"Likes"

You know, I continue to be amazed at how, if used deliberately and thoughtfully, the internet and social media are actually tools for clarifying one’s own identity and passions.  There are clubs, appreciation societies and information groups for just about every possible interest under the sun.  I scroll through my friends’ posts about horses and politics and organic food and meditation retreats in Asia, and I celebrate these varied expressions of the human spirit, but the moment has finally arrived where I grasp that there are really only two passions that matter to me: England/English cathedral music, and writing about my own spiritual journey/the cutting edge of the human spiritual path forward.  My “likes” basically illustrate this; as hard as it has been for people-pleasing me, I try hard not to “like” other peoples’ passions, just so I don’t get confused!

The journey “home,” then, is taking both a physical and metaphysical form.  Every day, that house I described in an earlier post is becoming more tangible to my senses.  And every day, I am drawn more and more to the people, sometimes spread around the world, who share my two main interests. 

I think the hardest chasm to bridge has been the one that superficially exists between the traditional Christian/cathedral music paradigm and the cutting edge of contemporary spirituality, including the sacred feminine.  At times, I’ve been afraid to let the two worlds meet, either in myself or publicly.  After all, they seem almost impossibly “opposite” and irreconcilable.  I reasoned that it would be better not to let the church music crowd know how progressive I am, and similarly, better not to let the post-Christian crowd know that “I’d rather be at evensong.”  If it doesn’t make sense to me, it won’t make sense to anyone else.  And more to the point, I feared not being "liked" in either camp.

But the energy expended trying to keep these two sides of myself separate, and selectively hidden, has been too much and certainly may have contributed to my inability to ground.  Where do they meet?  Humans have tried every word and concept under the sun to express and honor Source energy, and the male (which Christianity surely represents) and female constructs are simply two sides of the same coin. Ancient abbeys and audio talks by a wide range of modern spiritual teachers are two sides of the same coin.  After all these generations, all of us are still simply trying to grasp the unfathomable.  If I can be both archaic and cutting edge, and lovingly bridge this divide in myself, perhaps that healing will extend to the outside world.  For now, I’ll just try to get used to my hyphenated “name,” enjoy my “likes” wherever I find them, and keep travelling home.