JOURNEY THROUGH THE SACRED

JOURNEY THROUGH THE SACRED
Ruminations on travels in the Grand Canyon
Journal Memoir of North to South Rim Trek, June 2010,
(excerpt)

“Holy Water”
Day Two, Cottonwood Camp to Phantom Ranch, with a side trip to Ribbon Falls: By far the longest, most tiring day of the entire trip.  Trudging through the just starting summer heat, with 45 extra pounds on my back, there were times I was convinced the Canyon was out to get me personally!  At least the cicadas seemed to take pity on me and kept their incessant chattering comments to themselves.  The side trip to Ribbon Falls was as spiritual an experience as I’ve ever had.  And the impromptu standing in the falls was as sacred as a planned ceremony.  It was an experience that won’t soon be forgotten.

The sun beat down on plants and animals alike, sucking moisture from every exposed surface.  Plants adapted to water conservation held onto every drop, occasionally offering warm shade to travelers seeking to conserve their own water.  In the distance, a faint tone murmured a promised story of water somewhere ahead.  At times, it seemed to mock the weary traveler, seeming to dangle a refreshment just beyond reach.  At other times, it whispered encouragement, beckoning to an oasis hidden beyond the next turn.

The stream danced its way through rocks grasping for watery sustenance.  Plants clung to banks, soaking their roots in the continuing flow.  Still other plants, desert plants scattered throughout the small side canyon, clung to life, seeming to make the already hot landscape even more scorching.  Suddenly, a corner was turned, boulders stepped aside and the faint rush of water became a many voiced chorus celebrating life in a desert.

There, tucked far back along a wall painted with the layers of time, sat a desert Queen, offering the generous gift of water to her subjects below.  Pilgrims came to pay homage to her beauty, power, and gifts of respite; gathering at her banks, soaking in the life of falling water. 

The empress enticed me—suggesting unknown secrets, pressing my sensibilities—to stand in the place between sky and earth, and join the song flowing between the two.  My hands caressed the fuzzy moss; my toes gripped the uneven surface.  The very air surged with light and water and being. 

I stretched into the void and experienced the dream of that place.

Water flowed through the desert.  It seemed to pour from the sun, cascading off the edge of the cliff, over my body, to the canyon below, rushing to join the Colorado River, flowing to meet the Oceans, cycling to the atmosphere, to eventually join in the sacred falling from the sky and once again be water in the desert.  My tears joined that rush.  I bathed in the eternal flow of existence.  Acolyte to the Universe.  Priestess.  Pilgrim.  Me.

I Don't Believe in Hell

Originally posted: on FB, Oct. 11, 2009 (http://www.facebook.com/#!/note.php?note_id=169156458085) I wrote it prior to that, but do not remember the date. 

I Don't Believe in Hell

This is in response to this comment in another place:

"...a child who is brought up by devout christians, would not be ready to accept any other religion or path."

I can definitely attest to the trueness of this statement...at least for me. I was raised in a very devout Christian home. I truly believed the dogma with every fiber of my being. I would have a few questions now and then--mostly just uneasy feelings with various teachings not quite sitting well within me--but they would usually be burned away in the fervor (fever?) of ecclesiastical exuberance. I was on the right path to the eternal bliss of heaven. Other religions did not have the enlightenment that I was sure of.

Yet, even in this state of ecstasy, there was an undercurrent of fear--fear of going to hell, fear of God's punishment, fear of missing the rapture and the 2nd coming of Christ. Looking at other beliefs would surely corrupt the pureness of my heart and leave me in danger of eternal damnation.

Eventually, I grew a little older, went to college, discussed the meaning of life with many different people who had many different views of life. I started wondering, "What makes me so sure that I am the one who is right?" So many times, teachings in the church would not seem quite right. I couldn't quite explain what was "wrong" but there was definitely a feeling of wrongness when I would listen to the teachings of hell-fire, damnation, and that it was my job to save the world. That, in turn, would lead to feelings of frustration and being a bit overwhelmed with the seeming futileness of "saving the world".

More time passed. More discussions, more studying, more exploration, more self-searching. I came to the realization that I did not believe everything I had been taught growing up. I had always believed in a "personal relationship with God", but eventually "decided" that I could, and had, developed my own slightly unique view of what that meant. I realized that even in a single church, there would be many different versions of what this meant. So, I wondered, how could "the Church" be so completely authoritarian on what that relationship SHOULD be? So, I continued developing the "church of me"--refining what I believed, questioning what I believed, sometimes rearranging what I believed. I realized that there would be those in the "christian" world (yes, I mean to have it with a lower case 'c') who would say I had "backslidden" and was bordering on heresy. But, even with that knowledge, I felt less fear than I had in a very long time.

