Not dead. Busy.
I had an emergency edit dumped in my lap, and in my off-hours I’ve been creating HRH’s on-line CV and portfolio.
It’s humid again, people are stupid, my allergies are acting up, and I’m cranky because I haven’t been allowed to wake up by my own internal clock for a week. Chocolate does not help. Caffeine does not help. Dad’s pinot noir does not help. Salt does not help. Nor does tea of any kind.
And I have to be perky tonight for the open house.
I’ve been faced with a couple of difficult choices recently.
The first concerns the fact that I’ve lately struggled with wanting desperately to take up dancing again. I’ve always wanted to go back, but over the past ten years I’ve come up with every reason in the book to avoid it: I haven’t the money, I’m working too hard, I haven’t the time, there’s no studio near me, I’m shy, etcetera. The single sample class I took a decade ago ended in tears and a vow to never, ever show my face in a studio room again. Looking back, accepting the invitation of a sample class towards the end of a semester was really stupid, because I measured myself (having not danced at all for nine years) against women who had been training for fourteen solid weeks. Barre work was all right, but I stumbled badly in my floor work, and couldn’t remember the moves to match the names the teacher called out in combination sequences as we performed them across the room one by one. It scarred me badly.
I’m taking sample classes at two different ballet studios at the beginning of September. In both, I’ll be starting from the very basic beginner’s classes once again, to preserve mental and emotional sanity as well as to be kind to my body. I’ve retained most of my flexibility and posture (training for six years as your body forms and grows will do that for you), but muscles evolve with you, and I’m not stupid enough to think that I can just jump into an advanced class right off the bat.
So, there; one of my difficult choices. I’ll be dancing at one or both of them this fall.
The second difficult choice revolves around something very personal and emotional that occurred to me four and a half years ago (which scarred much deeper than the dancing issue). It took me quite some time to heal from the original experience, and I eventually dealt with it and moved on (without the other individual in my life, by my choice; I don’t hold grudges, I just don’t offer people the second chance to backstab me). On Sunday, this situation and the individual originally involved in it were resurrected in my memory by three different people, at three distinctly different and unrelated times.
I had a hard time working through what I was supposed to do about this, because I didn’t know what lesson Spirit was trying to teach me: how to surrender and accommodate, or how to say no. I’m very good — too good, some have said — at accommodating. I am bad, very bad, at saying no. In this instance, choosing to accommodate means that other people receive a lower-quality service. After the summer I have had, and the experiences I went through at the spiritual retreat ten days ago, and after meditation and divination and discussion with a couple of people I trust, I have chosen to interpret this as a lesson in saying no. The quality of my teaching and facilitating other people’s spiritual growth is very important to me, and I won’t have that interfered with. I owe that to my students, who trust me.
Trying to puzzle out which lesson I was to be learning through this was not fun. Both outcomes had drawbacks. Whichever lesson I followed through, there was pain and disappointment. Another one of those no-win, choose-the-lesser-evil situations. I had a very emotional day as I evaluated who I was, who I had been, and who I wanted to be in the future. I’ve made my choice now, and it’s the right one.
These are two very different challenges I have worked through. They both involve dealing with pride and spirituality: one expressed through movement and discipline; the other through a final emotional purging, a recognition that everything changes, and an acceptance of a teacher’s full responsibility, which sometimes must include saying no.
Whew. Can I get off the growing-up treadmill for a bit now, please? Just for a rest?
Witches Weekly August 21, 2004: Random Questions
1. Have you ever been confronted with a decision you had to make that conflicted with your spiritual beliefs? If so, what, and how did you deal with it?
No. My faith is all about taking the responsibility for every one of your actions on your own shoulders.
The main lesson I learned in the early years of practicing Wicca concerned the “harm none” rule. No one, absolutely no one, can go through life without harming someone or something. I grew to understand that a Wiccan must temper the “harm none” law with the belief that allowing harm to perpetuate elsewhere is wrong, and that standing by doing nothing is in itself causing harm. Loving the evildoer isn’t the way to redeem them; it’s just not going to happen. Thus, engaging in less than ethical action to stop evil from perpetuating is at times necessary. I firmly believe that we’re often faced with situations where the choice can only be the action “which is less wrong.” I also accept the karmic burden for taking those actions.
