Tiamat

I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my magic.

Lately I have been out of touch with my pagan “roots”. The reason I looked into UU in the first place was it looked like a place where I could explore my life-long interest in paganism and still be an agnostic. I thought I might end up a UU Humanist Witch or a non-theistic Jungian goddess-worshipper, if you will. UU seemed like it would help me explore those contradictions.

For the last year or so, Buddhism has been speaking much more loudly to me. The more I investigated Buddhism, the less I was drawn toward trying to make sense of exploring goddess archetypes. While I love what Paganism teaches me about connection & responsibility, Buddhism is helping me live in this world in a better, happier way. Because of all of this, I have been feeling out of sync with my local goddess group and other pagans, most of whom worship and practice ritual in a much more theistic way than I do. I don’t want to be a downer on what they are trying to do, and what is sincerely meaningful for them, but sometimes the level of woo is a bit much for materialist me. There were a few rituals where I went home feeling like I went along with something I didn’t actually believe; I do not like that feeling. If I wanted that, I could have stayed a Pentecostal.

Then something strange happened; in the last week I came across references to the same goddess three times: Tiamat. Just about the time I started thinking that was a little weird watched a film with an unnamed sea goddess/personification of the ocean. Hmmm. In general, when I notice the same uncommon thing a few times in a short amount of time I make a practice of paying attention to it. I am not saying the universe is trying to tell me something – maybe it has been there all along and my subconscious is drawing my attention to it. However you describe it, I try to look into it and see if there is something there I can learn. After all, that is how I found UU.

When I started to think and read about Tiamat, I thought she might be the perfect patron for this blog. Tiamat represents the powers of creation and chaos. Chaos Theory and the patterns within creation is what got me interested in forming my personal spirituality in the first place. Tiamat is the dark All-mother creatrix who was maligned and re-cast as a demon by who's destruction men gained glory. How perfect is that for a feminist? I felt like her struggle was my struggle. I mourned for her. To me she represents all of the strong and fierce women who were put down and told they were shameful over the millennia. I have been mediating this week on finding the Tiamat within me and nurturing her. I don’t exactly know what that means, but I feel like it is important.

I still do not know how to integrate Humanism, Buddhism, and goddess worship into a coherent spirituality. One of these always seems to be in contradiction with at least one of the others. For now I will continue to stumble from inspiration to inspiration until something coherent emerges.

"The cure for anything is salt water - sweat, tears, or the sea" - Isak Dinesen

My First Labyrinth Walk

So I finally got to walk a labyrinth yesterday. I have been fascinated with them for years, but I didn’t know we had one in Anchorage that was open to the public until recently. I first became interested in labyrinths in my goddess studies, but I walked the local one with my Buddhist Small Group. That is one of the things I love about labyrinths – they are so ecumenical. Pagans, Christians, Buddhists, people of wildly diverse religious faiths all find usefulness and beauty in this walking meditative tool. What could be more UU than that?

This won’t be the last time I use the local labyrinth at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, but on this first walk one metaphor stuck with me. As I walked, there was a moment when I had to step out, another moment when I had to balance precariously, and a final moment in which I stood firm in stability on both feet. I repeated that pattern, which we all do every day without thinking about it, over and over again. That pattern is like life and we repeat it metaphorically all our lives. There are times when we have to get inspired and venture out into something we have never done before, times when we don’t really know what we are doing and might fail, and times when we are stable and sure in what we are doing. To get anywhere though, we have to step out again. The thing that both surprised me and didn’t was how much I enjoy the unstable part of each step. That is something worth paying attention to.

Another group of women followed our group through the labyrinth and they were clearly much more organized than we were. Their beautiful chanting enhanced the whole experienced and changed it for me. The labyrinth walk became an evolution and I learned to step and sway in their rhythm. While I started the walk focusing on Buddhist-style mediation, I finished it like a pagan. I am pretty happy with that.

The Impermanence of Parenting

I’ve been spending more time with Buddhism lately and it is affecting my parenting in a good way. Tall Daughter E will be graduating from high school and turning 18 in about a year in a half. This realization after the holidays started a panic beating in my chest. There is no way she is almost ready to be released out into the world as an adult. No. Way.

I am trying to take a step back and look at the impermanence of this stage of parenting. I do not feel remotely ready to be the parent of an adult; I can’t believe she is actually almost ready to be one. Unfortunately, me feeling ready and it actually occurring are unrelated ideas. No one is going to ask my opinion about the matter; it just is. So instead of railing against in inevitable, I am trying to savor and appreciate the time I have left with Tall E as my little girl. There are only so many more times she is going to hug and kiss me goodnight before she goes to bed. Only so many more times she will grumble as I ask her to help me with dinner. (That reminds me, I need to teach her to cook more different things.) The added side-effect of this is that is makes it easier to deal with raising a teenager. When I know that I don’t have that much longer to spend with her or to try to teach her my values it makes it easier to deal with things that, in the past, would drive me crazy. Why would I spend my remaining time with her being angry about small stuff?

Except when Tall E bickers with her little sister, the rhythm of our relationship has already changed in the last year or so. We relate and talk to each other differently than when she was a child and I can only imagine things will be even more different as she starts to lead her own life. I have been her favorite person for most of her life. She has always been bound to me in a way that I have sometimes found suffocating, but now I can’t imagine not having on a daily basis. It is hard to conceive of her not needing me. I have been raising Tall E almost my entire adult life so it is will real sadness that I view the end of actively parenting her, but that makes living with her all the more precious.

