Got-Wicca.Org The Ramblings of A Woman Seeking Her Path

All right, now I actually have read almost to the end of Chapter 5, or was it 6? I can’t remember right off hand, but I am about to delve into the question for Chapter 3 which is:

In Chapter 3, Thorn refers to the “Promethean Spark” that kindles “a life force that fills every inch of us: soul, mind, body, emotion.” To access this “life force” we must turn away from the clamor of contemporary media culture, a culture that “wishes to rock us into complacency and keep us from full awareness” and bring stillness and focus back into our lives, beginning with the most elemental of physical needs – breath.

“All life, all magic, and all spiritual work begins with the breath.”

How do connections with your body, its needs, and the present, physical world inform your spirituality? And if “the fodder for our work is the stuff of life itself,” how do we engage fully in that life without falling into it’s cultural traps?

We all know that your body will let you know when it needs something. If it’s cold, you put on clothes or a blanket. If it’s hungry you feed it, if it’s thirsty you get a drink. If it needs sleep, you take a nap or go to bed for the evening. So you are connected with your body. Everyone is connected with their bodies, at least on the most basic physical levels. But connecting to your body on other levels can be difficult. Frankly, my body doesn’t tell me it needs exercise – or so I think. It’s not that it isn’t telling me, it’s that I don’t listen, because I am not attuned to the energies of my own body.

Attuning to the energies of our bodies is something that requires us to do a lot of work. Not too many people are just “in tune” with themselves automatically, all the time. Your spirituality is much the same way. Connecting to all the energies of our bodies helps us to strengthen the practices that we will use to connect to our spiritual centers as well. We also need to learn to attune to the energies of the world, for as Thorn reminds us again and again throughout this book, we are all and all are we. Connecting to the energies of our present, physical world can also bring about deeper connection to our spiritual centers.

The biggest problem with attuning to our own body energies and those of the physical world is that we are constantly bombarded with cultural things. The music we listen to, the shows we watch, the movies we go to see. We are constantly on the go, constantly falling into the traps of society and culture. We see everyone else doing something and we want to do it as well. While this seems like a great thing to do, it really isn’t. We must remind ourselves that being constantly on the go is not going to feed our God Soul. Being constantly on the go is doing nothing more than trying to fit a square peg into a void that is round. Falling into the cultural traps does nothing more than “satisfy” us on the top layer, the outside of our being if you will, without ever going deeper than that. These traps provide false satisfaction that leaves us craving more and going for more of those traps in order to fill the void.

We need to step back, take stock, and see what we are really looking for. Music may very well feed your soul, but going out to raucous rock clubs every night may not be what you need to feed it. You may well need to sing, play an instrument, or even play a CD quietly at home during your meditation time (I love to have Enya, Loreena McKennitt, or Sarah Brightman CDs playing when I meditate) to feed your soul.

You can go to your rock clubs, dance clubs, etc. You can engage in your life, but you must remind yourself that these are only “momentary” things, that they aren’t all there is, that they aren’t most important. You must remind yourself to make time for your meditation, make time for your spiritual center. Make time to attune to your body. Your body may be trying to tell you something and you’re missing it for all the partying you do.

For me, this is the internet. I spend a LOT of time on the internet and not much on my spiritual growth. I know I have this problem, and I know I need to correct it. I made a small step today. As I waited for the doctor today, I closed my eyes (I still can’t meditate with my eyes open LOL), breathed in and out deeply, and counted the seconds. Literally. I counted the seconds. There was a clock ticking and I focused on that, blocked out everything else, and just counted the seconds while breathing deeply. After counting out about five minutes, I stopped. I opened my eyes. I was absolutely amazed at how different I felt. My mind was clearer, I wasn’t worrying about anything, and I wasn’t focusing on how much pain I was in due to my bad knee. I was simply calm and quiet. I was still.

I plan on doing this again tomorrow before I go to work. I’ll have to improvise as all the clocks here are digital, but I believe my Nintendo DS makes a ticking noise when the clock is showing, so I’ll use that to count the seconds off. I was completely amazed to see how much just being still can help me. And the idea came from this book.

No, I am not yet doing the work laid out in the book. I just remembered that I hadn’t been doing my meditation after seeing it mentioned several times in the book. And so I decided to start adding it back into my daily practice. Let’s see how far this takes me shall we?

Continue reading Kissing The Limitless – Chapter 3 – Weiser Book Club

Today we have our 2nd question pertaining to our reading of “Kissing the Limitless” by T. Thorn Coyle for the Weiser Book Club (#WBC1 on Twitter, follow @WeiserBooks for more information).

In Chapter 2 of Kissing the Limitless, Thorn writes “Each spiritual seeker and magic worker sooner or later has to face the oracle that tells us to know ourselves. Without that component our work is lost. We ask a lot of questions and think many things about our conditions, but do we really look at our lives inside and out? Do we see? Do we know?” The adage “know thyself” is ages old, but how do we approach such a monumental (and frightening) task? How with lives saddled by responsibility, dulled by routine, and fraught with worry, do we connect with that true inner self?

One exercise Thorn suggests is a 1-month journal as a way to observe the details of our daily lives. What other ways do you find to connect with the world and that shadowed inner self? How can we better “see” and “know?”

