(no subject)

[felicula]

flnerd recently asked me about my spirituality, to which I replied that it's a long story.

My spiritual journey began when I was in about third grade. My parents were Catholic. I was going to a Catholic school. One day our teacher was called out of the room during RE class. (Now that's something you wouldn't see happening nowadays...) I'm pretty sure we'd been working on learning the symbolism behind saying the rosary. A boy in the class asked the rest of us whether or not we believed what they were teaching us about religion. I don't remember whether I answered him right away. However, I do remember another day when we were walking across the parking lot too or from the church with which our school was associated. I was thinking about that question pretty intensely and it occurred to me that, no, I did not believe what they were teaching us when it comes to religion. At that point, I knew there were other religions, but I didn't think that I had much of an option considering that my family was Catholic.

At the time, I was obsessed with unicorns, mysterious things, and magic like it was pictured in the story books. I dreamed vividly, in color (and still do).

We moved within a year or so, and that did nothing to help my ties to Catholicism. My previous school did First Communions before First Reconciliations. The new parish and school did it the other way around. So, I managed to completely skip First Reconciliation. Looking back on it, there's some rather humorous implications to that one...

I can't remember at what point I started reading about it, but at my local library I borrowed books about ESP, UFOs, ghosts, pyramids, Stonehenge (even owned a choose-your-own-adventure about that, hee!), crystals, and other "New Age" topics. I read Real Magic by Isaac Bonewitz, which fascinated my young mind but was over my head at that point.

I think I was in eighth grade when a friend went book shopping with me and pointed me toward the New Age section of the book store. I came home with a selection called Celtic Magick by DJ Conway. In retrospect, I cringe at the choice, but that was my first introduction to the concept of Wicca. I loved the idea of it: the four elements of earth, air, fire, and water felt more natural to me. I wasn't so sure about the generic Lord and Lady bit, but it was a step up from the concept of an anthropomorphic singular Lord.

My parents enrolled me in an RE confirmation class my freshman year in high school. Between the work that I didn't believe in, the classmates who tormented me, and my step toward paganism I decided I'd had enough. I expressed my desire to discontinue the classes and come out to my parents as a pagan. We had a night full of questions and answers at and after the dinner table, and that was it. I was no longer bound to Catholicism.

I set up a circle in my parents' basement, performed a self dedication, and continued reading new information about Wicca and neopaganism.

Still, I didn't feel that Wicca as I knew it was the right word for what I believed either. I identified better with the more generic term neopagan. Granted my form at the time was heavily informed by Wicca, seen ever more clearly in retrospect.

While I was in college, I had a number of great discussions with a variety of individuals that helped me refine what I believed. I realized that I am pantheistic: that is, I see the divine in everything. Literally, everything. To me e=mc^2 was more than just a scientific theory, it was a way of life. By existing, by being, we are something miraculous. To me matter=energy=spirit=soul. To me the fact that matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed necessitates that death is not the end.

One of my beliefs that not everyone agrees with is my idea that consciousness doesn't have to be limited to a human mind or a nervous system. I think that the earth as a whole has a perspective, as do individual biospheres, as do continents, nations, subgroups, stars, planetary systems, etc. I believe that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, including the entirety of That-Which-Is taken as a unit. To me, that's the closest I get to the concept of a supreme, overarching deity: the Whole, the All, Everything, Being.

Thing is, I also believe that the deities we know and love in all shapes and sizes exist too. To me Yahweh is a part of the Whole, as is Kernunnos, Odin, Bast, the Morrigan, Svarog, and all the others in all the pantheons. To me they are bigger and older than we are, are worthy of devotion and have much to teach us, but are not the overarching Unity of Being.

In college I also had the wonderful opportunity to be a part of the Pagan Student Association at SUNY Oswego where I was a student. By necessity, we were a diverse group and our rituals reflected that, though we kept a generally Wiccan framework. I have a fond though slightly embarrassing memory of officiating a ritual where the public was invited both to the rite and a Q&A session afterward. I oopsed on the order of service, forgetting the meditation I'd written in lieu of an energy raising until after we'd shared bread and juice (which was supposed to ground the energy raised.) Partway into the Q&A, our faculty adviser, witchmystic called me back to the circle area. The place was humming with energy, which would not do to be left in the lounge of a residence hall. He called everyone over to experience the palpable example of our work. It was fascinating to hear people who had never experienced a pagan ritual walk into the area and exclaim things like, "Ooo! It tingles!" Granted, I still had to clean up the energy and take it outside, but my mistake turned into such a great demonstration.

