Keeping the Sacred Flame

Holy Carp, I'm Moving!

2006-10-30T15:51:00.000-05:00

Yes, the blog is moving offsite to a wordpress blog where I can begin to get things into some kind of order other than chronological. You can find it at www.flamekeeping.org .

I know it's a pain and I'm sorry to do it, but this mess needs to find something resembling organization, and blogger just doesn't have the tools to do it. Follow along, please!

Justice

2006-10-23T08:54:00.000-04:00

What is justice? What do we expect when we cry out for it, and to whom do we cry?

Justice is a complicated concept that we learn first as fair. Even as small children, we want what we perceive as fair and complain bitterly when we don't get it. As we get older, our concept of what we mean by justice becomes more complicated. We want what is fair, but our view of what is fair becomes messier. Is it fair to punish someone that truly cannot know what they are doing? Is it fair to punish with a fine that cripples the poor and doesn't touch the rich? What is fair? What is just? And who will give it to us?

We are the Eyes and Hands of the Divine. When we cry out to the Divine for justice, we are crying out to each other and to ourselves. We are crying for Mommy or Daddy to come fix it as well, but when we are adults there is no magical Mommy or Daddy to come and fix the unfairness in our lives. We as a community must do it ourselves.

This is not a call for vigilantism. We are a community, and we seek justice as a community. And while that does mean that we can't catch every transgressor and we can't make a completely just society, it does mean that we need to work towards it.

There is no cosmic justice waiting for us elsewhere. If we want a just society, we need to create it ourselves.

Questions:
How do you create justice in your life? How do you work against it?
What does a just society mean to you? Do you think you live in one already?
What matters more, justice or mercy? Do you think it's possible to ever live in a "fair" world?

Blaming the Victim and Seeking Control

2006-10-16T08:14:00.000-04:00

Blaming the victim. It's something we do commonly, either directly or indirectly. If only you weren't there, if only you hadn't done that, if only you'd been a better person/eaten your vegetables/been nice to your parents. If only, if only, then it would be different.

This does two things, and both of them are dangerous. It excludes the victim from needing care, because after all it was his/her own fault. It's not our place to get involved so much when someone brings bad things down on themselves. It's not necessary. We even do this to ourselves, blaming our actions for our misfortunes. And this leads into the second problem.

When we blame the victim, we're taking control of what happened. It's because of X that Y happened, so if we don't do X we should be fine. This can be anywhere from a rational reaction (don't go walking through dangerous areas alone at night) to superstition (didn't pray a certain prayer three times before doing X). We're saying that the victim did something risky and this lead directly to the victimization, and therefore we are safe from that particular worry because we don't do X. (or won't do it again).

The problem is, this is a false sense of control. There's no real control there. All you end up with is a victim that stays a victim as opposed to a person that has been victimized (and there is a difference. The first is a state of being, the other is a short-term description of a situation), and that leads to fuzzy thinking and a lack of compassion.

It can also, terrifyingly, be a way to escape control. If it's "your" fault that I did something, it's not "my" fault anymore. This is a common way people put blame on their own victims for what is done to them. It is a classic of abusers.

It's easy to blame the victim. It's a lot easier than seeking real justice, and even justice is easier than seeking to change the system so the problem stops happening. But accepting victimhood, for yourself or someone else, goes against the Divine. It declares there is no improvement to be sought. It's time to stop blaming victims.

Questions:
Where do you blame victims in your life? Is it yourself you blame, or another?
What do you get out of blaming the victim? What are you afraid to see if you don't?
What needs to change so you can stop blaming people for what happens to them? What are you afraid will happen if you stop?

Scarcity

2006-10-09T08:33:00.000-04:00

The Universe is infinite, as we understand it. However, the Earth is not, and it is on the Earth where we live. Our lives are ruled by scarcity and choosing between what we want and need. We have always been defined, as a species, by what we feel we need and do not have.

We live in a time of otherwise unknown plenty. We can afford, if we try, to feed everyone. To clothe everyone. To give out fresh water. The problem is still one of scarcity, though, as we don't have or want to invest in the distribution needed to get that food and water to the people that need it. There are costs to everything, and denying the cost or claiming it shouldn't matter denies the problem completely. Some things are worth the cost, but that doesn't mean the cost isn't there.

