Why can’t I manage to keep all my writings together? I’ve been feeling I need to write for a while now, but some how my journal just hasn’t felt appropriate. Maybe it’s not that. Maybe it’s that I’m too lazy to write things out with my hand. Auntie wanted me to come into her room with her and now I can’t help but be constantly distracted by an episode of Friend’s I’ve already seen. So now I’m in the living room, at the counter that separates it from the kitchen, with some buttered bread and a cup of green tea.
I’m trying to get myself in the right frame of mind.
Something been coming up a lot lately. Feelings. Intuition. Hearing your heart speak. Listening.
When we were in Mexico, there were a couple of instances when I had a feeling about something, contrary to what my brain and plans were saying. I ignored those feelings, and found out after the fact, that I should have paid attention. They weren’t huge things. One, for example, was the morning, a couple of days before we were going to leave to come home, when we were supposed to go to this new beach, Borocho, to check it out and snorkel. I woke up feeling in a bad mood, like I didn’t want to go, even though I had wanted to the night before. But it was a sunny day, and we only had a few days left, which may not have been sunny, so I thought we had to go. My mood worsened and worsened as we got ready, but I didn’t acknowledge or say what I was feeling. When we got to the place we were renting snorkels from, the guy told us that he didn’t know how good the snorkeling would be because the water was high that day. But we rented and went anyway. And after paying the money for a cab that we found out later we didn’t actually need, and hiking down to the beach, we discovered that there was, not only no way we’d be able to snorkel, but we wouldn’t even want to swim there. The water was very turbulent. We ended up walking back to the beach we normally went to.
I should have listened. Not that this was a huge deal, but it could have been. If I can’t even listen to my feelings on small things, how can I listen when it will really matter? The more I ignore my feelings, the less likely they will be to speak to me. They’ll lose strength, as I am their only source of food, and I’m afraid, if ignored long enough, they’ll die.
I have to show them they’re needed and vital to me, because they are, by listening to them, and acting on what they tell me. Hurt feelings are not good. I’m hurting mine all the time. I know I’ve talked before about that little voice inside, when neglected, dying. I was referring to dreams, desires, and examples of people I know who have forsaken theirs in favor of “responsibility.” But that’s not the true inner voice. It’s just a small fraction. Your inner voice is those feelings. These things that speak to you, that can help you guide your life. To listen to this and to act on it is to be true to yourself. It’s not just about pursuing ideas that sound cool to your brain. It is so much deeper. If everyone were to listen to their voice, always, strengthen it, I think the world would fall into such a perfectly synchronous harmony. Such an intricate pattern, woven, not by the hands of our egos. A symphony conducted by inner voices, collectively, leading each person to where they need to be and when, guiding lives. I’m not talking about world peace in the Miss America sense of the term. I’m talking about the disarray this world is in, the dysfunction, the way it just doesn’t work while in the hands of all of man’s ego. I’m talking about the most fine and impossibly intricate machine...working. About every one being provided for, physically, emotionally, spiritually, in every way.
That little voice, it’s the voice of our higher selves. And all of those little voices are the voice of God. Not God personified, as a lot of people think of God. God, as in the All, as in the order that is the universe, no matter how disorderly or uncoordinated our feeble minds perceive it to be. There is a flow, like the wind currents of our planet, which is constant, and if gone along with, in perfect operation. But too often, we fight the current. We leave that perfect flow, because we think that we, with our limited brains, and our gluttonous egos, know what’s best for us, the right way to live.
But to listen to that voice inside, to feel our feelings and live by them, we give up our control. We are guided by something that knows all, because it is All. When we listen to that voice, we let go. We let go of that branch in the flowing river that we once hung on to so furiously, one finger at a time. And every time, our grip becomes just a little weaker, and life has us that much more. Until one day, we are led, we have no control, and we are living our lives as we need to be, not how we think we need to be. I finally understand, in this exact moment what it is to let go. I know what I need to do. I know how to live, and what I need to work on.
This reminds me of this part in Illusions when the messiah describes that what people perceive to be someone sent by god, someone to worship and follow, the messiah, is just some who has let go, and has, by the flow of the river of life, come to a place of people who are still holding on, and so they see him as coming from heaven, because they can’t imagine any other place than where they are, because they have never been able to let go and see. There is too much fear.
