Week 24 and beyond

Since I’m doing energy work and meditation on an ongoing basis, it’s enhancing my clarity about things. I guess the key word is ‘mindfulness’. My spiritual path is a daily part of my life, and as busy as I am in some ways, I am calmer and more peaceful, with a different focus of awareness.

Where the blazes is my motivation?

I’ve decided I’m approaching my Spiritual path all wrong. I’m unexcited, de-motivated, and tempted to just power through things to ‘get it done’. Approaching my path as a checklist of achievements is a sure-fire way to spin off the path and treat my path as something it’s not. It should not be a burden. It should not be a task to ‘get through’. If it is every once in a while, then it’s not a problem. However, that’s not what is happening here. It feels that way *all the time*.

What I need to do is look at this as a gift. The gift of this emotional / mental reaction is that it’s showing me a problem somewhere, something that’s not working. That’s not a signal to ‘get rid of it’ or ‘give it up’. It’s a signal to slow down, reflect, examine, and then, after a while, make deliberate choices to test new things. Perhaps I need to add or subtract; perhaps I need to ‘get rid of things’; maybe I just need to *recommit*. Maybe the pacing or focus is wrong. I don’t know what the solution is, because part of the gift of the situation is learning to examine and sit with things, and then deliberately try different things without attachment to outcome, before making a choice.

Ancestor Altar

Ancestor Altar

This altar not only incorporates my family lines on both my Mum’s and Dad’s sides, but also our ties to Scotland and the home country, and my non-human lineage as well. My family is from Scotland on both sides of the tree, but my Mum is 1st generation American, so my grandparents were from Scotland on her side; this is commemorated through several items on the altar.

Dad’s side is from England and Scotland, but his family came to America in 1607 and helped build / found the country. In his lineage, we have two cities that bear the family names which our family founded (Shelton, CT and Sanford, FL), and our family has been researched and recorded, and much of Dad’s family lineage is on display in the Sanford Museum in central Florida His ancestor that founded the town was a member of Abraham Lincoln’s cabinet, and served as an attache to Belgium in the American Civil War. He also helped open the Congo, and created the first Orange Plantation / Grove in Florida.

My Altar:

From left to right, bottom row:

My Mum, the small bowl next to her was made by my niece, Julie; inside are stones from the River Dee and heather from the Highlands. The Cross is a High Cross; for generations my family has been Celtic Christian and then Protestant, later, when they came to Glasgow. The far right of this row is the Beard family crest.

From left to right, top row:
Dad’s Grandfather, a WWI vet. Dad, whose picture is hard to see, and the family Matriarch, Grandmother Beard. In the middle is a representative of my non-human lineage, my beloved Wolves; and to the right of him are stones gathered in Edinburgh and its vicinity.  The heart-shaped rose quartz I acquired in Mallaig, Scotland; the other heart-shaped stone from Tron Kirk in Edinburgh. The stone on the far right is from the River Dee. The postcard behind the stone is one that my grandmother wrote on as a child and sent to her family, when she was confined to the Royal Infirmary in Glasgow, which is shown on the postcard, itself. The pictures of family above and around are all my Mum’s family… all McAllisters. My great grandmother, Margaret Thomson; my grandmother, Mary McAllister, and her two siblings, Ann and James. Her sister Ann’s engagement to Howard Wheale is above in the newspaper clipping. The McAllister plaid is in the centre.

Week 23 Meditation

For my final week of the meditation requirements, but not of my meditation practice, I’m going to return to my core type of ‘meditation’ – shamanic journeying. As I’ve gone through the weeks and looked at many different types of meditation, it’s expanded my knowledge of the types, yes, but also it’s helped me define what does and does not tend to work for me. I’ve also come to expand my definition of ‘meditation’ to involve other pursuits (ie repetitive movement), things I didn’t realise fell under that appellation.

As an aside, I’m doing other movement and mental training work from Escrima and other martial arts disciplines right now, for a different study that I’m doing, and also the abbreviated version of the Two Powers guided meditation each week with the WotY study with Rev. Jessie Olson on WizQ. Meditation, energy work and mental training is here to stay.

Week 22 Meditation Recap

I still did not do this in the shower. I still am having trouble being swept away, if I do not focus on becoming the stone, the creek bed, the land surrounding the stream. I think this is a meditation I need to continue. It does help me with cleansing, but I don’t feel that it is its most important function. The biggest reason I need to continue is that it helps me see if I’ve made progress on grounding myself or not. It tends to graphically show me what I lack ;).