In our personal lives, we have scarcity. There is only so much time, so much money. We can only do so much, see so much, have so much. And we have to make choices with that scarcity. We can choose to spend that time and money selfishly, or we can share and improve life for ourselves and those around us. We can't have everything for ourselves and share. We have to choose. But when people share, the world gets better for everyone.

There will never be enough for everyone to have everything they want. But we can choose how to use what we have, and that's a very powerful choice.

Questions:
What role does scarcity play in your life? Is it meaningful?
What do you have that you don't need? Is it worth it?
Do you find it hard to share what you have? Why? What can you gain from sharing?

Sacrifice

2006-10-02T07:40:00.000-04:00

What is sacrifice? It's giving something up to another. We sacrifice regularly in our lives, giving to our family and friends, even our workplace. What does it mean to sacrifice for our religion and the Divine, however, and what do we give?

The Divine does not need things. It is everything that is. Giving it once piece of itself back to itself just moves bits around. There is only one thing we have to give, and that is ourselves. We are the sacrifice.

I don't mean we should go flinging ourselves on altars. This is a sacrifice that involves living, not dying. We need to give ourselves in life to the Divine, knowing that we're giving ourselves to a greater version of ourselves. This isn't a stepping aside, but a stepping up. Not into leadership necessarily, but simply into service. Into doing.

What this sacrifice will entail is different for each person. As we are all different, we are all called to different work to suit our strengths or shore up our weaknesses. We are called to beautify and improve the Universe, of which we are part. This isn't a sacrifice that destroys ourselves to improve others. It is a sacrifice of our time and our effort that improves ourselves along with the Universe around us.

Sacrifice is scary. We are asked to give of ourselves for an unknown reward, if any, and sometimes for unknown reasons. It's reasonable to not want to give oneself into sacrifice, especially when we're not sure what we're being asked or what it will cost. But when we refuse to give, we also refuse to live. Giving ourselves in sacrifice is a loss, but it's also a chance at incredible gain. We just have to let go and give.

Questions:
What do you give in sacrifice? Why?
What have you gained from sacrifice? Do you think it's worth it?
What do you refuse to sacrifice? Do you think this is reasonable? What do you think that costs you?

Inspired by Gods

2006-09-25T08:23:00.000-04:00

The Divine uses many ways to try and communicate with us. Some of these means are subtle inner promptings from within. But sometimes the Divine works through gods.

The gods are indivduals, like us, but closer to an understanding of their Divine nature. They work with people on an individual basis, using images and words to break into our mundane existance.

So what does it mean to deal with a god directly? What does it mean not to?

Having a god bothering one directly is no sign of especial holiness. We are all equal in the eyes of the Divine. Being godbothered, instead, is a sign of having work to do. There is something that we are particularly suited to do, and we have been chosen to do it. And being godbothered can also be a sign that we are being particularly thickheaded, as we cannot find our calling without direct pushing.

To be godbothered is to be called for something specific. This does not mean that there aren't other things we need to do as well. It simply means that we have a specific task. It's not a sign of holiness or something to be especially proud over. It is simply a calling and a way to improve the Universe that we are called to do.

Questions:
What does being called to a task mean to you?
If you could be called by any god, who would that be and why? What do gods mean to you?
Would you rather be called to a task or choose your own? Why?

Nurturing each other

2006-09-18T08:39:00.000-04:00

Everyone at the beginning of life has at least one person that nurtures them. Someone to change diapers, bathe, feed and cuddle them in their little baby state.

We grow out of being babies, but we don't grow out of needing other people to love and care for us. We do grow into loving and caring for other people, if we grow up healthy. We all need nurturing and caring, both of ourselves and each other.

What does it mean to nurture each other? Who's job is it? I think it's everyone's job. It's often shuffled off into the concept of "women's work", the nurturing jobs. Mother, teacher, nurse. Nurturing itself is often seen as a "woman's job". It's also seen as not important, a lesser job that needs doing when everything more important is done.

Nurturing is of prime importance. And caring for each other as we nurture each other is of prime importance. It's a hard job and a thankless one, because when it is done correctly, it is invisible. The baby is happy and fed, the dinner is ready, the spouse is coddled. Everything is done. It is only when things are not done that nurturing is seen: the screaming child, the screaming spouse, the pain of rejection. Then there is anger, because things aren't done, and no one is cared for.

