Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Roman Kozlowski on August 20, 2008 at 12:51am

That’s funny (coincidentally peculiar, not ha-ha); I left just such a ponderous reply to Mike on my FO thread, which I suppose would be more appropriate here. So here’s a copy of it again…

________________

Mike wrote:

I'll try and limit scriptural references and quotations and stick to a more philosophical answer to the questions.
Why is it that some people feel the need to believe in God and others don't?
The religious worships God. The Atheist worships nothing (or in many cases Science). Most people can be divided into two categories. Those who believe in Deity, and those who believe in Science. Both help satisfy a natural desire to have some foundation from which to base their lives and actions on. It also provides explanations for things that are unexplainable.

Why some people prefer belief in deity, I feel is the power of faith. Science is very objective. It provides explanation for things observable. Once you know, you know. Faith, requires something more. It is a greater test of character to see someone who will hold true to some unseen objective despite all opposition. For Jeff, his faith in God helped him overcome great challenges. It gave him hope and strength to do what many cannot. Many cling to God because it gives more reason and purpose to life than science or a belief in nothing can offer.

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I replied:

There you go again Mike. Not totally true. It’s not as simple as just black & white. Most of us if the truth be known live in the grey between science and deism.

I know that many of you here who believe in a God of the bible, also have great respect for the discoveries of the natural laws of physics and some of even the rudimentary aspects of evolutionary processes. And only a fool today would say that we are the centres of the universe.

I for one do not see myself as a total atheist, end of story. I am well versed in the major religions and more importantly the ancient myths from which they originated. So my interests in the ‘Holy’ scripts are not for faith and worship but for historical research and their aesthetic value, which help me to delve deeper into trying to better understand the deistic natures contained within ourselves and why ancient civilizations felt the need to worship and so created their gods. Why has this lasting predominance been such a powerful aspect within the psyche of humankind? There’s obviously a reason.

My experiences as a trained research scientist, psychologist, a creative musical artist and academic theologian, overtime have very usefully merged to produce within me a more heightened perceptiveness to what our ultimate realities and our nature of being may more accurately be. So, in that sense, I see myself as a pandeist that is loosely anchored to a more atheistic hard-nosed scientific harbour, though my anchor chain is long enough for me to venture into checking-out deistic possibilities that relate to my own experiential sense of existence. Without doubt, I sense a divinity working within me, the ‘sacred’ life force that actuates my mind. My ‘religion’, if you like, is this exiting journey that invigorates my every atom. Sometimes I feel so close, almost there, as precious moments that carry the sense of the divine pass by. Then I see the divine in others, their often fumbling yet heartfelt expressions, then I know they’re grasping for the same thing, even though many are not even fully aware of it, and some have think they’ve found it.

The older I get and continue in my ponderance of such things, the more I have come to realise that I the ‘drop’ am also the ‘ocean’.

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Permalink Reply by Roman Kozlowski on August 20, 2008 at 2:58am

Mike. Your experience post to this new thread, I found unremarkably revealing of you. Your attributions to the workings of a divine being guiding you through life, to me sounded like normal everyday routines of life, and relatively uncomplicated and uncoincidental ones at that.

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Permalink Reply by Maju on August 20, 2008 at 7:42am

There are many but anyhow, here there are some of them:

Experience 1:

I used to be plainly atheist. Sure that I was philosophical enough to acknowledge that atheism and pantheism were about the same, differing just in the mystical experience, but I was more atheist than pantheist then in any case.

Then, out of curiosity, I happened to take a look at Astrology. This was triggered because many people in my enviroment happened to take this seriously. The more diect trigger was surely an affair I had with a woman who was very intensely interested in it. Oddly enough I found that people appeared to resemble way too closely with their astrological archetypes, even when only looking at Sun signs. After a while I had to admit to myself that there was something more than I had been acknowledging.

Nevertheless this was a experience of knowledge, not mystical. But anyhow very confusing.

