Day 19

Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and nights.

But your ears thirst for the sound of your heart’s knowledge.

You would know in words that which you have always known in thought.

You would touch with your fingers the naked body of your dreams.

Kahlil Gibran

I cannot cast a circle. I mean of course I can, but it never feels right. It’s ironic. One of the things I love most about my path is the idea of ritual, but I fail utterly in its execution. When I read the words people have used in declaring sacred space, I feel an ache of such sweet beauty that it hurts. But if I try those words for myself or speak my own, the Divine eludes me. The more I try for the reverence of ceremony, the more distant it becomes. It becomes a performance, an entertainment with me like a child in dress-up clothes as the “star” – a mere mockery and illusion. It becomes the very hollow shell my father would have me believe it is.

And I absolutely cannot “invoke” anything. Or “declare” sacred space. For me, sacred space simply is. I have come to the conclusion that it is antithetical to my essence to invoke or declare. The balance of energy in the universe shifts uncomfortably if I attempt to manipulate or control. However, if I simply release control and open myself up to listening to the voice of the universe, I find myself surrounded by a force so powerful and so stunningly beautiful in nature that I want to cry out with very gladness. I am alive in the truest way possible and every breath is a celebration. More powerful even that the drum beats pulsing up through my feet and through every cell of my being, the voice of the universe is a great, complex harmony of joy.

This, for me, is very different from meditation. It shouldn’t be and I don’t know quite why it is. But where meditation takes me to emptiness and non-being, opening myself to the sacred is one of the most active, affirmative and exhilarating things I can do. In entering into the sacredness of time and space I accept an invitation. I am not present to the moment, noticing that all is transience. Instead I fly within Time and the universe declares me real.

And that in itself is instructive. I have spent a lifetime trying to control the events of my life. Perhaps, if I want to take my spiritual path to the next level, it would be to not merely enter the sacred, but live it. To recognise that my every thought and action is a matter of spirit and loving possibility. What would my world look like if I released control?

It is hard to imagine living without the presence of the universe singing through my veins. I know, or imagine, from what I have read, that not everybody experiences this in the same way, or even at all. And that in itself is a mystery to me. It is as though a large percentage of the population were born blind at birth, but instead of calling themselves blind they say that those who can see are delusional. They say that sight does not exist because they have not experienced it. I feel both privileged and glad to have this wondrous capacity inherent within me and at the same time it makes me curious. After all, perhaps I am delusional. Who knows? But what if I’m not? And what if there are many many more “senses” or capacities which I am missing and I am like the hypothetical blind person disbelieving in the power of sight? What is there that is real and true and wonderful in the universe that I will never see or know, and never recognise as missing from my life?

If I am delusional then I choose delusion willingly and gladly, for all that it brings to my life. If there truly is no meaning, no purpose, no sentient force beyond the random temporary coming together of perpetually separate and unrelated atoms, then how much more have I gained in the time available to me by living in a world of colour as opposed to monochrome? If colour is fantasy, then it is a beautiful and enriching one.

Richard Dawkins would be disgusted with me. The thought makes me giggle. He completely dismisses the argument that religion has value regardless of any ultimate Truth, because of the way it shapes people. Even leaving aside the issue of morality and whether or not it is possible to be truly moral and altruistic without the influence of religion, Dawkins would argue that happiness is not sufficient reason for belief. Having a belief that makes us happy does not make that belief true. It only makes us dishonest and encourages us to avoid reality. For him, belief is the blindness because it is a refusal to see.

I remember Kelly-Ann showing a series of diagrams he uses to explain one of his arguments about religion. It made me laugh so much to hear the mix of interest and indignation in her voice. Essentially, monotheists, in his estimation, are sheep, and can be depicted as standard woolly sheep on all fours. Polytheists have their forelegs off the ground and pantheists are sheep walking upright. Of course, in the diagrams, only atheists are true human beings. Kelly-Ann couldn’t decide whether she should feel happy that Dawkins has depicted her as walking upright or insulted because she is “a bloody sheep!”