We need to care for each other. We need to celebrate nurturing and treat it with the respect and value it deserves. Without it, we are all lost. With it, we are all loved and cared for.

Questions:
Who do you nurture? How?
Who nurtures you? How?
How do you value those that nurture you? Do you think it's enough?

Minion Day FlameKeepers

2006-09-11T08:32:00.000-04:00

They exist in every religion: those people that show up for the holy days, or even regular services, mouth the correct responses at the correct times, and then disappear. Those people for whom faith is an obligation to be taken care of as quickly as possible and then ignored for the rest of the time as something meaningless.

What does that mean for the faithful? It's difficult to work had at something and love it, and see someone else treat it as garbage. So what does it mean? Nothing.

Spirituality is something where you get out of it what you put into it. There are no shortcuts, no easy answers. No quick and dirty ways to enlightenment. The people that treat spirituality is something you do for an hour on the weekends or a social obligation are missing what it can be, certainly, but that's their loss.

It's very easy to get caught up into a comparison game. Who is more spiritual? Who's getting the most out of this? Am I getting what I "should be" out of this? The truth, though, is that all of that is completely irrelevant. You get what you give out of your spiritual life. It's personal, and it's your own work that matters. You can't do another person's work, and they can't do yours.

Someone else using FlameKeeping (or any other religion) as a social stepping stone or other non-spiritual purpose is not a threat to you or your religion. It's just a waste of their own potential.

Questions:
What do you put into your spirituality? What do you get out of it?
What do you think of people that treat spirituality as one more weekly meeting? Do you do that? Do people you care for?
Why are you a FlameKeeper? What do you bring to it? What does it bring to you?

Setting goals and having dreams

2006-09-05T08:04:00.000-04:00

An important part of FlameKeeping is seeking to improve the Universe. But that takes small steps as well as large goals, or nothing is ever done.

What goals you pick are up to you. How you pick them, however, is in part a religious matter. FlameKeeping is not a path for those who dream only, but a path for those who dream and then act.

Dreams are singularly useless when not put into action. I can dream of a world without hunger, but if all I do is dream, the dream is useless. There must be concrete goals attached to the dream as well, goals that are actually attainable. Things like working for a food bank are concrete. Finding ways to make a food bank more efficient at the same time is better. Or perhaps one would go into political work and seek to address the causes of hunger, or create a charity that helps grow food specifically for the poor. There are many ways to deal with hunger. Simply sitting and dreaming about it, however, does nothing. Nor does deciding the system is broken and then refusing to act.

Our dreams need to be out of reach to make us strive for them. A world without dreams to reach for is dead. But we must also find concrete ways to make our goals come true. If we do nothing, then we know the Universe will not be improved. We may make a mess if we try, but then we can clean it up as best we can. What is certain is that if we do nothing, nothing will happen at all.

There is no leaving the system.

Questions:
What do you think needs improvement most? How do you work on it?
Are there things you think need improvement but you refuse to act on? Why?
Can you distinguish between your dreams and your goals? Are they set too high? too low?

Trappings against the center

2006-08-28T07:38:00.000-04:00

It is so very easy, with whatever we deal with, to get overcome with the trappings. We focus on the things that don't matter because they're the things that are easiest to deal with. When facing parenthood, it's easier to focus on booties than the lack of sleep. When dealing with religion, it's easier to focus on the candles and the clothing than it is to focus on the personal changes and the hard work involved.

The problem is, trappings are empty. They're easy, but they're empty. One can have every bootie in existence, and you're still no more ready for motherhood. One can have memorized every meditation of FlameKeeping, have candles of every type and shape, and blather on about the Divine, and yet have absolutely no clue about what FlameKeeping is.

The core of FlameKeeping is the Divine and that we are part of It, as is everything else. It is the Flames, Bright and Dark, and balancing and growing them. It is ourselves. Trappings would be things like the mechanics of the meditations (which are important only in what they teach you, not in the mechanics themselves), the poetry, the essays themselves. They lead you to the core, if they're done well. But the core isn't the essays, the core is where the essays lead you to.

Questions:
Do you tend to get caught up in the trappings of things? Do you find the core? Does it depend on what it is?
What happens when you get caught up in trappings? What does it do to you?
What is core to your beliefs? Why? What does that core mean?

