PonderEthereal

excerpted from a larger piece

I went to a conference this weekend and one of the things that stuck out to me was how REAL my favorite presenters were. They wore regular clothes and spoke in regular words and regular voices and talked about themselves and I was enthralled.

I remember when I started writing about the occult and people really liked how I wrote like I was a real person talking to the reader. In an effort to find ‘my professional self’ or to shape an image that is “sellable”, I think I’ve lost some of that. Nothing exemplifies that more than the fact that I’ve kept the last six months of my life under wraps to the public.

But after being at the conference and not sleeping very well at all last night, I think I FINALLY realize, three years later, that it’s my most personal stories that I share with clients to demonstrate a point or to help them see that other people deal with similar things and come out the other side ok. It’s those stories that students and clients can connect with. It’s my horrible, sick, twisted sense of dry sarcasm that intertwines with a bitter life experience that make the positive outcomes both sound inevitable and ok and normal. To show desperate friends or clients that those horrible experiences that we have that somehow weave a tapestry of happiness later on.

And as I lay there, just a few moments ago, it occurred to me that the story of my last six months is the perfect demonstration of how horrendous circumstances can lead to wonderful things. Because even as I write this, I know that the years ahead will be wonderful. Something is building, something is coming of all of this and I want to get it all down into writing before I forget the cacophony of synchronicity that took me there.

Synchronicity, serendipity, coincidence. The last six months of my life have marched forward in perfect orchestration. Mishap after mishap that only could have happened because of the mishap before. I’m exhausted, I’m frazzled, I’m in a dark place just barely hanging on to sanity. I’m waiting for the light that’s coming at the end of the tunnel next month or maybe the month after. Or maybe there will be more mishaps that simply drag this all out for another month or two or six. All I can think of right now though is how I’ll get through today and next week and to hang my hat on it finally being over next month. And if it’s not, I’ll deal with it then and maybe commit myself.

I’m spiritual and my life is a mess right now. There is a stigma in spiritual communities that somehow if you’re life is going badly, you are doing spirituality wrong. And although that can be the case, might I submit that mostly, the inverse is true and it’s how the individual deals with tragedy or undesirable circumstances that is the measure of the person.

Real, transformative spirituality changes your life. It’s really common sense… you can’t bring great new things in without getting rid of the gross, old stuff. If you want a better relationship, you have to get rid of your old one. If you want wealth, you have to get rid of the old financial obligations and income sources that were limiting.

We’ve all heard that ‘god doesnt give you anything you cant handle’ and I think that’s a crock. God, the universe or whoever or whatever you believe in, will dish you up as much as you’re willing to take and it’s up to you whether or not you decide to handle it.

People who don’t handle it wind up giving up on life. They commit real suicide or fake suicide… the kind where you just stop really LIVING and instead, just make it through the days without thought, ‘turned off’. Some turn it off with alcohol or other experience altering substances. Some turn it off with self destructive behavior. It’s all the same though.

I don’t really think it’s ‘dished out’ by anyone though. I think it’s just life. A series of events that we orchestrate with parts of us that we don’t realize are functioning. From that pragmatic perspective, I created this. I create all of it through my actions, words and even thoughts.

I moved out of blame a long time ago, I think. Not that I don’t place blame on myself or on other people for things that happen. But for life, for the synchronicity, I gave up on blame. It does no good to blame god, myself, the universe, society. I just am what I am and it is what it is. I simply acknowledge that I’ve created it, in some way, with some purpose that all of me hasn’t yet realized.

It’s humbling to be in these places. It’s a reminder of the humility in being human. I am better than everyone else around me because I love myself more than any other thing in the world. I am no better than anyone else because I’m human.

But, I haven’t told it and I hadn’t really considered it. Maybe partially out of shame or maybe fear and definitely because I’m supposed to hold my cards to my chest with the upcoming court cases. But I’m telling it now.

So, it’s just a story of my life with lots of digression into the parts where I talk about what I learned or what I see. it’s still playing out as I write this and hopefully, it will turn out well and the end result will be a comedic tale of how serendipitous terror can build something wonderful. Maybe it will be a tragedy of how one regular middle class mom and spiritual counselor came to be locked into a padded room.