...
"Light the candle, John
The daylight is almost gone
The birds have sung their last
The bells call all to Mass..."
Sitting here right now, gazing at my altar, I cannot tell you what I feel. I cannot explain the confusion, the captivation, the physically painful sensation of need coiled like a snake deep in my belly. I cannot explain the way that it is all overlaid with a frustration sensation of numbness. There is also a sensation of relief and of homecoming and of hesitation because it seems like it will not last... I feel like I have travelled so far, so far, that all I want to do is curl up in front of this hearth. But I can't yet, I am not... allowed to stay yet. Another long road lies ahead of me, and I understand the need to embark on it shortly.
But for now the candles are spilling golden light across my wall. My altar is simple, almost bare, with Cernunnos in shadow and the tree bathed in light. The black bird sitting on the tree-sconce glistens subtly as the candlelight wavers in the breeze, and I am transfixed. I am transfixed by the enormity of the meaning I see here, and a curious, childish frustration at my inability to make you see what I see. I want to give this to you now. I want to give this to you now because it is the most precious gift I can think of to give. But when I seek to gather it into my hands, to pick it up and hold it out to, you I cannot. It slips like sand between my fingers.
What would I pay for peace? What would I give for the sensation that I am home to stay at last? I have sworn oaths more powerful than love or death on this yearning I feel deep inside, on this truth that I sense more surely than the physical reality of my existence. And yet, this truth is moving, this truth looks different in all the new lights shed upon it, and I feel like I cannot keep up with it. I feel like it cannot keep up with me because I myself am changing at the speed of light.
"What is this life that pulls me far away?
What is that home where we cannot reside?
What is that quest that pulls me onward?
My heart is full when you are by my side..."
Am I fickle? I sometimes wonder. Is it a flaw of my character that my nomadic tendencies keep on extending toward places that ought always to be home? Look at my aversion to Cincinnati, the restless sense of being trapped that I feel whenever I go home. I love my childhood home and I recognize it as a place of generousity and love, a place of rich history and hospitality anyone would want to linger it. But I have to go: it's not my home right now. The same thing happened to me with certain clubs and organizations I once considered 'family' and 'home.' It's even happened with people. So what about my spiritual 'home'?
I don't understand why, walking to class, I am no longer struck by the beauty of the moment and the gorgeousness of Nature unfolding around me. I wonder why I have no urge to research my spiritual, to practice meditation, to ask questions, to pray. I barely even think of Cernunnos, let alone all of the others who were so prominent in my life -- Why!? I understand that I a changing and growing and that many things in my life are now different than they were.
Perhaps I have felt no need to tap into the spirituality that was once my main supporting structure because I have finally built other powerful supporting structures as well. This is not to say it no longer matters and no longer supports me, but that it is not prominent in my thoughts these days because other facets of life are. Am I proud of this? No, it concerns me that spirituality is no longer a dominant force in my life. But I've also gotten a lot of living done in its relative quiet -- perhaps far more than in the last two and a half years combined.
I wonder if I am simply influenced by people far more than I initially realized. Fred was secular and I never spoke about religion with him, nor did it cross my mind when thinking of him. It was much more on my mind when I went to PSA, hung out with pagans, associated with heavily spiritual people in person. I do not seem to do this anymore. And I think it's for the best, but I wonder if my listless spirituality these days is partially due to the lack of influence and inspiration. I'd like to think not -- it once sustained me when I was all alone in a world that seemed to have only one other pagan in it -- because spirituality isn't based on people. But surely that has something to do with it. My relative unwillingness to touch the religious surfaced right about at the same time my unwillingness to associate with a particularly religious person surfaced....
*sigh* I wonder if I'm thinking about religion now because I'm alone and because talking about Jim with Cox has made me realize that he might be rather Christian. Cox told me was he a 'no sex until marriage' type, which upset me rather a lot -- not because I crave sex, but because this implies a philosophy toward relationships that is totally different from my own. It also means he actually values his Christian principles, which are likely to clash with my pagan principles.
This does not turn me away from him or make me think I shouldn't bother getting to know him or anything -- I cannot judge what I do not yet understand. But damn if it doesn't get me thinking about what's important to me and why such a thing is important. In an odd way, for example, I think sex with Fred was so powerful for me because to me it was an extremely primal and instinctual thing right in line with my spirituality, but he didn't know that. To him it was just good dirty sex. Thus I got to enjoy rough, irreverent sex while simultaneously satisfying some spiritual hunger deep inside me. I don't like the idea of being with someone who is reticent with me sexually at all. Not only because of me wanting sex, like I said, but because of the guilt or philosophical baggage that lies behind being morally reticent with sex.
But, I really need to go to bed before I fall over. I just blew out the candles on my altar and my room is awash in the fragrance of honeysuckle, which is the scent of the triple-wick candle I use as my flame. Since my very first altar, I have chosen honeysuckle. I felt a pang in my heart when I smelled it just now. I can't believe how long it's been since I last went to Wal-mart to replace a candle on my altar, since I last wandered the beautiful fabrics touching and imagining swaths of them gracing my altar. I like the simplicity of it now, but it saddens me that I've spent so little time acknowledging it.
Spain is going to change things. Returning to my ancestral home and treading in new, wilder lands is going to revive me. I just hope that my spirituality comes back stronger before, during, and after Spain, as I miss. I very badly want to come and I still can't understand why I feel driven not to do so just yet.
I wonder if this is just some quarter-life self-discovery phase?