Religiously completely off topic!

2006-08-24T11:13:00.000-04:00

HeartShadow, your faithful religious blogger, has started writing a novel online at http://www.warriorsofthesungod.com and she'd like everyone to go and read it. (and why am I talking about myself in the third person?)

Anyway. Everyone go read it. Go love it. It's wonderful. And if you don't read it, you won't know what everyone else is talking about, so there.

Faith in Humanity

2006-08-21T08:56:00.000-04:00

An integral part of FlameKeeping is that we are all part of the Divine. But what does that mean, really?

We are capable of many things, us humans. We can use tools to see things beyond the reaches of our galaxy, to guess at the beginning of time, to speculate about the future. We can conceive of worlds that probably never exist or speculate on the inner workings of an atom. And we are of the Divine.

It is easy, really, to have faith in a separate God that things are going to work out for the best. It requires faith, but not in the people you live with every day. FlameKeeping requires faith in humanity.

This doesn't mean to close your eyes and jump, assuming someone will catch you. FlameKeeping is very much about pragmatism: if it's not going to work, it's a bad idea. But it does mean that we need to both have a basic faith in humanity's decentness (for we are the Divine) and to be people that one can have that faith in, as well. We are of the Divine, and we must take that seriously. Be someone others can take faith in, and find others to take faith in.

When we cannot have faith in each other, there is something wrong with humanity. It is not the Divine one must have faith in, for the Divine exists regardless of the faith. It is humanity in which we must find faith, and humanity which must prove worthy of it as well.

Questions:
Do you have faith in other people? What does that mean to you?
Are you someone other people can have faith in? Why or why not?
What does believing in humanity mean to you? Is it meaningful? Scary? Empowering?

Self-Destruction

2006-08-14T10:08:00.000-04:00

We all do it a little. There are activities which we know are bad for us, but we justify them because they feel good, or because they are the only way we can spend time with our friends, or a host of other reasons. So we hurt ourselves a little here and there, nibble at the edges of our lives, and justify it with the idea that we're hurting only ourselves, so it doesn't really matter.

But we do not exist in isolation. While we have every right to engage in self-destructive behavior, it's still not a moral act. What we do affects the people around us. When one person engages in damaging behavior, the effects ripple outwards. One person's self-destruction affects their friends, their family, their work.

We are of the Divine. What we do affects that Divine, even if no one else ever knows that we've done it. When we act in ways that are self-destructive, we deny that Divine.

Questions:
In what way are you self-destructive? Why?
How do your self-destructive habits affect other people? The Divine?
How have you been affected by other people's self-destructive behavior? Can self-destruction happen in isolation?

Mindsets of Hope and Despair

2006-08-07T09:04:00.000-04:00

Mindset is an important part of life. How we view the world does change how the world reacts to us. Have hope for better, and we will find the better. Expect only worse, and we will find worse. The same event will be viewed differently, and reinforce what we already expect to have happen.

Even more, however, hope and despair is a statement of faith. (I do not speak here of clinical depression. If you've got a medical problem, get thee to a doctor!) When you fall into despair, you say that the Universe is limited and the Divine has abandoned you. But you are of the Divine, and to claim the Divine has abandoned you is to abandon yourself.

Hope and despair are how we view the world. They are lenses which color everything else we look at. And while it is reasonable to try to have lenses which match the world, there will always be a bias. Being pessemistic is not "just being honest." Refusing to see the good in the world because it is transitory is not "protecting yourself." It is so very easy to close oneself off from all the Universe has within it because it's too much work to reach out, or because we're afraid, or because we've been hurt before.

We won't always get what we want. Sometimes we succeed, and sometimes we fail, but the point is to have a mindset of hope. When we refuse to believe options exist, we remove them from our lives. When we see nothing but destruction, destruction is all we're left with. Despair says that destruction is the best we can expect, and that denies the Divine.

Questions:
What is despair? Why is it so harmful?
What is hope? What do you hope for in your life?
How do you balance seeing clearly with being optimistic? Do you think optimism is actually the best way to go?

Just a little Lust

2006-07-31T09:02:00.000-04:00

Lust is one of those natural parts of life that people talk about and think about an astonishing amount of the time. Every culture has tried to regulate how we think about and talk about lust, whether approving it or disapproving it. The times and places when lust is acceptable vary by culture, by religion, by age .. There are no hard and fast rules about lust, but everyone has an opinion.

