My First Post In a Long Time

And probably my shortest.

Today over at Pagan Prompts, the topic was this:

In a single sentence, what is the essence of your spiritual beliefs and/or principles?

So here is my answer(s):

“The Multiverse is a story which we must keep writing, telling, editing and remembering.”

“Read books, and write your stories.”

“Breathe in the wind, carry the light, and tell true stories.”

Okay, so I can’t choose just one. But any one of them taken at a time is basically correct. I shall probably post more on this later, but once I grok it a little more.

Impermanence

The fundamental tenant of Buddhism is that the world is an illusion. Beneath our own fears and fantasies, the world we dwell in is pure emptiness. Nothing lasts. It is only when we realize the transience of being, the essential nothingness that is the whole of existence that we can begin to break free of the endless cycle of reincarnation and fear. Note, however, that acknowledging the impermanence of being does not acknowledge the emptiness of right action and right thought. Though the world may be nothing but illusion, Buddhism asserts that we must yet work and be in this world, and act in the right as yet.

Existentialism follows the same line of thought, emphasizing the absurdity of the world, and the chaos of the world, rather than the illusion of it. Meaning, in existentialism, is the agent of impermanence; only our conscious making of meaning can assert any notion of permanence to our world, and assert our actions in it as right.

Modern science asserts impermanence as the essential state of the universe, as entropy. Entropy is part of the second thermodynamic law which states:  the total entropy of any isolated thermodynamic system tends to increase over time, approaching a maximum value. This means that entropy will either stay the same, or increase. It will never decrease. It also implies that all states of high order will eventually move to lower states of order, to disorder.

In essence, the universe, as a considered whole, is moving along the arrow of time, and is falling to disorder every second. Nothing, indeed, lasts.

 

Love and Compassion

“God is Love. The Divine is Love. Have compassion for all, and love thy neighbor as yourself.”

Love, as an abstract concept, has often found itself at the heart of many religions, most of them attaining an even sharper focus in recent times. Jesus and the Buddha both follow and preach a path of love and compassion for all of the world, and all of humanity, and this is a central part of the appeal their paths have to their followers.

As such, love is at the core of humanity, and indeed most creatures’ survival, and not just in a biological sense, in which hormones, pheromones and chemicals interact to produce attraction, procreation, and the nurturing of the next generation in order for the species to survive. Without love, humanity would not have risen to the height they have today, and they would not even realize how much higher they can rise.

This naturally begs the question of what love actually is, then. To me it is a mystery, and one I have been trying to understand for many years, as an abstract concept, as a natural expectation of what it means to be human, and most recently, as an action of divinity and as a part of the living Multiverse itself.

 

Finn’s Lorica of Brighid-Part II

I prefer the day to the night. Once the sun goes down, I tend to shut down as well. I’ve become more attached to the daylight and the sun, and it seems to energize me more than ever, since I began my worship of Brighid. Morning especially is my favourite time of day. I am one of those rare college-students who doesn’t sleep till noon.

It is important to start off my morning with the correct mindset: with a sense of calm and readiness for the day. It is important to be mindful of my energy and my emotions, and it is important for me to greet the morning.

But it is just as important to me to end my day equally calm and relaxed, ready to rest, and greet another day coming. It is just as important to love the night, for if there is no darkness, the light will eventually blind you and destroy you.

I begin every morning with the prayer I posted here. I end every day with this prayer here. 

 

I rest today

Through moon on sea,

Through wind in the meadow,

Through echoing of valleys.

 

I rest today

With silence on my tongue,

With calm in my mind,

With peace in my soul.

 

I rest today a poet under the mantle of Brighid;

I sleep today by her side.

 

May she always keep me close, and I never afraid.

Finn’s Lorica of Brighid

For me, prayer is an important and powerful connection to deity. Perhaps it is a remnant of my Christian upbringing, but I have never had any doubt that when I close my eyes and speak with my heart the gods are listening. Prayer is communication with deity; most often, we pray in appeal to the gods, but often, I find myself just speaking to Brighid, saying hello, good night, asking her what she thinks of a particular idea. And sometimes I hear her, especially when I find myself on the other side of irony. Her laugh is a sparkling chime in the morning.

