Polarity & The Road to Peace

As you may know by now, I have been administrating and authoring websites and web forums and communities for about 12 years online. My spiritual journey began long before that of course, but the internet really helped me to connect on a greater scale, and I have found that the greater my base of friends and relations has become online, the more I have unlocked within myself.

It's quite easy to find peace in ones own sphere of understanding; if you do not press outside of your boundaries, you will seldom find things to tamper with your equilibrium. But when you expose yourself to situations or people which you usually wouldn't encounter, you open yourself up to new perspectives, and this is honestly when the profound growth begins to occur.

I remember being a spiritually minded child, my mother would really stimulate me by sitting up late at night, talking about our ideas of God, and the universe. We would imagine together in such a way that I felt really challenged, and yet free to explore; my mother is a great and many things, but she has always pushed me to explore the depths of my psyche, and indeed reality around me, for that I will always treasure her.

As I got older I dabbled, as many of you are aware, in everything from Golden Dawn, to being in a Wiccan Coven, to Buddhism/Taoism, and eventually settled on a solitary path of ancient Paganism. I have run Starseed websites and forums, as I also honor the path of the soul, and know that we are not all native to this body, to this planet, indeed to this universe. I believe life is an infinite spiral, much like the fractal patterns of the Mandalbrot Set, and we move in endless directions on our path of self-awareness.

The more I have pushed myself, the more I have been challenged, and this challenge doesn't always feel warm or fuzzy. But it is always abundantly rewarding, if only through the wizened eyes of retrospect.

I am poor at analogy, but let me attempt, sloppy as it may be. Imagine you lived in a small town, with a population of only a hundred people. Every day you got up, went to the same job, saw the same people, did the same thing, and then went home to dinner, to bed, all so you could get up and do it all again the next day. Imagine this safe little country life was all you knew, and all you understood of the world. Sounds idyllic to many, yes? I myself would love to live in this type of glorious blissful ignorance, as it would be safe, and predictable, and quite routine.

Now let's look to the polarized opposite of this ideal and quiet life; let's say you are an adventuresome nomad who has spent most of your life roaming from town to town, country to country. You've explored every area of the earth your feet have led you towards, and as a result you have seen countless cultures, beliefs, ideals and lifestyles. You are familiar with the customs of many, and this has enabled you to get along quite well with people of all sorts of belief and lifestyle.

Now let's take these two hypothetical versions of yourself, the quiet country simple you, and the world traveler, and put them together in a room with a table and two chairs. These two versions of you sit together, facing one another. Now, let's have one more person enter the room with both versions of yourself, and let this person be an alien, humanoid perhaps, but strange and different from what you both now. Let this third being stand between you both, and just look back and forth from you both.

What do you think the result would be? I can only imagine that the simple routine-enriched version of myself would be so shocked as to perhaps faint, or have a full blown panic attack. The ability to comprehend this level of difference would just not function. And yet, the other version of myself, who has spent her life exploring and amongst a vast array of people would most certainly feel inspired and awed and humbled and excited.

Now, I weave this very pedantic and childish analogy to draw a point, and yes, I do have a point, thank you for bearing with me :)

If spiritually speaking, you surround yourself with the same routine, the same people with the same ideals, and the same notions, and the same information and ritual, day in and day out, I have no doubt you will be blissful. Ignorantly blissful...

And yet, spiritually speaking, if you explore, and push yourself to understand others, and you wander, and you go to lengths to walk a mile in the shoes of other people, with other beliefs and ideals and morals, you will no doubt be equipped to take on pretty much anything life sets before you.

I draw this simple analogy for a purpose; I see a lot of spiritualists starting to hit "the wall". You know how runners will reach a point in their race where they lose all energy and feel like falling down? They have hit the wall, and it is up to them whether they continue to push forward, or they stop and rest. There is no good or bad in either choice too, that is not what this is about. This is about the wall itself, and when one hits the spiritual wall it is fantastic.