In FlameKeeping, what matters is not so much the emotion as our reaction to it. Lust is an emotion that can be dangerous, both because it can be overpowering and because it does not care about social mores and civil rules. The part of our brain that thinks about procreation does not care that you are married, that the person you are looking at is married, or anything else. You simply have an intense feeling of desire. So then what?

Lust is a controllable emotion. Not the first hot flush of it, necessarily, but everything we do after that is our own choice and our own responsibility. We can choose to dwell in our reaction, knowing it is inappropriate, or we can choose to redirect our minds to something else. Our culture bombards us with messages of lust on a regular basis. There are provacative people on the television, on billboards, selling everything from cars to toothpaste. There is a constant message that we should act on our feelings of lust, that they should be used, that if we just buy whatever product or do whatever act we're being told about we will have our lustful fantasies fulfilled.

We need to learn to deal with lust. There's nothing wrong with the emotion itself, but there can be very wrong things with our reaction. If you are feeling lust towards your spouse, or you are available and feeling lust towards someone that is also available, then it is the responsibility of the people involved to decide what they want to do about it. But when you feel lust that isn't appropriate, the feeling of the emotion is no excuse for whatever action you wish to take.

The problem is not the emotion. The emotion is a natural part of life and responsible for the continuation of that life. (how many of us would be here if our parents hadn't felt lust?) The problem is people acting as though the emotion is license, which it is not. What you feel is one thing. How you act is another.

Questions:
How is lust appropriate in your life? How is it inappropriate?
What do you do when you feel attracted to someone that's totally inappropriate for you to go after? Do you think it's the right reaction?
How do you react when people try to use lust to sell things to you? Does it work? Do you think it's appropriate?

Privacy

2006-07-24T08:18:00.000-04:00

What does privacy have to do with FlameKeeping? After all, if you're not doing anything wrong, there's no reason to need privacy about it, right?

Wrong. Scrutiny changes us. When we are watched, we are of the Bright Flame, acting in public. Only in private and with privacy can we renew our Dark Flame.

Being watched changes our behavior. When we know someone can see us, we feel that we must be careful what we say, how we say it. There are acts we are only comfortable with in private (hence our bathrooms!) and thoughts we only seem to think when there is no one to distract us. We absolutely require these times of peace, of privacy. These are the times when we regenerate, when we feel able to experiment with who we are and what we want to be. When we give ourselves permission to try something new, to do something badly and fail because we only care about the joy of the experience. There's a reason many people only sing when they're alone in the shower. Without that space of freedom and privacy, we lose an important part of ourselves.

The question is not what it is we have to fear. The question is, how much of ourselves are we willing to lose?

Questions:
How do you view privacy? Do you respect your own? Other people's?
What do you do only alone? Would you miss it if you lost it?
Do you respect your Dark Flame's need for renewal? Can you still have a Dark Flame in public?

Pride

2006-07-17T10:16:00.000-04:00

What is pride? That feeling we get when we simply feel we might burst with joy, when we feel that we have accomplished something mighty, or are something mighty. It can be felt for another, that joy in another's ability or being. And it is one of the most written about, talked about, dissected emotions. It is not good or evil in itself, but it can be both at the same time in context.

Pride can be dangerous. It becomes an addictive feeling, to feel that joy and power. We want to feel it to the point that we feel it regardless of earning it. We ignore our weaknesses and revel in our power, not looking at the ground beneath our feet because our heart is soaring. When we do this, it's a bad thing. We can't just go around pretending there is no ground because we don't want to deal with it right now.

At the same time, pride is a motivator. We want to feel good about ourselves, accomplished, powerful. And there's nothing wrong with that. The desire to accomplish has driven humanity into accomplishing great things, powerful artwork, and becoming what we are. That desire to feel powerful resonates throughout our most meaningful experiences.

Pride is not the problem. It is what we take our pride in, how we use it. Like any other emotion, it can be a gift or a curse. When we use our pride to feel better than our fellow human, and denigrate others to give ourselves a good feeling, pride is our downfall. When we ignore other people in our pride because we feel so good, it is our downfall. When it motivates us to become better people, it is a great blessing.