I wonder if you can come out of the closet as a sheep. You can come out of the rainbow closet. You can come out of the broom closet. What about the sheep closet? I have a picture in my head of a dancing, bad-ass sheep, maybe one with a few tattoos. There are music notes all around him. And for some reason he (okay, so it must be a ram), has a bowler hat balanced on his front leg and he’s about to toss it straight out of the picture at me, like a frisbee. In my head the picture is mostly black and white, with splashes of colour, like the Wild Unknown Tarot. Under the picture are the words “Sheep with attitude!” I would love to wear a badge like that and come out of the sheep closet!

I have never actually spoken to my parents about my beliefs, though neither have I tried to hide them. We just don’t tend to talk about things like that in my family. But I’m pretty sure they know. Somehow they always know. I think my father sees my path as a form of girlish romanticism that I will hopefully grow out of one day. He’s probably just thankful I’m not anything as obviously outlandish as an Emo or a Goth. I’m just an outgrown adolescent still having my teenage rebel-without-a-cause moment. Having a spiritual path is all of a oneness with studying Arts instead of Sciences at uni – feminine fluff with no actual utility. Though there have been times when I have sensed within him a quiet anger when faced with some new religious “absurdity” in the news. He is easily frustrated by what he sees as the wilful ignorance and stupidity of the majority, and religion definitely falls under the umbrella of wilful stupidity as far as he’s concerned! My mother, on the other hand, would… Actually, what would she think? She always adopts a kind of “live and let live” philosophy when she hears about religions and says “Well, isn’t that interesting” in a kind of anthropological way, as though she were studying a hive of bees. When I think about it, I have absolutely no idea what she thinks or truly believes. I wonder if she’d tell me if I asked her.

Religion as a whole fascinates me. I never understand its divisiveness or the passion it engenders. In a world full of rules that are supposed to make us uniform and contained and – detached - religion seems to be the one allowably conservative passtime, the rules of which bring not safety but dissent and strong emotion. In a world dedicated to logic, profit and the pursuit of emotionlessness (in true Spock fashion before he embraced his human side), religion ignites our passion. And society, so otherwise dedicated to efficiency, allows it to do so. Why?

One of the things that intrigues me is how often the form of religion is observed even when the substance appears not to be. Because other people’s practices are different from my own, it feels like watching superstition at play (and that’s no doubt how others see me). Why do we cling to empty rituals? For example, I am always fascinated to see the beautiful Muslim girls at my work. To be honest, I envy them their beautiful, apparently self-assured bodies. It’s like they have a secret I don’t possess. Not to mention a whole lot more courage. They manage to turn their clothing into a fashion statement. There are two of them and they both wear slim-fitting long-sleeved tops over the skinniest of skinny jeans. Their hijabs are colourful and adjusted just perfectly to frame their faces in the most flattering way possible, hinting at an abundance of hair underneath. Their eyes are made up to be large, mysterious and exotic. They actually look way more seductive and more body conscious than most of the other girls my age at work. I always feel vaguely disturbed, I think because (to me) their appearance hints at sexuality in a way I can otherwise safely ignore. The more obvious short skirts and low tops don’t seem to worry me in the least, but such conscious sexuality scares me for some reason.

Perhaps I don’t understand the purpose of covering the body, but I thought it had something to do with modesty and protecting men from their own hormones. Well, these girls’ outfits look like they’d have precisely the opposite effect and seem to have about as much to do with modesty as giving up chocolate for Lent has to do with sacrifice. Which is yet another practice I’ve never quite understood. I think I understand the ideas of sacrifice and modesty, and while I don’t share them I do admire them; what I struggle to understand is the ghost of religious practice that remains when the meaning has departed. If it isn’t really held as a sacred personal belief, why is it practised? Is it yet another pointer, showing us all how many of our actions are layered in superstition and buried in custom and tradition, without our conscious awareness? Or is it fear? I heard a guy once struggling to work through Ramadan and feeling ill. But he persisted, not through devotion or reverence, but through fear. I can’t remember exactly what he said, but the punishment was something horrible like a thousand years of torment in the afterlife for every day the fast is broken on Earth. I do not understand how anyone can feel devotion and reverence if they are so held to the mere form of ritual through fear of punishment.

When I try to cast a circle, it becomes simply an empty, meaningless gesture. I therefore choose to do something different, something that brings me more closely in line with reverence and hope that one day I will find a way to bring the beautiful words and practices that call to me into alignment with my sense of devotion. But what if my gestures were not simply empty, but based on fear? I cannot imagine being in a place further from the love of the universe. It makes me positively shiver to imagine it and I felt desperately sorry for the man who dared not break his fast. There were no words I could offer him. After all, my truth is not his truth and he must seek his own path and his own wisdom. But how I hope his religion brings him also joy and connection, reverence and love.

