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I need to learn who I am and what I believe.
I had a session with my therapist the other day, and she asked me what I liked to do. I told her "I really don't have any interests. I like learning about things, but I don't have any interest in doing much of anything. I used to."
She said that people who say they have no interests tend to be people who don't know who they are. They don't have a strong sense of identity.
As an empathic person, an anxious person, a fearer of conflict, a desirer of belonging, a desirer of meaning, an American, a citizen of the world, a human being, an employee, a daughter, a wife -- what I am and what I believe are contingent on these other roles. These different me's.
These different me's are not necessarily me but merely the me that arises due to contingencies.
MAJOR LIGHT BULB BUDDHISTY MOMENT.
I have repeatedly revisited Buddhism as a spiritual path for me. But I tend to leave it because, aside from not believing all of its teachings, because, a, it is hard, and b, because of other people. The people who tend to follow Buddhism grate on my nerves something fierce. And possibly because the way I think and feel are so easily influenced by those around me.
Buddhism speaks a truth about contingency -- our selfhoods are contingent states of being. So, what draws me to Buddhism is its truth about contingency, and what repels me away from it is my contingent nature. Since I am a social being, my experience of Buddhism is contingent on interacting with others, which inevitably makes me walk away in disgust. There are a lot of pedantic, self-important, insistently clever, "I'm-so-happy-clappy-enlightened-what-a-pity-you're-not" type of people.
I have become culturally embedded in Heathenry, but I do not believe as most Heathens do. I am ultimately an atheist. I do not believe any of the gods are real in any way. I see them as psychological constructs. Perhaps mimetic thought forms. They can be tools to speak about certain concepts, but I do not believe in divine beings (or in land spirits).
I get a lot out of the friendships that I have formed in being part of the kindred. I also very much enjoy learning about Norse Pagan religion and culture, and yes, about vikings, too. I enjoy debating history and theology just as much as I enjoyed debating history and theology when I was in seminary, even though I wasn't a Christian. I even enjoy planning rituals, even if I ultimately dislike personally executing them. And I don't enjoy the beginning and ending of a blot because we are essentially calling on beings that I don't believe exist and I feel like a fraud. It is viscerally unpleasant.
I do enjoy the second and third passing of the horn, though. I notice the very powerful emotional tool that the blot is for people. They are tools of catharsis. Outside of that space, people are restrained, busy, frenetic, they keep their feelings at bay. Enter into the ritual dance of the blot, and suddenly people are free to cry and speak their truth and share their deepest feelings, girded up by the mythopoetic language that Heathenry provides. Such an intimate experience bonds you to people in a very powerful way.
But I still need to figure out what I believe, spiritually and ethically. And being so embedded in this religion is influencing me just as much as when I was embedded in Christianity -- I take on the mythopoetic and psychospiritual language around me, nay, embrace it and enjoy it, which in the end influences what I believe, what I do, where I hang my hat.
I am an officer of the kindred because no one else stepped up for the job and I am The Little Helper. I think this above all is what has consistently made me uncomfortable. I am an officer for a religion that I don't fully buy into, and I do not wish to step down because I made a promise to our chief and friend. I don't want to leave the kindred, but right now I also don't want to be as emotionally invested in it as I have been. We are a fledgling kindred. Only a year old. And we wish to make it grow, make it stronger, do outreach and connect with other Heathens. That is even MORE embedding of my time and energy and identity into Heathenry.
And on top of this, my husband is a very committed Heathen -- metaphysically and ethically -- and this is a religious endeavor that we can do together as a couple, a spiritual language we can use to discuss what we think and believe about the world. This adds another complication to it. If I were, by chance, to leave Heathenry altogether, that will cause a barrier between us, emotionally or linguistically or whathaveyou. I believe it could even cause conflict between us.
Maybe Heathenry is the best place for me, spiritually. But maybe it isn't. Maybe in the end I will have to complement my involvement with another religious tradition (and Buddhism is always the one that comes up because it adds another layer of compassion for the broken self and the broken stranger that I think is less emphasized in Heathenry). I don't know right now. I think I have been spinning my wheels about spiritual identity for most of my adult life due to in part my contingent way of being in the world.
