My Religion

I've been watching the water flood my creek and threaten to wash away the bridge my mother and I worked so hard to build by ourselves this summer. Two previously concreted posts are missing. It's sunken into the bank on one side. Two hurricanes didn't touch it. A blizzard didn't move it. But the downpour of yesterday and today did. The bank below my cabin is a sandy, washed up shore. The skies, full of heavy storms, lasted the night and into today. We've had so much precipitation this year that the roots of the trees are weak, and our first ice storm saw giant timber falling down everywhere. You could hear the snaps and the eerie cracks echoing through the valleys. This place is a mess, but the surrounding hills; massive, earthen walls, have still kept most of it intact. My canine companion was injured this morning in a fight with another wild animal. She rests on the bed by a second heater I have going to take the chill out of the air. Her wound's been washed with an herbal concoction of my own, and her sprained leg is lying on a pillow. There's nothing to do but wait now. Wait for nature, and wait for healing. Access the damage. Repair. Carry on.

I've been asked many times over the years to talk about my preference of religion. It seems a subject people are strangely interested in, yet I always seem to find myself avoiding another conversation about it. I'll say that when a day like this happens and I watch something more powerful than me ravage my home, I certainly tend to fall back onto my spiritual roots. It's as good a time as any to talk about it then, yes? I've actively escaped this conversation for a long time, for my spirituality is very personal and sounds downright insane to many. But I've learned that avoiding answering the question at all just caused those around me to speculate and come up with their own conclusions, which were very distorted. I guess when one dodges questions people want to ask, those people will build their own answers. Sometimes I find entertainment in them, sometimes I don't. Anyway, I have nothing better to do while the rain begins its percussion yet again on my metal roof, and the dog sleeps off her pain...

I don't follow an organized religion, and I'm not in the habit of marking my calendar for traditional celebrations. I don't really consider myself part of any documented belief system, tabernacle or creed. Yet something lives eternally inside my mind, my soul and down deep in my bones, always pulling me close and keeping me connected to its heart. Everything I do is because of it. Every decision I make is based around it. Now since humanity seems to have such a need for appropriate language and order, for the sake of ease, I'll call this “it” God. For that's what I genuinely believe it is.

God lives inside me. I live inside God. The mixture of bones, blood, water, spirit & soul seem to continuously fold together and into each other. My head imagines it's like folding egg whites & various other ingredients into a delicious cake batter, hypnotically, in a hot kitchen during midsummer.

Funny to compare such things, but my mind works like a child's. I always liked that about myself and don't wish to ever let it go. The point is I don't feel distanced from God in the least. Never have. Even in my darkest moments. I understand being connected like that doesn't spare one from atrocities in life, either. There should be a better balance to all things, but we seem to have corrupted it. There's an unfairness that exists in humanity's world. I accept that karma doesn't always work like people would like for it to, and that there are no concrete laws to spirituality, rewarding us for a job well done. And that's just the way it is. I'm very guarded spiritually, and usually tend to my affairs in silence and privacy. And then at the appropriate times, I believe I'm supposed to share my experiences. I'm fluid. Change is everything, yet my direct link to the heavens never falters.

This God, who lives and breathes through me and through everything else I contact, speaks through my hands and my heart. I sense epiphanies from it, then I share them. Sometimes I share them through play, and sometimes in pure solemnity. Sometimes, they're shared through secrets.

If I'm living in the middle of a wilderness, I hear and see the words through nature. If I'm living in a city, I hear things in old pipes while I'm bathing in water so hot it can induce hypnosis. I hear it in the performance of an amateur poet at St. Marks, or down at Bar 13. God has literally entered my mind and body in fatal situations before, helping me out when the last of my efforts had been spent and I could no longer do any more on my own. I have been on the edge of danger more often than I can count. God saved my life so many times that I have questioned the real reason I'm still here. I still don't have an answer. I just know what I hear and see and experience, and I know what I must do. And that's all. It's really very simple. If there's any “religion” to me, it's one I've found on my own after all that's happened and all that's been revealed to me. And those revelations came through as clear as someone standing right in front of me. They weren't taught to me, and they weren't preached by men in suits on a pedestal.

And from those revelations came a motivation in me to live a certain way and pay attention to certain things. I get messages everywhere. I get them in the dead of night and in the middle of a social gathering. There's no perfect place. There's no church. There's no schedule to acquire it by the mouth of a preacher once a week. It's everywhere, and it doesn't stop. I heard it today when the water rushed by like a tidal wave. And with that, I give you this latest message I witnessed today:

The rushing water flooded my bank, flowed into my yard, and stormed down towards the west with a power I haven't seen in a while. I was reminded of how strong the winds and the seas were, and how helpless I was to stop it. I watched as this heavy bridge began to wash away on one side. And then I took notice of the daring, bright red chair that never moved, poised on the upper side of the bridge and positioned directly at me as though there was some invisible body sitting in it and trying to look me in the eye. The weather howled on. It was pouring. Thunder cracked across the sky. Still, the chair never moved. Everything around it was washing away, toppling over, branches cracking off and falling into the water. That red chair, however, didn't even budge. It was as if it was bound to defy the laws of physics.