Connecting with the world and the inner self at the same time can be a very difficult thing to do. Human nature is to either be connected to the world (extroverted people are usually very connected to the rest of the world I’ve noted, or at least to the rest of mankind), or to be connected to the inner self (introverted people are usually quite in touch with their inner beings in my experience). Not both.

As humans we do not see how our own lives are going, we only see how the lives of those around us are going. We judge how our lives are going by how theirs are going. Have you ever noticed that if someone near you says they are tired, you suddenly become tired as well? That’s what I’m talking about. We judge how we are, how our lives are, by the measure of others around us. The problem is, how do we connect to ourselves? How do we start seeing who we are?

Obviously, keeping a journal and asking ourselves questions we’d never think to ask ourselves to answer in that journal is one way, as Coyle suggested. However, another way I have found is meditation. When I meditate (and I admit, it is not often that I am able to do so) I find that I am able to see things a bit more clearly. I can stop, clear my mind for a few moments, and just be me. I can just be me for a few minutes and connect with who I am, even if only for a very few moments.

The biggest problem I have with this is that once I am done meditating, everything rushes back to my mind and I am unable to recall what I have learned during my meditation time. This is where I feel I have a lot of work to do. Being able to retain that peace, being able to retain that sense of learning/knowing/seeing myself for more than a few moments after finishing my meditation and introspection.

Another way to know ourselves is through our spiritual rituals. Do they feel right to us? Do they call to us? If they don’t, but we do them anyway, we can pause for a moment and ask ourselves questions that can lead to seeing who we are, knowing who we are. Gauging how we feel after we perform our spiritual rituals, no matter how great or small they are, can be a big insight to us. Are we happy, energized, and feeling loved? Or do we feel just the same as before? Do we feel disconnected, bored, tired? Looking at our spiritual rituals can definitely help us to know ourselves.

One key point to remember – unless we truly know ourselves, we cannot truly know the world. As this quote in Chapter 1 states:

If that which you seek, you find not within yourself, you will never find it without.” Doreen Valiente, (in “The Charge of the Goddess”)

We must look into ourselves first and know ourselves first before we can look into the world and know the world.

Continue reading Kissing the Limitless – Chapter 2 – Weiser Book Club

For March 2, 2009, in the first edition of the Weiser Book Club, we are working on Chapter 1 of “Kissing The Limitless” by T. Thorn Coyle. The question posed to us by Lisa of Weiser Books (@WeiserBooks) is this:

In Chapter 1 Thorn talks about the difficult groundwork that must be laid before we begin our journey – becoming present in our own lives, complete in our education and thorough in our practice – ours is a culture of quick fixes and store-bought identity. Thorn urges us to seek out discipline – “There is something to be learned in grinding incense and lighting candles…something to be learned in breathing properly.”

How do the rituals and labor of your spiritual practice (whatever it is) inform, strengthen, or define your belief? Why?

As a Wiccan, a solitary practitioner of Wicca, I find that the rituals and labors of my spiritual practices mean more to me than they did when I was a practicing Christian. This may sound odd or off the topic, but I promise you will understand soon enough.

When I was a Christian, I had no part in the preparation of “rituals” or “labors” for what went on. I was merely a spectator. I received the sacrament, but I had no part in preparing it. I received the Sunday School lessons, but I had no part in creating them. I heard the prayers and read the books, but I had no part in saying the prayers, no say in what was said in them, no say or input as to what was in the books or what I read. I was told to read this book/chapter/verse and I did. I did nothing and frankly, received nothing as well.

As a Wiccan, whether I perform rituals that were pre-written that I follow line by line, or whether I write my own rituals, I still do the work. I still must gather the materials necessary or visualize the materials for myself. I must still make decisions as to whether to use this set of candle holders or that one. I have to take responsibility for making sure the candles are anointed, the water and the salt are in their places, the offering plate and chalice are in their proper places, etc.

This leads me to feel more connected to what I am doing. I am not seperated from my beliefs. I do not blindly sit and take what is more or less spoon-fed to me. I study, commune, and take part in what is being done to honor my chosen deities. I feel this helps me to strengthen my beliefs as when I have finished, I feel the sense of love, the sense of satisfaction that I have done something to honor my deities. It makes me seek to accomplish more to this end.

I feel the closeness of the deities when I am the one doing the preparations. I feel them near me, I feel them watching. I know they are guiding me in the right choices to make. When I was a Christian, it was more of doing something because the person standing behind the pulpit told me I should do this. I “believed” because I was told to, not because I did.

With each ritual I perform, my beliefs are confirmed. They are strengthened. I know what it is that has pleased my deities. I know what it is that makes me feel better about myself. I am shown bits and pieces of who I am, who I can be. What I can be.

This is how the rituals and labors I perform as a Wiccan strengthen and define my beliefs. Because I am a major part of it, not just a spectator who takes part after the main body of work is finished.

This book is presents a challenge to all who read it. A challenge to look into yourself, to fully integrate with yourself and with everything. To fully realize who you are, what you are, and how you fit into everything – how you work with everything. How YOU are in everything and everything is in YOU. So far, the book as been wonderful – very insightful.

Although it is in the block quote above, I have to say my favorite passage, the one that says it all from Chapter 1 is:

“There is something to be learned in grinding incense and lighting candles…something to be learned in breathing properly.” – T. Thorn Coyle in “Kissing the Limitless”

Continue reading Kissing The Limitless – Chapter 1 – Weiser Book Club