What is a spiritual journey?

A spiritual journey takes us in mysterious ways to unknown destinations. A spiritual journey traverses the most difficult terrain of big questions:  What is the meaning of life?  What is my purpose?  What is worth valuing?

 

A spiritual journey is not always, or even very often, a religious path.  Religion offers a well defined contract--with God, with what is good, with what are the norms that guide behavior.  So we might agree with Yuval Noah Harari in Homo Deus that the gap between religion and spirituality is much wider than we think.  "Religion is a deal, whereas spirituality is a journey."

If a spiritual journey does not have rigid ideas and fixed laws, what does it have?  Finding one's own truth of experience will likely be lonely.  You may find yourself living neither in the 'village' of human values nor in the 'forest' of natural laws, but someplace between.

When you follow the path of your experiences--which are made of sensations, emotions and thoughts--you begin to develop your attention.

When you pay attention you develop sensitivity.  Harari says that sensitivity "means two things.  Firstly, paying attention to my sensations, emotions and thoughts.  Second, allowing these sensations, emotions and thoughts to influence me."

Perhaps the most important characteristic of a spiritual journey is that it results in practical skills.  Paying attention and developing sensitivity cannot happen in an abstract way from books or lectures or youtube movies.  A spiritual journey is always made of direct experience. 

 

Direct experience is the only path to inner change.  And when we change ourselves, we change everything.  So how does one begin a spiritual journey?  Decide on something worth valuing because it has mysterious ways: clouds, trees, drums, horses, oracle cards. Ask it to sit with you, bring you an experience, and then--pay attention.

The skill of waiting

I do not wait well.  I am not sure anyone does.  According to Ajahn Sona, the Abbot of Birken Forest Monastery in British Columbia, if one is waiting one is already impatient. 

We have been waiting for the snow to stop, for the temperature to rise at least one more degree in expectation of working on our oyster lease today.  Once we decided that it is too late--the weather is not going to cooperate and we should take the day off--the sun came out for a sparkly afternoon.  So much for that expectation.

I have been waiting for time to keep working on this commission to paint the illustrations for a children's book about Winter Solstice in the north.  Of course I don't know how to paint children's images so everything takes my usual long time.  I keep expecting a painting to take a few hours and then days later--so much for that expectation too.

As if one major art project was not enough, I am continuing to work on my painting series of 47 images from dreams that guided my making the Journey Oracle deck.  A year ago I expected to complete one a month.  Now, one year and 6 paintings later, as I begin painting #7, I am letting that expectation go as well.

I am again teaching drum making to students from St. Michael's University High School in Victoria, but this year I am offering four different styles of construction so students can choose a style of drum based on research about their ancestry.  I expect to make three new drum prototypes and have been waiting for enough warm weather to work in the shop.  So far this expectation has no legs, or in the case of drums, no holes drilled and handles added.

Wait a minute!  Every time I describe waiting, I refer to expectations.  When my expectations are not met I am frustrated and impatient about not receiving a pleasant sensation from satisfying my expectations.  I have been reading Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari.  This excellent book has lots to say about our Homo Sapien tendency to constantly expect pleasant sensations, and be constantly dissatisfied when the situation turns out differently, as it almost always does.

I admire the way our cats seem to wait so patiently for whatever is coming next.  Perhaps they are not waiting at all, but merely being in the present moment without any expectations for anything.  Wise kitties.

Seed dreams for Imbolc, A free guided Journey Oracle reading

Everything is changing.  Old routines have broken apart.  My spiritual practice has fallen open like a package of spilled seeds.  Imbolc is a time of planting the seeds of new dreams.  What will be initiated in this coming year?  What plans will find good soil and water enough to grow well?

Here is a Journey Oracle reading for Imbolc. Instead of drawing 4 cards as is my usual way of choosing the Oracle who will speak, I "drew" the first 4 numbers I saw  on my laptop screen.

1 for the calendar square showing February 1

8 for the 8 degrees temperature at Campbell River airport.  

249 from a Microsoft app add that became 

24

and 9.

The side of the oracle card chosen either had the cursor arrow land on it, or it was the first image of the two possible, that I saw when I found the number.

This oracle card image is my situation.  What seed dreams am I planting?  I have drawn this card before and usually notice the little opening at the end of what looks like a stone cave or tunnel. 

This time I am seeing what appears to be an edge, a precipice, on the right hand side.  Perhaps there is a springy shape to hold on to, or maybe I just need to jump over the edge.  

