All That I Have Met, Or?

Wordsworth wrote:  "I am a part of all that I have met."  For many years, I was reading that to mean:  "All that I have met is a part of me."  Weird, I know, but there it is.  Today, they're both true for me and I'm pondering how both fit into spirituality.

Wordsworth seems to see his connection with the universe as one of being "part" of it.  I tend to agree but would go beyond that and say that I am a manifestation of the universe, a microcosm, if you will.  What are the ramifications of these two ways of looking at our connection to the universe or the sacred?

If you see yourself as a part of the divine plan, the universal energy flow, or whatever, then you are a kind of a pawn.  A universal intelligence plays the chess game and moves you here or there.  If you see yourself as containing the universe--if you see that every molecule or neutron contains the whole shabang, then you are more of an agent of the universe.  If the agency for how things play out in the classroom we call life is partially in you then YOU have a role to play--how your specific metaphysical presence orchestrates itself matters in the bigger picture.  We are both, aren't we?  Yes, there is a Big Dude or higher order that is orchestrating; at the same time, we are expected to create our portion of this picture.  We are co-creators as well as actors in the universal unfolding.

As I'm writing this, I'm thinking:  This is so intellectual!  I realize that I'm being influenced by one of my wonderful readers who has been carrying on a profound dialogue with me in the comments sections of two entries.  It's great to engage with someone and parse out the ways we think and respond to our existence!

Getting back to the way Roxie sees it--sacred and profane or sacred shit.  I've just had several moving and inspirational days with a good friend.   Our togetherness which goes back to my childhood anchors me in my connection to the human community.  Living alone, I can get lost and isolated all too easily.

One of the things we always do together is engage in a spiritual process.  This time we did an exercise from Barbara Marx Hubbard's book Emergence.  A couple of things emerged for me.  Hubbard talks about a kind of chaotic fermentation time that precedes each new evolutionary development not just in the universe but also in the individuals who are growing towards the next phase of growth which she calls the "universal human."    I took about six months off from work to intentionally engage in recovery and growth opportunities.  This time has been terrifying, chaotic, boring, unstructured, and lonely.  And, it's also been profound.

In the exercise with my friend, I realized that I NEED what I'm calling a "no-fire zone."  I need to find an inner safety zone or, in recovery lingo, a strong adult voice inside that grounds and protects me.  This no-fire zone is something we all need.  It is a spiritual, quantum element not bound in space or time.  It protects us from internal, unnecessary pain and negativity; it also protects us from external, unnecessary slings and arrows.

In the exercise, we looked at three elements--need, want, and inspiration.  So, I need a no-fire zone.  I want to give my words, presence, creativity, intelligence, vision, and love to the world.

Best of all, I became inspired.  I am now inspired to showcase MY understanding of the human condition, the spiritual being in a physical world stuff.  The sacred shit aspect of my blog is core to that.  So, here's the total inspiration I came to:  I am inspired to showcase my understanding of the sacred shit/human condition as a source for the accelerating evolution of the human family towards its unfolding potential.  Heady stuff, right?

Specifically, I want to increase my writing on this blog and publish it as a digital book.  I want to finish and publish my novel which narrates the evolution of a human towards her greatest potential.  I want to make You Tube videos featuring Roxie and a more visual/musical/artistic expression of human spiritual potential.  I want to develop a series of workshops that engage other humans in an awareness of the importance of both the sacred and the shitty in their individual and collective development.

I love reader feedback.  What am I overlooking?  What would you add or delete or modify in this vision?  Namaste.  Roxie

The Big Dude by Any Other Name

Fundamental to a spiritual life in our human frame is a belief.  Call it faith, as some do.  Call it an inner sense of something that goes beyond our physical experience.  Call it anything.  A spiritual life for humans sits squarely on an uneasy sense that there is something greater than me.  What you do with that certainty or reluctant truce determines your spiritual life.

When I look at it that way, it seems obvious that there is much that is greater than me. Some things I've learned to trust as greater are:  the wisdom of some recovery groups, the power and peace of nature, and the voice inside that seems to be both me and not me.  Oh my gosh, this sounds so analytic and intellectual.

Let me try again.  I'm what you might call an experiential intellectual!  I have to experience a concept and, indeed, the universal energy (Big Dude, God, or whatchamacallit).  I have to feel it.  Like doubting Thomas, I come to the higher realms with an oh-yeah?-prove-it attitude.

If you've read my blog from the beginning, you know that I waffle and worry and occasionally wax eloquent with inspiration.  It comes and goes.

