Spiraling Up Again -- And Connection

[qos]

I haven't written much about my spiritual life in a while. For the last year I've been focusing on the spirituality of daily life, the "pentacles" aspects of finance, hearth care, job, body, and etc. I've been moving my spiritual life from my head into my hands and flesh in a way that's truly unprecedented. Which means that a lot has been happening in non-rational, deep-in-the-darkness/soil ways.

It was only a few days ago that I stopped to consider that the "sudden" explosion of positive action in my day job and paycheck, my living situation, and my physical life (the 3-Day) is probably a direct result of the work I've been doing in this area.

Then, last week, I received an e-newsletter from an author who rarely sends them out. I was reminded that I have a book of his on my shelf, and went to pick it up. Spirituality: Where Body and Soul Encounter the Sacred, by Carl McCollum is the perfect book for where I am right now. It's helping me integrate the non-rational, earthy, pentacles spirituality of the last year or so with my dominant element of Air, helping me to better understand the gifts of my recent work. As I read it, I can feel myself moving up and around the next ascending loop of the spiral that is my spiritual path.

Meanwhile, I've also been going through a phase of vivid inner journeys and encounters with my personal energy, which is also a kind of integration of my physical world work with the more esoteric work I usually do. Could I have tapped into this energy if I was still ignoring and dishonoring my body? Somehow I don't think so.

I feel very much in transition right now, and excited about discovering more about what the next stage of the journey will be. I think this stage is going to be integrating body, mind and spirit in a new way, in exploring the magical-energetic work I've always felt ambivalent about and celebrating my connection to the universe in a way I've never known before. It's work that can't be done without honoring embodiment and connection.

Maybe the connections I've been growing in my personal life (love life, friendships, professional relationships) are nurturing this as well. I've been solitary in so many ways for so long that "connection" couldn't be a place I went in my spiritual life. Now I'm connected and grounded in a new way, and that's providing a new foundation -- and a new perspective -- for my spirituality.

Comments

[malakhgabriel.livejournal.com]

I bought Spirituality when it first came out, and I think it was the first truly useful book on religion that I ever read. McColman along with Marcus Borg really helped me in my transition away from the fundamentalism of my youth.