Tag: Spirituality

But, Then Again . . .

~ Deb ~ 4 Comments

(A sister post to my most recent.)

I’ll be honest, sometimes I wonder if I’m part of the problem.  (Side note – if you want to test your own level of self-assuredness, type that sentence sometime and see how it feels.)  If there is a devil on my shoulder, then I blame him (of course it would be a “him”) for my eagerness to leap into the verbal fray.

But there is an angel on my shoulder too.  A Jekyll to my Hyde.  A Cher to my Sonny.  And every now and then she gets my attention.  And, of course, it would be a “she.”

I’m in a constant hop-scotch between the two.  On the one hand, hey, knowledge is power.  Study, analyze, research.  Pack the brain until it feels mighty damn important.  Be an informed voter.  Read the paper.  Read the encyclopedia.  Read Trivial Pursuit cards. . . for fun.

On the other hand, sometimes I wonder if I really need to know any of that crap.  Perhaps I should trade in a few cable news anchors for 13 indigenous grandmothers.   Information overload eventually and inevitably sends me running to the woods to commune with the oaks and listen to the scuffle of squirrels in the leaves and the caw of the raven.  For a few days I avoid the Comcast home page headlines and start my day with sacred moon incense.  I pause to acknowledge the wisdom of the west, the north, the east, the south and shake the flame to embers with a silent appeal for the health of our planet.

It’s an age-old war that is not at all unique to me, I know: that war of wills between the aggressive mind and the passive heart, the assertive brain and the silent soul.  My mind uses fear.  It tells me I’ll fall behind, that something really important will happen, that I must stay informed with the world’s comings and goings.  It tells me that if I’m not careful, I’ll become like my sister, Donna (“We have a black President??”).

My spirit uses . . . well, nothing.  It just sits patiently and accepts me home every time I return.

My brain is like an academic playground.  Politics are the video game I’m addicted to.  And when I get really still and centered, I realize just how insignificant it all is.  There really are more important forces at work in the universe.

I don’t want to be part of the problem.  I want to be part of the solution.  And I have a feeling the solution will come from the heart.

Guess I’ll have to think about that for awhile.

Small Magic

~ Deb ~ 2 Comments

This is day three in the Seven Solid Days of Smiling Salute To the Original Unsplit Atom for bursting forth into the Big Bang of Bounty that is this life.

Day 1 – Emily

Day 2 – Music

My grandson, Triston, is spending the night with us as I write this.  Earlier this evening he pulled a funny looking thing from the bedside jar where Susie keeps her pens for her nightly Sudoku.   The object in question is a twisted wooden stick with an amethyst on top.  It’s real purpose is to stick in a twist of hair to hold it up off your neck.  There must be a name for something like that, but I don’t know what it is.  However, I feel a personal obligation to answer any question Triston asks me with some degree of authority.   It’s the natural teacher in me, or perhaps the natural bullshitter.

“What’s this, DeeDee?”  He turned the witchy-looking stick around in his hands, perhaps looking for a writing point or an on button or a purpose of some kind.

“It’s a magic wand.”

“No, it isn’t,” and then a little less certainly, “is it?”

“Sure.  It’s Mimi’s Mini Magic Wand.  It’s for small magic.”

“Show me.”

Oh, boy.  I hesitated, but only for a second.  Triston has all the actual, factual, literal, fundamental information he needs from all the other sources in his life.  I rarely miss the chance to sprinkle a little mysticism his way.

“Okay, sit on the bed facing me.  C’mon, Mimi, join the circle.”  I motioned Susie into our midst and then held the wand in front of me, the amethyst suddenly sizzling like a campfire in front of us.  “What do you need magic to do for you, Triston?”

He didn’t have to think about it long.  “I want to fly.”

Damn.  “Well, Triston, most people don’t know this, but magic still has to work with the natural laws of the universe.  Magic can do a lot, but it can’t make gravity disappear.”  Okay, so it’s the natural bullshitter in me.  Actually, I believe magic probably could make someone fly, but he was just a child and I was only a baby spell-caster, so I thought we had better take it slow.  “What else would you like magic to do for you?”

He didn’t have to ponder this one at all.  “I want a four-wheeler.”

