Continuous Learning
I am really enjoying Reflections' current book study of True Love by Thich Nhat Hanh. Although my personal practices are quite rigorous, I am always looking for ways to improve, deepen or invigorate them.
Sometimes when I hear about the practices of others, I find myself wondering if maybe my practices have become too shallow or hollow. But when I read mystical texts or sit at the feet of teachers both great and small, I discover instead that maybe I have reached a plateau in my current practices and perhaps it is time to deepen them.
Deepening a practice does not have to equate to dedicating additional time, or attempting more exquisite poses. Often it is the slight adjustment coming from a differing perspective or a new teacher. My yoga instructor Carrie replaced our previous long-loved instructor Sara. Sara, realizing that many of us were not progressing out of her class because of our love for her, raised the level of the class. And Carrie, oh my goodness, provides not only a rigorous training but also a wealth of yoga philosophy and eastern wisdom. We are all progressing in our yoga practice in ways we could not have imagined with Sara.
And it is similar with Hanh. My already laborious shadow work practice has deepened considerably. Just the notion of caring for your pain like a mother cares for her crying child has opened me in ways I thought unimaginable even late last year.
So I am stunned when I hear of folks eschewing further study as if there is nothing new under the sun. What planet do they live on? Everyday I am faced with such newness, such raw potential, how could you ever shut yourself off from this beauty, from this majesty?
My spiritual practices are not a replacement for study, as study is not a replacement for practice. As a Marxist-Leninist, I embraced both theory and praxis. And now almost 35 years later as a warrior mystic I am advocating much the same.
Study is in fact one of the threads of my mystery school. We are building spiritual scholarship alongside spiritual practice. And reaching outside of our comfort zone is one of the prerequisites for continuous learning. That is why I assigned such texts as Covey’s First Things First, Palmer’s Intuitive Body and Cameron’s Artists Way. And this year we turn to Buddhism to challenge our notions of what it means to open our hearts.
As a mystic, I can find truth almost anywhere, so I want my students to be familiar with truths outside their own. Like my beloved teacher Sara, if my students get stuck, I raise the level.
What is *your* practice? What do *you* study? And are *you* too comfortable?
Om, Namaste, Ashe, Amen and Blessed Be
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Wish I could be there. Very well spoken.
Katrina,
I wish you all the blessings and power you need on your journey. Thank you for these words. It is good to remember that returning to work (and thus returning to grace) bring a chance for us all to rest and have joy.
Wishing you joy in the Work.
David
Dear Katrina- Thorn reposted your blog and happy am I. Your passion, always so immense, comes blowing out in these words. So akin to my own heart and soul that it makes me have a bittersweet smile.
The Storm is only now coming to the edges of our universe and yet it will sweep and consume all that is. In the end, our beautiful universe will be so much...more? Different? Complete? Who knows?
All I do know is my soul came here to witness and be part in this period. I cannot shrink from the work. I am here with you, fae sister!
Thought-provoking piece, Katrina. Thanks.
I don't know what to call myself either. In Pagandom, I've taken to referring to myself as a Witch at Large. In the interfaith world where I'm active, I call myself a Pagan. Sometimes I call myself an uppity woman or a Second Wave Feminist. I've never really thought to publicly identify myself by my sexuality, het woman, which is very "white bread" and old-fashioned. Not only het, but serially monogamous for the most part. It seems almost a liability these days to say you're het, but I am proudly and happily so. I tend towards intellectualism but only have a BA, which doesn't carry much weight, at least in public and professional worlds, no matter how much you've studied, trained, and can articulate, even teach.
My biological heritage is Irish, Dutch, French Huguenot, Euro-mongrel. My social heritage is Roman Catholic on one side and conservative Methodist, temperance-crusading, women's rights and education on the other, with distinct East Coast sensibilities, now mellowed by more than half a century living on the Left Coast. My maternal political heritage is conservative Republican (altho what my relatives might think of current trends in the GOP I cannot imagine, since they did have brains and they did think and they did have a social conscience), yet I am much farther left in my outlook than any elected official I know. My paternal political heritage is blue collar Democratic, except that my dad broke with his family on politics and allied with my mother's family's conservatism.
I'm a former hippie, a home-birth advocate, a home death and green burial advocate, an opponent of capital punishment and resorting to warfare to resolve humankind's differences. I support the right to conscious self-deliverance. I rejoice in any and all consensual expressions of love and eros. I'm a lover and a mom.
I have never missed voting in an election and I disrespect those who don't avail themselves of this hard-won right. (I have ancestors who fought the Brits in the American Revolution.) I support workers' rights. I recognize our interdependence on this planet, so could be called a greenie. I'm a committed environmentalist in my day-to-day life (in terms of eating locally grown food, expanding public transit, recycling, preserving open space and wildlife, opposing exploitation of natural resources [strip mining, oil-drilling, nuclear facilities, agribusiness, monocultures, clear-cutting timber, overuse of pesticides, genetic modification, etc.]) I want to make the city streets "safe for dancing," as my old friend Tony Serra said when he ran for mayor of SF on the Platypus Party ticket.
Well, you got me going there, my friend. Thought-provoking read, as I said. ;-)
xo,
Macha
Lovely azaleas!
[cough][gag][snort][sneeze]
Just lovely...
I know what you mean.
I feel you. There is too much bs- particularly when people decide that their temperament is tantamount to truthful and ignore everyone else.
I get irked by immature extroverts or closet introverts who ignore you REPEATEDLY and then pretend you're out of line for being upset by the time they can't pretend you didn't say anything anymore. I find that the same people will ignore you if you blow up right away, too, and that it's because they just don't think that honoring what you value is important to maintaining a relationship, or even worse: that you don't know what you value at all and that it's all a mind game for their pleasure or annoyance. Then they call you passive-aggressive, aggressive, moody, touchy and temperamental. I call them "not listening".