Yesterday Morning's Thought

[qos]

A significant portion of my spiritual practice involves shamanism, which means that on a fairly regular basis I have meaningful conversations with beings who most people don't believe exist.


This has been true for quite some time, of course, but it was a particularly intense awareness yesterday. People would ask about my weekend and I wanted to reply, "I have a white cobra coming out of the top of my head."

But even I, who try to be 'out' about my spirituality as often as possible, am not quite willing to say that to most of the people at work. Especially not in the context of what is supposed to be innocuous water cooler chat.

Comments

[oakmouse]

It's really difficult, isn't it, to leave talk about such important things out of a large part of one's daily life. I find that having to stay closeted at work inhibits my ability to talk about these things in any public context, even here on LJ in friends-locked posts. For instance, I've been working on a post for Feral Holiness about an experience with Pan, and working on a post for my own LJ to talk about some of my own shamanic experiences, and both are pretty blocked. I'm not going to let them stay blocked, but it's a struggle. I have a deep reflex to talk to trusted people about what's important to me, in direct conflict with a deep reflex to KEEP QUIET.

I haven't found an easy solution, but I think a_belletrist is right that we need to consider being more open. The question is how to juggle that with the reality of being what our present society's standard of normality judges as nuts. (Maybe a meditation on the image of The World from one of the Rider-Waite derived tarots might help... Dancing in balance within a narrow space.)

[a-belletrist.livejournal.com]

I like that images as a meditation point for this ... seems fitting.

I have the same dichotomy that you do. A strong desire to express and share vs the deep down need to protect by staying silent.

It's hard to find that balance sometimes ... though I always feel better if I can share. I guess what I'm starting to realize is that my target audience is broader than I may have originally assumed. And by being what we are, we give others the courage to be who they are as well.

It's difficult though.

[professor-mom.livejournal.com]

I keep forgetting about FH. I need to catch up in there. I've also had experiences with Pan that would be cool to share, but I'm not sure they belong in FH.

[qos.livejournal.com]

If it touches on sexuality and some form of spirituality or magic then its appropriate for FH. And since Pan is a sexy god, I would tend to think it would be natural.

[professor-mom.livejournal.com]

It's not sexy in the sense that most people would consider sexy, so I'll have to write about it in my blog one of these days.