I started to say something to direct him away from the material world.  He had been out of sorts all night, whiny, demanding, rude, and difficult.  I knew something was bothering him and maybe he didn’t even know what it was.  I was hoping he would say that he wanted his mommy to be sweeter or his daddy to spend more time with him or his new baby sister to be fun to play with.  I was hoping for a clue about his mood.  But then I had the intuitive thought that I shouldn’t invalidate his desires, especially during a seven-year-old funkfest.

“Okay.  A four-wheeler it is.  Everybody focus on Triston’s new four-wheeler.  We are setting our intention for Triston to have the desires of his heart.  We don’t tell magic when or where or how.  We just tell magic that Triston would like a four-wheeler.  We see Triston riding his four-wheeler through a big field on a beautiful summer day . . . with his helmet on.”  (Even mystical grandmothers are still grandmothers.)  And we know that magic is working already to bring Triston his four-wheeler in the perfect way and at the perfect time.”

All night long, Triston had been distant, shut down, just not present with us.  But, I peeked at him during this “incantation” and saw an unfiltered expression of pure belief.  His eyes were squinted closed in prayerful concentration.  His hand rested atop mine on the “magic wand.”  I wondered if I could ever again believe as deeply as he was believing in that moment.   And then I said, with renewed conviction, “And so it shall be.”

This was as much for me as it was for him.  I’ll be watching for that four-wheeler to show up in Triston’s life.  I’m going to fight the urge to go put one on a credit card and leave it on his front lawn on Christmas morning just so he’ll believe in magic.  Instead, I’m going to believe in magic too and wait to see how it unfolds.

Deb-o-nomics

~ Deb ~ 2 Comments

I believe that everything is energy.  I’m energy.  You’re energy.  The attitude we have is energy.  Those fancy-ass quantum physicists would even say that we are energy living within a field of energy.  There is nothing that is not energy.

This means also that our money is energy.  I’ve heard it, read it, and, yes, believe it.  You can best determine a person’s priorities by how she spends her money.  I’ve seen first hand how my relationship to money shifts when I can think of it in terms of energy.  And it helps to explain my position on economics (yes, I have one).

As a nation, where we put our financial energy has a huge impact on our society’s financial wellness.  The pencil pushers and Reaganomics fans would say we should deregulate and reduce the size of government and, for god’s sake, reduce those entitlement programs because all of that adds up on paper to fiscal responsibility.  The focus of our financial energy has been on helping the rich and hoping somehow that will help the poor, and the latter group is beginning to include a growing number of former middle class folks.  More importantly, our focus has been on war.  Our financial energy has been focused on combat and rich folks.  No wonder we all feel like financial casualties right about now.

What if our national money energy, our collective soul of manifestation, was focused on helping out those in need, providing jobs, protecting our environment, educating our children?  What if we exhibited our true priorities to the world through the way we spent our money?  What if big government wasn’t the enemy, and what if a government that really mirrored our priorities was in fact the answer?

There is probably not a single economist in the world that would think that is the best fiscal policy.  Perhaps a few generous ones might think it is the right thing to do, but they still would be concerned for the balance sheet.  And yet, I believe it is the most fiscally prudent thing to do.   I believe the bottom line of that policy would be incredible bounty for the entire nation.

But, I can’t prove it.  I can only hope that one day we get it.

Confessions of a Recovering Fundamentalist

~ Deb ~ 1 Comment

Why is it that every time I have heard, read or thought of the concept that we should “Pray for those who persecute us,” at least in my adult life, I have thought about praying for Christians?   Please note, I did not say “most times” or “many times.”  It truly is, to my best recollection, every time.

When I was a child, it was easier to see the world in black and white.  A person was either right or wrong.  There could be no other option.  And since we were, of course, right, then everyone who was not us, or with us, or at least immensely similar to us was, as a strict matter of course, wrong.  And, being a child, these very simple rules to this very simple game were easy to grasp.

The idea, however, is to put away childish things as we grow up.  (I might have plagiarized that a bit from the Apostle Paul, but I didn’t want to actually start quoting scripture on ya’.)  In the same way that a Candyland game can no longer give me hours of endless pleasure and a Big Wheel seat no longer fits my ass, so too does the absolute condemnation of those believing something different no longer fit with a mature outlook on humanity.

Persecuting others through religious judgement, condemnation, or bigotry is hateful and cruel.  But, it’s also childish.  And these children’s games create division, violence, and even war.  Perhaps rather than praying for those who would persecute me or you or anyone else, I’ll just pray that we all grow up.