(The fact that there are no such concepts as pure “evil” or “good” complicates matters, but that’s a discussion for another day. Right and wrong are always subjective, and often situational as well. Hitting someone is generally perceived as wrong, but if you do it to turn someone aside from harming someone else (after trying other methods) then it’s right. You’re still going to have to take responsibility for it, though; you can’ escape the fact that you hit someone. Actions are dependent upon the individual, the situation, and the pressing need of a resolution. Heck, I’m not going to reiterate the Ethics chapter of the bloody book; just read it when it comes out next May, all right?)
2. What was your most spiritual moment?
I have absolutely no clue. I have frequent little spiritual moments; I can’t isolate one of them as “the most spiritual.” To me, spirituality is a life-suffusing concept. Even a small spiritual moment can change your life, and continuously informs the next moment as well as the one before it.
If you pressed me, though, I’d have to choose between the moments directly following my wedding ceremony, and my third degree ceremony. And perhaps my second degree ceremony as well. These just happen to have been facilitated by someone else; it’s not the fact that they’re ceremonies which makes them spiritual. Rather, it’s the depth of the spiritual transformation which occured during those ceremonies that makes them stand out.
3. Has there ever been a moment where you doubted the path you were on? If so, how did you deal with it?
In the ten years I have followed it, I have never doubted my adherence to the Wiccan faith. I have, however, doubted what I’m doing within it, though: teaching, writing, counseling, and so forth. These doubts are mini spiritual crises which pass after meditation, divination, consulting with others, and rest (they’re often a direct result of being overworked and overtired). Someone once told me the fact that I wonder about my suitability for helping others probably means I’m the right person to do it. Sigh. There’s no escape, is there.
In general I avoid quizzes, as they frustrate me; they’re never multi-dimensional enough, and I usually wouldn’t choose any of the answers, so I’m left with a best-of-the-worst-choices selection. Sometimes, though, I’m curious to see how they’re constructed, how they would slot me into a limited, pre-conceived category.
Today, I discovered via the What Style of Witchcraft Suits You? quiz that I am “best suited to Traditional Wicca!! You feel more comfortable in a structured setting, but have no qualms about doing what must be done when necessary.” Which is true enough, and the only answer which even remotely describes my actual practice.
I also discovered this, according to the What Kind of Pagan Are You? quiz, and I’m pasting the whole thing because Dame Maggie Smith is just cool:
(The “all possible results” was a riot.)
What do you mean, the first season of Farscape ends like that?
Damn them for knowing how to do a decent cliffhanger. Damn the season sets for being so expensive.
Damn.
This kind of thing really upsets me:
Church Says Girl’s Communion Not Valid
By JOHN CURRAN, Associated Press Writer
Fri Aug 20, 6:33 AM ETBRIELLE, N.J. – An 8-year-old girl who suffers from a rare digestive disorder and cannot eat wheat has had her first Holy Communion declared invalid because the wafer contained no wheat, violating Roman Catholic doctrine.
Now, Haley Waldman’s mother is pushing the Diocese of Trenton and the Vatican (news – web sites) to make an exception, saying the girl’s condition should not exclude her from the sacrament, which commemorates the Last Supper of Jesus Christ before his crucifixion. The mother believes a rice Communion wafer would suffice.
“It’s just not a viable option. How does it corrupt the tradition of the Last Supper? It’s just rice versus wheat,” said Elizabeth Pelly-Waldman.
Church doctrine holds that Communion wafers, like the bread served at the Last Supper, must have at least some unleavened wheat. Church leaders are reluctant to change anything about the sacrament.
(Full article here.)
For Pete’s sake — The bread. Is. Blessed.
The priest uses his God-given powers to bless the bread, performing the ritual magic which transforms the object into the body of Christ. That’s what transubstantiation means. Are you telling me that God isn’t capable of changing a rice wafer into the body of Christ? That the blessings don’t take if it’s not wheat?
Denying someone access to their faith because the individual cannot/will not comprimise their health isn’t only unfair, it’s bigoted.
The Catholic faith is a beautiful one. It’s too bad the bureaucrats spoil the spiritual aspect of that faith.
Interesting introspective on finishing novels, selling first novels, and other such writerly things from Michelle West here.