Questions:
Where do you feel pride? Did you earn it?
How do you react to pride? Does it motivate you? Slow you down?
Does pride in other people motivate you? Scare you? Mean anything at all?

Seeking Truth

2006-07-10T12:35:00.000-04:00

Truth is an odd subject. We want to know the truth about things, to the point that we try to shrink reality to fit into our truth-box rather than accepting that it simply doesn't fit. There are many ways we try to force reality to fit our preconceptions so we can have a handle on the truth of it all.

We can't ever know the entire truth, especially not about big questions like the nature of the Universe and of the Divine. We will always be dealing with approximations, attempts, language that says more by what is not said than by what is. This doesn't mean we shouldn't look for it.

What makes us human is what we strive for, not simply what we are. We seek to know truth, to discover knowledge, to create beauty. These things are not simply individual acts, but a deep calling of our soul as an expression of the Divine. We need to seek these things out, while at the same time never being done with what we have found. Truth isn't something to be found once, or a piece of once, and done with. Beauty cannot be created just once and then admired. Knowledge cannot simply be found. These are strivings, forever seeking and forever falling short. But it's not the success that matters, it's the attempt.

Questions:
What do you seek? What do you find?
Do you try to keep knowledge, truth, or beauty boxed up? Do you think you have answers that will survive scrutiny?
Are you content with the knowledge that there will always be answers you don't have and pieces you're missing? Do you feel the need to have an answer to everything?

The Other Side of Grief

2006-06-26T09:40:00.000-04:00

In our society, we seem to have removed both death and grief out of the public eye. People are told after an astonishingly short time to just "get over it" as though it was simply a matter of choice and ease. As though people want to hurt. But we don't know how to deal with grief, so we bottle it away and present a facade that no one dies, no one gets hurt, and no one feels grief.

Grief is a release of the Dark Flame. It is a time of turning inwards, of letting oneself heal. It belongs out of the regular spectrum of things, and needs to be respected as such. There's no set amount of time or experience that grief involves. For some people, it can be over quickly. When someone is already dying, much of the grieving process can happen before the death. When someone is simply snapped out of our lives, grief takes a longer time to run its course.

For that is what happens. Grief is a process, not something one dips into and comes out of. It has to be allowed to run its process. We should not wallow in it, for that is unhealthy to us. We need to make certain we do not completely withdraw from the rest of our world when we are in pain. But we lack a system of allowing for such grief. What is a reasonable amount of time? A week? A month? A year or more? There is no set answer, for each person will deal with their grief differently. But time needs to be allowed for that pain.

Grief needs to be given room in our society and in our religion. Pain needs to be acknowledged and respected. It is an inward process, not something we wear on our faces, but it will change our outward lives as well. And when we refuse to respect that grief, both our own and others, we tear people apart and rip up the Divine.

Let yourself grieve. Let others grieve. And know that there is another side, and sometime, you will emerge.

Questions:
Have you ever had a time when you felt you couldn't grieve? What did you do?
How do you deal with someone else that is in grief? Are you helpful? Hurtful? Selfish?
What is a reasonable way to deal societally with a grieving person? Should there be a ritual time and space for them? Or is it too personal for that?

Illuminating the Shadow

2006-06-18T09:01:00.000-04:00

Begin with the balancing the Flame meditation. Sit before a mirror.

Open your eyes when the Flames are balanced, and place one candle on either side of the mirror. Watch as your reflection flickers and dances, portions lit and unlit.

That which is reflected is Divine. However, there are things that stand between you and that reflection, between you and your Divine nature. See the film of shadow that hovers between you, and name it. Bring this shadow into the light that you may see it, even knowing that the light will change it.

Examine this shadow that you have given name to, and know that it is a piece of yourself. Do you love it? Do you hate it? In what way does it serve you? In what way does it hinder you? Open a dialogue with your shadow. Let yourself see it for what it truly is.

When you feel you're done, thank your shadow, and either integrate it back into yourself, more evenly between the dark and the light, or let it go and dismiss it. Remember, this is a part of yourself. Treat it gently, even if you find you don't like it when you can see it clearly.

End the ritual as per the Meditation on the Flame.

Seeking the Shadow

2006-06-12T10:00:00.000-04:00

We all have a shadow-self, a part of ourselves that we push away and pretend doesn't exist. What we put there, of course, depends on the person. To some, anger is something to be ashamed of and placed there. To others, anger is acceptable, but any form of vulnurablity must be squelched. Whatever it is that we perceive of as dangerous goes to the shadow.

