Maebius Musings

Interesting article from LiveScience hints at a “brain location” for spirituality.

Technically, it is more related to a personality trait called self-transcendence. Self-transcendence “reflects a decreased sense of self and an ability to identify one’s self as an integral part of the universe as a whole.“

http://www.livescience.com/health/spirituality-brain-link-100211.html

My thoughts on this study are a bit divided. On one hand, it’s always kinda interesting to me how Science keeps tapping away at the walls of our unknown in search of the hollow passages and studs behind them.

On the other hand, while the physiology is described here as a deficit, could it not be that lessened Ego is actually better, and those unspiritual types are less adapted? (like having webbed feet, which are cool, but not most efficient at perambulating around town?)

I still think there’s not enough details here to really base a potential-filled claim like “Brain Bits that cause Spirituality” so I’ll simply choose to ignore and gloss past that particular facet of the headline. The study itself holds some nugget of muse-worthiness at least.

Food for thought, but I’m not sure of there’s empty calories here, or whole grains.

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(Note to the person who asked for this, sorry, I wrote it a few days ago and had it stuck in Draft-mode. Here ya go finally.)

My wife and son have been taking Karate at a wonderful dojo near us for about two months now, and it’s awesome to see how the kid especially looks forward to classes and practices at home without any prompting. Finding that ‘thing’ you like to do is an important part of a healthy lifestyle.

However, what I was musing about is not finding a hobby, but the feeling that happens when you formally decide to make long-term effort in it. More specifically the moment of Shift when you make the decision and act upon it.

In our case, the financial outlay to attend karate for 12 months, for two people, somewhat shocked my wife. She was not concerned as drastically with the dollar amount (though that was part of it and affected a vacation plan as we shuffled the checkbook around). Instead, she kept mentioning the fact that she feels really weird/scared/impressed/burdened/freed by the fact she promised to take up an activity, twice a week, for 52 weeks, and WILL be held accountable to her promise by an “authority figure” she respects (the Sensei).

Her reaction led me to ponder other areas in life with Pivotal Moments, and how finding them can be used along a Spiritual Path.

Consider things like jumping out of an airplane, or cliff diving. Those I’ve spoke to about such activities (I’ve gone skydiving) admit more often than not that the actual freefall and landing is great, but the reason they do it is that moment of Can’t-take-it-back asthey first spring from a solid platform into the open air. The feeling of Commitment, of Willful Action is where it’s at.

I think on a deep level, that sane sense of Decision is at work in most profound Spiritual experiences, regardless of how the practitioner explains it. Devout christians often speak of “Dying to Christ” at some dark stage of life, and being lifted up again in Hope/Love due to that dedicated abandonment. Similarly, a wiccan casting circles, or Drawing Down the Moon (or any number of spiritual traditions having similar “ego-stripping”) reacts similarly in allowing the Goddess to manifest in them.

When we let go, or first step off the platform of solid daily-grind, we usually can expect Great Things. Maybe not always Safe things, but Great Changes. Harnessing that Change for a better life is the goal of any Spiritual practice, I often think.

Even when the Willful Action is meant to harm, as in the case of a suicide, I’ve heard anecdotes from survivors regarding a moment of clarity/regret/freedom felt when the act of jumping, cutting, or swallowing is performed, and before the pain or darkness creeps up. I know of one person who admits being glad they attempted suicide, not because they almost died, but for that sudden Eureka of Life-worth-living even as they tried to end their life.

There are probably hundreds of quotes along these same lines, and is a big part of many Eastern religions.

To lose yourself is to find it.

“Banish the ego and develop the spirit of surrender. You will then experience Bliss.”

Or as I prefer to think of it,
“If you want to kiss the sky, better learn how to kneel. On your knees boy”

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I have been attending services at our local UU church for just about two months now, and have even helped out in the kids program after showing an aptitude/interest for “kid friendliness” playing outside with my own son after the services. It’s a nice place!

However, the more I am studying up on UU principles, the more I fear that initial “Yay My Group!” feeling I had towards them is shifting to a sideways “eh, nice group” feeling.

It is nothing against the church. The services are varied and interesting, and welcoming of all manner of faiths. Over the weeks I’ve met a “hardcore wiccan” and a muslim from Pakistan who all meet up for community and fellowship each sunday. The coffee-chatter time is enlightening, as are the somewhat open-ended “sermons”. Yet, for myself, that openness does not fill the void I am finding in my spiritual practice.

