Beyond mysticism

[vaneramos]

Yesterday, on a hunch, I analyzed my poetic output over the past 10 years. The results enlightened ideas and impressions I have wanted to pull together for a long time, some of which I have touched upon in this journal previously. The statement started to coalesce in my morning pages today, and then I wrote this personal essay. It is the most coherent and important expression of personal belief I have made in years. I hope some of you will see it through to the end, and I look forward to your responses.

~~~~~~~~~

In late 1995, my marriage suffered its final throes as I struggled through the most acute depression of my life. While clinging to long-cherished values and beliefs and enduring emotional chastisement from people I loved and respected, I came to terms with my own identity, including my sexuality and other aspects of self-expression. During that period my religious experience went through a startling metamorphosis.

My old church taught that we could each have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I had a series of religious visions which verged on, but fell short of, being visual, tactile and auditory. I believed they were real.

That autumn I slept alone in the basement while my wife calculated how to excise me from her life. I had received a profound and denigrating rebuke from my pastor. I had concluded that homosexuality was morally acceptable, but had no role models and nowhere to turn for support. I felt utterly dejected and isolated.

Each night while I lay there, Jesus would come, sit by my pillow, caress and comfort me. I didn't hear any specific words, but his company eased my loneliness and despair. He started to become the gentle lover I craved. I even eroticized this, without actually masturbating over the fantasy. Any attempt to hide this sexual undercurrent from God would have been ridiculous, and yet I felt Jesus start lifting the crumbling shroud of shame that covered these feelings. In those days I began losing my sense of God the Judge, and perceived only the Healer, Brother and Lover.

I knew that without sexual self-acceptance, I would not recover from that profound depression, but my wife rejected this unconditionally, and I refused to contemplate abandoning our marriage. On one occasion I prayed fervently to God the Father for guidance: "What should I do?"

The answer came to me clearly: "You don't have to do anything. There is nothing wrong with you. Just wait patiently."

In ensuing years as I recovered from that paralyzing depression, I realized I had had a mystical experience. Mysticism is defined as a naked, unimpeded experience with deity, which transcends dogma and generally defies description. Threads of mysticism have traced through the history of all the world's major religions, from Islamic Sufism to shamanistic spirit journeys. It has played an important role in Christianity, but Western Orthodoxy has continually sought to suppress it because mysticism embodies new inspiration, which transcends accepted dogma, and frees the individual from external authority.

This recalls a previous conversation with my pastor during that fateful autumn.

"I want you to go home and pray to God for guidance," he said.

"I have been doing that every day," I replied. "God told me I am okay, that I don't have to do anything but be patient and wait."

"That is of the devil," he said.

Organized religion does not tolerate mysticism.

But my mystical experiences originated even earlier in the habitual life of devotion that my religious culture encouraged. With daily regularity I would spend time reading the Bible, praying and writing meditations. My sexual and artistic urges sublimated as intimacy with God.

On September 21, 1994, I left my office for lunch and went to sit by the manmade stream which wound through a sterile urban park in Mississauga. Water has always affected me profoundly, and there I wrote my first poem in many years.

First day of autumn

You summoned me out to the green bank
there
i bent my neck
beneath the breeze and sigh of your anger
your weeping surrounded me
swallowed in strands of your willows
i felt your pain
the shower of leaves
cleansing my eyes and soul
that ached
passion the river
lapped at my toes
not quite rising as far as my heart
but sharply felt
beneath the surface of ripples

Now i
remember what you
gave me
try to taste
remnants distilled
in droplets of light
that fall on my eyelashes
warm again
in my reflection
of willow strands

It is still one of my best, and anticipated my writing style to this day. In almost a decade since then I have written 662 poems. Many have been mystical in nature. Recently I analyzed this volume of poetic output and the results were revelatory.

• February is by far my most prolific month. In ten Februaries I have written 87 poems. Decembers have been the least productive (19 poems).


• I wrote the most during the two most excruciating years: 1995 when my marriage was disintegrating (149), and 1998, the year my first serious male lover left me and my ex-wife moved away with our daughters (92).
  
• The summers have been relatively unproductive, with one outstanding exception. If I ignore the early months of 2001, when I did a large series of poetry exercises, my most prolific month was August 1995. That was the specific time when I decided to accept the fact that I was gay. Many of the 27 poems reflect that struggle.
  
• The volume of new poems has declined since April 2001 (67 in three years), which coincides with the stabilization of my mood. That date was also when I stopped taking antidepressants. I had been on medication since May 1995.