The goal here isn't to destroy the shadow. It is a part of us. It also isn't to ignore the shadow, because it's there. What needs to happen is integration. Everything the shadow holds can be valuable when used correctly. But when it's used by our shadow-self, it can't be used well, because it's being used as a club to regain safety. Anger, when brought out by a shadow, can only destroy. It can't see a way through the destruction to a constructive answer.

So, how to integrate the shadow? It is, like many things, a process. You can't just choose to be integrated and done with it. But it does require changing your mindset. When you feel like you're out of control (the shadow is taking over) step back for a moment. Take a look at what's happening and ask yourself what you're feeling and why. This isn't a time to lie to yourself. It's easy to say it's not anger because you don't get angry. It's much harder, but also more meaningful, to accept that you are angry and try to determine why.

We also denigrate what we see in our shadow what we see in other people. "Oh, she's always so emotional" might be a statement about yourself, not the person you're describing. Perhaps it's really a statement of envy. It's easy to wish to be emotional while feeling you "can't," leaving you reacting badly to people that are emotional, even when the situation calls for it. Before you critique another, think about why you're reacting the way you are. It might be a correct reaction, but it might also be your shadow speaking.

Questions:
What is in your shadow? Who are you when you don't like yourself?
What advantage do you have with keeping these behaviors in the shadow? What would happen if you integrated them?
What do you see in other people that makes you react negatively the most? Why? Is it related to your shadow?

Emotional License?

2006-06-05T15:31:00.000-04:00

Do emotions give us an excuse to behave in certain ways? Does it make a difference what we feel for how we act?

In current US law, emotion is a mitigating factor. We think that someone that murders in anger is less disturbing than someone that does it without the anger, regardless of the motive. We forgive fights and betrayals that happen "in the heat of the moment" much more than ones that aren't emotionally fueled. But is that right? And what does it mean, really?

When we allow emotions to be an excuse for our actions, what we're saying is that feelings are more important than everything else. Now, I in no way want to sound like I'm saying emotions aren't important and shouldn't be felt. They are important. If someone hurts you, you shouldn't believe you have no right to be hurt. You do, even if it's illogical. We have an absolute right to feel whatever it is we're feeling, and when people try to take that away from you ("you shouldn't be hurt, I was just kidding" or "I was just telling you the truth" type things) they are being an emotional manipulator and preying on you. You have an absolute right to feel what you feel.

This doesn't mean you have an absolute right to react to those feelings however you want to. You can't help your instinctive feeling. You can help what you do about it then. It's easy to blame the feeling for the action: too easy. "I was caught up in the moment." "I couldn't help it." Yes, you can help it. You have an absolute right to your feelings, but not the actions you take afterwards. For that, you need to think as well as feel.

It is very easy to blame things on our feelings, as though the right to feel and the right to act are intertwined. But the more we accept such emotionally-fueled behavior, the more we encourage it to continue. And when we act as though emotions give us license for behavior, we cheerfully ignore the feelings and thoughts of the people around us.

We cannot control our first flush of feeling. But we can choose how to react to it and what we do with it after that first feeling, and we must do that if we wish to be civilized beings.

Questions:
What feelings do you just react to? Why?
Do you think there are emotions that are safe to simply react to? What makes them safe? What reactions are safe?
How can we allow ourselves to feel while still limiting our actions?

Sheltering the Flame, Or Smothering It?

2006-05-31T10:52:00.000-04:00

(written by Cynthia)
Parents live a special sort of waking nightmare sometimes. Children ARE the little flames of our lives that we must “keep” carefully. As difficult as the job is when they are small and utterly dependant, it’s even harder as they grow into teenagers. Adolescence is the time when they must test limits and take some independent action to build their confidence and find out about that nasty life experience called “consequences.” So how do we shelter them while still giving them freedom? How do we nurture their Divine nature and help grow their Flames?

