Why This LJ
Aug. 22nd, 2007 05:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qosIn response to the story I told in my last (friends locked) post, someone wrote
I hesitate to respond to your post with a "oh, something just like that happened to me too!" post...it seems rather self-centered, and I know that really, it's not the same at all.
But that's one of the biggest reasons I created this journal. I want to hear the stories of others, even if they don't match my experiences exactly.
I'm doing this work primarily as a solitary. My teacher is extremely generous with her time and energy, spending hours a week on the phone with me and writing long, supportive emails in response to mine -- but she is my only outer plane companion on this journey. Everyone else is on the inner, which means that every contact is fraught with the need for careful discernment and the ever-present possibility of self-delusion.
Those of you who know me from my primary journal know how much I value the realm of mind, of Air: rationality, self-awareness, clear sightedness, honesty with self. And yet, my passions, my intuition, my love for LM, are intense and deep. How to balance the two, especially in this area? Especially with LM so recently gone?
Every time someone else shares a story like this with me, it validates my own. It doesn't reduce my need for ruthless honesty with myself, but it acknowledges that it is entirely possible that what I'm going through, what I'm seeing, what I'm doing, is valid.
Obviously, I believe it enough on the merit of my own experiences to have made a commitment to this work, but it's lonely. It's good to hear about the expreriences of others.
The other reason I'm keeping this journal publically is expressed by something else this friend wrote:
I guess it's all to say I appreciate your sharing this story, because I've never heard perspectives or experiences like these before, and they make me feel less alone.
I'm writing here so that others who are on similar paths can receive the same reassurance, the same sense of not being alone, that I seek from my friends.
I'm writing so that the curious can read about what I'm experiencing, and maybe begin to consider that there are indeed More things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in [their] philosophy and maybe help shift the overall environment so that it will feel safer to share some of these things more widely.
And, as a I read over what I just wrote, I think: maybe that's part of my vocation as a priestress, to serve my community not by leading a congregation or circle, but by speaking out, speaking truth, and helping create a climate in which those of us who have these experiences are more accepted in the mainstream. This little LJ is a long way from the mainstream, but one has to start somewhere.
Tell the truth, was the directive I received recently.
Yes, and yes, and yes.
I hesitate to respond to your post with a "oh, something just like that happened to me too!" post...it seems rather self-centered, and I know that really, it's not the same at all.
But that's one of the biggest reasons I created this journal. I want to hear the stories of others, even if they don't match my experiences exactly.
I'm doing this work primarily as a solitary. My teacher is extremely generous with her time and energy, spending hours a week on the phone with me and writing long, supportive emails in response to mine -- but she is my only outer plane companion on this journey. Everyone else is on the inner, which means that every contact is fraught with the need for careful discernment and the ever-present possibility of self-delusion.
Those of you who know me from my primary journal know how much I value the realm of mind, of Air: rationality, self-awareness, clear sightedness, honesty with self. And yet, my passions, my intuition, my love for LM, are intense and deep. How to balance the two, especially in this area? Especially with LM so recently gone?
Every time someone else shares a story like this with me, it validates my own. It doesn't reduce my need for ruthless honesty with myself, but it acknowledges that it is entirely possible that what I'm going through, what I'm seeing, what I'm doing, is valid.
Obviously, I believe it enough on the merit of my own experiences to have made a commitment to this work, but it's lonely. It's good to hear about the expreriences of others.
The other reason I'm keeping this journal publically is expressed by something else this friend wrote:
I guess it's all to say I appreciate your sharing this story, because I've never heard perspectives or experiences like these before, and they make me feel less alone.
I'm writing here so that others who are on similar paths can receive the same reassurance, the same sense of not being alone, that I seek from my friends.
I'm writing so that the curious can read about what I'm experiencing, and maybe begin to consider that there are indeed More things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in [their] philosophy and maybe help shift the overall environment so that it will feel safer to share some of these things more widely.
And, as a I read over what I just wrote, I think: maybe that's part of my vocation as a priestress, to serve my community not by leading a congregation or circle, but by speaking out, speaking truth, and helping create a climate in which those of us who have these experiences are more accepted in the mainstream. This little LJ is a long way from the mainstream, but one has to start somewhere.
Tell the truth, was the directive I received recently.
Yes, and yes, and yes.
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(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-24 04:41 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-23 08:42 pm (UTC)Yes, one role of the Priestess at this time is to tell the truth, and not so much on leading circles etc. These are different times now...