I read this fantastic post yesterday and it got me thinking. I love the way sometimes if you have some aspect of yourself you are struggling to understand or some concept that isn't fitting, so often someone will come along and add a piece of the puzzle on their blog.
Synchronicity is so alive and well here.
That is not to say synchronicity is always entirely positive. Death seems to have stalked the beloved animal friends of several blog writers recently. I hope it has finished for now.
Anyway back to Quaker Pagan Reflections.... Cat was writing yesterday about the need for fallow time. She was saying that if she has been having a very spiritual time or going through an intense period of development she starts to crave downtime. Another walk in nature will over-charge and sometimes she has to step away and eat junk food and play computer games. She puts it far better than I could...
Basically, sometimes I worry when I feel that my development is slowing, when I am striving to learn and grow, the lulls make me fret. I have been fretting a little about how I sometimes feel it has all slowed up. When I started the blog and started reading and learning and moving it was so great and I had such a buzz. That sudden spiritual spurt couldn't last but I gave myself a hard time as it slowed.
So what am I doing now? Waiting for the next learning spike? Waiting to feel my connection with all that is reaffirmed again? No, maybe I should. Maybe I should listen to my guilt and carry on striving. Maybe I should just except that now isn't a time when I feel as connected as I have, that work and everything else has stepped in a little.
Of course if I spent a little less time chasing creativity, I might have more time to be spiritual. How do I go about being more spiritual? The creativity feels right for now as does learning more of the stories of the land around me.
Of course very little of either of those or anything else will be happening this week. There will be no weekend off for me this week but 4 days of 6.00 starts, three of which will grow into 12 hour days. I am someone who needs a lot of sleep - a hold over from my days of Glandular Fever and Chronic Fatigue. This means by the time I get home, shower and eat, there won't be much time left, for anything really....
So why am I doing this? Because I am part of a team and my team needs to get this done. There is of course a little money involved as well....
I doubt I will feel like blogging so yesterday I sat down and researched four posts that will appear without me even having to log on.... Maybe this is my blogging lull?
The New Cottagesmallholder HQ
4 months ago
Ah yes, synchronicity - there it goes again. I'm in my own spiritual lull at the moment as well...that cusp of transformation has been peaking for a rather anti-climactically long time. *sigh*
ReplyDeleteBut I think I'll wait it out....it never does one good to be too 'busy'...*grin*
((hugs)) and more ((hugs)) in advance for your upcoming work-athon. Ugh! Just think of all the delicious craft supplies you can buy with your added bounty!
I had the thought of spending the money to... But... They are going to give me a contract at work so I will be going from weekly pay to monthly. The overtime pay will be necessary to support me in my switch over... Still at least I won't be destitute! And I have so many craft supplies already, really....
ReplyDeleteHi, Rose.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the plug--and for the comment on my own site; I'm glad and honored you found something in my post that spoke to you. :-)
"The need for fallow time." Actually, I think you expressed at least that part of what I was trying to say better than I did--thank you for that phrase!
I've been stale at times, too--Peter and I both speak of the last few years of running our coven as having tried to "live our spiritual lives as the demo model" where most of the books we read, rituals we organized, and the events we attended were centered on needs we believed our students or our communities had. We did go through a period of falling out of touch with our own spiritual needs and longings.
But it's also true that, as Hystery put it, "The Divine is the Beloved but as in a successful marriage, one cannot maintain the first blush of infatuation, the deepest moments of passion, the intensity of emotional or physical intimacy...at least not all the time." As in physical relationships with humans, we need to accept that novelty will wear off, and, like the Buddhist say, after enlightenment as well as beforehand, we'll need to chop our share of wood and carry our share of water. The ordinary goes on.
It's a dance. But I am increasingly clear that, while I do need to revisit the mountaintops often, I cannot spend my life there, acting the part of a tourist leaping from spiritual high to spiritual high. Part--a big part--of what a spiritual life is for is transforming ourselves for the part we play when we get down off the mountain, in ordinary life. How do we relate to other ordinary mortals? How do we treat the earth, and interact with the thousand small lives we encounter upon her daily?
There's a continual back and forth, I find. And I can't push the river--I've got to let my spiritual life find its own right pace.
So true! Thank you and Hystery's comments did make a lot of sense too and added to my understanding.
ReplyDeleteDo you have Kit Kat's over the Atlantic? They area chocolate bar with the slogan 'take a break'... *grin*
ReplyDeleteAck! Your comment on my blog set a bunch of mental wheels in motion -- cool! Yes, I HAVE read The Alchemist (Paulo Coehlo) but not in a very long time. Want to do that again! Thanks for visiting.
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