I see correlations among three aspects of my life: mysticism, poetry writing and mental health. I can interpret these coincidences.

My mystical experiences often manifest as poetry, like the Thirteenth-Century Sufi poet, Jelaluddin Rumi. My tone and style resembled Rumi's years before I heard of him or read his writings. This expression is most active during times of emotional disturbance. In fact it acts as a form of self-healing, therapy or quest for truth.

In the years following the crisis of 1995, I thoroughly reviewed of my beliefs. At the end of 2001 I reached the conclusion, with regret, that God does not exist. My study of mysticism had led me, ironically, to believe that the perception of deity was a delusion. Readings and experiences convinced me that human consciousness is an organic product of the physical universe, rather than a spiritual creation or outgrowth of any higher power or supernatural intelligence.

I say I reached this with regret because it left me confused and aimless, like a ship without an anchor. Apart from the existence of God, the universe and life seemed to have no inherent meaning or value. What did it matter if I lived or died? Why should people treat one another, other living things or the earth with respect? Gradually I came to terms with these questions and found partial answers for them.

Consciousness has evolved from the fabric of the cosmos as an adaptation for physical survival. This is its purpose. We can make the best of it, or not. We should base our values on this purpose, intelligently.

I said that the perception of deity is a delusion. This statement would seem to discount my own previous mystical experiences. To qualify, religion can be a beneficial delusion. Jesus by my pillow was the presence of some deep, self-preserving instinct telling myself whatever I needed to believe in order to survive my acute despair at that time. I chose to live, and that was good.

Psychiatrists nowadays would describe all the great mystics of history as mentally ill. Many would also say that mental illness is not a blotch to be carelessly excised from the periphery of society; by no means. In fact, madness is a reaction to the dysfunctions of society. We should pay attention to crazy people. They can lead us forward into higher intelligence.

I believe my own depression and mysticism were part of an insane journey toward the greater happiness and integrity I feel today. The adventure remains incomplete. I still look to poetry, symbolism and art to guide me forward. To what extent I will achieve my goal is uncertain, but goals are not really part of the question. The whole point is in the process. Perhaps one measure of success is the degree to which I can influence others to experience greater integrity within themselves. Crazy as they are, mystics have often been regarded as the wise ones who can teach higher consciousness.

I no longer regard myself as a serious mystic, more as a naturalist writer and artist, but my motive is still the same.

Comments

[leafshimmer.livejournal.com]

Well, I would say that what a mystic is expressing is an illumination of human spiritual energy. Whether this "spiritual" impulse is the chemical creation that has its origin in a "consciousness" that is part of a survival mechanism, or whether it is in fact a Divine manifestation within a human soul, is ultimately immaterial. What matters is how we react to the mystical experience; how we make sense of something often completely beyond the reach of the rational; and, ultimately, where we go from here.

I've had mystical experiences of various kinds since I was very small, and it was a surprise to me to learn from a housemate who had one central experience as a teenager that a lot of people react to the experience of "spiritual emergency" with panic. She shared some of the readings she did on this subject, which represented her attempt to conquer the fear of direct experiences of her own spiritual energy. Frustratingly for me personally, she has not been able to get quite beyond that fear, that anxiety that her experience of oneness with the Universe may have been a moment of loss of sanity, the first scintilla of a darkness that would engulf her altogether.

Talking to her and listening to her experiences and her thoughts about them helped me to realize how differently we as humans process the intrusion of "the mystical." And now these thoughts from you are giving me yet another picture of an experience so many of us have shared in our lives.

I like to think of you as a playful mystic, rather than a serious mystic. I agree with Johan Huizinga, and the Taoist philosophers, in cherishing the spirit of play. More and more I really think it is the only thing that will save us.

hugs, Shimmer

[apel.livejournal.com]

I hear you.

[dakoopst.livejournal.com]

There is much here to respond to.

1) While I do disagree with you on the existence of God, I do agree that perception of deity is an illusion. Contradictory? Not in my mind...I feel that all our perception is, in some manner, a delusion. Our individual places and perspectives limit what we can see and experience, even in the concrete, tangible world. Since no two people can occupy the same space in the same time and therefore truly share the same perspective, their viewpoints will differ. Therefore, is there some set standard by which reality is judged, or do we each fall into our own "delusions," which we then try to process against each other to form what we call "reality?" If there is some set reality, who will tell us when our perspectives are askance from it? Why, the tyranny of the majority! In this way, we live in a sort of mass delusion, a state where we all say one thing and, by the sheer volume of voices, make it so. (This has always been one of my problems with not only religion, but also science. If religious zealots worship those things they cannot see, then don't scientists worship their own limited perception --excuse me, the mass of limited perceptions thrown together -- to define their ultimate reality? Broaden your definition of the word worship here to understand my point..LOL. I don't see much difference between the two.)