Experience 2:

I was then practicing yoga regularly (what is a great spiritual discipline) and one day I decided, while under the effects of cannabis, to visualize void. The black boundless vision lasted only a few seconds and was soon disrupted by a fireball crossing it. The fireballs became threads of light crossing space-time and they made up a human-like (woman-like to be more precise) figure who played those strings of light on her own "body" like if they were a musical instrument. I understood that she was God and the Universe at once.

Experience 3:

I was yesterday night at a folk concert of Ibon Koteron (+ invited artists) and, well, it was at times extremely mystical. It would have surely been much better in the wild with some magic mushrooms but anyhow at times I (and the people that was with me there too) experienced the wild mystical vibe of the penetrating sound of the alboka or the archaic rythm of the txalaparta.

I did feel by moments how Ibon was God (just like you or me, you know) and how he was subverting the souls with his musical magic, transmitting the Adur (Basque term for the omnipresent magic floid) from the dark depths of the ill-known past, recreating the spirit of the ancestors and the land...

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Permalink Reply by Denita on August 20, 2008 at 9:25am

Well, Roman, maybe that is what there is to reveal of Mike.

My question is: When do you describe your experience and reveal your self? Or is intellect, philosophical thinking, education, etc. what there is of you? I don't "think" so. I don't "intuit" that. Yet, I am waiting for more.

Perhaps you could tell me how it feel (4 letter word) s to be the drop and the ocean, in an experiential fashion and instead of theoretical.

You know, it's possible that folks may reveal more as the discussion continues.

Within the purpose of this discussion, and for me personally, I doubt that confrontation and judgment will provide the safe sanctuary for people to reveal themselves. So, I am going through different doors in this discussion, in search of a different place in RG and our tribe's souls.

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Permalink Reply by Jeff H on August 20, 2008 at 3:38pm

A modest miracle for me circa 1978.. pasted from my blog page.

A young man wants to buy a Bible for his grandmother. She's getting on in years, and kind of particular. The requirements are simple;
King James Version (the only one she would read)
White (She didn't like black Bibles)
Large Print (her sight was going)
Cheap (the young man was flat broke)

To complicate matters, its Sunday, so all the Christian Bookstores are closed, and the young man is going to see her later that day for her birthday. (The occasion for the gift.)

The young man leaves church and gets on the freeway heading home. He's talking to God about the matter, feeling bad at having put it off till too late, when he hears a voice. Call it insane or schizophrenic, but it says to take the next exit. The young man does. Its a part of town the young man had never been in before. Never- Ever- Not Once. The voice says turn this way, later turn that way. Once it said turn, and the young man looked down that street and didn't see anything hopeful. He went straight instead of turning. The voice said "Now you've blown it.", and the young man made a U-Turn and went back to the street where he was supposed to turn. He turns left where he was supposed to go right coming the other way. After a way he was instructed to turn into a parking lot, which he did. He get's told to park in a spot and he does. He looks up and is in front of a bookstore.

The young man goes in and looks around, and the store has a religious section they are phasing out. One or two books left, and one bible,

King James Version...

White with Gold Foil letters on the front...

Large Print...

Little orange clearance price tag, $12.00 for a $30 or $40 dollar bible.

The young man, now an older man has that same Bible at his house now. It came back to his hands after his grandmother passed away. Sometimes, when times are very hard, he picks up that Bible and takes a little time with it. The effect is always subtle, yet always profound.

Would such a story have an effect on anyone other then the man telling it? Maybe yes, maybe no. I can say this; anyone he has handed that Bible to, whether Christian or not, gets very quiet for a while.

God Bless,

Jeff

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Permalink Reply by Denita on August 20, 2008 at 11:27pm

Jeff, I completely believe you in terms of "hearing" instructions to go this and that way as I've had similar experiences. Such as renting a small house in Kansas that did not have a refrigerator. Of course, I needed one and an inexpensive (i.e. used) refrigerator. It is summer. I am driving along the main avenue. There are garage sale signs sporadically and I am ignoring them - until I suddenly see one that "grabs me" and I know that my refrigerator is there. I turn. A nice, old fridge is on the driveway w/ other stuff for sale. $20. Score! The sellers even deliver it in their truck and carry it up stairs and into the house for me. But, when I opened the fridge, I didn't see truth. Sometimes I saw carrots, or orange juice.

