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On Saturday I met with the shamanic practitioner who is a friend of one of my college theatre comrades. I had no memory of actually meeting her while I was at school, but I felt it was likely I would at least recognize her, since our alma mater is a relatively small place.
Sure enough, when she opened her door to me my first words were, "I recognize you!"
"I recognize you too!" she replied, equally delighted.
It was a fascinating conversation. We were both thrilled to find a fellow Pomona grad walking a non-traditional spiritual path as a primary vocation. Our communication was enhanced by the shared thread of our history: not just the campus and its culture (and the expectations with which we now feel ourselves at odds) -- but we studied and worked with the same profs, and some of the same fellow students. Like me, she had spent time with the Pomona Christian Fellowship. When I described the night my existential crisis hit, she knew exactly which dorm room I had been standing in, what the view was from the window where I stood.
She too grew up with a father who was superintendent of the school district.
I think it's very likely she is the teacher I need right now. What form that will take, or how it will fit with seminary is not something I understand yet. But our conversation left me wanting very much to learn what she knows -- or at least to draw on her skills to help me gain clarity of my own path. I love school -- but I feel like seminary is strengthing the rational/discriminating part of my brain when what I should be doing is opening my soul and "tasting" directly of the Divine, embracing and grappling with it in a way I have not done in a long time. Or maybe Kim can help me break into that more vital place again and enrich the academic program. I'm still in transition, keeping my options open.
While we were talking, I had a major breakthrough: Remaining within a single spiritual path is not a denial of the vastness of God/dess. It is an acceptance of the limits of the human.
(One of those Doh! moments.)
But it makes a big difference to me, gives me permission to allow myself to find a single path and rest within it. Not limit myself to it, or to limit God/dess to its confines, but to allow the disciplines and wisdom to carry me deeper. Not to deny the validity of other paths, but to say "This is what brings me closer to God/dess."
When we parted, she loaned me her copy of Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God. More than any other poet, Rilke captures the essence of my spiritual experience. This poem in particular caught me and spoke to where I am right now:
She who reconciles the ill-matched threads
of her life, and weaves them gratefully
into a single cloth --
it's she who drives the loudmouths from the hall
and clears it for a different celebration
where the one guest is you.
In the softness of evening
it's you she receives.
You are the partner of her loneliness,
the unspeaking center of her monologues.
With each disclosure you encompass more
and she stretches beyond what limits her,
to hold you.
Sure enough, when she opened her door to me my first words were, "I recognize you!"
"I recognize you too!" she replied, equally delighted.
It was a fascinating conversation. We were both thrilled to find a fellow Pomona grad walking a non-traditional spiritual path as a primary vocation. Our communication was enhanced by the shared thread of our history: not just the campus and its culture (and the expectations with which we now feel ourselves at odds) -- but we studied and worked with the same profs, and some of the same fellow students. Like me, she had spent time with the Pomona Christian Fellowship. When I described the night my existential crisis hit, she knew exactly which dorm room I had been standing in, what the view was from the window where I stood.
She too grew up with a father who was superintendent of the school district.
I think it's very likely she is the teacher I need right now. What form that will take, or how it will fit with seminary is not something I understand yet. But our conversation left me wanting very much to learn what she knows -- or at least to draw on her skills to help me gain clarity of my own path. I love school -- but I feel like seminary is strengthing the rational/discriminating part of my brain when what I should be doing is opening my soul and "tasting" directly of the Divine, embracing and grappling with it in a way I have not done in a long time. Or maybe Kim can help me break into that more vital place again and enrich the academic program. I'm still in transition, keeping my options open.
While we were talking, I had a major breakthrough: Remaining within a single spiritual path is not a denial of the vastness of God/dess. It is an acceptance of the limits of the human.
(One of those Doh! moments.)
But it makes a big difference to me, gives me permission to allow myself to find a single path and rest within it. Not limit myself to it, or to limit God/dess to its confines, but to allow the disciplines and wisdom to carry me deeper. Not to deny the validity of other paths, but to say "This is what brings me closer to God/dess."
When we parted, she loaned me her copy of Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God. More than any other poet, Rilke captures the essence of my spiritual experience. This poem in particular caught me and spoke to where I am right now:
She who reconciles the ill-matched threads
of her life, and weaves them gratefully
into a single cloth --
it's she who drives the loudmouths from the hall
and clears it for a different celebration
where the one guest is you.
In the softness of evening
it's you she receives.
You are the partner of her loneliness,
the unspeaking center of her monologues.
With each disclosure you encompass more
and she stretches beyond what limits her,
to hold you.
