. It’s so clear to me that my ability to be happy, loving, productive and functional correlates directly with the amount of energy I put into my spiritual health. That being said, if you haven’t been living your life with this understanding, when you take it on you’re forced to rethink that whole “WHO AM I?” question.  Take it from me; it can be really be challenging to reconcile whatever notions you used to have about who you are with the new spiritual notions of who you are – particularly if, like me, the whole “Who Am I?” thing has been kicking your butt for most (OK all…) of your lifetime. The spiritual component adds another sometimes perplexing layer to it.

There are so many assumptions placed on the word spirituality and even those of us who consider ourselves to be spiritual carry our own set of misconceptions, judgments and stereotypes about what spirituality looks like. This is what causes many of us to shy away from coming out of the “spiritual-closet” – as Lola put it so beautifully – when we become consciously spiritual because we’re afraid some of our family/friends/colleagues won’t get it and will think that we’ve lost our ever-loving minds.

Early on in my spiritual journey, I remember telling a friend that I’d started taking a basic meditation class at a local Buddhist Center. (more…)

“…suffering occurs when we want other people to love us in the way we imagine we want to be loved and not in the way that love should manifest itself, free and untrammeled, guiding us with its force and driving us on.

Paulo Coelho
The Zahir