Similar tale: my son has the kind of skin that female mosquitoes looooove to bite. If he is near me, they bite him and leave me alone. My sister is the same way. When Hans is bit, he swells up and gets a welt, an allergic reaction. Playing outdoors one evening - shirtless even - with friends, Hans was stung numerous time without even noticing it, until later. Then, he was miserable. I already knew that all the common concoctions didn't work for him. Later, I took a shower. As I was exiting the shower, a "voice" told me, "Try coconut oil." I did. I applied the oil and could see the redness and swelling going down. Immediate relief.

Do either of these tales indicate the voice of god speaking to me? According to Mike West's/Jeff's tales: yes (I think). According to my interpretation: no. I might ascribe Mike's good fortune to solid social connections and synchronicity and a willingness to take risks. For Jeff's tale, my fridge, and the coconut oil --- well, we are getting immediate information from somewhere that we can't see or hear with ears. Clearly to me, there are forms of communication or realms or energy or ?????? that works and that cannot be measured with our present primitive scientific tools. Because of my perspective (how I define god) the fridge is not a spiritual experience -- maybe I missed an opportunity there! Ha! The coconut oil tale reminds me of plants instructing shamans on their medicinal use. Initially, sounded far fetched. After the coconut oil voice, well... maybe not so far fetched.

I, too, have a white Bible w/ gold letters - a gift from my grandmother.

You wrote your tale well, Jeff. Nice little piece of literature.

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Permalink Reply by Denita on August 20, 2008 at 11:32pm

Aaaaah (savoring) beautiful tales.

While my analytical self can not see the scientific reason that astology would be accurate and influential, I, too, have noticed more than chance resemblances, even some accuracies, in astrology. But, I am rather ignorant about the field.

What do you mean by "subverting the souls"?

Did you mean "omnipresent magic field" (not "floid")? What do the Basque people believe about this - and I'm assuming you mean folk belief - or perhaps contemporary people also hold these beliefs?

What you describe in your last paragraph is shamanic work. Do you have any understanding of how the musical magic accessed the mysterious past, how the spirit of ancestors and land were recreated? I know this might be difficult, even impossible, as articulating intuition is awkward at best. My guess is that you simply, suddenly, “knew” – bypassing intellectual analysis.

For an all too brief time, there was a small restaurant here. Unconventional, lots of artwork, mismatched furniture, extraordinary food with far more garlic than American restaurants risk using, attracting sophisticated people - I knew they must live here, in the valley and woods and mountains, hidden away usually - marvelous hosts (one a martial artist/yoga instructor etc.) - and on Saturday nights a solo guitarist. He began with recognizable ditties, favorites, classics and then gradually, rather imperceptibly, transitioned into music like Pink Floyd then beyond. He used some kind of recording system where he would first record himself playing a rhythm upon the wood of the guitar, then perhaps a bass line on top of that, then a rhythm track, and finally long solo. The creation of the tracks was fluid and his ability to make transitions kept the flow going. By this time, it is quite late. Now people chat less and listen more. Everyone swept up into space and spreading out into time, sailing on the transcendent music.

Would I label this as a direct experience of god? Hmmm. Not within my nebulous definition. I will say that the guitarist was channeling a... ummmm.... spiritual power, drawing it through his own body and gifting that to us in the form of, to use an inadequate term, music. God channeled through the medium of music (interesting: medium as in artistic media and medium as in someone who can access the spirit world.)

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Permalink Reply by Hole Spirit of TuHanTu on August 21, 2008 at 1:10am

Hi all, I´d like to share my personal bits...

