a brief history of my spiritual journey, part 2...

In high school I became agnostic, sometimes atheist. I was also attracted to Communism. It was the 80’s and Reagan didn’t make sense to me.

I still sometimes went to church with my family. I did not take communion. I no longer believed and I did not want to belittle their ritual. I told my family I was no longer a Christian.

A piece of them stopped loving me.

The church was a hypocrite. Dogma was it's conspirator. I'd rather give to a homeless man than to the bureaucracy of the church. The forests, the lakes, the land were where I found God.

My parents got divorced again when I was eighteen. I moved out. I was faithless.

The Dark Ages lasted seven years.

At twenty-five I dated a man who read tarot and rode the cosmic wave. He was free, easy, drenched in Catholic Mysticism and grew marijuana. I relaxed.

A year later he broke my heart and I had a vision.

Around this time I read The Alchemist. It changed my life. I was reawakened. I was hungry.

I read everything, Jung, Thomas Moore, books on Alchemy, the Templars, I studied the Tarot, I read Holy Blood, Holy Grail, Gnostic Gospels, the Zohar, the Kabbalah, Mists of Avalon, Zen Buddhism, everything by the Dali Lama, Women Who Run with the Wolves, etc.

At twenty-seven I took my first yoga class. Four years later, I decided to become a yoga teacher.

I never stopped reading books on all spiritual disciplines.

I was practicing or teaching yoga at least thirty hours a week but something in me was not content. I was in constant meditation but not happy. I planned to move to Bali.

During this time, I began to lose touch with reality. The world felt less solid. I was afraid. To ground myself I had sex with an ex-boyfriend. I got pregnant.

Kerplunk!

I didn’t move to Bali. I had a baby. I stumbled around for two years, picking up the pieces. Then I met Mia.

They say when the student is ready, the teacher appears. I was ready.

This is where the real work began.

to be continued tomorrow…