There is no soot in the Universe
I have had such a weird month. In my last post I mentioned all the physical struggle. Well this is how it relates. It all came together this morning!! I love synchonicity! *sigh*
A week ago, I was in tears, on the phone with Andrea. I felt so frustrated. Here I am, feeling all this fear, to the point of being a deer in the headlights. I could not move. I could not even breathe, to the point I had a sinus infection. I am so terrified to be open about being intuitive, doing energy healing or dowsing or anything having a spiritual connection, tired of being sensitive, wishing I could be “normal”. Ugh. I have been so afraid. If I come out of my safe hiding place and become what I am built to be, will my family hate me? will they condemn me? will my friends dis-owne me? are they even going to take me seriously or will they lock me up as nuts? what if I lose everything? will i get struck by lighting???
I then had a powerful experience during meditation in a class I’m taking (thanks Bren! You are truly a gem!).
I felt my heart expand outwards with such Love, I saw the whole universe set out before me – the galaxy, the planet, the stars. And I felt Love. I felt completely connected and a part of that whole. And then I saw myself as a little girl, wearing a sundress, swinging high on a swing in the sunshine, laughing. The message that came was:
“I AM a perfect child of God, the Universe. He made me just the way I AM. And I have my part to play in the whole of His Creation, part of His plan, there for I AM whatever I AM (I AM in his image after all!).”
Afterwards, in class my friend Daniel summed it up with a message he had for me:
“There is no soot in the Universe.”
I wasn’t quite sure what that meant. How weird. Soot? huh?? of course there is… what’s that stuff in fireplaces? oookay.
Well, NOW I DO!
This morning, I was listening to my podcasts and I have to give my friends Marlene and Hannah at AndNow.ca for giving a wonderful broadcast the other evening on their show AndNow We Talk! They brought up a subject that has frustrated myself and others to no end. But it also tied in so much with my experiences in meditation and what I’ve been struggling so hard to clear these last few weeks.
There is no soot in the Universe. It really made me stop and think. How true is that? Spirituality is NOT dirty, intuition is NOT dark or scary, and having psychic and intuitive abilities is a part of our Spirit and our heritage, it is NOT evil or sin. It is mankind’s fear of the unexplainable that has defined it as dirty. Intellectually I’ve thought this for a long time, but it really, FINALLY hit home this morning.
I have always felt the need to hide my abilities away. I didn’t grow up in a situation that was particularly conducive or open to intuition or psychic ability unless it was within specific terminology. It was a very strict Christian household so if it didn’t come within a very specific theological context (ie. Holy Spirit) it was disregarded as nonsense or worse sinful or “demonic”, rather automatically. So unlike many talented and gifted people I know, I’ve stayed hidden away gathering dust in the psychic closet my whole life because that is what I needed to do to survive. And I believe that is part of my small part to play, so show that I can come out of this and be in service too, even if I wasn’t raised “psychic” or practicing for 20 years. I may have had to work at all this the hard way, but it is my spiritual birthright.
I have been afraid to come out and shine.
In light of this, I feel best to dedicate today’s post to defining what these different terms really mean and how they apply to us today (thanks AndNow girls. this was a good idea!) Since I plan to write quite a bit here on this blog about all these subjects (and more!) clarifying these terms up front is probably a very good idea.
So, let’s start with the first two…
Religion:
Defined as “A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship. A set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader or sect.”
Religion is man made. It is the structure society has placed upon spiritual practices and societal ethics. Religion includes doctrine, dogma and ritual and is a paradigm that helps man define the world around him. A person can practice a religion and not be particularly “spiritual”. Many people attend religious services and observe religious laws, doctrines and practices without being particularly concerned with spirituality. Individuals often even define themselves by a religion while not practicing it. “I’m Christian, but I don’t attend church”. ”My parents were such and such”.
