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28/08/24
listening to: temple dance of the soul - jozef van wissem
i've been looking into the work of dr lisa miller. i'm convinced by the scientific proof of the legitimate need for an involved spiritual life, by the anatomy of our brains and our inborn propensity for it. i'm not convinced about the... content of that life she's espousing. a loving, guiding life (god/higher power etc). i mean, it matches my intuition. it matches my experience. she even uses the same language i've used to describe what i understand to be the most magical way of living, which only got some kind of recognition from one or two magical practitioners (out of quite a few i've talked to and interacted with over the years). so it's encouraging but also feels a little bit wrong to idk... "taint" it with science. as if the scientific confirmation makes it real /from now on/. as if by being "gotcha!" about it i'm admitting that i didn't /really/ believe it previously. i don't know, maybe it's my own hang up. but it's quite interesting stuff, i do recommend looking her up, there are quite a few podcasts with her as a guest. i haven't yet read her books, my non-fiction queue is full right now.
i've been thinking about how the thing we're guided to, if we allow it to come, is better than the thing we're choosing for ourselves. like - right now my perfect life seems a little small. but it doesn't mean it was the wrong choice. i strongly feel i couldn't have come into myself if not for that safe space provided me by my current partner. their emotional and mental support, and the very real physical support. where i could withdraw from the painful world, could stop masking and really listen into myself about some very basic aspects of who i am. and i couldn't have done that if i was still chasing the wrong people. i'd been pursuing people who really weren't right for me and i had to reach a pinnacle of pain and frustration to give up on that self-directed quest for partnership. the moment i stopped striving, the right one had arrived, all by themself.
another condition - perhaps they would not have been delivered to me had i not been an avatar of what they were seeking and craving in their life at the time, a disheveled carefree non-conformist art student. something i couldn't have become if i'd successfully continued my master's in psychology. leaving that program was never a bad decision, it was another one of those "this is so painful i might just die if i continue" situations. i had to go. but it did give me a sense of failure. like if i managed to push through 3 years of autistic burnout and finish high school, couldn't i have lasted just the 2 more years i had left in the clinical program as well? (no). this new reframing is literally making meaning from all the difficulties and stitching them into a coherent story. all our life is just stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, so why not tell a magical one?
so, currently my life is a little too small. i'm looking to stretch out. i have a sense that this will explode once i have my surgery. and once i'm better at the local language, good enough to attempt in person conversations with anyone i'm drawn to in my day to day situations. which isn't to say i'm delaying anything on purpose. i'm still trying to grow now.
what have i been guided to recently, and who are my "angels"? i think this small web thing was a very good thing for me. my friend hatch with his passion for small web and enthusiastic encouragement made it possible for me. i think this website created a kind of concentrated image of me as a tarot person to those around, and maybe allowed me to step into that role in a semi-official way. not just as an interest i've held for over two decades, but as a useful skill, something central to my life. i offer free readings weekly, i get messages to this blog's email about tarot. i strongly feel that whatever my next thing is, it's opening up to service. and i feel, or maybe only hope very strongly, that it's to do with tarot. i don't think i have some special wisdom to impart, but i do know people find me a calming presence. and maybe with the use of tarot i can help create for them a mini-version of that cocoon i've been given. a space of no judgment where they can listen for themselves, and help themselves, with their own wisdom. maybe that's something i can facilitate.
or maybe it's something completely different still! i will be on the lookout for further signs. unrelated to Big Life Path (i think), one sign that's been standing out recently is the bleached white bones on the rooftop under my window. are they calling me back to specific work? maybe it's a request to once more prepare something for the restless dead this autumn...
