Only when Shiva is united with Shakti does he have the power to create. -Saundaryalahari
There are A LOT of birthdays in June. Sweet Jeebus!
Happy Birthday to all of ya!
In other news, we're dead broke. Oh well. This too shall pass.
I need to figure out my spiritual life a bit more. Things are gnawing at me subtly and wildly and fiercely and quietly all at the same time. I'm not sure what to do about it except more of what I have been doing: exploring.
I'm reading The Spell of the Sensuous now, and I understand the importance of getting to know the land you live on -- establishing a connection to the tree in your backyard or that bush across the street and all the little creatures that dwell within and without them. And I understand how this relates to ancestor worship because people do not always stay people when they die (or so think many indigenous cultures). I always shy away from ancestor worship because I feel little if any connection to my bio family. I don't like them and I'm not sure if any of them like me or would have liked me had they been able to know me (and vice versa). I have no attachment to my ancestral roots, and I sometimes feel sad about it, but not sad enough to honour them beyond being grateful for my own existence.
Sometimes I don't like that I feel drawn to so many different spiritual paths. It makes things difficult and challenging. Granted, there is happiness in the variation, but sadness in the lack of belonging to any one thing wholly. I don't belong to any one thing. I never will.
I've been learning again a bit more about Shaktism, which holds that the feminine is the active principle and the masculine is the passive principle. Where goddess equals force and god equals form. It's refreshing to bathe my psyche in that every once in a while, as I am otherwise constantly surrounded by the burden of the yin moon. There's nothing wrong with a yin state, in and of itself. There's nothing wrong with being equated with the moon. I just tire of it and get little out of it spiritually.
As an example, I don't feel attuned in the slightest to the standard wiccan wine blessing used in the Odyssean tradition which begins by saying "The male holds the power and is the reservoir of the power. The female taps the power in him and channels it." Ugh. I need no man to access personal power. No man needs me to effectively channel his power. Yes, yes, I know this is a superficial articulation of what's REALLY being said (or at least my own understanding thereof): that the active, kinetic parts of oneself are the source and reservoir of power and that the passive, potential parts of oneself are necessary to channel and direct that power, and that you have to have both to be able to function as a whole person. It's Wyld plus Weaver, in a totally WoD Geek way.
But dammit, I'm tired of the majority of western occultism pegging female-me as the shadow self to the great and glorious male, bearer of the seed of, well, everything. I'm not dissing guys, here. I'm annoyed with the dominant alternative spirituality surrounding me because it doesn't give me what I need. It doesn't, from the outset, state that men and women are equal. That we each contain within ourselves both kinetic and potential energies, both active and passive aspects. And that we may be more attuned to one or the other at different times in our lives. No, it polarizes the sexes and makes everything seem so very cut and dry. I can understand the need to simplify, but I don't agree or feel remotely comfortable with the way in which the simplification has been made, nor with all the cultural dogma and emotional baggage that this simplification now holds. It sucks.
This is why Shaktism is a breath of fresh air for me. I have only a superficial understanding of it, but it seems more balanced than, say, Dianic Wicca, which seems (again, only superficial knowledge here) to utterly ignore the masculine in favour of the feminine. Dianic Wicca is a balance to the religions of the Book (Christianity, Judaism, & Islam), which more or less ignore the feminine in favour of the masculine. But both of these are extreme forms of worship and are therefore distasteful to me. Shaktism is the reverse of Wicca, in that it holds on high the female principle without negating the need for the masculine principle. It makes me feel warm and cozy and honoured, whereas Wicca comes across to me sometimes like one giant dry heave -- mainly because I'm coming from having been raised in a Catholic/Christian environment: rah, rah for the priest man; boo hiss for the evil woman. Shaktism allows me to bask in my womanhood without feeling like I'm stealing the show or poo-pooing the existence of the menfolk.