These days, I certainly appeal to her more often than anything else–I always turn to Brighid to bring me back to myself when I find myself sinking into personal darkness. Brighid is the light that guides me back.

But mostly, I pray to her, I speak to Brighid, as a protective, energizing and strengthening act of devotion. By the act of daily invoking her, and her relationship to me, and my part in her plans, I ground myself in a true spiritual reality and purpose.

Every morning, as I place my Brighid pendant around my neck, I say this prayer, based in large part on the famous “Deer’s Cry,” or Lorica of St. Patrick. 

 

I rise today

Through sun on spring,

Through wind in the forest,

Through song of the mountain.

 

I rise today

With poetry on my lips,

With healing in my hands,

With strength in my heart.

 

I rise today a poet of Brighid;

I walk today on her path.

 

May she always guide me further, and I never wander.

Quiet

I live in the middle of a large city, directly downtown. I am on the second floor of a low apartment building, right above a busy restaurant. Cars and passersby on the street sound as though they are directly outside, and not ten feet down. Music from the restaurant’s kitchen often makes my floor vibrate. Not a day goes by that I don’t hear a siren wailing (I live several blocks from a fire station), and when I don’t hear a siren all day, I grow uneasy.

People chatter and scream into their cell phones on the street. Taxis honk at other taxis, other cars, pedestrians. The TV blares in the living room, the stereo is on to help work pass by much easier.

I, needless to say, have been sleeping with ear plugs for the past three years. Ever since I moved here, I discovered what the word “noise” truly meant.

Growing up in suburban Texas, I know that civilizations’ sounds do reach me: the distant thrum of the highway, the occasional passing of a plane, a car winding down the street. But every time I go back, as I’m falling asleep, I marvel at how quiet it is.

I am a creature of quiet. Being in the city is not only difficult on a social level, and on a personality level, it is difficult purely on a sensory level. I can’t find a park within walking distance that isn’t within earshot of the highway. I can’t find a closet to hide in and not hear someone’s voice rumbling somewhere. Heck, I can’t even go sixteen stories high and not hear the distant sound of construction cranes.

It has come to the point where I can barely quiet myself–where I can’t still my mind as long as I used to. Where I check my email and listen for my cell phone nearly constantly, or turn on the TV when there’s nothing else to do. But in order to hear spirit, deity, and in order to hear yourself, you must first become still.

As Poets, we often forget that silence is just as important an ingredient in our written and spoken work as words and sounds and songs are. Silence is what envelops a sound and gives it strength. Out of silence we come, and to silence we will return.

It is a constant struggle to seek quiet, and solitude, and listen for myself, for Brighid, and the numerous other spirits I interact with. But it is a discipline I must practice, for when I cannot become quiet anymore, I cannot be myself anymore. I cannot be a Poet.

Absent Again

Life gets in the way of things all too often. However, in this case, it is more like un-life that got in the way of my posting here. Depression makes everything unbearable, but for me, it makes writing, and writing anything of substance, absolutely agonizing. It’s responsible for my not winning this year’s NaNoWriMo, for missing posting in both of my blogs for far too long, and for making a mess of most of the fiction I had to write for a class.

But I did write, and I suppose that’s the important thing. A writer who is not writing, a storyteller who is not telling a story, is absolutely miserable, and empty. The more I write, however painful it is to begin or to go back and redo, the more sane I am. The more I write, the more solid I am. I am no longer a zombie or a drifting, hungry ghost; I am creating something of substance. I am creating my own body, and my own life.

Depression also sucks away my attention to read anything for very long, or to sit still. Depression makes me restless and scared, like an animal trapped in a cage who fitfully paces for weeks and then collapses from sheer exhaustion. But the more I read, the more stories I hear, the less hungry I am. The more still I become. Words ground me, fill me. Even if I remain a ghost, I am a ghost carrying something. I have something to hang on to.

I am slowly getting back into my enjoyment of reading and long, quiet hours of stillness.

I hope to be more devoted in both my spiritual practice (which includes updating this blog) and my daily life. I hope they will one day become one and the same, and no longer divided. Slowly, day by day, I hope to become myself again.