I initially started ‘going to church’ again in order to help my son experience a faith-based community and education. In this regard, things are Great. For myself, the lack of steady ritual, beyond a simple candle-lighting, feels almost shallow. As if there is definitely spirit there, but not quite the Divine Spirit (capital S).

I am thinking the flow and content of the services is intentional, to allow for all faiths to pray as they see fit, and the vague wordings towards “Spirit” or “Higher Power” are well suited for personal perspective. Yet, in allowing all paths in, the road is over-broad and unrestrained.

I find I miss my old Lutheran services, or at least parts of them. The hymns, the processions, and the Pageantry of it all is distinctly lacking in the UU church (by design?). Yet it is what which drew me to serve as an assistant minister as a youth. I felt the power and draw of United Ritual, and knew it to be Godly.

Later, when my Path led be outside definitive Christianity, I simply changed the image of God in my head. I realized, deep down, I still held on to the appeal of Ritual.

Perhaps this is why I love drum-circles so much. While the rhythms and ’songs’ are spontaneous, there is an almost standardized “flow” to them that seems ritualized, regardless of the participants. Likewise, some of my most powerful Spiritual Experiences have been during a more formalized ritual.

Going back to the topic of the UU church, I still get the sense that there are groups operating within the UU congregation/community, but have not integrated with them yet to feel welcome and invited. Almost every weekday, the church has something happening, yoga, Spiral Scouts, CUUPS, garden club, Bingo night, etc.

I still feel there is some potentized Spirit available within that church community, if I can shed my “visitor” feeling. However, the actual sunday services have gone from being spiritual meetings to Community meetings. This does not discredit them for what they are. It merely took me a few months to realize my own goals were slightly different than what I originally sought out by going to Church.

In summary, I’m discovering that I still need to find a “church” outside of “church”.

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I was typing up a short musing on the holiday spirit, and how to re-find it in hte midst of crazy work schedules and crass commercialized holiday culture-spam.

Then in the course of cleaning out my feed reader, I stumbled upon this bit of wisdom.

I’ll admit it stuck a nerve and I just sat in my desk here at home, closed my Warcraft game, and almost wept for …um.. joy? remorse? inspiration?    Not sure what emotion it drew out of me but it was such a profoundly cathartic thing, I had to share.

http://domesticwitch.blogspot.com/2008/12/santas-wisdom-to-pagans-author-unknown.html

Strange, isn’t it?   There’s no one phrase I can pick out of this posting that set me off, but after I read it, things just sloooowly clicked and rushed aside, like some sort of “Kundalini rising” energy movement.

Enjoy, and Happy Holidays!

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Recently, I sent a series of short emails to a number of friends, ex co-workers, and other acquaintances to say hello.  The emails (and letter in one case) all said something like:

This is just me, coming out of his hermit cave and saying hello before another week of “I should email you” passes and Life gets distracting again.   Hi!  Hope you and your family is doing well.

I sent these out in the spirit of the season, where Thanksgiving, and post-Samhain, and pre-Yule all draw us to reflect on friends and family.   I meant nothing more than a hello, and expected nothing really in return.

Granted, the anticipation of a reply even like “Hi to you too, bye!”  did spring up in my head, but if silence was given, I still would not be offended. The message, and the vaguely cheery energy attached to it was sent out to the E-ether, and thus completed in my thoughts.

What surprised me, and still stings a bit, is one particular reply stating “Oh hi.  Just because it’s the holiday and we haven’t talked all year doesn’t mean you can be all happy now and expect to start exchanging cards/gifts all the sudden because we emailed. Don’t bother.”

I’m not even sure how to react, and without going into details, I figure this means that person will be taken off my email contact list for good now.   This individual isn’t even one who I last communicated with harshly, or had any sort of “falling out” with.

It is a distant relative, for whom the sum total of our relationship mainly consists of cards at holidays.  I haven’t physically seen them in years.

I’m guessing I touched an unknown nerve, or they are going through some sort of emotional experiences recently that I an not privy too.  Did my unexpected hello touch off some hidden feud, as family sometimes harbors?   I don’t think I’ll ever know the details, nor do I want to pry.

Yet, should I react to this with hugs, or a cold shoulder?   The cynic in me says “To heck with them, and Life’s too short for Drama.“, but then the striving-to-be-better Spiritual side of me wants to reach out again to acknowledge their concern and offer warmer wishes regardless.  This of course gets the cynic all fired up to counter “why stir the coals?“.