2. Your description of your mysticism intrigues me greatly...I have often found, in my own experience, that my writing truly speaks loudest when my emotions are in their heaviest turmoil. (I've noted this before in my journal...it's one of the reasons the regular writing assignments I've given myself aren't as effective as I might wish.) It is, through putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard, that I find greatest release. I've don't try to attribute such things to forces outside, persay...but in my past, I might have done so.) Does it count as mysticism if the unknown you are experiencing is yourself, or does that count as more navel-gazing?

3) On the eroticized God, this is definitely an experience which has been documented before. Hell, I know I'VE experienced it myself. I think there are several ways we process information, especially extreme emotions, and I think sometimes the power of what we feel can cause the nature of the emotion to be masked (anger gets processed as manic energy, for example). I think the energy flows through whatever channels are most open in us at the time...and since you were struggling with your sexual feelings, the emotions got processed as erotic.

OK...I've had a student come in and ask for help, so I've lost my head of steam. I'll reread and write more later, perhaps.

[that-dang-otter.livejournal.com]

A very thoughtful and precise essay. And very interesting; I've long been fascinated with what goes on inside the heads of Christians, and this was very illuminating from that perspective.

A comment on this: I say I reached this with regret because it left me confused and aimless, like a ship without an anchor. Apart from the existence of God, the universe and life seemed to have no inherent meaning or value. What did it matter if I lived or died? Why should people treat one another, other living things or the earth with respect?

It's disturbing to me that Christians feel that there is no morality or purpose without god, because that puts both of those things on some very shaky ground. In contrast, as someone that "isn't even religious enough to be an atheist", I have few doubts in this area. We can't trace all the rippling effects of our actions, but it seems increasingly clear that morality is something that we subscribe to, and that we do so because it works. It's not a set of rules to be obeyed, rather, it's a box of tools that are laid out for us to use. In other words, we do it for our own damned good, not because we "care" about others in any transcendent way. It's something that we construct, and adjust, and come to freely rather than out of some sense of obedience. That perspective makes it seem a lot more solid than a bunch of vague and dubious history written in a book.

And we do this because we are, for whatever reason, ingrained with purpose; our heads are full of primal imagery that drives and motivates us. If I have a "spirituality", it consists of just being quiet and trying to listen to the patterns that evolution has written into my own brain. These can be extremely loud and clear, and say some pretty startling things. It sounds to me like you are already practiced at this, and that maybe your chit-chats with Jesus were actually with your own brain.

[ahira.livejournal.com]

3 parts

Part 1: Mystical experience
Your description of your experience of Jesus made me cry. That is extremely beautiful. And to me (and to you, if I read correctly) in no way is devalued by the conclusions you draw in part 3. As an aside - not all organized religions disdain mysticism.

Part 2: Profilic poetry index
This was a fascinating analysis. Makes me wish I was more consistant in my record keeping - dates, not losing things I've produced, not burning about 5 years of written work.

Part 3: Ongoing themes/conclusions
I really relate to this part of the essay. I think everyone should write something in a similar vein - key experiences, where it brought them, how it shaped them. This, to me, is a way of claiming identidy, self-hood, and owning the truths of our lives. Thank you so much for sharing this (and for letting me prattle on...).

[that-dang-otter.livejournal.com]

This has always been one of my problems with not only religion, but also science. If religious zealots worship those things they cannot see, then don't scientists worship their own limited perception --excuse me, the mass of limited perceptions thrown together -- to define their ultimate reality?

The answer to this is that the "proof is in the pudding". Science is concerned with the material world, and when it comes to manipulating that material world, it's inarguably successful, and has few competitors. The methods of science have been extended to non-observables such as "how will the universe end", which causes me some trepidation, but not in a way that implausibly stretches the theories involved.

Thoughtful scientists, particularly since the early 20th century, can actually be quite agnostic as to what "reality" is about. Most leading researchers I have worked with understand that what we have in science is not reality, but rather a "model of reality" that agrees with our observations in most respects, but which could still be dramatically wrong.