Talking with some members of my family, who are Jehovah’s Witnesses, I find myself, when on the topic of religion, theirs in particular, being antagonistic. Very antagonistic.
I argue vehemently, but calmly, about their beliefs, not because I think they’re wrong, but because I know they aren’t their own. It doesn’t bother me at all, in fact quite the opposite, that some one should believe something different from me, but it does bother me when people think that their beliefs are a matter of fact and reason, when they’re really, always, no matter the situation, a matter of faith. They even profess them to be a matter of faith, quoting the passage in the bible that says that faith the size of a mustard seed can move a mountain (Matthew 17:20), and then proceed to prove their beliefs with other bible passages and quotes their organization has managed to scrounge up from the few scientists who agree with them. And the absolute worst part to me is, these aren’t even their own ideas. They aren’t even their own interpretations about what the bible means. They can’t even listen to themselves when it comes to their own spirituality. What ever the Watchtower, Bible and Tract Society (the Jehovah’s Witness organization) has to say on any given matter, the members of the religion take to be truth. Whatever the Jehovah’s Witness book called “Revelations”, a book interpreting Revelations, says about what something in the biblical book means, they believe, as though the book published by the WBT Society was also supposed to be inspired by God.
I hate to admit it, but it makes me feel a lot of disgust. Disgust and disbelief. They take whatever someone else thinks about life, spirituality, the bible, God, and go ahead and believe it unquestioningly. I don’t mean unquestioningly as in, they never researched it, or they weren’t intellectual enough about it. I mean, they never checked in with themselves. They never heard their hearts. They never thought to doubt it even for a second. They just closed their eyes, opened their proverbial mouths and swallowed.
And that is the problem with, not just Jehovah’s Witnesses, but all organized religion. It allows people to never have to concern themselves with it. They can shut up their hearts, turn off their minds, and be done with it.
This is a huge example of holding on I think. How are people supposed to live their lives as they should be, be true to themselves, if they can’t even think for themselves? If they can’t even decide for themselves whether or not to celebrate their birthday, have a blood transfusion, masturbate for chrissakes?
It’s really a little ridiculous that I should let it get to me. It usually doesn’t. I guess I just still feel strongly about it sometimes, having been raised with it, and having some of my family still going along with it. What got me on the whole topic, is yesterday morning, I was talking with my Aunt and her friend Tina about the whole business. My Aunt didn’t seem too much interested in talking about it. It really puts her instantly on the defensive. Tina was pretty open minded about it though. She told me about when she got saved when she was 8 and realized, when attending church for the first time, that that was what she wanted, she felt it, she started crying, and she believed. She believes, although she’s a Christian, that all roads, all spiritual ways, are different paths to the same thing, which is pretty unusual in my experience. She doesn’t try to prove her beliefs to any one, even herself, because she already knows in her heart. She has faith. She does like to study the bible, and different viewpoints on it, because she feels like she should be educated on her own beliefs. Very cool. Instant respect from me. Mad props.
Auntie’s birthday was yesterday. I made her a cake, which was okay, and some enchiladas, which were badass. The best ever.
I’ve been cooking a lot. I’ve made spicy orange chicken, peach cobbler, stuffed zucchini, all in the past few days. I love to cook. It kind of comes in phases. I won’t want to cook for a couple of months, but then, I just have to do it all the time.
It’s really interesting to me because, while I love to cook so much and feel that doing it is pretty vital to my life, it is in exact opposition to my love of the simple life, adventuring, spontaneity, wandering. Although, in regards to the simple life, I do have to say that some of the ingredients from each of the aforementioned dishes were found in a grocery store dumpster.
Oh the constant conflicting desires, the constant reevaluating of priorities. This is where my heart comes in. This is why I have to practice listening, and obey whenever I heat it speak. But whatever my destiny is, I do not want to be swayed by my own prejudices. I do not want to oppose what my heart says because I think something negative of where life seems to be leading me. For example, if life were leading me to buying a house, pursuing a career, having a kid, I don’t want to say no, because I am prejudiced against that way of life.
Enjoying cooking so much made me consider that last night? What if that’s where my life lead me, to living around family and friends, cooking all the time? Would I allow myself to do that? I think I am too attached to certain ideas of what I want my life to be, and too prejudiced to some. I don’t want that. I want to be completely open. Receptive. In the flow.