I had a session with my therapist the other day, and she asked me what I liked to do. I told her "I really don't have any interests. I like learning about things, but I don't have any interest in doing much of anything. I used to."
She said that people who say they have no interests tend to be people who don't know who they are. They don't have a strong sense of identity.
As an empathic person, an anxious person, a fearer of conflict, a desirer of belonging, a desirer of meaning, an American, a citizen of the world, a human being, an employee, a daughter, a wife -- what I am and what I believe are contingent on these other roles. These different me's.
These different me's are not necessarily me but merely the me that arises due to contingencies.
MAJOR LIGHT BULB BUDDHISTY MOMENT.
I have repeatedly revisited Buddhism as a spiritual path for me. But I tend to leave it because, aside from not believing all of its teachings, because, a, it is hard, and b, because of other people. The people who tend to follow Buddhism grate on my nerves something fierce. And possibly because the way I think and feel are so easily influenced by those around me.
Buddhism speaks a truth about contingency -- our selfhoods are contingent states of being. So, what draws me to Buddhism is its truth about contingency, and what repels me away from it is my contingent nature. Since I am a social being, my experience of Buddhism is contingent on interacting with others, which inevitably makes me walk away in disgust. There are a lot of pedantic, self-important, insistently clever, "I'm-so-happy-clappy-enlightened-what-a-pity-you're-not" type of people.
I have become culturally embedded in Heathenry, but I do not believe as most Heathens do. I am ultimately an atheist. I do not believe any of the gods are real in any way. I see them as psychological constructs. Perhaps mimetic thought forms. They can be tools to speak about certain concepts, but I do not believe in divine beings (or in land spirits).
I get a lot out of the friendships that I have formed in being part of the kindred. I also very much enjoy learning about Norse Pagan religion and culture, and yes, about vikings, too. I enjoy debating history and theology just as much as I enjoyed debating history and theology when I was in seminary, even though I wasn't a Christian. I even enjoy planning rituals, even if I ultimately dislike personally executing them. And I don't enjoy the beginning and ending of a blot because we are essentially calling on beings that I don't believe exist and I feel like a fraud. It is viscerally unpleasant.
I do enjoy the second and third passing of the horn, though. I notice the very powerful emotional tool that the blot is for people. They are tools of catharsis. Outside of that space, people are restrained, busy, frenetic, they keep their feelings at bay. Enter into the ritual dance of the blot, and suddenly people are free to cry and speak their truth and share their deepest feelings, girded up by the mythopoetic language that Heathenry provides. Such an intimate experience bonds you to people in a very powerful way.
But I still need to figure out what I believe, spiritually and ethically. And being so embedded in this religion is influencing me just as much as when I was embedded in Christianity -- I take on the mythopoetic and psychospiritual language around me, nay, embrace it and enjoy it, which in the end influences what I believe, what I do, where I hang my hat.
I am an officer of the kindred because no one else stepped up for the job and I am The Little Helper. I think this above all is what has consistently made me uncomfortable. I am an officer for a religion that I don't fully buy into, and I do not wish to step down because I made a promise to our chief and friend. I don't want to leave the kindred, but right now I also don't want to be as emotionally invested in it as I have been. We are a fledgling kindred. Only a year old. And we wish to make it grow, make it stronger, do outreach and connect with other Heathens. That is even MORE embedding of my time and energy and identity into Heathenry.
And on top of this, my husband is a very committed Heathen -- metaphysically and ethically -- and this is a religious endeavor that we can do together as a couple, a spiritual language we can use to discuss what we think and believe about the world. This adds another complication to it. If I were, by chance, to leave Heathenry altogether, that will cause a barrier between us, emotionally or linguistically or whathaveyou. I believe it could even cause conflict between us.
Maybe Heathenry is the best place for me, spiritually. But maybe it isn't. Maybe in the end I will have to complement my involvement with another religious tradition (and Buddhism is always the one that comes up because it adds another layer of compassion for the broken self and the broken stranger that I think is less emphasized in Heathenry). I don't know right now. I think I have been spinning my wheels about spiritual identity for most of my adult life due to in part my contingent way of being in the world.