My earliest sense of the sacred came from nature.  I grew up in a physically stunning geographical setting.  My home was on a river at the edge of a forest and the whole of it was surrounded by water--almost like living on a particularly verdant island.  My home life was a bit chaotic and so I spent as much time as possible in the woods or in the water.  Nature spoke to me already when I was a preschooler.

Eventually, I found myself in groups that seemed to have a magical quality to them, to be places of safety and insight.  I came to seek out such groups and eventually found myself drawn,more recently, to recovery groups.  What are the qualities of the spiritual groups that teach and nurture me?  First, they have rules and guidelines that create safe communication (no cross talk, one person shares at a time, the good of the group precedes the needs of one individual).  Second, they have a framework or set of spiritual principles that all members accept as valuable and aspire to achieve.  Finally, they have a leader whose task is simply to assure    the framework and guidelines are upheld.  Much like a Quaker meeting, members of such groups find themselves moved to speak with an honesty and power that seem to transcend what they could say in other conversations.  As a member of such groups, I find myself experiencing a power greater than myself.

Then, there is that inner voice I mentioned earlier.  This week and maybe one other time, I have found myself able to join my will with a higher power (Big Dude, God, or whatchamacallit) and to literally change my own perception and behavior.  To get real about it.  I was struggling to let go of an unhealthy attachment or false god, you might say.  I had spent the better part of a month worrying over it, crying, sharing with friends and groups, reading, praying, and NOTHING was working.  Finally, in desperation, I decided to take a vacation from thinking about the situation.  I wouldn't let myself worry about whether that was the right thing to do because, hey, I was "on vacation."  Every time a thought or feeling about this thing came up, I would flick my fingers and mentally say, "on vacation."

What happened was amazing!  Soon I found that I could join my intention with Intention, the higher version of my own will.  I began to "hear" a strong voice inside of me saying things like:  "not your problem," or "don't go there" or "not today."  The voice morphed into more profound offerings like:  "You have choice here and I recommend . . ." or "You really dealt with that well; you were detached and loving."

In recovery, people might say I was building a strong adult or reparenting myself well.  They also might say that I had accessed the "higher power of my understanding."  I love what is happening.  I feel like a co-creator of my experiences in league with a higher energy and understanding.  I am in league with the Big Dude!  Call it what you will--a rose by any other name would smell as sweet (Shakespeare). Namaste. Roxie

When You're Weary, Feeling Small

Enlightened people tend to scare us off sometimes.  They seem too good.  They've reached a place that seems unattainable at times.  That's why I like the writings of Pema Chodron who has books with titles like When Things Fall Apart.  She's my kind of enlightened.  Enlightened means to bring light to the human condition.  That's why in meditation, you put your feet on the ground or you sit in such a way that the power of the earth and the power of the universe can both flow through you.

Anyhow, back to the human condition.  I used to post only when I was inspired and that meant long periods would go by between postings sometimes. There's another way to look at spiritual writing, though; you could think of it as an awareness of today's human dilemmas in the light of universal truths.  That's where I'm going in this blog so aptly titled "sacred shit."  Some days it may be mostly sacred with a little bit of shit and some days it may be mostly shit with a little bit of sacred.

In spiritual practice of any kind, it doesn't do to soar above the immediate.  You start with the immediate and become increasingly aware of yourself contained by that.  Eventually, universal forces join you and you experience a harmony or vibration from the union of today's dilemmas with the eternal good.

So, I'm sitting in Maine by the ocean.  I'm feeling particularly lonely and guilty.  I'm feeling guilty of not being "good enough."  Not good enough as a daughter, mother, sister, writer.  This is where true spirituality begins.  As the Simon and Garfunkel song says, "When you're weary, feeling small, when tears are in your eyes, I'll dry them all.  I'm on your side."  And, voila, the God joins the human.  The universal good is on our side!

When you think of it that way, it's amazing.  When you cherish the human condition as the starting point of co-creation, when you realize that the divine word, any divine word, becomes real in you, you're on the path.  I can feel that integration as I sit here.  However small I may be feeling, I contain the universe.  Namaste, Roxie.

When in Doubt . . .

When in doubt, go to the ocean.  Any ocean will do.  Go where the deep, deep water stretches farther than the eye can imagine.  Where the waves pound on the rocks even when the wind doesn't blow.  Go where the land ends.  God, by any name, is there.

Here I am on Bailey's Island in Maine sitting on a deck in the rain staring at the sea.  The sky is grey, the ocean is grey.   It's a feast for the soul in muted tones.  The sound of the sea can keep me there soaking wet.  Its unbridled passion swirling and pounding making human illusions of power fade away.  It takes me there on the deck or the rocks or wherever I find it and tosses me into the universe, my soul meeting its Soul, mating, mating.