But this perspective only comes to people who have already mastered the scientific model and can look beyond it to consider alternative scenarios. Those that are still struggling with the model itself are the most defensive about it; their investment is so great, and their grip on it so weak, that it's all they can do to hang on for dear life. So of course they deny the possibility that it is anything other than "objective reality"; if it were, they'd be out of a job!

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

While researching mysticism I became frustrated with the fact that those intense spiritual experiences seemed to have receded from my grasp. I wanted to learn how to achieve that mental state again. Such a quest is common. Some people use drugs to induce it, though many authorities say that such chemical-induced visions produce no sustained psychological benefits.

I have since realized that those experiences were a mental response to a crisis situation, or spiritual emergency as you say. If I want such intense feelings, I could try getting myself into deep trouble again. I still have enough complex life problems to solve, and currently approach them with a measure of clarity and deliberation.

I still experience shifts in mental energy. From the data on my poetry writing, the point I did not interpret in this essay was that February is consistently my most productive. I have experienced a surge in the past several weeks. It reflects a change in physical and mental energy producing feelings such as increased confidence, restlessnes and irritability. In the poetry I see my mind at work coming to grips with this. This essay itself came in a few hours of profound inspiration and concentration of a quality that eluded me between October and January. It might be described as mystical. It might be described as hypomania, though I'm certainly not bipolar.

It all comes in the pursuit of mental health, or—as one of my LJ friends might describe it—balance. In my experience, mystical experiences come in times of extremity, rather than balance. This does mean they should be avoided: they in fact offer an opportunity to restore balance.

And what lies at the opposite extremity? This question invites careful consideration. I could propose a few things: complacency, prejudice, insensitivity. Some of the most disciplined minds lean in that direction, far from the fulcrum of mental and social health, and yet society often regards such people as sane.

I broke with the Calvinist work ethic long ago in favour of a play ethic. To associate play with mysticism seems strange, considering the grave circumstances under which I experienced my visions. It wasn't playful at all.

Poetry, however, is play. Increasingly, I find myself valuing the practice of free writing to synthesize stories and ideas. It accesses a reservoir of unconscious ideas, creativity and mental energy that you might describe as the spirit; or simply the mind, well-oiled and functioning at full capacity.

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

Doris Lessing said it this way (heavily paraphrasing) - if the universe is 100%, then we little blobs of flesh are equipped to perceive maybe 1% of what's going on, and if you open someone to say 1.5% or even 2%, if it doesn't burn out all the circuits then it almost certainly gets interpreted into something that already makes sense to the brain and personality - like visions and voices and so on - where what it really is is literally inconceivable in everyday terms. Meanwhile to the other people jogging along on their 1%, that 2%-er is seeing things and hearing voices and having mystical experiences and is from their perspectve crazy. This doesn't require any belief in god, and it seems to me is not inconsistent with most of what you say.

While I construct my "mystical experiences" along lines of mystics of the past, I think it's just as accurate to say there's no god, as to say there is one. Or perhaps "equally inaccurate". What religion could do, but mostly doesn't is to help you bring your extra 0.5% experiences into a context where you can make use of them. Most of the hoogabooga mystical technology (Sufi, Hindu, Buddhist, etc) is exactly about that - making your personality supple and resistant enough to withstand the onslaught of those new perceptions, opening you to them, and then turning them into something actually practically useful in the way that sight and sound are useful. I think the idea of "god" as commonly used is useful for this, but not indispensable - at any rate, when you're *there*, the concept of god as taught in Sunday School becomes fairly irrelevant.

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

wow. how cool to read everyone's postings on this subject. wow.

[dakoopst.livejournal.com]

I had written a response, and LJ ate it. *sigh* Here goes a reconstructed version.

I think the maturity you describe is true in any paradigm. The more comfortable we are in what we are or know -- whether science, religion, homosexuality, whatever -- the less defensive we are about it and the more willing to dialogue with other viewpoints we become. Perhaps this is the best measure of progress in our lives along life's path.

As long as science and religion truly recognize their limits in their prospective areas, I have no real problems with either. It's when they start trying to overwhelm all other areas that I start taking issue. Good thoughts. :)

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Yes! It is rather exciting. After writing the thing and responding to Shimmer I feel brain dead so I'm going for a walk while the sunlight lasts. :-)

[kwangjse.livejournal.com]

I was moved...and is that not the purpose of art? though my own experiences were very similar to yours on many levels, my own experiences leave me with no doubt in the existence of God—an intelligent Being—but then I am probably very deluded :)

Love your poetry! have experienced what you expressed so well that *you gotta experience the blues to sing them* in that poems seemed to flow freely from me when I was down.