Happy Summer Solstice

I love love love the Summer Solstice! It is my firm and unassailable opinion that no one loves the solstice like we northerners. The sun decided to come out and play for the celebrations yesterday and we are having a beautiful solstice today. I walked down to the nearby lake last night and just watched the sun and the birds and the trees. I felt so at peace and this morning’s ride was giddy and joyful. I am just happy.

I am really coming to love my women’s ritual group. Even though our Solstice celebration was rained out on Saturday we had a lovely time as one of us opened her home. It was a small part of what was said and done, but one passage stuck with me. As glorious as it is, Solstice highlights impermanence for us. When summer is at its zenith, it begins to wane again. I usually try not to think about that and focus on all the glorious night we have left all summer long. But the reason this day is so joyous is because I know winter is coming. Those long dark nights make this day so much sweeter, but I am sure I wouldn’t care about it if I lived near the equator.

I love it when my interests in Paganism and Buddhism overlap like that. This day reminds me to savor every sweet and wonderful thing I see without begrudging its eventual loss. Without impermanence, it wouldn’t be so beautiful. I hope I can hang on to this lesson this winter and remember that it is OK to lose something, because that means that I once had it.

For UU Salon - Soulfully Agnostic

So the question of the month at UU Salon is What is a soul? And here is my attempt to answer.

Short version: ye gods, I have no idea.

Longer version:
I think I can say that I am truly agnostic on the subject of the soul. Central to the question of the existence of the soul is the idea of life after death. It’s sort of the big granddaddy of religious questions. I can’t say without a shadow of a doubt that I do not believe in life after death, but I see no compelling reason to believe in it either. I find the idea of reincarnation to be really beautiful and compelling. I hope it’s true, but hoping never made something so, especially in metaphysics.

In favor of the soul, most western and many eastern religious and philosophical traditions posit a belief in souls. Is there something in human nature that makes so many different points of view converge on the idea of the soul, or are we all just sharing a need to believe we don’t end when we die?

I don’t know about the soul, but I sure feel like a have a self, a meness that separates me from everyone else. Buddhism tells us that this is an illusion*, that we are the convergence of a multitude of connections and happenings in the universe and create our selves for a brief moment. I also find this to be a beautiful idea and much easier to swallow than reincarnation. Not to get all Our Town or anything, but if this brief flickering life is all we get each moment of it becomes so much more precious. Elements of the universe come together in just such a way as to make each of us possible for just a moment before they recombine to make something else. Each and every one of us, then, is a miracle self, a conscious and improbable little piece of self-awareness. Each person seems so much more precious and irreplaceable when I view them through this lens. It makes me feel grateful for my life that I get to experience it and realize how lucky I am to even be.

To some extent, I think the question of the soul puts the emphasis in the wrong place. To me, the most sacred moments are not about the individual, but about connection. Connecting to another person, to Nature, to a sense of the divine, these are the moments that give us meaning. Giving birth, falling in love, prayer and meditation, helping others, all of these make our lives better and richer in a way that focusing on my soul never has.

I know this is pretty scattered and all over the place, but it is a big question.

*Buddhists can feel free to correct me if I have gotten this wrong. I’m still learning.

Anticipating the Buddha

I'm really looking forward to watching PBS's documentary on the Buddha that aired last night. It's a busy week this week so it might be Sunday before I get to settle down for long enough to watch it. Did anyone else see it yet? What did you think?

Choosing Chanting

I've started to incorporate chanting into my meditations. So far, I've been using a couple of the most famous Buddhist mantra. So far, the chanting has been much easier for me than simple breathing meditation. I realize that easiness may not be the ideal trait for choosing spiritual practices, but I've been enjoying it. It hasn't changed my whole life or anything, but I've been doing it for the past five mornings and I haven't had a bad morning since and that says a lot.

Any other chanters out there? What works for you? What are you focusing on while chanting? Any fantastic mantra to recommend? I'd be particularly interested in goddess-themed chants, but I would be intrigued to hear what works for you. Do you prefer to chant in English (or your native tongue) or in Sanskrit, Japanese, etc.? This whole practice couldn't be more antithetical to my previous experience and background so I would really love to hear what, if anything, works for other people.

A Reforming Multi-tasker

My name is Strange Attractor and I am a multi-tasker.

I always have been a multi-tasker and have been a little bit overly proud to be one. Focusing on multiple things has always felt as natural as breathing to me. The refraction of attention became even more intense upon becoming a mother. If the mothers of small children didn't multi-task they would never get anything done or have an adult conversion. I would never say it out-loud, but I really felt that people who couldn't multi-task just weren't as clever as those of us who could.

When I first attracted to aspects of Buddhism, the whole doing only one thing at a time really threw me. It wasn't that I thought it was impossible, I just couldn't see it as a worthwhile goal. It seemed both boring and inefficient.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am reforming. I've know intellectually for a while that I should focus more on doing one thing at a time, but it still didn't sit right with me. I had a tiny revelation tonight while cooking dinner. We had breakfast for dinner which included pancakes, chicken sausage, and eggs cooked two different ways. Now I know how to cook all of these items rather well, but tonight they just didn't quite turn out right. The pancakes were lackluster and the scrambled eggs insufficiently fluffy. Nothing was ruined and it was all edible, and amazing still warm and ready all at the same time, but half of the dishes were just not quite how I wanted them to be. I realized while staring at the blah pancakes they both they and the eggs would have been better had they been the only thing I was cooking.

I don't think I'm going to start cooking only one dish dinner every night, but it brought home the idea that really paying attention might not be such a bad idea. I'm sure I will fall off the mono-focused wagon and slip back into old habits, but now it feels like I am pursuing a goal that I have decided is good for me, instead of one zen masters say is good for me.