Interesting, how the unexpected conflict can throw our own soul-searching into clarity and help us redefine ourselves, or at least highlight the efforts of our hearts.

Any thoughts? I’d love to hear them.

(Advice on how to deal is not necessarily requested, more-so I’m after the musing on how such an incident would make you ponder things/people/Life)

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Forgive the somewhat cliche and lengthy title, but it sums up my mood today (monday).

This weekend, we took the long five hour+ journey to PA to help out a friend and get some things done that needed done. It involved shopping, and sawing, and such, but was not overly strenuous in terms of physical chores.  Still, there was much productivity and Things Got Done(tm).

The amazing thing about the whole weekend, was the transformation that overcame our family (or at least my wife and I) over the course of it.  Lately, things have been a bit grey and mundane.  We dealt with a death in the family, a relative’s unrelated auto accident, and one of those every project at work deadlines Today times that crop up.  The fact I had to miss my herb class made the weekend seem initially like just another Chore.
(no insult intended to those we visited, we still were going to come regardless. *grin*)

In reality, with such an unexpectedly relaxed atmosphere, and high productivity, it felt like this was a weekend quite well spent!  The trip down was made in record time, so much so that I am almost convinced that my joking comment about “taking the moon roads” (a ley-line shortcut) was partially correct.

The shopping resulted in new shoes that make walking comfortable, and thus firming the foundations of my family.   We ate tasty food that nourished our bodies as well as my heart (huevos rancheros = divinity on a plate!).   I played at the park and watched my usually shy son wander right up and get himself involved with both a pick-up Baseball game, and a Soccer match!

It was one of those weekends that just worked. Things went right, the sun shone unseasonably bright and warm, and a myriad of magical minutiae happened.

Even the ride home, usually long and arduous, was filled with the three of us howling at the moon when it peeked from the clouds, interspersed with an unusually chatty kid who put away his video game to play “alphabet games”.  I’m sure any bystanders seeing a family of 3 driving slowly with faces suddenly stretched upwards to the window in a long Awwrroooooo, would think we were nuts.   But we had fun, darn it.

The root beer?   A tasty treat from Trader Joes, to ease parched throats along the ride. Nothing less, but perchance more.  It was magic potion faerie root elixir if the kid is to be believed.

I couldn’t have asked for a better vacation!

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There comes a time in everyone’s life when we must step back, take account of our situation, and endeavor to improve it. It’s a natural human way of thinking, to continually challenge and improve ourselves.

Such thoughts brought humanity from the fire-lit caves of ancient times to walking on the moon (and deforestation and pollution, but I’ll discount that aspect for this post).

And so, tonight I will take up my bookbag, hoist a notebook and pen, and step forward into the frightening realm of Academia once more.   I hope you’ll join me later this weekend, as I regale you with tales of higher learning, wrenched from the inner sanctums of Herkimer Community College.

…

Or, more accurately, I signed up for 4 non-credit courses at the nearby college, taught by someone I know and have on my blogroll!

Tonight is the class “Local and Bioregional Herbal Remedies“,  followed by “Herbs of Children and Family” on Oct 22nd,  the exciting “Preparations and Kitchen Herbs” in November, and finally one in December that does not appear to be updated on the site yet. 

I havn’t been to ’school’ for years now, so am just a wee bit nervous. Gotta get my brain in gear to do some Serious Learnin…

Still, I’ve heard the teacher is kinda hot. 

Green blessings from my yard to yours.

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I’ve seen quite a number of blog posts and undercurrents on the topic of Ancestors, whether in relation to a Spiritual practice, or simply on some secular sources talking about genetics and healthcare.   There’s a LOT to muse about here, but I’ll put one thought out quick, before I forget it and get lost in Real Life again…

There are many methods of “Ancestor worship” depending on tradition and philosophy, drawn together in quite diverse ways in the African Diaspora religions and other tribal beliefs.   The interesting thing is that my own christian and elseways upbringing never really dealt with such topics.  Old dead people (no disrespect intended as I use the term here for context and connotation)  were remembered on holdays, maybe.

I had gone through a stage where I researched my own genetic amalgams and read quite a few very detailed sources on PA Dutch hex-craft, since I was in that region for much of my youth, and had practitioners in recent generations stretching back even further.   Still, I approached it more as a scholarly matter.  I didn’t quite grasp the Sacred.

