Life Path Number 7

Recently I had trouble trying to come up with a way of introducing and describing myself online. It's a weird coincidence that when I did an online numerology reading today I got a bit of a shock. The reading describes me completely. It's almost uncanny. So I decided to write a description of myself using the information I received. Here we go...

I am a searcher and a seeker of the truth. I have a clear and compelling sense of myself as a spiritual being. As a result, my life path is devoted to investigations into the unknown, and finding the answers to the mysteries of life. I am well-equipped to handle my task. I possess a fine mind; I am an analytical thinker, capable of great concentration and theoretical insight. I enjoy research, and putting the pieces of an intellectual puzzle together. Once I have enough pieces in place, I am capable of highly creative insight and practical solutions to problems.

I enjoy my solitude and prefer to work alone. I need time to contemplate my ideas without the intrusion of other people's thoughts. I am a lone wolf, a person who lives by my own ideas and methods. As a result, close associations are difficult for me to form and keep. I need my space and privacy, which, when violated, can cause me great frustration and irritation. I associate peace with the unobtrusive privacy of my own world. Therefore, intimacy is difficult for me, because I guard my inner world like a mother lion does her cubs.

All this privacy and aloneness causes isolation and loneliness, however. I am aware of emptiness in my life, the part of me that yearns for company and close companionship is unsatisfied.  

For what it's worth, I'm working on the isolation business. I felt like writing tonight but couldn't think of much I wanted to say so I came up with this little exercise just to have something to do....

Enjoy Life!

Leisha Monet

Walking The Path

"...Through constant engagement, the gates of Light and doors of wisdom will appear to all who walk on the path of God in wholeness, whose soul craves nearing the King's Hall. Hence, blessed will be all who volunteer to engage in his wisdom for even an hour or two a day, every day. The Creator adds an act to a good thought, and it will be regarded as standing, always and everyday, in the Lord's Court and His Abode..."

The Rav Raiah Kook

Amy Markham

Take Flight

I took a nap after I posted my last post and I had an incredibly lucid dream. In the dream I was confronting a large group of people that were giving me a hard time because of my stand on a conflict that was going on. They were also making comments about the fact I was gay and shouldn't be listened to. In the dream I stood up on a ledge in front of all of them and loudly told them exactly how I felt and ended by telling them all to go to hell. Something that in real life I could never, ever do. I am afraid of any form of conflict. But here's the incredible part...instead of storming off, I took flight and flew off. It felt completely natural. I knew exactly how to turn my body to navigate above the crowd, houses, trees. It was awesome! It felt so exhilarating and liberating. I was in complete control.

I woke up as I was beginning to soar above a beautiful forest. I immediately sat completely upright and said aloud, "Oh my god, I just had a flying dream!"

The excitement and joy I felt has stayed with me all day. I decided to research what flying dreams might mean. I could already kind of figure out what the dream had meant because of the parallels between the dream and my real life, but I wanted confirmation. I was exactly right and then some. On one dream interpretation site it said that the ability to control my flight is representative of my own personal sense of power. The flight might suggest that I am on top of a situation, that I have risen above something. A liberation from something that's been troubling me. It might also mean that I have gained a new and different perspective on things.

I found that the sky might symbolize consciousness and spirituality so to dream of flying might represent the expansion of my awareness and the unfolding of my higher self. The thought of which is really exciting and encouraging.

Take it with a grain of salt, but I've always felt that our dreams hold the key to what's really going on with us. Our subconscious releasing itself and working things out for us in our sleep. Most of the time I'm unable to figure out what my dreams mean other than to know, "Oh, well that was just a stress dream" as I put it. But with a dream like I had last night it is obvious to me that this was one that had a lot of meaning. I hope all of you get a chance to fly in a dream sometime in the future. Even if you don't, do like I'm going to try and do...

Take flight in your life!

Experiment IX

Erlend Mork

The Point In The Heart Awakens

I just finished watching my third lecture on Kabbalah and I think I might have stumbled onto something that will resolve the spiritual conflict I've felt for so many years. I'm taking a twelve week course from the Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Education Center. The word Kabbalah means "to receive" and it is a method to develop a direct, conscious connection with the Creator. In the first lecture we were taught that there comes a time in a man's life when he becomes aware of a desire to know and connect with God. In Kabbalah this is called "the point in the heart". When this "point in the heart" is awakened his desire for spirituality increases and he begins his journey to connect with his Creator. According to Kabbalists this eventually leads us to Kabbalah. Tonight I sat down and tried to pinpoint when I first became aware of my "point in the heart" and the journey I've been on that has lead me to where I am today.

When I was a child I was sent to a Southern Baptist Church every Sunday and, being the good student that I've always been, I learned everything I could and easily believed in the existence of God and Jesus. When I got a little older I was allowed to decide if I wanted to continue to attend church. I was a little tired of the threat of going to hell so I quickly decided not to go. I spent the next thirty or so years pursuing life on my own. However, the things that I had been taught about God were still with me. I just didn't think about them. It was when I became homeless in 1998 that I seriously started thinking about God again. I had to have something, some form of outside strength, to get me through it. I couldn't endure that kind of suffering alone.

