Connection to God

"Finding Spirit Here Now" is my mission, my purpose.  Some of my tools are reflection, contemplation, meditation. The second half of life is one of going inward.  "Filling the container", as Richard Rohr calls it. I'm reminded of my maternal grandmother who spent much of her time in a rocking chair either crocheting or reading her Bible.   Now I find myself either knitting or reading books written by human beings who have been and who even now are searching for truth.  Occasionally  I use books like the Bible, the Tao de Ching, and Yoga Sutras, the  Bhagavad Gita, The Prophet, and many of  Rumi's writings.  The truth I am seeking is within me but excavating it requires opening my head and my heart  to learnings of others who have gone before me and some who are my contemporaries. 

My Claritas training as an Interspiritual Mentor opened my eyes to a whole new world of truth with which I was not familiar--religious and spiritual, sometimes both in the same sentence.  For they are not always separate.  The longer I search, the more important each becomes.  What is one without the other?  They both lead to God.  Carolyn Myss says we are being weak when we hesitate to say God and instead use words like energy, source, force, etc.  (She used another forgotten word, but "weak" is what I feel.)  Much of my life has been spent trying to gain approval by using words others use.  Fortunately, that boundary is breaking.   The truth is, I love the name God.  All substitute names are less than.  Even the title "Finding Spirit Here Now" is an example.  It is an advertising ploy to attract a certain group of people - hopefully a wider one, a more diverse collection.  Both those who comfortably use the word God and those who don't.  Although I believe God is in me, as I am in God,  not everyone does.  Notice. I did not say I am God.   That would not be one of my truths.

Shamanism

Most recently, my search has led me to training as a shaman with The Four Winds Society.  Speaking of "Boundary Breaking"!  A whole new level of insight.  Truths never before experienced.  I am now seeing God everywhere I look.  In the stones, plants, animals, air, wind, sky, sun, moon, stars,  earth, oceans - people and things - all of God's creation.   Now the visible world looks different and gradually I am becoming familiar with the invisible world.  My communication with God has become more intimate, more real.  Here's a short poem written following a recent meditation as an example.

At last I see colors
Pink dots.
Four, then two
then four again
Become baby blue
then tiny white lights.
Feminine and masculine
into Me?
Am I remembering?