First of all, I am not saying this, that I experienced ˝God˝.... When I was in junior high school, I made a sketch of Einstein´s face, and then asked my father how come I have the ability to draw faces and some of the people, including some of my own bro and sis can´t?... My father´s answer was simple, because of ´God´...

So, with very simple minded I asked myself, if I do not follow the instructions of ˝god˝ according to my father´s religion, will ˝god˝ take away my ability to draw faces, from me?... Then for starter, I abandoned my father´s rules and start smoking... It was getting ugly, I started involved with many fightings individually and collectively...

But the ability to draw was not fade away, so then I start trying to search the answer about the previous question. When I was in high school -still involved with many fightings- I had this book to keep for myself, which was connecting informations about the subjects of study (biology, physics, etc) still in order to find the answer, why someone could draw, produce melody, and all that creativities (that time I even considered that the ´fighting´ have its ´spiritual´ and ´creativity´ aspect, involved.)

Then, I started to think, if those talents based on ´god´ then -so called- ˝god˝ must be not outside... Thats the first time I have the tought, ˝god˝ is very ˝limited˝... Its exists in the realm of ˝idea˝... But, the question is, where or what is the limit of ´idea´?... Who is going to stop me, if I would like to use ˝idea˝ to draw the ´process of creation´ based on -let say- something stupid or very regular and common? ... So, I continue to draw the sketches in that book...

Thats my first conclution, that ´faith´ has something to do with ´privacy´ and ´creativity´... I keep it neatly in that book. Never discuss it with anyone else, not even with my father, until, I have ´complete´ sketch in the book... (never had the time to actually discuss it with my father.)

That book, actually one of the reason I interested in Architecture.

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Permalink Reply by Maju on August 21, 2008 at 10:48am

What do you mean by "subverting the souls"?

Well, Ibon, who is very smart (borderline genius or whatever), used to be into that when he was a young punkster that was politically active (we went to the same school). Then, at uni, he focused on his personal goals, like career and music, though he was still active in supporting grassroots activism with his music. I understand that he, in a sense, still thinks in autonomist clues, one of which is about "mental sabotage", understood as radical questioning of anything that was just learned. We do ethics, not morals, we believe in creative thought not in parroting, we are vitally involved in changing things, liberating them - including souls.

So I could feel that, with his music, he was in a way recreating the link to the woods, to the people who hunted bisons and are our ancestors (and, if you believe in reincarnation or pantheistic holistic "ego", ourselves maybe too). I was thinking in that festival that is held every summer solstice at certain Pyrenean cave associated with historical witches (a much better scenario). That's what I meant: a free soul trip guided by the music.

He's more than just the alboka guru.

Did you mean "omnipresent magic field" (not "floid")?

Field wouldbe correct too. But I wrote floid, though guess it's more like "floyd" (like in Pink Floyd) or maybe more correct to say "fluid" (dictionary check), because Adur means in common speech salive or other viscous substances. There's a river in the Northern Basque Country named like that (Adour in French) and another one in Southern England. Etymologically it contains the particle "ur" (water) and maybe it could be ate+ur (water of gate/door/passage) or adi+ur (listen to the water) or aho+ur (water of mouth, in the sense of salive) - or who knows!

I associate this belief to the old medical tradition of bodily humors but it seems it means more than just that: the watery stuff that permeates all life (ourselves are 70% water or so) and that, as happens in elementalism (astrology included) is more directly associated with magic, in the sense of perception, feeling (passive or perceptive magic if you wish, mysticism too).

This is my view anyhow, as I associate creative magic more with the element fire. But one cannot exist without the other. Not in our reality at least.

In any case, I understand Adur not as much as a field (like in electric field) but as a fluid, the subtle watery stuff that permeates everything, that goes mad with the full moon (arguably, ok) and that can feel, touch, the truth behind.

What you describe in your last paragraph is shamanic work. Do you have any understanding of how the musical magic accessed the mysterious past, how the spirit of ancestors and land were recreated? I know this might be difficult, even impossible, as articulating intuition is awkward at best. My guess is that you simply, suddenly, “knew” – bypassing intellectual analysis.