I began to examine the protestant beliefs I had been raised with. There were several things that I just couldn't accept; I couldn't believe that all homosexuals were going to hell, I couldn't believe that everyone who wasn't Christian was going to hell, and I had issues with the whole idea of hell anyway. I decided to explore other religions. I studied Hinduism and Buddhism. I became pagan and lived like a hippy for awhile. I went to Native American gatherings and was even acknowledged and honored by the Elders at one gathering for saving the ceremonial fire from going out one night. I got involved with a lot of the new age movement. I collected crystals and stones (which I still do....) and worked on my chakras. I was learning and growing spiritually. 

There was and still is a Protestant Mission in town that runs a shelter for the homeless. I had avoided staying there, but there came a time when I was forced to stay there. Every night the residents have to go to Chapel and have a church service. God, how I hated it. As a consequence, even now, I cringe slightly when I hear the name "Jesus" said in that Southern Baptist kind of way. Anyway, they had a drug and alcohol program there and the "program" guys got to sleep in comfortable rooms as opposed to a communal room with cots. They also didn't have to leave the building every morning at 6:00 regardless of the weather. This might have been wrong of me, but I saw the program as a way to get myself off the streets. I didn't lie about my drug and alcohol abuse but I did lie about my spiritual beliefs.

When I learned that part of the Mission's program required you to find a church and become a member I really got worried. As I look back though I can see that my Creator had a plan. I tried every protestant church in town to no avail. I couldn't stand them and the feelings of living a lie were almost unbearable. Through a set of circumstances that I won't go into now, I was introduced to the Russian Orthodox Church. I was blown away. Their teachings on homosexuality were somewhat more tolerable too. I was taught that it wasn't a sin to be homosexual, but it was a sin to express it. I had been in the closet for years so I thought I could accept that. If I slipped up I could always go to confession and receive absolution. I converted and was baptized into the Orthodox faith. I even went so far as to enter one of their monasteries here in America and almost became a monk. A little of that story is in my profile I think. A lot of the first part of this blog involves the struggles I had after I left the monastery and eventually left the Church.

I didn't realize when I started this post just how long it was going to be. If you're still reading at this point, I appreciate it....thanks! I'm going to try and wrap it up...

After roughly ten years homeless, I finally obtained housing. My body found a home but my "point in the heart" still hadn't. I've been in my apartment for about seven years now. During this time I have tried to incorporate the beliefs I had from all the different faiths into one. It hasn't been easy and I can tell you now that it hasn't been very successful. 

I've finally decided that all religions should be regarded as mythology. I believe that all these spiritual, religious myths are built on a lot of common, undeniable truths. And I also believe that the ideas taught in Kabbalah are the framework upon which all the religions are based. I hope that as my studies continue I find this to still be true...     

Enjoy Life!

With The New Moon In Leo

A journal post is long overdue, so I guess I’ll write one. I should try and describe the feelings I’m having of trying to climb, crawl, scratch, and claw my way out of the wreckage of my life into a life of higher purpose.

Should I tell you all my past regrets? Should I make this a confession of some kind?

   

It’s all between me and the people that I have hurt….My Mother, who I loved beyond description, but with whom I could not develop any type of close relationship with? My Mother passed away quite a few years back, so making amends is impossible. My Father, who might not have passed yet, but who might as well have…for you see, I never knew him…..never even knew his name. I carry my Mother’s last married name. Not even her maiden name, but the last name of a man who was not my Father. My Grandmother, who loved me maybe even more than my own Mother? You might as well say I used all the love see had and then abandoned her. A shell of the person she ever was….constantly looking for me, seeing me even in strangers and other random people until the day she died.

There are other people that I have involved in my egoistic evolution. My regrets cause me to have an intense, almost irresolvable, sense of guilt, shame, and regret. The same strong emotions that have led me to attempt suicide on numerous occasions. Dreadful memories of past events haunt my sleep and flash into my mind during my days. It's almost as if I have PTSD... 

What do you make of it? A melancholy mess…one with no mercy of redemption or resolution because I can't seem to forgive myself, I can't seem to get over the embarrassing things I've done. A situation that won’t be resolved until there is an ending to it.  Death being what I mean.

But, I, as the one who has been the chief player in all these events, would like to know how I am ever to face my creator with all this madness shrouding me, and flowing along behind me like a bridal veil…an eternal cloth covering my stinking, rotting, corporal body…dragging itself to my maker.

I’m throwing myself into the study of Kabbalah in an effort to change my perception of reality, to try and actualize the point in my heart that yearns for my creator. I hope for comfort and peace.

Dirty Little Secret

Sarah MacLachlan

Don't Hold Me Back

Alex Cornish