For Jim, from Al
Hey Jim, I am sorry I had gotten so far behind in catching up with our blog. My Body Electric workshop took me out of the loop about the time you got active in posting, so I had a lot to catch up on.
I caught up on you tonight, and I just wanted to say that what you're writing is amazing. I remember reading Andrew Harvey's "Hidden Journey," which documents his first meetings with Mother Meera and the spritual roller coaster he went on for about 2 or 3 years during his encounter with the Divine through her. It's said to be a classic autobiographical depiction of the Mystical Experience. What you're doing, in the pieces that I read tonight, is a lot like that, except your mystical experiences don't seem to be concentrated in one focused time-arc, but are spread out over decades. Harvey was thirsting for Source, and every time he went on one of those harrowing roller coaster rides of despair or elation, he seemed to be ready to sign up for another one right away. With your experiences, you did more of an escape/reconnect/WOW! or AARGHH!/escape process. A self-protective mechanism, perhaps? Protecting ourselves from despair is not necessarily an irrational choice.
I think you're doing a grand job of remembering the ups and downs of 20- and 30-year-old experiences. I wanted to copy your parts of the blog and put them in chronological order to get more of a sense of where they're going, how they lead to one another (or not), how they terrify you and how you disappear and pull yourself together, eventually to head off into a new one. For me, I survived Easter Sunday, age 13, and then just wrote of religion and stayed in my head and away from that mystical despair for 25 years or so. And I can't say I'd recommend that as a productive cure for mystical overload. I certainly don't have the power of remembrance to write 2 pages on what I went through in my Easter weekend, which would be comparable to what you're doing. Your ability to document the waves so long after they happened is riveting for me.
Are you writing about the elation as well? What I remember from tonight seems weighted toward despair. Is that true of your experience, or is more elation on the way? I am curious about your Body Electric experience, as well, if that's on your list for writing about.
With your themes of Christianity, Reiki and mysticism, you might want to check out Caroline Myss, a medical intuitive who was a remarkable help to me in giving me a vocabulary for things like chakras and stuff. I have a tape series she did called "Spiritual Madness" if you're interested.
I'm not sure what this might become, as far as a book goes. It may not be a completed book for years, until some kind of path or equalibrium has settled in for you. Does turning this into a book require you to have reached a destination? Not sure. It may not be done until you can reclaim that sentence you used in our exercise last week -- "The miraculous is real and I want it back." But you've definitely got something going on here that is more than just worth reading.
I wonder if your self-doubt about your writing ties in at all with the doubts you faced along the spiritual path. I'm not sure I agree with Cliff that neurosis is the primary fuel for the doubts you had about your writing. I'm remembering the Buddhist definition of Faith that I got from a great book by Sharon Salzburg -- faith is choosing a path for healing, and staying on it. Notwithstanding the fact that "every angel [or muse] is terrifying," the challenge is to keep showing up for our meditation sessions, or meetings, or prayer, or writing sessions, or whatever practice we use to channel our spiritual connection. Easier said than done, that's for sure....
So here's my vote on whether anyone's interested in what you're doing -- Yes. Please keep it going. Al
I caught up on you tonight, and I just wanted to say that what you're writing is amazing. I remember reading Andrew Harvey's "Hidden Journey," which documents his first meetings with Mother Meera and the spritual roller coaster he went on for about 2 or 3 years during his encounter with the Divine through her. It's said to be a classic autobiographical depiction of the Mystical Experience. What you're doing, in the pieces that I read tonight, is a lot like that, except your mystical experiences don't seem to be concentrated in one focused time-arc, but are spread out over decades. Harvey was thirsting for Source, and every time he went on one of those harrowing roller coaster rides of despair or elation, he seemed to be ready to sign up for another one right away. With your experiences, you did more of an escape/reconnect/WOW! or AARGHH!/escape process. A self-protective mechanism, perhaps? Protecting ourselves from despair is not necessarily an irrational choice.
I think you're doing a grand job of remembering the ups and downs of 20- and 30-year-old experiences. I wanted to copy your parts of the blog and put them in chronological order to get more of a sense of where they're going, how they lead to one another (or not), how they terrify you and how you disappear and pull yourself together, eventually to head off into a new one. For me, I survived Easter Sunday, age 13, and then just wrote of religion and stayed in my head and away from that mystical despair for 25 years or so. And I can't say I'd recommend that as a productive cure for mystical overload. I certainly don't have the power of remembrance to write 2 pages on what I went through in my Easter weekend, which would be comparable to what you're doing. Your ability to document the waves so long after they happened is riveting for me.
Are you writing about the elation as well? What I remember from tonight seems weighted toward despair. Is that true of your experience, or is more elation on the way? I am curious about your Body Electric experience, as well, if that's on your list for writing about.
With your themes of Christianity, Reiki and mysticism, you might want to check out Caroline Myss, a medical intuitive who was a remarkable help to me in giving me a vocabulary for things like chakras and stuff. I have a tape series she did called "Spiritual Madness" if you're interested.
I'm not sure what this might become, as far as a book goes. It may not be a completed book for years, until some kind of path or equalibrium has settled in for you. Does turning this into a book require you to have reached a destination? Not sure. It may not be done until you can reclaim that sentence you used in our exercise last week -- "The miraculous is real and I want it back." But you've definitely got something going on here that is more than just worth reading.
I wonder if your self-doubt about your writing ties in at all with the doubts you faced along the spiritual path. I'm not sure I agree with Cliff that neurosis is the primary fuel for the doubts you had about your writing. I'm remembering the Buddhist definition of Faith that I got from a great book by Sharon Salzburg -- faith is choosing a path for healing, and staying on it. Notwithstanding the fact that "every angel [or muse] is terrifying," the challenge is to keep showing up for our meditation sessions, or meetings, or prayer, or writing sessions, or whatever practice we use to channel our spiritual connection. Easier said than done, that's for sure....
So here's my vote on whether anyone's interested in what you're doing -- Yes. Please keep it going. Al
posted by LifeWriter at 5:17 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home