I no longer regard myself as a serious mystic, more as a naturalist writer and artist, but my motive is still the same.

Why make distinctions? Like Popeye and God have said: I am that I am! :)

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Thank you. :-)

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Thanks for taking the time to respond so thoughtfully Stephen. I appreciate your feedback on this. A few comments:

1) I believe there is a set reality, but our perception of it is limited. I don't think that understanding it perfectly is as important as getting along with one another. We evolved as a social species, and often it is in our best interests to compromise and tolerate opposing points of view.

2) I have even heard the argument that mysticism is compatible with atheism, in fact some such arguments are suggested in the other responses here. I still believe in the mystical experience as a collision of the individual mind with something bigger than it comprehends: be it the personal subconscious, the collective unconscious, or the magnificence of nature and the cosmos.

Although turbulent emotions often inspire the most powerful writing, there is value in cultivating any meditative practice, whether it involves yoga or practice writing. Writing consistently will prepare you to express important ideas more articulately when they arise. Look at what a response this essay provoked, and it arose not from an intense emotional experience, but from self-awareness expressed through my daily writing practice.

3) Speaking of erotic, I find it very sexy to be able to discuss these ideas intelligently. I went through several years when I simply couldn't handle talking to Christians, even gays from MCC. It just raised too many emotional issues from me. Now one of my closest friends (Jon) is a fairly committed Christian. We don't often talk religion, but I like the sense of respect we have for one another.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Your points about caring about others are particularly important when we consider the social nature of our species. Often "survival of the fittest" is interpretted to mean "everyone for himself." With a social animal, that approach doesn't work. We're moral because we're social, and you're right about the nature of a useful moral code.

To someone whose sense of self-worth is rooted externally, and whose sense of purpose depends on eternal rewards, it's difficult to understand how others are motivated. My Christian friends used to mock the carelessness of unbelievers with the Biblical phrase: "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!" Speaking for myself, I felt I must control my desire for pleasure. I couldn't understand fulfillment apart from eternal rewards. For many Christians I knew, sensuality was synonymous with shame. This was a very narrow view, and certainly was not descriptive of all Christians.

I now subscribe to parts of the philosophy of Annie Dillard, herself a contemporary Catholic mystic: "These are our few live seasons. Let us live them purely as we can, in the present." She also believes in a deity that is vastly distracted from our miniscule lives. Her writings helped me establish a psychology in which self-worth must come from within, which embraces the physical world as well as the mental/spiritual, and which does not lean always toward some deferred, imaginary hope.

I'm rambling, and don't know whether this makes any sense. I'll stop now.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

It's strange: I read Shikasta so many years ago, as a teenager, before my conversion to Christianity, and I don't remember much about it—I wouldn't have thought I absorbed any of it—and yet your description of her philosophy is familiar to me, almost word for word. I guess it has been sitting on a backburner of my brain for 22 years or so and you just lifted the lid.

It occurs to me that some people are functioning at less than 1% and a profound experience is needed to bring them up to score. In my case, I needed Jesus sitting by my pillow to start challenging my internalized homophobia. I remember incidents of several human beings who tried to do it, to no avail.

One of the cautions I now feel toward mysticism regards the inclination of the human mind to passionately decieve itself. I grew up believing in evolution, in fact quite fascinated with it. As a 19-year-old biology student I reluctantly set aside this conviction and wonder because it didn't fit with the Story, and I needed God's Truth to deliver me from Misery and Death. In fact much of the gobbledegook we believed was justified with the argument that God's wisdom defies human comprehension. This was the standard response to anything Biblical that didn't make sense. I don't buy that approach anymore.

One of the attractions of science is that is works hard at making sense. The difficulty with contemporary cosmology is that physicists are exploring concepts progressively more inscrutable to the layman. Understanding it requires a giant leap of understanding for 99 per cent of the population.

On occasion I have suddenly fit obscure facts together like pieces of a puzzle and understood a complex theory. Afterward I have had a hard time explaining precisely what I learned. This is reminiscent of the experience of geniuses like Einstein who gained spontaneous insight into unforeseen principles. And it is not unlike the mystical experience.

I'm still skeptical. I'm most comfortable with science, and perhaps that's because it's what I grew up with.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

The distinction is only important for me to understand my own motivation and its source.