And what does religion bring to Carly? Carly was my friend in early high school. I was amazed, even awe-struck, that she chose me for a friend. Carly was magnetic, beautiful – she drew everyone to her, not just with her looks and graceful movements, but with the beauty of her loving personality and her smile. Boys looked at her as though in a trance. They didn’t attempt to heckle her as they did other girls. They just looked moon-eyed and lost the power of speech. She had long, honey-coloured Marcia Brady hair that moved and swayed with her, as if it was dancing all on its own. Her uniform dress was weirdly long and outsized – as though it had once belonged to someone at least twice her size. But it’s the only time I’ve ever seen a uniform look long and floaty. It shouldn’t have been possible. On anyone else it wouldn’t have been – it would have looked ridiculous. But on Carly? No.

She was one of the most intelligent people I knew and she had an inquisitive mind that would sparkle with new ideas and insights. And an impish sense of humour. The lights in her eyes dimmed briefly when her parents divorced, but she came back stronger. After that there was pain and compassion thrown into the intoxicating mix and it only added to her power. Until the day she got religion. She was born again. Why did that break the spell? It’s not like she wasn’t still happy to talk to people. She was. She was spilling over with the radiance of her beliefs and the love she felt overflowing within her. It was the most exciting, wonderful thing that ever happened to her. And yet it seemed to kill everything it touched. From being agnostic, she moved into a feeling of true purpose and connectedness. I was ecstatically happy for her, if a little mystified by some of the things she said, until I noticed the changes. It wasn’t just that her relationships changed or that people stopped frantically fluttering their wings around her like so many moths. It was that her curiosity became less. Or at least, narrower. She would not seem to examine anything except out of a new and tiny field of view.

Finally I made a big mistake. She talked to me one day about the Bible. I was eager, curious. After all, my fantasy of being a nun was still fairly new and romantic within me, and I wanted to know whatever secret she had to share. Maybe I also could be transformed and find my world light up. Maybe I could become a nun after all, with true conviction! My mistake was in asking questions. I can’t remember any more what I said or asked. I wish I could. But I was too used to our shared love of debating ideas. I think I asked questions along the lines of “What if…?” and “Could it also be true that…?” I think I even played devil’s advocate. She answered my questions ever-so patiently and gently. There was a lot of conviction and certainty, but none of the sparkle of curiosity I remembered. And after that day, she never spoke to me again. It wasn’t nasty, it was just, somehow, the easiest thing in the world. We didn’t share any classes and we’d always had to go out of our way to seek each other out. Somehow, after that, she just never found time to seek me out. She was always doing something else. And when we did pass, she somehow forgot to smile.

I think that Carly’s path would be a beautiful one in many ways because it would make everything oh-so-easy. Imagine having that much certainty in your life! And to be surrounded by so many loving, eager helpers, as she apparently was in her new church. Actually, thinking about it, I might feel more than a bit claustrophobic about all those people hanging around; I think I find it easier to be the one doing the hanging. But I can imagine it would have been perfect for Carly. Is the cost of certainty our ability – our desire – to question? Perhaps it is. After all, what need would we have for questions if we could absolutely and categorically know, without any doubt whatsoever, who we were and what our purpose was? Certainty seems like such a beautiful thing, and perhaps it is. But perhaps it is also a static, stagnant thing. I would love to see Carly again now, from a distance, just to see what she looks like. Does she still have certainty in her life? If not, where did it go? If she does, what does it look like in her life?

For my own part, I am glad that entering the sacred leads me, not to certainty, but to more and more questions. Everywhere I turn are more questions. Deep and wonderful and exciting questions, all impossible of answer. Archetypes and deities, spirit guides and magic, divination and shadow work. The thing is, I don’t have to “believe” in any of them. I simply have to open myself to not knowing and to asking that endlessly perfect question, “What if…?” I cannot even answer the question as to why a drum beats so deeply in the Earth and through my feet and limbs. I only know that it does.

By sun and moon and star I rise,

By tree and rock and earth am held.

With paw and wing I freely wander,

Dancing in the rain’s embrace.