When you go about your spiritual routine, and life, you will inevitably come across something that pushes your beliefs, rubs you the wrong way, makes you question your very existence, because this is the very nature of philosophy, which is a fundamental principal in a spiritually driven life. And when you are confronted by this very profound and life altering moment, it is much like a runner hitting the wall. You run out of steam, you feel exhausted, you throw your hands up and say "whats the use?? I have spent so much time learning, meditating, reading, exploring, I'm tired!!! I give up!" You can either give in and go within yourself and tune out for however long you want, or you can muster up the drive and courage to keep going.

When you find that courage to keep going true transformation begins. 

It is not a bad thing to hit the spiritual wall, and throw your hands up and say "Forget it!! I'm outta here". In fact if you feel this way, then maybe it's a good idea to take a breather. Put down your spiritual books, and put the crystals and amulets back on the shelf, and leave your sage unlit, and go have a bath or sit outside and reconnect to your physicality. You can always choose to courageously move forward at any point in time. But should you choose to do so while you feel the mental strain and exhaustion you will always find your growth accelerates.

There is no prize for first place in Awakening, but if you are driven towards true self-awareness, then I urge you to take the path less traveled and really push yourself. Because true growth will not occur through easy-breezy peaceful platitudes; you must go through your own personal storm in order to achieve a greater level of self-awareness and Universal understanding.

You must weather the mental strain of the dichotomies of philosophy, in order to really push your mind outside of the box it currently resides in. You have to tear down your understanding of life, brick by brick and piece by piece, in order to be able to see the true construct of life, as it is. In this way, Awakening is very much like the movie The Matrix, because it is not an easy or whimsical task to open ones eyes up to the truth of infinite essence. You have to unlearn all of the programmed dogma residing within your psyche and ancestry. You have to look into the darkest recesses of yourself and your ego, to the horrendously ugly parts of yourself, the greedy aspects of you, the trifling judgmental and downright nasty parts of yourself. It is imperative for you to truly "know thyself" in order to reach enlightenment.

And the journey to this deep intimate level of self-awareness is fraught with ugly truths my friends. So it is going to hurt. And it isn't going to feel like sunshine and roses every step of the way; it simply can not - and if it does, then you're not getting it. We are living on planet polarity for a reason - you can not go from zero to sixty in 1 second, you must gradually pick up the pace, and this takes time, determination, perseverance, and a dedication to truth, compassion, forgiveness, clarity, and love.

So I see you there, sitting alone feeling disconnected, confused, hurt and scared. I see you clearly, and I've sat there in your position, and I have no doubt I will feel that way again, and again. This is because I am also dedicated to my personal journey of self-awareness, and I know it isn't always going to tickle. There are going to be days where I can barely get out of bed because I feel to the core of my being just how insidiously disgusting my ego is. There will be days where I can't stand to look at humanity because I'll understand on a cellular level just how manipulative and greedy and diabolical our species can be. There will be days where I feel so alone, and jaded, that I'll think "forget all this spiritual crap, I'm going back to 3D where I only have to believe what I see".

But we know that's not possible. You can not unlearn what you know. And while ignorance is bliss, it is a very short one way street that leads to a dead end.

To transcend the ignorance of bliss, push yourself to go beyond what you know and hold tightly to, and venture out into the knowledge of the infinite. It is scary. Sometimes it is gross. And at times it will be exhausting. And yet it will always lead to milestones, plateaus, and moments of epiphany so great as you feel deeply within yourself our connection - our truth - our cosmic ancestry.

So don't give up. And don't settle for easy. Push yourself to truly understand yourself, your motives, your agenda. Look at your darker aspects and own it - don't try to project it or simplify it or justify it - just look at the despicable parts of yourself and say "yes, that is part of who I have been, now I see it, I understand it, and it is my imperative to grow beyond it."

The road to peace isn't paved with soft fluffy white clouds. It isn't a peaceful boat ride on a quiet summer stream. It certainly isn't a cobblestone walk up illuminated stairs, while holding hands with angels...

The road to peace is paved with polarity. Shine your light on it - see it - learn from it - and keep moving forward. Always. You are never alone... you are Love.