Delving Within--Week 7 Pagan Blog Project

Delving Within

painting by Primal Painter

I may never find a pre-made path to go down. I’m increasingly starting to wonder why I feel (felt) I need(ed) one. Just now, sitting here thinking that I don’t need to find something someone else made is making me smile and that little flickering flame inside me is glowing brightly and warmly. That, more than anything, tells me I am close to figuring something out. It’s a grand feeling.

I saw a phrase today while researching homemade deodorant of all things, that had resonance for me. Living with Intention. Wow. What a great concept. I wrote it down in my notebook immediately. Living with Intention. I think it may be part of the je ne sais quoi I’m trying to find both in my self and in my life.

Perhaps part of my problem is that I’m seeking a path, when I’m already walking a spiral, a labyrinth of self. Circling ever inwards to find what I’m looking for. It’s hard to let go of things, people, friendships, long-held beliefs or ways of thinking, but I often find that when I do I experience a blissful feeling of freedom.

There have been times when I was utterly alone and I don’t mean alone in the house for a few hours, but truly alone with no one to fall back on, to talk to, to help if needed. Just alone and after the initial fear and panic faded, I felt an uplifting sense of freedom. Those that were gone eventually returned and my aloneness ended. Life catches me and buries me in a million different things that keep me blinded from other things that the seeing of might benefit.

I have moments of bright clarity that I wish would last longer. It is very like finding a pretty stone sticking up from the dirt and trying to excavate it with bare fingers. I pry and dig and feel my way along, but before I get too far someone calls my name and I forget what I was doing. It’s always a long time before I remember to get back to it. It’s often longer still until I feel that indefinable sense of freedom and clarity that lets me see somewhat behind the scenes. I’m having one now and I’m trying to play it cool in hopes that it sticks around longer.

I once tried to describe what it looks like to a friend. I’ve since lost the friend (and am glad of it in retrospect) but kept the imagery.

I told her that this waking up was like having been underwater and thinking that it was the whole world instead of a fish bowl. Then something happens and you pick your head up and see most everyone around you splashing about with their heads under the waves. But the kicker is that the water level is only inches deep. If you stood up it would only splash around your ankles. I told her I thought we were like fishes and could only stay above the water for a short time before we began to drown and had to dive back under again whether we wanted to or not. I told her also that I felt there were many levels of water, both above us and below us. I remember she looked at me strangely. I tried to describe that we could float up to different levels of water and still pull our heads free and look around. To me it simply was. There was no oddness about it. That there could be levels of water all in a greater water and you could lift your head out of each one and look around, but also could float up from one level to another as if your buoyancy increased. It makes perfect sense to me. She didn’t understand what I meant. I shrugged it off. I confused her a lot when I spoke up for myself instead of nodding along sycophantically.

This post is days late so I’m going to close here and get it posted. Maybe I’ll be able to address it again in the future when I have a better grasp on what it is I’m trying so hard to describe, learn, become.