Spiritual:
Defined as “Concerned with or affecting the spirit or soul. Such as ‘a spiritual approach to life’, ’spiritual fulfillment’, ’spiritual values’.”
Spirituality is an internal process. It is the individual practice to connect with the Soul or Spirit of our Self and to connect to God (or Source, Universe, etc. depending on your vocabulary). It is our emotional and experiential connection. Spirituality is not necessarily a religion. It can be practiced independently of religion or within a religious practice. One can define oneself (and they often do!) as “spiritual, but not religious”. It is also often intuitive, which leads to the next confusing term, intuition.
Intuition:
Defined as “The act or faculty of knowing or sensing without the use of rational processes; immediate cognition. Knowledge gained by the use of this faculty; a perceptive insight. A sense of something not evident or deducible; an impression.”
This is your gut reaction, that instinct, your spidey sense. It is an internal guidance and information gathering system. You do not have to be spiritual or religious or even believe in anything to have a sense of intuition. “Psychic” abilities or sensitivities fall under this term.
We ALL have intuition, no matter what religion or spiritual beliefs we have. A wonderful book called BLINK by Malcom Gladwell demonstrates how this is used every day, including snap judgements, instant “knowing” etc. We have all had it, that hunch or instinct about a decision or a person we’ve met.
This is a natural sense, a part of our heritage that we’ve pushed away in favour of logic. Our pets and animals use it with great ease. How else does your dog know when you are coming home and meeting you at the door? However, one can be very intuitive without being particularly interested or practicing spirituality or religion. It is independent of both (though some will incorporate it into their spiritual practice).
So, last but not least…
New Age:
A social collective phenomenon and a spiritual nature movement that seeks universal truth through the oneness of humanity. Refers to the mixing of metaphysical practices, alternative health, philosophy, and religions.
New age is NOT a religion. New Age is kind of a catch-all name (especially among religious folk) and ironically it incorporates many things that aren’t all that new — yoga, essential oil and herbs, crystals, reiki and energy healing, ancient religions and philosophies. It also encompasses New Thought, quantum physics and science, archeology and history. It does not necessarily conflict with any particular religion, although some concepts may, depending on the person and the religion. Really the subjects are endless and the concepts wide open.
Being intuitive or spiritual isn’t necessarily “new-agey”. One may incorporate New Age concepts or material into their spiritual practice or religious beliefs, but in and of itself, New Age isn’t a religion. It is open ended and if anything has many different ideas and philosophies, many of which even conflict each other. It is best used (in my opinion) as a general category at the bookstore.
What frustrates me most about the confusion of using these words interchangeably is the perception and judgement that has been applied to them. If someone is intuitive – dare I say “psychic” – it all of a sudden becomes labeled with terms like New Age. An individual who practices a form of personal spirituality may judge a religion as “less” and vice versa, a religion judges anything outside of its paradigm as “sin”. It saddens me how much pain gets inflicted upon people over this.
Sonia Choquette put it more eloquently than anyone else. We can live 3 dimensionally, with our 5 senses and judge others by saying “You are different than me, you scare me, that’s bad” or we can begin to use our intuitive 6th sense, our heart, where our soul is and say “You and I are connected, we are the same, this is good”. (I paraphrased these from memory, so forgive me if they are not exact).
Because truly, inside we are all the same.
I truly believe that God, our Source has plans for everyone. Scriptures tell us not to judge one another, but to LOVE and FORGIVE. (It also tells us to mind our own spirituality and not meddle with others.) The reason is that we are all growing, but we don’t all grow in the same way or at the same rate – you only have to go to a highschool dance and see how short, tall, skinny or heavy everyone one is physically to know this is true! Yet later, these same people all grow, change and become beautiful, each in their own individual way.
Spiritually IS the same. We all grow differently. But Universe is perfect and God does not make “mistakes”. We don’t truly have the whole picture and there is a much larger pattern that we can’t see with our finite, physical eyes. But we have been born equipped with our intuition to help us see.