Thanks for your comments. I'm glad you enjoyed this poem. Sometimes I have written joyous, exuberant ones....and I like them even better!

[artricia.livejournal.com]

I agree that intense mystical experiences tend to occur when we're most needy. I, too, have longed for the security that more regular mystical experiences would give me -- a security that there is a reason and order to things. I've found with balance, though, that they don't go away, exactly, but they do become subtler. The more open I am to seeing a divine influence in the workings of the world and even my own individual life, the more obvious it becomes to me.

Oddly, qualifying these influences as the organic result of the physical world doesn't make it any less divine for me; rather, using human-like images and names for the divine is more likely to frustrate my belief.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

When people use their beliefs to justify abusing others or interfering with their rights, I can see cause for action. Apart from that, I derive no benefit from despising anyone. I have occasionally done so, but it only makes me miserable and has never changed anything for the better. I recommend religious tolerance.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Having read various comments today, and considering my responses, I tend to agree that incidents of heightened awareness can enter into a balanced daily life, for example the surge of poetic output I always experience at this time of year. I feel a sense of wonder when I walk outdoors or do a free-writing exercise, which is my most frequent form of meditation. But rather than transcending the self in any way, I am learning to trust my own creativity.

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

My take on science is that it's about how and never really about why, which is after all ultimately an unanswerable question, constantly receding (not to say that one shouldn't try, of course). IMO a mistake to approach science expecting answers, science is supposedly a state of being constantly prepared to change one's ideas about how things work, a constant state of being aware one does not know while having faith that one CAN know. Really it should not be called upon to provide the comfort and security Monkey OS is always looking for; yet many people (mis)use it that way.

But I think religion ought to be the same thing. A constant search for understanding and meaning with the knowledge that what we think or feel or intuit at any moment is only one tiny bit, or a temporary understanding of one viewpoint. By a different route I come to your same conclusion - comfort and a feeling of being understood come from yourself and other people.

[leafshimmer.livejournal.com]

Spiritual practice is all about achieving states of ecstasy, bliss, at-one-ment (our language is woefully inadequate to describe what we're discussing here) in a way that is balanced and allows us to access these energies/states of being on a daily basis, if we choose to do so.

I was discussing the Star Goddess/Brahman (two names for Something that can ultimately never be named) with a friend last week and I said something like these are oblique ways of pointing at something that cannot be described directly. Because if the Pure Ground of Being pervades everything, how do you find something it's not pervading to point at it with? clumsy language, but perhaps you get my meaning.

When people use the word "God," the word drags along a whole range of theological claptrap that gets in the way of this experience of the Pure Ground of Being. As a rule, I prefer to be around agnostics rather than religious folk. The latter often do tend to be complacent and bigoted, which comes back to your "other extreme" and my point that pinning the label "God" onto the Sublime often defeats what in my view is a major purpose of a human being's existence.

My late Guru liked to point out that the term "spiritual practice" cannot be limited to such exercises as chanting and meditation. It has to include such activities as performing and composing music, singing, creating art, writing poetry, climbing mountains, and many other human endeavors when these are carried out in a pure way, as opposed to a way that is about power or competition. I would include sex when it is done in a way that I consider pure--purely playful, purely tender, purely for the pleasure of those involved--remember the Grove? that's what I mean.

I am wandering away from the topic, and I think I have forgotten the topic. thank you for sharing your thoughts. I was really happy to see you posting your poetry again, too.

hugs, Shimmer

[queenmomcat.livejournal.com]

[begin quote]"I want you to go home and pray to God for guidance,"
"I have been doing that every day," I replied. "God told me I am okay, that I don't have to do anything but be patient and wait."
"That is of the devil," he said. [end quote]

He tells you to pray, then refuses to accept what you believed resulted from your prayer as holy? My disdain (for the priest) is too great to express...and yes, I /do/ have priests among my friends and family. It's that attitude that has driven so many people away from religion(s).

[kwangjse.livejournal.com]

Thank You! Reading your post and the comments left here has been a real joy. I believe we share many of the same experiences that have shaped us, but you write of them so much more eloquently than do I. It's been a pleasure reading your words.

Usually I read others' comments before I post my own, but for my first comment I was so moved I went ahead and posted, then read what others had written. I'm glad I did it that way, cause if I had read the other comments first I don't think I would have left one, as mine felt so insignificant in comparison. Guess that's why it is sometimes best to just dive right in.