Hello Dear Friends, and Pagani, and U.U’s, and Dear Readers of All Sorts!

I am back from a week or so of not blogging, and slacking on my spiritual practices as I just take some deeply needed downtime to think about things that needed thinking about.  I have eaten junk food, planned healthy menu’s, bought and read a half-dozen novels and a nonfiction book, I have thought about my relationship with the Gods, I have bought myself a futon and will be assembling the frame in the next day or so, and otherwise worked some things out.

In the aftermath of the Big Guy breaking up with me, I dove into my spirituality and Faith looking for strength and grounding and sustaining practices.  I have, to a degree, found some of that, again.

But in the last couple of weeks I have felt this lack of creativity and struggled to do my regular practices and in a conversation with the ever-fabulous Feithline, I was forced to face the fact that I needed to stop and listen to the deepest parts of my heart and soul, and that that can be tough to do when you are bustling about.  So I stepped back a bit from practice and from Work and writing and just sort of let myself be a while.

The first thing I have realized is that I have a LOT of feelings and confusion and doubt within me as a result of that break-up, and that on one level I have been running away from these bottled up feelings in my spiritual seeking and practices.  This does NOT mean I should give up entirely on them, now should any of us, but that I need to be aware of these deep and distressing feelings and doubts.  I need to BE with them and uncap this deep well of grief and unhappiness and begin to draw the icy and cloudy waters of grief out of the well of my soul.

The next realization is that I need to work some on my everyday life, in particular my diet, my body (and alarming lack of exercise), and my physical space.   I was still living largely out of boxes and on an air mattress nearly 6 months after moving into this new room-mate situation of mine.  Now, admittedly, part of that was due to $2,300 in unexpected December car repairs… but STILL, get a friggin desk or something already!!   (I am currently writing this with my faithful computer perched on some plastic totes as I sit on a couple of cushions…)  So I bought myself a futon and spent a morning wandering IKEA for ideas for my space and how to incorporate them into my Neo-Victoriana / Retro-Art-Deco / Steam-Punky decorative fantasies.

Our practices cannot be truly sustaining if our life outside of our spirituality or religion is not also truly sustaining.

All of this has spurred some thoughts on how religion and spirituality can be either a Liberation or Escapism, and so I find myself returning to writing and to practice and to myself and to life…

Peace,

Pax