The daylight is almost gone
The birds have sung their last
The bells call all to Mass..."
Sitting here right now, gazing at my altar, I cannot tell you what I feel. I cannot explain the confusion, the captivation, the physically painful sensation of need coiled like a snake deep in my belly. I cannot explain the way that it is all overlaid with a frustration sensation of numbness. There is also a sensation of relief and of homecoming and of hesitation because it seems like it will not last... I feel like I have travelled so far, so far, that all I want to do is curl up in front of this hearth. But I can't yet, I am not... allowed to stay yet. Another long road lies ahead of me, and I understand the need to embark on it shortly.
But for now the candles are spilling golden light across my wall. My altar is simple, almost bare, with Cernunnos in shadow and the tree bathed in light. The black bird sitting on the tree-sconce glistens subtly as the candlelight wavers in the breeze, and I am transfixed. I am transfixed by the enormity of the meaning I see here, and a curious, childish frustration at my inability to make you see what I see. I want to give this to you now. I want to give this to you now because it is the most precious gift I can think of to give. But when I seek to gather it into my hands, to pick it up and hold it out to, you I cannot. It slips like sand between my fingers.
What would I pay for peace? What would I give for the sensation that I am home to stay at last? I have sworn oaths more powerful than love or death on this yearning I feel deep inside, on this truth that I sense more surely than the physical reality of my existence. And yet, this truth is moving, this truth looks different in all the new lights shed upon it, and I feel like I cannot keep up with it. I feel like it cannot keep up with me because I myself am changing at the speed of light.
"What is this life that pulls me far away?
What is that home where we cannot reside?
What is that quest that pulls me onward?
My heart is full when you are by my side..."
Am I fickle? I sometimes wonder. Is it a flaw of my character that my nomadic tendencies keep on extending toward places that ought always to be home? Look at my aversion to Cincinnati, the restless sense of being trapped that I feel whenever I go home. I love my childhood home and I recognize it as a place of generousity and love, a place of rich history and hospitality anyone would want to linger it. But I have to go: it's not my home right now. The same thing happened to me with certain clubs and organizations I once considered 'family' and 'home.' It's even happened with people. So what about my spiritual 'home'?
I don't understand why, walking to class, I am no longer struck by the beauty of the moment and the gorgeousness of Nature unfolding around me. I wonder why I have no urge to research my spiritual, to practice meditation, to ask questions, to pray. I barely even think of Cernunnos, let alone all of the others who were so prominent in my life -- Why!? I understand that I a changing and growing and that many things in my life are now different than they were.
Perhaps I have felt no need to tap into the spirituality that was once my main supporting structure because I have finally built other powerful supporting structures as well. This is not to say it no longer matters and no longer supports me, but that it is not prominent in my thoughts these days because other facets of life are. Am I proud of this? No, it concerns me that spirituality is no longer a dominant force in my life. But I've also gotten a lot of living done in its relative quiet -- perhaps far more than in the last two and a half years combined.
I wonder if I am simply influenced by people far more than I initially realized. Fred was secular and I never spoke about religion with him, nor did it cross my mind when thinking of him. It was much more on my mind when I went to PSA, hung out with pagans, associated with heavily spiritual people in person. I do not seem to do this anymore. And I think it's for the best, but I wonder if my listless spirituality these days is partially due to the lack of influence and inspiration. I'd like to think not -- it once sustained me when I was all alone in a world that seemed to have only one other pagan in it -- because spirituality isn't based on people. But surely that has something to do with it. My relative unwillingness to touch the religious surfaced right about at the same time my unwillingness to associate with a particularly religious person surfaced....
*sigh* I wonder if I'm thinking about religion now because I'm alone and because talking about Jim with Cox has made me realize that he might be rather Christian. Cox told me was he a 'no sex until marriage' type, which upset me rather a lot -- not because I crave sex, but because this implies a philosophy toward relationships that is totally different from my own. It also means he actually values his Christian principles, which are likely to clash with my pagan principles.
This does not turn me away from him or make me think I shouldn't bother getting to know him or anything -- I cannot judge what I do not yet understand. But damn if it doesn't get me thinking about what's important to me and why such a thing is important. In an odd way, for example, I think sex with Fred was so powerful for me because to me it was an extremely primal and instinctual thing right in line with my spirituality, but he didn't know that. To him it was just good dirty sex. Thus I got to enjoy rough, irreverent sex while simultaneously satisfying some spiritual hunger deep inside me. I don't like the idea of being with someone who is reticent with me sexually at all. Not only because of me wanting sex, like I said, but because of the guilt or philosophical baggage that lies behind being morally reticent with sex.
But, I really need to go to bed before I fall over. I just blew out the candles on my altar and my room is awash in the fragrance of honeysuckle, which is the scent of the triple-wick candle I use as my flame. Since my very first altar, I have chosen honeysuckle. I felt a pang in my heart when I smelled it just now. I can't believe how long it's been since I last went to Wal-mart to replace a candle on my altar, since I last wandered the beautiful fabrics touching and imagining swaths of them gracing my altar. I like the simplicity of it now, but it saddens me that I've spent so little time acknowledging it.
Spain is going to change things. Returning to my ancestral home and treading in new, wilder lands is going to revive me. I just hope that my spirituality comes back stronger before, during, and after Spain, as I miss. I very badly want to come and I still can't understand why I feel driven not to do so just yet.
I wonder if this is just some quarter-life self-discovery phase?