I've kept an altar through the years with varying symbols and tools, though my devotion waned after moving to Rochester. I remember being curious about Ar nDriocht Fein before we moved here, saw the listing on the main site about what was, at that time, Three Songs Protogrove in the area. I remember lurking on the email list but not working up the courage to meet people in person. I would occasionally attend rituals back with keepersrosered and amberrattus in Buffalo.

I went back to college at MCC in, I think, the fall of 2003. My degree there is in Liberal Arts, General Studies. Still, I got to take some fascinating classes. One was called "Reincarnation: a Global Perspective" for which the principle texts were Reincarnation The Phoenix Fire Mystery edited by Sylvia Cranston and Many Lives, Many Masters by Dr. Brian L. Weiss. Between that class and the others I was taking at the time, I had so much on my mind, constantly. I will never forget the day that I could not get the phrase, "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear," out of my head. Like a koan, I mulled over it and studied it until a flood of understanding flowed through me. I felt sucked into comprehension like an undertow. And at that point of singularity, reason stepped aside. It was like a blooming orgasm and a punch in the gut. For that moment there was no me. It was like a door opened on life and the Unity that I had believed in and understood simply Was. Sure, I was a part of it, but the Whole was there, more vivid and vital and blindingly bright than concious everyday reality. That glimpse lasted for a split second and an eternity. Then I was lauging because I saw that the statement I had been stuck on was this great big joke. Everywhere I looked and everything I looked upon was both student and teacher for those with eyes open to see. The ready student was simply an individual open to life's lessons in everything they encounter.

Later, I took a class based on the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig. I had a time to talk to the instructor about what I'd experienced before. It was then that I understood that I had walked headlong into a mystical experience. I've read descriptions in several different religious viewpoints: Sufi, Gnostic, Zen... I'm pretty fascinated by the fact that religion is a form: like a set of dance steps for which the energy to move through them is the underlying reality of the spirit. The spirit, the heart of the matter is the same. The steps may change but the dance keeps moving regarless of our form. Some steps may be elegant and some rough, but each of them moves us through Being.

Anyhow, I took advantage of the opportunity to learn more about Buddhism and to experience an introductory workshop at the Zen Center. I worked on zazen, and marveled that the "spiritual technology" existed to cultivate the kind of experiences I had encountered accidentally. But my discipline waned and life continued.

I have taken a couple classes on World religions and one on Asian religions. One of the fascinating tidbits I've learned is that the "Golden Rule" of "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," or its Asian counterpart of "Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you," are pretty darn universal. My mentor at ESC was telling me that the Golden Rule was documented in Egypt well before anyone was compiling what became the Bible.

I was feeling a pull toward spiritual community in Spring 2006 and tried the First Universalist Church of Rochester on for size. I liked the people. Rev. Tyger's sermons never failed to leave me with good food for thought, and the soul of the place was edified by its beautiful building. (I've spent too much time on arts and crafting. I am often moved by beauty and craftsmanship, even though I know to my core that tools and buildings, smells and bells are simply trappings.) I have served as a Worship Associate there on a double-handful of occasions: writing the words for the Call to Worship, Chalice Lighting, and Offertory and presenting them during services. I found it refreshing to be a part of a religion that embraced all my facets: my paganism, my buddhist leanings, and my connection with mysticism.

One of the friends I'd made at First Universalist expressed interest in getting together a group of folks to study druidry in the area. Knowing that he'd be there, I got up the courage to go to Muin Mound Grove in East Syracuse for some of their rituals. By November, I signed on as a member of ADF and was a part of the local study group he had helped orchestrate. At this point we're officially the Shining Valley Protogrove about to hold our first public ritual for Midsummer. ADF appeals to my pagan side, though its practices have a different form than Wiccan ritual. I enjoy ADF's call for scholarship, as well as its growing community.

So, along with at least one of my Protogrovemates, I have begun work on ADF's Dedicant's Program: a line of introductory study and practice intended as a foundation for further work within the group. I think, to me, the central idea is one of practice. I'll be the first to admit that discipline is one area where I have been pretty consistently lacking. So the next step for me is to try to build the spirituality that has been percolating since I was small into a disciplined practice, and to forge a more personal relationship with deities. I think I could benefit from working with a hearth culture.

It is a long road, but this is what brought me to where I am today, spiritually speaking.