And with Shaktism comes Tantra. Mmmm.... taaaannntraaa. The origin of the "left-hand path". It's really not all about sex, you know.
http://www.shivashakti.com/
Happy Birthday to all of ya!
In other news, we're dead broke. Oh well. This too shall pass.
I need to figure out my spiritual life a bit more. Things are gnawing at me subtly and wildly and fiercely and quietly all at the same time. I'm not sure what to do about it except more of what I have been doing: exploring.
I'm reading The Spell of the Sensuous now, and I understand the importance of getting to know the land you live on -- establishing a connection to the tree in your backyard or that bush across the street and all the little creatures that dwell within and without them. And I understand how this relates to ancestor worship because people do not always stay people when they die (or so think many indigenous cultures). I always shy away from ancestor worship because I feel little if any connection to my bio family. I don't like them and I'm not sure if any of them like me or would have liked me had they been able to know me (and vice versa). I have no attachment to my ancestral roots, and I sometimes feel sad about it, but not sad enough to honour them beyond being grateful for my own existence.
Sometimes I don't like that I feel drawn to so many different spiritual paths. It makes things difficult and challenging. Granted, there is happiness in the variation, but sadness in the lack of belonging to any one thing wholly. I don't belong to any one thing. I never will.
I've been learning again a bit more about Shaktism, which holds that the feminine is the active principle and the masculine is the passive principle. Where goddess equals force and god equals form. It's refreshing to bathe my psyche in that every once in a while, as I am otherwise constantly surrounded by the burden of the yin moon. There's nothing wrong with a yin state, in and of itself. There's nothing wrong with being equated with the moon. I just tire of it and get little out of it spiritually.
As an example, I don't feel attuned in the slightest to the standard wiccan wine blessing used in the Odyssean tradition which begins by saying "The male holds the power and is the reservoir of the power. The female taps the power in him and channels it." Ugh. I need no man to access personal power. No man needs me to effectively channel his power. Yes, yes, I know this is a superficial articulation of what's REALLY being said (or at least my own understanding thereof): that the active, kinetic parts of oneself are the source and reservoir of power and that the passive, potential parts of oneself are necessary to channel and direct that power, and that you have to have both to be able to function as a whole person. It's Wyld plus Weaver, in a totally WoD Geek way.
But dammit, I'm tired of the majority of western occultism pegging female-me as the shadow self to the great and glorious male, bearer of the seed of, well, everything. I'm not dissing guys, here. I'm annoyed with the dominant alternative spirituality surrounding me because it doesn't give me what I need. It doesn't, from the outset, state that men and women are equal. That we each contain within ourselves both kinetic and potential energies, both active and passive aspects. And that we may be more attuned to one or the other at different times in our lives. No, it polarizes the sexes and makes everything seem so very cut and dry. I can understand the need to simplify, but I don't agree or feel remotely comfortable with the way in which the simplification has been made, nor with all the cultural dogma and emotional baggage that this simplification now holds. It sucks.
This is why Shaktism is a breath of fresh air for me. I have only a superficial understanding of it, but it seems more balanced than, say, Dianic Wicca, which seems (again, only superficial knowledge here) to utterly ignore the masculine in favour of the feminine. Dianic Wicca is a balance to the religions of the Book (Christianity, Judaism, & Islam), which more or less ignore the feminine in favour of the masculine. But both of these are extreme forms of worship and are therefore distasteful to me. Shaktism is the reverse of Wicca, in that it holds on high the female principle without negating the need for the masculine principle. It makes me feel warm and cozy and honoured, whereas Wicca comes across to me sometimes like one giant dry heave -- mainly because I'm coming from having been raised in a Catholic/Christian environment: rah, rah for the priest man; boo hiss for the evil woman. Shaktism allows me to bask in my womanhood without feeling like I'm stealing the show or poo-pooing the existence of the menfolk.
And with Shaktism comes Tantra. Mmmm.... taaaannntraaa. The origin of the "left-hand path". It's really not all about sex, you know.
http://www.shivashakti.com/