And then I fell in love with someone who believed very little of what I was raised with. This rattled me a little bit. We got into discussions, and one thing that always seemed to come up was his comment: "Hell is something that was made up by the church to manipulate the masses." And as much as I agreed with him, my old, old fears resurfaced and I would have to change the subject. I was afraid to even THINK of the POSSIBILITY of this statement being true. Hell was one of the cornerstones of what I was raised with. If it wasn't true, what would happen to the rest of the ediface that I had built around it? So, the fear of eternal separation from God reappeared inside of me. It would subside from time to time, but then that same statement would be made, or "There is no hell," would be said, and my stomach would clench a bit and I'd change the subject.

Then one day, I was home alone, making green chili for the next day. I was listening to the radio (NPR's "This American Life"). The theme that week was "Heretics". They told a story of a man who was raised in a church and belief system very similar to how I was raised. It also told how he had been declared--OFFICIALLY declared--a heretic by pastors and organizations that just a short while before had venerated him for being such a powerful leader and bringer of truth.

His heretical revelation?
"There is no Hell."

The story was told in vocabulary and terms that I had grown up with. It resonated with every logical, emotional, spiritual fiber that I had. All the pieces of what I believed, had listened to, and discussed solidified and clicked into place giving me a picture that was clearer than any I'd had in awhile. So, there I am, chopping onions and potatoes and sobbing. It was an interesting sob: deep, deep, deep, but without pain. There was actually a thread of laughter, humor, and lightness in that sob. But it was still deep and gut-wrenching with the realization of truth.

One cornerstone had been pulverized in that hour. Somehow, my buildings of belief, my "church of me", had not come crashing down around me. Rather, it had taken on quite a new glow and solidness. And that undercurrent of fear was mostly gone!

Mostly? Crap. Now what?

I keep hearing and seeing "there is no God". That statement is another one that I'm afraid to look at squarely in the face. Someday, when it's time, when I get the guts to do it... As scary as this thought is to me, I'll look at it, examine it, decide where to put it in my ever evolving church of one.

And when I do...Well, at least I won't have to worry about going to hell.

:)

(NPR story that was referenced:

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1273 Listen to it! It's a good one!)

V-Day Ruminations

(Originally posted: February 14, 2006; http://www.myspace.com/azginamarie/blog/87709974 )

V-Day Ruminitions

Friends of mine were in this year's Vagina Monologues here in Flagstaff.  I tried to go see the show, but totally forgot that it sells out every year...so, I didn't get to see it!  So, I went and sat in the Zane Grey, drank a beer (then a Gila Monster...."It's orange vodka, cranberry vodka, some other vodka, and a splash of something else"...that's what I remember the bartender saying...it was good)  Anyway, I sat there contemplating life, and suddenly realized I had something to write but nothing to write on (and no pen).  I asked the bartender if he had paper.  He gave me some of the register tape and a pen.  I wrote on both sides of it and asked for a bit more.  I wrote on both sides of that one too!  I found it pretty funny!  ANYWAY!!!  Here's the thoughts that were going through my head as I contemplated vaginas.  ... 

We always hear about the angry vaginas.  But, what about the happy ones?

I was molested when I was 4-ish-years old by a 12-year old neighbor boy.  And this was a full on penis touching me molestation (no penetration, though).  Was it violent.  Not at all.  Was I ashamed of it?  For many, many years.  I knew it was "wrong" (we were by a window to make sure we would see if/when someone came into the house & I was admonished to "not tell anybody".) 

For most of my life I felt somehow responsible for that time.  I felt guilty for the sexual awareness that the experience awoke in me.  I felt guilty that I never told anyone.  But, I'm not angry.  Neither is my vagina.  Maybe I was at one time.  I can't remember.  Instead, I've decided that it's a part of who I am--it's an experience that has shared in the shaping of my life.

Am I happy it happened.  Not at all.  Am I angry that my childhood innocence was taken?  Not really.  A little sad, but not angry.  I've made my own peace with that experience.  

Life is too precious to give away my power by being angry.  Yes, there is power in anger, but there is a much stronger and more enduring power in forgiveness.  I won't forget what happened.  But, neither will I wrap myself around it in guilt and fear.  Nor will I nurture it while it festers into an all-consuming seed of anger that would eventually blossom into an all out self-righteous hatred of sensuousness, sexuality, and passion.