Sure. But I am very rational anyhow, so guess I can try: he (and the other musicians) was recreating that. Maybe it was not like that but he managed to make it feel like "the real thing". A Spanish guest was saying all the time: "it's forest music". He was delighted. We had been watching earlier a chapter of Bewitched where a satyr appeared playing his pan pipe and I really thought of Ibon as such a mythical criature. Maybe he's not Dyonisos but he would well deserve to be in his court (just an example).

And the first one in Dionisos court is Ariadne, the one that holds the thread (mythos in Greek). So going irrational again. ;-)

Would I label this as a direct experience of god? Hmmm. Not within my nebulous definition. I will say that the guitarist was channeling a... ummmm.... spiritual power, drawing it through his own body and gifting that to us in the form of, to use an inadequate term, music. God channeled through the medium of music...

Well, that's up to each one's cosmological view.

/body>

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Permalink Reply by Maju on August 21, 2008 at 10:57am

Holy shit! I edited the previous reply and lost half of it. :-(

Let's see:

I was saying in the end that medium means mediator, interface.

Also that I do (sometimes) percieve the artist as God Itself, not just as mere mediator. That I even see the others not just as expressions of God as Whole but also as alternative myselfs, with different roles, paths, attributes and even viewpoints... but sharing the same divine creative power, the same magificient potential.

Sometimes they are disappointing, including my own actions, but other times they are just genial, really good stuff, inspiring and motivational instances of myself and God doing our best.

And then it is really good.

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Permalink Reply by Maju on August 21, 2008 at 11:07am

Maju once asked for a sign that God would appear to all of mankind at once no longer leaving any doubt of his existence. It's not designed that way.

It is. But it is not like you think it is.

Life is like a refiner's fire. It burns off the dross and leaves the gold.

Show me the end of the process then.

You think of the Labyrinth as some sort of alchemy. And maybe it has something to do with it but, in any case, we can just know what we can percieve and it is clearly designed that way. And it is because the truth is written not in golden characters in some old book but in the soil, the rain droplets, the changing winds, the grass, the trees, the sheep, the wolf and even in the vulture that recycles it all.

You need no paper idol, just to watch, to listen, to smell, to taste, to touch. God is there, everywhere, plain and clear, multiform and total at the same time.

Paraphrasing Mao, your god is a paper tiger; God and its power is in every heartbeat.

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Permalink Reply by Denita on August 21, 2008 at 11:24am

2008 0821 RG

Greg,

There’s a hole in your argument. The only way a university professor could be a false priest would be if that professor claimed to be a priest and was not. Anyone can invent a religion and become a priest if they choose. But, I’ve never encountered anyone, in my pursuit of 4 degrees, who claimed to be a priest.

Secondly, while I personally could not – at this time – think myself to God or into an experience of God, perhaps someone else can. Perhaps your son felt God’s hand in finding his new job, Jeff in finding the Bible for his grandmother, and Roman in reading sacred texts. For myself, I feel/intuit God’s presence and working and later formulate thoughts, articulated in language, that approximate or refer to the experience but never recreate the experience.

Despite the limitations of language, I do find that reading posts on RG has heightened my awareness of God’s presence absolutely everywhere – with very positive results in my life.

With regards to Roman, it appears that his spiritual beliefs are informed or inspired by his theological studies. If I recall correctly, he was once an ordained minister. Roman, is this correct? I don’t know enough about his process, his personal experience, to judge. I am very interested in learning more about his path and what occurs during his journey.

In fact, to me, one purpose of this discussion is to share – not judge. I caution everyone here against that. The conflicts and polarities have escalated and hold many tightly by the throat. Relax. Give up the struggle. Here is a chance to be yourself and to accept the being of others. Perhaps we will learn from each other.