Here is the Journey Oracle page that describes my situation:

 THE  SITUATION

This situation began by being all set up.     

The prevailing energy of this situation is laden with dirt.

The core energy pattern of this situation is dark and foreboding.

The Mother of this situation is exotic.

The Father of this situation is a line in the sand.

           

 ALIGNMENT  TO  THE  SITUATION

Your perception of the situation is fleeting.
The impact of your perception is varied.

Your relationship to the prevailing energy is filled with wonder.

The connection between the core energy pattern and the situation

 is felt as a distressing touch.

The momentum of this situation is fed by going asleep.

Since many of my shamanic and ritual practices have either disappeared or changed dramatically over the past month, and I am asking for seed dreams to plant that will grow into new understanding and action, I am especially  moved by the first and last of these pronouncements.  If this is an image and a description of a situation of yours, what is the Oracle telling you?

This oracle card picture shows my experience in this situation. 

Here is the Oracle's messages about what I am experiencing, and how I am naming it. 

  

THE  EXPERIENCE  NAMED

MORE  WISDOM

THE  SITUATION  EXPERIENCED

                       

struggle / simplicity

hardship leaks through, accountability, loyal companion

look deeper, irritation

beginning of new awareness, strengths vulnerabilities

my life is a mess

 EXTERIOR  SUPPORT

An exterior or support system for the situation is whimsy.

I am drawn to the first phrase of the situation experienced: struggle / simplicity. 

 Feeling adrift without my usual anchors could be frightening if I hold on,  or relaxing if I let go.  Just like the two eyes of this powerful bear.  One is clear and one is difficult to make out.  In your situation, which phrases describe your current experience?

This oracle card is an image of the change that is trying to find me.   

I have always felt unsettled by this painting, since its original inspiration was a description of meeting the Spirit of Disease in a shamanic journey.  Still, upon a closer look, the Spirit appears quite neutral. I suspect I have always attributed more wrath and retribution to the Spirit World than is indicated. 

Here is the Journey Oracle page describing change:

CHANGE

 The power needed to shift this situation will be a sharp sound.

Change will come by knowing there is no way.

Your relationship to change in this situation is growing up

from the bottom.

The moment of letting go into the change will smell like blood.

The concern to be avoided within this change will taste fresh.

DIVINE  WILL

                       

The wisdom of coming to bed will empower the transformation.

Completed transformation will be felt as a quality of coiling.

DREAM  ON  THIS  QUESTION

 Can you make something similar?

HOW  IS  THIS  AN  ANSWER

Gratitude

I especially like the answer: Gratitude.  What a richly rewarding time I have had building a relationship with the Spirit World across these 42 years.  Of course I can build something similar, just go to bed and dream.  The seeds will show themselves.  What change is showing itself to you in your situation?  

This oracle card reveals the resolution to my situation. What could be better than choosing the number and discovering a green sprout? 

I think my favorite part of doing a Journey Oracle reading is discovering the fairy tale that shows the resolution coming to the situation.  And this green sprout has an old, wise face. 

THE   RESOLUTION

A Journey Oracle fairy tale

STAYING  FOUND

There was a little girl who was like a green sprout in the woods, always poking through leaf mold and spongy wood to find tiny forest creatures to gaze upon. One very early morning she was going with other children on a hike to the beach, which was quite a distance from where she and her friends were camping with adults who called themselves by funny names like Chipper, Squirrel and flower.

All the children set off into the matrix of misty dawn, but the little green sprout girl fell behind because she stopped to touch the earth where the moss grew feathery cups filled with dew between the toes of the cedar tree giants. The little girl looked up to see the trail ahead was empty; there was no sight or sound of her laughing companions. She felt a chill of fear at her sudden isolation, and felt that finding her friends was like the promise of spring in bleak winter.

The little girl began to run. She ran with a focused prayer in all her body: that around each next clump of reaching-out trees she would see her companions. She ran, journeying with vibrations of fog and shadow, jumping roots and ducking branches, but never did she overtake her friends. How could it be that people so close at one moment could become so far away the next? In her child mind she thought “you’ve tapped into something from way back.”

         She saw that she was running toward the lightening sky beyond the trees. The opening expanded to show a glitter-filled ocean as she burst from the forest and bounded along deep sand trails through the dunes to the water. She ran now for the joy of staying found, even as she saw the distant specks on the wet sand become the other children. She ran out of the realm of her fear and into maturation that morning.

How is this a story of the resolution for your situation? If you are the little green sprout girl, what have you tapped into from way back? And what are you running toward?