There Is No Time to Lose

          Over these last few days a current has been flowing through me with which I have been feeling less than comfortable. I know that in part it stems from news both from near and from afar, some about friends, that is saddening. However, I am also aware that although events around the world have been shocking, brutal, and cruel there have also been many that fall into the category of "you're-too-sensitive-but-that's-life." Compared with the heavy stuff these latter are light-weight, small events, that seem not to impinge on one's life too much. Yet they too, drip by drip, add to the unloving malaise that seems to be a necessary accompaniment to life.
          At the very heart of life, at the very ground of our being, there is a place beyond flesh and blood, beyond muscle and sinew, a place that is wholly spirit. Push open the door to her realm and she shines out like white, unconsuming fire. She is Wisdom/Discernment. If I try to close the door behind me and still remain in her presence, I discover that I am returned to a place outside, shut off and waiting to enter. The door must remain open. So once again I push open the door to her realm and wait on the threshold. And it seems to me that all my life has been spent at this point, waiting on the threshold, in some liminal space that exists between what was before this life and what will come after. Now is the time to prepare, with all my strength, for I may not pass this way again.
           This year has seen some horrendous events take place, as well as some that seem to shut the door on hope. I would suggest that many of the latter seem to have opened the way for some people to pour out their racist bile, their intolerance of anything that does not fall within their restricted, limited view of life. Yet that stuff has always been there. It is that now, buoyed up and seemingly justified by others who feel and think in the same way, that there has been a reported outpouring of abuse that shows up a world that is far less than it could be.
          But perhaps there is value in the surfacing of all that we might like to ignore and keep hidden. In a sense, many have "come out" and shown the world how truly uncaring, unkind and contemptuous they are; how each of us could be - if we are honest with ourselves. For my part, I must at all times keep the door to Sapientia open. I must remain aware. Every little unkindness, every little slur, every negative little act or thought dwelled upon, simply adds to the steady drip that will lessen me from what I can be.
          But there is yet hope. Not all is doom and gloom. People can rise to tremendous heights of loving-kindness and ego-denial. All too often those beacons become dimmed to our eyes under the welter of bad news that some enjoy making, and the media determined to peddle. We are in the habit of dividing our lives into discrete blocks, when in fact we are passing through a continuum with no breaks. So now is the time to do what must be done; not in six days time. Now is the time to begin again and yet again. The time is coming when the threshold must be crossed, and I will move on. There is no time to lose.

To Travel One's Own Path

          I find myself caught between a place of wanting, and a place of forbidding. Perhaps the word 'forbidding' is too strong. Yet there is a sense of 'it-isn't-appropriate-to-talk-about-it.' How can I even begin to talk about this current experience? Whatever is happening now has its roots in earlier experiences, as perhaps is inevitably the case. There is no clear and obvious event to which I can point and say that that is where this current phase of my journey began. Therefore, I will jump in at random, and that point happens to be my reading of Karen Armstrong's, "The Spiral Staircase." [For my introduction to this book I must thank dear Susan of "phantsythat."]
          For those who may not have heard of Miss Armstrong, she is an ex-nun. Whilst living in her convent she discovered that she had a real problem with God in that no communication developed between them. I have to say that there were moments when reading her account of her search for herself, when my heart bled for her. In saying that, I realise that I was also bleeding for myself, for my own early experiences of living in a 'born again', Victorian household. As I have indicated elsewhere, I never stopped believing that there had to be some experience or process [but never a some-thing or some-one] in this vast universe that could be called God. I simply turned away from what seemed in those earlier years to be an irrelevance in my life.
          For some time now I feel as if I have been living in a spiritual desert. These are difficult times to live through even though they are also times when something profound is taking place at a deep level. All sorts of experiential clues arise to nudge one towards a course of action that needs to be undertaken. "The Spiral Staircase," and even a television series of space fantasy, were two such clues that I discovered. But pride of place has to be given to the book, the television series playing a secondary, but strong, supporting role.
          As I have already said, I find myself in a place of wanting. I want to continue to write here about matters that are of prime interest to me; matters of the psycho-spiritual. I also find myself in a place of forbidding. Deeply spiritual experience needs to be guarded and explored most gently in secret and silence. I have in the past tried to share much that I have experienced, because behind those experiences I have felt a new reality far beyond the realism of the material world. Now I need to move on from that approach. Where this new phase of my inner journey will lead I know not. I only know that lonely and fearsome though the way may be, it must be attempted. The process of renewal allows for nothing less.

          As it is unlikely that I will post again before Christmas, may I wish for the very best to all my readers for the coming festivities, whether they be a celebration of a Christian festival, any other religious festival of which I am unaware, or simply a pagan celebration of midwinter.