Everyone, please note: I am changing this discussion to where I will read each post before it is posted on the page. If there are put downs, uncalled for criticism or judgment – I will send it back to you for revision. i.e. Mind your manners. And db – there will be no porn posted here. Period. Don’t bother trying.

It’s okay for someone to say “Hey, that’s not what I experience. That’s not how I conceive of God. Here is what I felt/learned/thought/experienced/saw…. This is not a battleground to prove who’s right. Sorry. Take the war elsewhere. Speak from your self, from your heart, from your life. In reading your post, Greg, I was enormously relieved when you gave up fault-finding Roman and began sharing your journey. Your words about your Self are what are inspiring.

Here is a way that God/ATWI entered (re-entered, w/ significant changes) my life more fully, more omnipresently about a year or so ago.

In the previous few years, a number of stresses piled up higher and higher. I left an abusive marriage (what led to me quitting exhibiting my art) followed by intense and extended litigation. My X is a multimillionaire and could afford making the divorce more complicated and longer and more expensive for me. What’s called “financial abuse”: $100,000 in legal fees and lies, tricks, and deceit throughout machinated by a barricuda attorney. I hired a gentleman to represent me. Included battles regarding child custody and fortunately my son had seen a psychotherapist who could speak to the detrimental affect of of his father’s anger. Our son’s play was typical of PTSD, repetitive themes involving his father. Hans lived in fear a long time that his father would kill me and/or kill him. Despite all evidence, the court still decided to force Hans to visit his father. Hans would scream, cry, yell for 2 days before a visit, he was 18 months old, and was a wreck for several days afterward. During this time, I completed a distance learning MA in psychology through Saybrook, a life saver and place where I found others like me, my heart home, with a specialty in marriage and family therapy. Something else to think about and a goal to move towards.

Two weeks after I graduated, one week after my mother hosted a party to celebrate, my mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. I was in Washington and she in Kansas. Although the doctor’s gave her a year to live, intuitively or whatever you want to call “it,” I knew otherwise. While my sisters made arrangements for mom to live with them during her decline, hospital bed, wheelchair, nursing service, etc., I knew that within six weeks our mother would die, that within that six weeks there would be time for plan and attend the funeral and deal with her home and things. I quit my practicum job, received permission from X to take Hans, and went back to Kansas for six weeks. Events went as anticipated and I was fortunate to be with my mother, holding her, when she died.

The grief strongly affected me for 2 years. And, as is often the case, grief expressed itself in domestic chaos – especially tall mountains of clean laundry which I was incapable of putting away. One day I asked myself why, answer was because my mother was under the clothes, “buried” there. (A year after her death, to the day, my mother appeared to me and we enjoyed a lovingly golden time, reassuring, wonder-filled. Floating above me and gazing down, yes: robes of white and white light all around. At that moment, I was getting a massage and not talking about my eyes-closed visitation. Then, the masseuse mentioned, with curiousity and confusion, that she smelled someone in the room that wasn’t me and wasn’t her. I asked her to describe the scent and she described the kind of perfume my mother wore/wears.)

But, to go back to the stress-list. While I was in Kansas, I visited the art school where I earned a BFA (Magna cum Laude, I must proudly share, and completely funded by scholarships and grants). I’d stayed in touch intermittently w/ professors there. I met with 2. The head of the department wanted to hire me starting the next school year. It was my dream job. A university community, where I could teach those classes I love (drawing and painting) and performance art and graduate seminars on topics like artists and shamans, primitive art, spiritual art – whatever I chose. Collaborative interdisciplinary teaching with choreographers or poets or theatre or composers. The dept. head scheduled a meeting with the entire faculty and we discussed logistics, what courses to offer the first semester, texts, deadlines for submitting descriptions for the catalog, etc. Initially, I would be 2/3 or ¾ time. Later, there would be a search for a fulltime faculty – and I would slide in – if I wanted. If I wanted to work differing degrees of part time, to have more time w/ my son – that was also okay.