And yet the ocean's mighty roar and rush to pour itself into any willing container is completely contained by the land, isn't it?  It rushes up and preens itself, giving everything it has to knock over those defenses.  But the land, stands.  Making it safe.

The dragons of life can rear up and howl their ferocious howls.   They seem to tower over us for a moment only to recede with grace, bowing to the steady nature of the earth.

Spiritual life is like this.  Doubt and terror assail us with mysteries beyond our comprehension.  We stand our sacred ground, breathe our universal breath, and the union is complete.  When in doubt, I go to the ocean.  There my soul takes its stand on land.  It takes a knee to the sea.  Roxie

If I Give My Will To You, Will You Handle It With Care . . .

Almost every spiritual practice seems to ask that you surrender your human will or perhaps ego to some higher being or another.  I seem incapable of doing that.

Oh, I say the words.  I pray and meditate.  I recognize that I can't "fix" my life by myself.  I try to "let go and let God" as the saying goes.

Alas, I'm clueless how this would look, what I would do, or what I would feel.  I got nothing!  I can be devastated, overwhelmed, terrified and yada yada, but the best I can do at those moments is say:  "Help!"  That doesn't feel like surrender.  It feels like I've been taken hostage by life.  I'd like to be more willing to trust some universal good.  I want to do this; I don't know how.

I sometimes have fun with it, playing my guitar and singing the old song: "If I give my heart to you" only substituting the word "will" for heart.  So, I can read about it, pray about it, joke about it, sing about it, but I can't really do it.

Yes, I'm working the 12-Steps and I have no problem admitting I'm powerless over lots of things and people.  I've got the first step down cold.  Then, we get to the second step where you recognize that maybe there's a higher being that could restore some clarity.  I get that.  At the third step which is actually turning your will over to this alleged being, I'm stumped.  Did anyone once feel stuck like this and then find ways to let go?

A friend of mine said that he started out by letting go of little things like having to control the family remote!  Another friend said he gives his will to God when he gets up in the morning and spends the rest of the day trying to get it back.  So, I know it's not the easiest thing for many, many of us.  Please post your ideas in the comments section for the benefit of all those, like me, who can go through the motions but secretly know it's not for real.  Roxie

Mother

Mother's Day can be a tough time for the many, many people whose relationship with mom is painful or non-existent.  Additionally, some mothers are grieving for their children who died before them or who are distant either physically or emotionally.  Some moms have children in harm's way today.  This is a tribute to all these women and men.

I also want to salute the non-traditional moms who bring love to their "children--foster moms, dads who also serve as moms, grandmothers who are raising grandchildren. mentors who "mother" young people, teachers who mother the lost children in their classrooms.  A day in honor of mothers is a great idea, but mothering is a principle or an energy that transcends gender.

Why am I writing about this, you wonder?  Alas, I had a troubled relationship with my mother.  While I am slowly making peace with this reality that permeated my life from my early childhood until my mother's death and beyond, there will always be a wound where I wish my mother had been.

Share your mother stories in the comments section.  I'd like to hear them.  Roxie

This Little Life

It's what we have.  This life.  When things get chaotic around me or in my brain, if I can remember to stop and check in, I can sometimes return to a serene place.

Checking in starts with taking a breath to slow me down.  Then I do a little scan of my physical self noting where there is tension or pain in the body--often it's in my gut or lower back. Then, I do an inner scan to see what thoughts I'm obsessing over, what emotions are overwhelming me or are just out of reach.

Finally, and this is the coup de grace, I say these words:  This is my little life.  This is my house. This is my yard.  These are my friends.  This is my doggie.

This small exercise makes me feel safe within my own container.  I feel grounded in my life.

When I was in college I wrote a poem that I never forgot.  It had a line that went like this:

"My little loves, crickets, night, and death's surprise" tell me that I'm not in charge and neither are the laws and rules of this world.  It went on to say:  "They crucify. Christ and friends who understand and you and I, die."  Kind of bleak, you might say, but it doesn't feel that way to me.  To me it says that this world and all of us within it are, to use today's term, dysfunctional.  It's part of the human condition, of being an innately spiritual being in a physical world.

How do we, all of us, begin to manifest spiritual principles like love and compassion in a physical world that values being the best over being together (to put it nicely).  Survival of the fittest instead of the well being of the least fit.  Oddly and counter-intuitively we do it by honoring our little life first.  By seeking our own enlightenment first.  Only then can we honor the lives of others and support their enlightenment.

So I start each day saying:  This is my little life.  Namaste.  Roxie