More recently, with all this Ancestor blogging going on, plus some recent experiences myself, I decided to see about taking one day a week to think about who has gone before me.   I realized, quite unexpectedly, that I already had some pretty ingrained practices in my life that were a form of ancestor worship.  I just hadn’t called them Worship, and thought of them more as ‘fond memories’.

Most pointedly, my grandfather used to carry around a coin, and that I have been doing the same thing almost every day.  Mine’s a gold ‘Sacagawea‘ dollar and it’s showing no signs of becoming smooth yet. I also still to this day have a carved wooden man on my altar at home.   (wow, did I write “I remember” 2 years ago now?!!)  It has also become a sort of joke with my family that my winter and spring jackets are starting to fade and shred, yet I still wear them.  They were from my grandfather’s closet and I inherited them.  The thought of buying a new jacket seems almost insulting, since those still fit.

Beyond all this, one of my favorite quotes about Living Well, comes from Ms Amani (source needed) a woman I met once at Starwood 2002.  It reads “We are the Ancestors of the ones yet to be“, and has been one of the limited random quotes on the main Everthorn site since about 2003.

I’m not entirely sure on how to consider my other ancestors in other aspects of Sacred Lifestyle.  As others have mentioned, there were many who would cast me and my current belief system into the Lake of Fire.  Some genetic Ancestors may tend to shrug such efforts off as irrelevant (assuming their spirits keep the thoughts they had in life).   Yet still, I think a modicum of attention is a good thing, regardless of if it is received ‘properly.

Perhaps they all went to heaven and wouldn’t hear my thanks?  Perhaps they are still around and appreciate such thanks?   The truth is, we’ll never know, and I suppose there is no real harm in offering a few blessings and respectful energies tossed out to the unknown Ancestors.   In the worst case, it does nothing, and in the best, such energies may be accepted and returned a hundred-fold.

I think with this realization, I’ll take my coin and my charred wooden man, and my jackets, and expand the energy invested in them to include those folks I never met.   If my physics knowledge proves Energy is not created or destroyed, and merely changes form, then it is easy to follow that such energies are within us now, today.  Respecting the ancestors is, in a way, respecting ourselves, and those who we become the ancestors of.  Who wouldn’t want that in their lives?!

Thank you to my father’s family, who I know only through stories and half-remembered photographs as a child.  You made me.

Thank you to my mother’s family, who I do know, and love with all the foibles and facets of your lives. You made me.

Thank you to all the friends and family who passed on before I was born.  You made those who made me, and thus, made me in your own subtle way.

Thanks.

I hope I live up to such a Divine end-result for the next batch of worshipers after I cross over. 

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Sorry for yet another YouTube type post, but this was felt really, really important to me.

Last night, on the FOX show “So You Think You Can Dance”, which usually has lots of flashy entertaining routines, my wife and I broke down and cried.  Seriously.

The embedded video starts with a bit of lead-in to one particular routine that I believe gob-smacked everyone in the audience including the judges.  It’s one thing to say that Dance or any Art has the potential to move you, to affect your spirit, and emotions.  It’s another to see such beautiful chemistry in action.

There’s so much thought-provoking muse-worthy stuff bubbling under the surface every time I watch this (8 times now, not close to getting old), but the thing that jumps out at me the most strongly is “Abandon“.

For those suffering from disease or worry, reach out for help.  For those seeking to hide their pain inside to save the world around them, it’s OK to ask for a hug.

It’s ok to leap out across the stage, in total trust that someone will catch you.   To Embrace your power, and Abandon it all must be one of the most powerfully healing things I can imagine.

Watch the video below, and tell me you didn’t blink a few times.  It starts slower, but trust me, watch to the end of the routine.  (You can stop after the dance part if you want, the second half is the judges commentary)

http://www.examiner.com/x-12837-US-Headlines-Examiner~y2009m7d23-So-You-Think-you-Can-Dance-Breast-Cancer-video-with-Kate-Bush-and-Maxwell

Luckily, and thankfully, I never have had to deal personally with the topic of cancer, and may be guilty of glossing over the True Pain that such things bring to someone’s life and loved ones.   Still, that dance hurts to watch, if I think it only scratches the surface of the emotions Cancer brings, but in a strangely cathartic way.   It’s hauntingly beautiful.

I hope you agree.

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