Practice

[qos]

My dirty little secret is that I do not have a consistent, formal spiritual practice.

That may not have been an entirely bad thing over the past few years. I've been going through so many changes, letting go of so much and undergoing so much transformation, that feeling free to follow each new insight and path has helped my progress. Owning my identity as a spiritual journeyer has been important too.

But the experiences of those around me who have committed to a path of practice, and who have been experiencing powerful positive changes in their inner and outer lives, have left me with a renewed yearning to go deep, not just wide. There is a huge area of spiritual work that I simply have not explored, and I am feeling more urgency about selecting a path and committing to it, of overcoming my aversion for staying in one place, doing the basic, repetitive exercises, and submitting patiently to the discipline of the process.

Right now, I am starting to seriously look at a variety of esoteric paths to determine which seems to most closely align with my inner landscape and symbols, which speak to my heart and soul in their aims and ideals. I scarcely know how to talk about it right now because this is such a new endeavor for me.

My inner life has been focusing on discipline for the past few days, and the combination of discipline, art, and passion that produces beauty. I have a long history of self-indulgence and laziness, but a particular inner teacher has shown up who is unapologetically kicking my butt. She has a few things to say about justice as well. . . although we weren't talking about tarot. This afternoon in my journal I wrote, "[she] demands that I discern between sensuality and self-indulgence, pleasure and laziness."

This evening, under her influence, I had one of the more astonishing workouts I've ever experienced. I've never felt my treadmill time being fueled by kundalini energy before, nor viewed my physical exertions in the context of breaking through boundaries. During my stretching (pre-yoga I'm calling it, inspired by dancingchaplain), she showed me that my usual practice of both pushing the stretch and instinctively resisting it had been getting me nowhere, but when I surrendered to the pose, let the pose work on my body instead of me working the pose, and then breathed all the way down into my first chakra, I experienced far more release and deeper, but more gentle, stretches than my usual way.

This is part of the ongoing process of coming to terms with the material plane, the realm of Pentacles. Just as I had to get over my immature resistance to homemaking ("I'm not that kind of woman!" - Goddess forgive me!), I've been realizing lately (and to my shame) just how much I've refused to do the basic, repetitive, not-fun work that is the foundation of excellence and mastery in so many fields.

It's long past time I got over myself, learned humility, and made a friend of discipline.

Comments

[southernselkie.livejournal.com]

I like the differentiation between sensuality and self indulgence, pleasure and laziness. It's a great and difficult realization.

[professor-mom.livejournal.com]

What I have found for myself:
Spiritual practice is the backbone of growth. Your posessions, your friends, your body, all of those will be gone from you in maybe 50 short years. But you yourself--your essential nature, your spirit, your atman will exists always. Don't forget it and don't neglect it. A spiritual practice brings you to an awareness of that eternal part of you.

I'll be interested to see where your quest for spiritual practice takes you.
(Reply to this)

[qos.livejournal.com]

Thank you for these words.