Strength, Courage & Transformation

Someone once told me spiritual energies are heightened toward the end of the year. The statement caused me to wonder why that might be? If I am to believe this phenomenon, I couldn’t imagine why our sense of spirituality might be more pronounced in December than in April. Still, year-after-year I wondered, with the question resurfacing in my head somewhere between Halloween and Thanksgiving. And certainly, if there were any truth to the idea, perhaps it explained the choice of December 25^th as the day to celebrate Christmas. This is not believed to be the actual birth date of Jesus Christ, yet it was picked as the time to celebrate his appearance in our lives. If it is an arbitrary date, might it have been chosen to correspond with a period of time in which we are most spiritually receptive?

For at least five years, I have thought of these concepts every holiday season. Most of the time, I was skeptical, suspecting more than anything else that it was just marketing. In October, the Halloween frenzy begins with children’s costumes and unheard of quantities of candy being bought and sold. In November, Thanksgiving appears and turkeys across the land meet their untimely demise. And then Christmas and New Year’s roll around to top it all off. This year, I have paid attention and the answer to my question appeared to me in nature. Yes, spiritual energies are heightened at the end of each year, and it has nothing to do with marketing (except that marketers have been brilliant to take advantage of buyers when they are vulnerable).

Oftentimes, we enjoy viewing ourselves as masters of our destiny, but this is not entirely true. Without exception, we are born into nature as puzzle pieces. To see ourselves as living outside of this system is not only a disservice, it is a denial of reality. Each winter, adjustments are made all around us. Birds fly south. Bears retreat into seclusion to hibernate in their own form of silent meditation. Trees shed their leaves stripping down to their barest of essentials. In places of bitter cold, snow blankets the land and ice covers the water and all of this is in preparation for rebirth. When the period is over, the birds return to lay eggs and raise their young. Bears emerge from their caves as if being re-delivered from the womb and trees and plants reinvent themselves with completely new configurations of flowers and leaves. All of the above are physical queues to remind us of our own spiritual evolution.

At the end of the year, if we are to grow and evolve, we must do as nature does, stripping down to the barest essentials of who we are spiritually. This is not easy work, but it is the right time to ponder and reflect on who we are and how we wish to be. Once we’ve crossed through the bridge of winter, we can re-emerge on the other side, reinvented with new leaves and flowers of who we are. And while each of us is capable of metamorphosis at any given place or time, we are more naturally predisposed (there goes nature again) to it at year-end when spiritual energies are heightened.

This year, as 2010 is ushered in, I’d like to wish all of you the happiest of new years and may your metamorphosis be one that brings you ever closer to your centers. Peace and blessings to you all!

When What You See Isn't What You Get

Last night I stopped at Starbuck’s to do a little writing. A few minutes after my arrival, two women entered and sat at a table beside me. To my dismay, one of them was loud, animated and distracting. She immediately began talking about something she had seen on television the night before. Apparently, some Victoria Secret model did an interview and talked about being deeply spiritual. This woman was openly outraged by the idea of a spiritual lingerie model. At one point, she described a split screen segment where the model was discussing spirituality on one side of the screen, and on the other there was footage of her scantily clad on the catwalk. The loud talking woman continued to explain that she didn’t believe you could truly be spiritual when you chose to parade around in front of people in various states of undress. She was so put off, in fact, that she was making it known to everyone around her. I quietly frowned, partly because I didn’t agree with her assessment, but also because I would have preferred she lower her voice so as not to make a spectacle of herself.

At that point, the story got even more interesting. A few minutes after they finished judging the Victoria Secret model, the same woman began discussing her own relationship and how she was trying to work through the fact that her significant other had a sex addiction problem. I have no idea which model she was speaking of, but the first thought that entered my mind was this: here this woman has judged and practically damned this model to hell, but when she moved to discuss her own life, it already seemed seedier than walking down the runway in a camisole. And although I like to think of myself as more open and accepting than this woman seemed to be, I know, like many, I am guilty of judging people I know very little about.

FINDING YOUR CENTER

Earlier this year, I attended a silent meditation retreat, where for nine days I ate, slept and meditated beside people I had never met. Nevertheless, I began to form opinions on them. There was a gentleman whose meditation mat was directly in front of mine in the meditation hall. For the most part, he was average in almost every way, but there was something about him that just screamed “family man.” I was certain he was married with a couple of kids, and that he was probably a good husband and father. And then seated behind me, there was a younger guy who seemed more like a film star. He was extremely handsome and athletic looking and there was an arrogance about him. I saw him more as the macho jock, and keep in mind, this was a silent retreat. I made all of these determinations without having spoken a word to either of these people.

On day four of the retreat, we were asked for the first time to assume our meditation posture and to hold it for an hour without moving or opening our eyes. Needless to say, this is very difficult. To hold the same posture for an hour is at best uncomfortable, and at worst very painful. The first time we did this, I could hear the movie star meditator squirming behind me. He was experiencing discomfort and in the last ten minutes of that hour, he actually began to sob. I remember thinking what kind of jock is this? But the truth was I had judged him with no true foundation to do so.

On the retreat’s final day, the silence was lifted and we were allowed to speak. This was a fascinating day to behold. Everyone raced around introducing themselves and comparing experiences about what had been a truly challenging endeavor. It was also a wonderful social experiment. Finally, I could get a glimpse of whether or not I had had accurate impressions of people. The family man, as it turned out, was gay, which I didn’t see coming at all. And the macho jock was in fact a circus performer with none of the bravado that you might expect from a jock.

AND THE MORAL OF THE STORY IS...
Needless to say, it became very clear why it isn’t a good idea to judge people. Outside appearances often have nothing to do with what people are feeling inside. Someone who is an avid churchgoer can easily have selfishness and deceit in their heart. And lingerie models are capable of respect and spirituality toward others. The irony of my day at Starbuck’s was not lost on me. That woman had judged the Victoria Secret model and I had judged her. I had to check myself because regardless of how that woman appeared, I had no way of truly knowing the reality of her spirit. At the end of the day, all of us are writers. We look at something and even though we don’t see the whole picture, we begin creating stories to fill in the blanks. Oftentimes, this is fun to do, but we should always keep in mind the differences between fact and fiction.

I HAVE WRITTEN A BOOK! TO LEARN MORE OR TO READ AN EXCERPT
of my sci-fi/fantasy/adventure novel, “The Unveiling: 1.0,” please visit TheUnveilingSeries.com.