Spiritual Revelations

I have had wave upon wave of revelation about the importance of my spiritual life in the last 36 hours. Even though I claim that I am a Mystic, head over heels in love with God, I have not been nurturing my relationship to the Divine or a spiritual life of any depth. I have been distracted by relationship and my work with the community. I have been immersed in the mundane. And I have lost my center because of it.

I am examining the idea of living in integrity -- which I believe is acting from one's beliefs about themselves and the Universe. I have not been living in integrity with what I believe. I've been treating spirituality like a hobby, picking it up when I feel like it, putting it down for other distractions. I turn to my spiritual life to save me when I am heartbroken, but I ignore it when I am focused on relationship, until the relationship falls apart and I come back to it to save me again.

How can I maintain a healthy intimate relationship with another person(s) if I can't maintain the two most important relationships in my life - my relationship to my Self and to the Divine?

We are so incredibly drawn into relationship because we seek Oneness. We are spiritually driven to relationship -- to relate from Divine Spark to Divine Spark -- but we aren't conscious of it. Knight and I desire to merge in every way -- physically (cuddling/touching), sexually, emotionally, and domestically -- because we hunger for Oneness. We believe in the illusion that if we immerse ourselves deeply enough we will experience Unity. But when we immerse in the mundane, move through our days without intention, and connect as ego-based personalities rather than as spiritual beings, we lose our center and get lost in the complications, compromises and conflicts of two individuals trying to share a life. Unconscious merging does not lead to Oneness, it leads to entanglement and relating from our wounds.

When Knight and I came together I was intentionally seeking a spiritual partner. I was interested in relationship that was based in our spiritual commitment -- a commitment to our own spiritual development as well as each others. I felt that potential with him from the first time we met. Actually, I felt that potential with him when I read his emails to various community lists and resonated with his sharings. But instead of putting any intention into our spiritual relationship, Knight and I became immersed in the domestic, social and sexual. We've done our relationship backwards. Instead of focusing on a spiritual partnership and allowing the rest of our relationship to unfold from that, we have focused on traditional expressions of emotional and domestic partnership, hoping one day we'll be motivated to integrate the spiritual.

I come to this place over and over again. Each relationship, whether to an intimate partner or to a community, eventually brings me to this place where I realize that I can go no further without reclaiming my spiritual life. Every relationship transition I can remember experiencing involved an opportunity for spiritual awakening and a return to my practice and rituals. When I have spiritual practice and maintain a spiritual perspective on all that is unfolding in me and in the world around me, I am uplifted. My days feel better. I make choices that increase my joy. I am too busy telling love stories and focusing on movement forward to get mired in the fear of old wounded stories.

What are the activities in life that bring me the greatest joy, that give me that feeling of being light and loving? Spiritual rituals. Reading works that set my heart and mind on fire. Writing about my process. Contemplating human evolution and how I can contribute to it. Work that matters - whether it's for the Imps or towards other positive endeavors. Loving relationships through uplifted connection -- conversations about what's real, physical affection, and sharing positive experiences.

I have been spiritual all my life. A few months ago I went through my mom's photographs and found a picture of me, maybe 8 years old, in a grassy field on my knees, head bowed, and hands together under my chin. I am praying and it is beautiful. Something in that picture reminded me that I have always been connected to God and I have thrived in the worst of circumstances when I have relied on my relationship to God to get me through. It has been a blend of psychological work and spiritual practice that allowed me to transcend the traumas of my youth and build a functional life. Now it's time to move from functional to thriving in every possible way. It's time to use spirituality as more than a heart-break healer.

I have come to recognize that another way that I am like my mother is that we both need to be strong in our spiritual practice to maintain our emotional balance. The functional periods of my mother's life coincided with the practice of her faith and her involvement in a spiritual community. When she was immersed in her spirituality and her church, she was free of her addictions and lived more from love than her wounds. I believe a significant reason that she descended so far before she died was that she never found a spiritual community in Las Vegas.

Which brings me to another revelation -- I have been desperate for spiritual community since my last one dissolved a few years ago. I haven't found a church or traditional community that suits the modern mystic's journey. I have tried to reach out to others who may be interested in nurturing spiritual community but it hasn't gone anywhere. For whatever reasons we haven't felt the call strong enough to make something happen. That needs to change for me. I need spiritual community. I need to connect and share regularly with other people who are living life from a spiritual perspective.