My absolute first feeling? A chill, and a knowing that the chair represented a person. A valiant person. And something was happening to the west of me. As I stood watch and stared out the window at that chair, the feeling moved deeper. I'm connected to this somehow. This person is watching. And now, I've gotten a glimpse. All I am to do at this point is wait. And that's where the vultures come in. (Yes.. this gets even weirder.)

So if you're wondering why the vulture is in the introductory photo to this blog post, it's because I've been followed by these vultures since I got back to NC. They've been stalking me since March. I've seen so many of them so often that I'm beginning to feel like they're part of me, too. And every time I see one, I sense the word “patience”. Be patient. Just wait.

So now I have “be patient” being constantly communicated to me through a cavalcade of vultures. I have a defiant, red chair watching me intently, and saying to remain resolute. Don't sway from the plan, don't fear. Don't let the biggest tidal wave of destruction break you down. And wait. Wait patiently. Something to the west of you is happening. This is the spirit of God talking to and through me. And this is what I do.

The more I learn to relax and give myself to this mystery, the stronger my senses and feelings become. It's the most important thing in the world to me. My top priority- Spirit, and how it's telling me to live. I live alone at the moment, as close to the wild as possible, and I've opted to stay untouched and celibate for quite a while.. it keeps distractions to a minimum. 

I don't dismiss any of my feelings, or become insecure as to what other people might think of them. I know quite well I sound like a lunatic, and I'm okay with it. I'm being guided and protected and cared for, and it feels good. My heart operates like the beam of a lighthouse now, showing me where to go and what to do. It's strong. If I get a message in the middle of the night to get out of my comfortable bed and do something that might seem odd, I will exile myself from convenience and do it right away. And through these actions, my life has taken a very strange turn. I suddenly get anything I want or need. I haven't been cold for long. I haven't gone hungry. I was able to remove myself from a very complicated relationship with ease for the first time in my life. I even received a monetary gift, allowing me to do some quite frivolous things I wanted to do very much. It's as if I was supposed to do them... and so the money appeared. And it has been this way since March, when I moved back home. When I finally sat by that water and prayed to that God that kept me alive and made me stronger than the devil.

So here's the best explanation I can give as to what my religion is, if it is a religion. I honestly don't understand it all myself. I suppose the closest answer is that I've somehow become some sort of messenger.. I just don't carve words into stone, or roll them up in papyrus scrolls. People don't read rocks and plants anymore.

It doesn't matter if it's assumed I'm a little insane. I've already been misunderstood for years, and I have a feeling that's not going to change much with a blog post. The ones who need to take something out of it will, and the ones who don't wont. I'm okay with that. I feel very secure in my place and with what I feel. I know I have fallen into disfavor many times, regarding what misgivings others have had about my spirituality. I'm used to it. Using certain words, like God and heaven, has made some assume I'm Christian. Making medicines from weeds and herbs has made some believe I'm Pagan. There are a few who believe I'm Buddhist, because I saw a vision of myself in many other bodies during a near death experience. I've been asked to join communes on the notion that I may be Wiccan or a hippie or a feminist vegan, and it's been assumed I'm a lesbian & will eagerly join a cause or two. I've attended Catholic mass before, simply because I find it beautiful, but I'm not Catholic. I like lighting candles and saying a prayer, and looking up at a statue glistening in the low light conditions. I love cathedrals and temples and altars. I like the quiet. I like the little interesting things people do, like drawing invisible crosses over their chests with water they call holy, and watching rosaries dangling from tired, old hands.

I've written down prayers and wishes in strings of honey before, and sent them floating away in a melon on the water. But I'm not a witch. I've used my heat and hands to take away body pain, but I'm not a faith healer. I might be a hopeless romantic, though. I do find all these things sentimental and tender, and I haven't found a good reason to stop. When the moon is full, I get restless, looking for a way to capture its mysterious moonbeams in a glass. Sometimes in the summer, I run outside, pull off my dress and walk under its pale light. All the while, feeling it's a whimsical gift and sacred right from God.

There isn't a way to end a conversation like this, because it has a life of its own and goes on forever. Forever in hearts and minds, bones and blood and water. It moves souls and spirits through air and fire, pain and joy. This is, however, the first and last time I'll ever talk about it so freely in a public post. That is, if the Great Spirit doesn't have other ideas on down the line...