Homes in beautiful old neighborhoods with magnificent trees were inexpensive compared to the Seattle area. The equity on my home here would more than pay for a house there. Then, Hans aced the entrance test to a private school for gifted children. I’d be close to my immediate family and my extended Czech family and good friendships extending back decades. A perfect picture with one big troll under the bridge: I needed my X’s permission to move with our son.

Another lengthy court battle and another $50,000 in legal fees, leaving me financially devastated. The psychologist Hans saw at that time had actually suggested I move, with Hans, away from his father. Still, at age six, after every dad visit, Hans still demonstrated PTSD symptoms yet dad’s behavior was just under the line measuring child abuse in this state. Unlike other states, Washington does not have a law against verbal/emotional abuse and the physical aggression (shaking Hans hard, swinging him through the air and knocking chairs over with his body then yelling and demanding Hans pick up the chairs, etc.) did not qualify as physical abuse because there were no bruises or broken bones.

I get shaken up just writing about this horrid time. Again, we went to court. This time, the judge immediately disliked me and was charmed by my dissembling X. If facts did not support her decision – she created them. If facts went against her decision (testimony of the psychotherapist) – she simply distorted and twisted them. I was a terrible person and horrid mother. Hans’s behavior and poor grades were my fault. She ruled against Hans moving out of state.

Meanwhile, although in trial X stated that his business would not be sold for years and therefore he could not move and follow Hans – his business was in the process of being sold during the entire trial. But, the final papers were not signed until after the judge’s decree. Then, he decided to run for U.S. House of Representatives. If he’d won the Dem’s nomination and then the election – it basically meant that he would move away from Hans.

Oh, the irony!

Back to the judge. She knew she had fucked up royally. It was all over her face: shame, looking down, the discomforture. But, with shaking voice, she would not reconsider because she could not admit being wrong. I also think another element played strongly. As Voltaire wrote to his lover, (paraphrasing) you are beautiful and therefore half of mankind will hate you. The half he spoke of were women. I am a former runway model w/ clients such as I. Magnins. The judge was overflowingly obese, with a pasty face, slumping posture, lank hair, and hate in her eyes when she looked at me.

My mother died. My son was a wreck. I was deeply in debt. I lost a dream job. And I’d become sick with an undefined autoimmune disorder marked by severe joint pain during the marriage – just as the marital therapist predicted if I didn’t leave. Either spondyloarthropathy or non-rh factor rheumatoid arthritist. Family – finances – work – law – health… The bright spots were my son, my animals, the beauty of nature, and the man I was dating, Rick, who stood with me through all the ordeals and provided love, support, and an empathetic ear.

Eventually, the pile up of loss, grief, and stress formed a dam and I became unable to write, to complete assignments for the PhD program. I was placed on academic warning the same year that I received Saybrook’s highest scholarship, amongst others from other organizations. Add imminent school failure and potential loss of PhD dream to the list.

By writing snippets and lists and sketches and the support of Ruth Richards, I imaged myself out of this state. I wrote an essay, w/ collages and poems, about creative block as creative potential – as the lowest point on the creative cycle. A very important part of this was discovering how my work is a spiritual practice.

To strengthen the spiritual practice, I built an alter on my desk and placed a couple other meaningful sculptures in my home. I used youtube to build a stream of videos with meditative music and images that became my transition tool from washing dishes to creative work. Instead of feeling myself to be an isolated individual attempting an impossible goal, I opened myself to spirit or God or the life force or ….?, and became a channel for the work of that power. The power flowed through me and – as you can see from the many lengthy posts here on RG – words flowed out of me. RG is part of my spiritual practice. All I must be is a good tool and a devoted laborer for God. Feels like the same body sensation as knowing where my refrigerator would be – only fuller and better and enduring.

I could wallow in self pity, but, like Jeff, acknowledge these hardships as leading me to where I am today and forming who I am and directing what I do. And, that is great.

Now, I think of a childhood poem:

God is good.
God is great.
Let us thank him for this food.
Amen.

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