I will strive to make a world where NO CHILD has to fear for her safety; for a world where mothers don't have to think twice about who their daughter is with; for a world where men and women don't view themselves as combatants striving for supremacy but as caretakes of each other. 

Our lives are what we make of them.  We can choose to see the world as a place to fear, a place to hate, a place to be angry.  

Or not.  

Me?  

I choose to be happy. 

I'm Dying

(Originally posted: March 26, 2006; http://www.myspace.com/azginamarie/blog/102367977 )

I'm dying....

I remember the first time I was consciously aware of my mortality; the first time I truly knew I was facing death; the first time I felt the passage of youth.  It wasn't brought on by any fantastic escape from death.  It wasn't while confronting some looming fate.  It was something very small.

I was out with a friend that evening.  She was meeting with coworkers to listen to a colleague of theirs sing.  Some of them I'd met before.  Some, I didn't care if I never saw again. 

As I sat watching, listening, occasionally interacting with them, I felt detached from them.  There were those in the group who were comfortable with just sitting, drinking a couple of drinks, talking, laughing, just enjoying being out.  But there was one lady in particular who seemed like she needed to be the center of attention.  Every increasingly wild gesture seemed calculated to draw attention to her need.  For some reason, this made her seem much older than her 36 years.

I'm not sure what triggered it, but suddenly I knew that I was watching my life go by and I knew that I would someday die.  I knew this with as much certainty as when I was seven and knew I was going to live forever.
Was this my passage--finally--into adult hood?  Maybe it was the ghosts of the bar, reaching out their dry fingers, caressing the outer skin of my soul.

I looked at my hands.  34 years had written a bit of their story across the backs of them and etched hieroglyphics into the palms.  How had those stories gotten there without my realizing they were being written?  What were the hieroglyphics symbolizing?  Was there some message that was being given to me?  If I interpreted them correctly, would revelation come to me?

And then it seemed as if Life loomed all around, with the being that was me but a small, small, infinitely small piece of the whole mechanism.  I knew, without any doubt, that I would pass through the machine, maybe touching a few lives, maybe sharing a few stories.  I also knew that I didn't want to be like the lady who wasn't satisfied unless she had the attention of everyone in the same vicinity as she.  I want to be able to step into the spotlight when needed and yet step out when it was time for someone else.  I want to live my life with joy, adventure, and passion.  I don't want to be the one who watches everyone else dance and is too self-conscious to dance myself. 

That was a month ago, when I sat inside my own head and watched my little universe bump against others'. 

Today, I found a white hair.

(3/5/12 Note: When talking to my mom about this, she reminded me that I'd had that white hair off-and-on since I was about 12 years old.  I had totally forgotten that until she mentioned it!  It still comes and goes.)

WWJD?

(Originally written: March 2009)

WWJD?

What would Jesus do?

Today there are Christians who try to live by the mantra, "WWJD?". Instead of asking "What WOULD Jesus Do", christians need to start asking, "What DID Jesus do?" Until christians are willing to lay down their lives for the very people that they commonly condemn, they are not doing what Jesus did.

By Christianity's own teachings, Jesus did not tell the sinners and outcasts that they were wrong and curse them for living a way he thought they shouldn't, nor tell them they had to change. He didn't revile, rebuke, or condemn them--he saved that for the self-righteous and religious of the day. The people that the religious shunned and looked upon with contempt--the poor, the lowly, the "unclean"--were the friends of Jesus. He spent time with them. He fed them. He cared for them. He DIED for them.

What would happen if a christian said, "Today, instead of fighting against homosexuality, I am going to fight for all people to have the privileges that I have; to strive for all people to live with dignity and respect; to stand up for the right of ALL people to have life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?" That Christian's life, in his christian realm, would be done. He would be reviled. He would be denigrated. His "christian credibility" would be shattered. And in so doing, he would have laid down his life, taken up his cross, and followed Jesus.

Instead of asking "What would Jesus do?" then militantly insisting that they are right and everyone else is wrong, christians should ask, "What DID Jesus do?" Then, go and feed the hungry, take care of the underprivileged, get involved in the larger community. If they are willing to give up their life for someone they don't even know, willing to give up everything so that those who come after them have a better life, THEN they are willing to do what Jesus did.

What did Jesus do?

WDJD?