We had neighbors across the road a few years back with twin sons. My kids used to invite them over to play, and they never came. If baffled us, we wondered if we had somehow given offense. Then one night, the mother appeared on our doorstep in her nightgown, shaking and terribly upset. We thought something truly dreadful had happened and as she related how her husband was recovering from surgery, we were poised to call for an ambulance since we imagined some horror of busted stitches and bleeding. But no, that wasn’t it. It was springtime and someone had put an egg in her mailbox. She had just checked the mail before bed, having forgotten earlier, and here was this “horror, obviously meant to harass and terrorize us”. Now, mind you, this was well before 9-11 and the overblown rhetoric of terror in every sentence. She felt harassed and terrorized by an EGG? An obvious springtime prank…a week off of Easter?

In the months that followed, it became clear that parental phobias ruled that house. Her boys were never allowed to take part in out of class school activities, nor go to anyone’s house to play. As they grew older, still forbidden to leave the yard when their parents were at work, they spent their afternoons cutting down small fir trees and burning them in the house fireplace. They were forbidden to answer the doorbell, even as teenagers. I occasionally asked my daughter about them, she was the same age and had a class or two in high school with them.

“Mom, they are just weird.” She had little else to say, as they apparently hardly spoke to anyone and participated in no activities. It was almost a relief when their parents sold the house and moved. Such closing in was heartrendingly abnormal.

So, what is normal? One cannot let teens just do any old thing and endanger themselves out of existence. Because they do think they are immortal. What happens to others just cannot happen to them. I used to say “Give me my blindfold, please,” when I knew mine were doing something spectacularly stupid that I had no control over. We did all the usual anti-drug, anti-drinking talking, but gave them wine and beer at family events so they would know what the effects felt like. They all survived their teens and even the runaway bratling is in his early 20’s now.

But not all teens survive. Recently, here in Western Washington, a thirteen year old boy died doing something that is almost rite-of-passage material. At a place called Deception Pass, hills rise above the water and at the top of the hills are caves. Teens love the caves.
They go there to party, celebrate 18th birthdays, have secret gatherings with each other and the whole almost ‘Dead Poets Society” bit. It’s a climb to the caves, and not for the faint of heart. And last month, this young boy fell; boaters on the water saw him strike the water, face down. They hastened to the spot, searched desperately, but his body has not been recovered. His parents are naturally devastated.

I am trying to tell myself that their reaction is natural as an outgrowth of their grief, but the amount of “Oh yes, you are so right,” they are getting is making me twitch. They want the caves “closed” permanently. Either gated up or blown up so they no longer exist. Now, this is a historic park in the state and the caves have always been there. Even if they now are graffiti marked by jubilant teens and bear no sign of Washington State’s illustrious past, I have to wonder why such a drastic action is needed. Yes, teens will go to the caves and other dangerous places. This is the first death at this popular teen hangout. It may or may not be the last. But what do we do?

Questions:
Should we try to eliminate everything in existence that may be a risk to a teenager?

When does sheltering that bright life flame of the fruit of our loins become a smothering that extinguishes its brightness? Is there such a thing as too much protection?

Do we really want to bring up a generation of children (or another generation) that does nothing more wildly exciting than go to the Mall every weekend?

Can we cell-phone track them into submission to our own parental fears?

Is it even good for them to so protect them? What will they do when true dangers strike in their adulthood if they have no small wild triumphs behind them?

How do you balance loving care against suffocating protection?

Celebration of Life

2006-05-30T11:31:00.000-04:00

From time to time, it becomes important to celebrate the fact that we live and the Divine that we are all part of. Also, parties are fun. I see this as a summer-type picnic, although any time of year would work.

Plan a get-together. This does not need to be only FlameKeepers, of course. It's simply only a religious holiday for the FlameKeepers.

Before you begin, meditate on the Flame and seek the Divine within yourself. In this entire process, see the Divine in what you do, and be respectful as well as celebratory.

Plan the food, and if at all possible, be involved with the cooking. Be mindful of where the food has come from and the fact that as humans we are merely part of the food chain, not the top. If you can't be involved (or simply can't cook), still take over as many of the preparations as possible. In this preparing, be mindful of what you are doing this for: the celebration of life, of being co-creators with the Divine, of showing your love and affection for those in your life. This is not a time to be screaming about details. It's a time to use those details to show how much you care.

The party itself should be about good times and celebration. Think of the food when you eat it, don't just treat it as fuel. Alcohol is fine, but this is not a time to drink to excess, either. Use this time to connect closer with your loved ones. See the Divine in them, and be of the Divine with them.

And above all, enjoy and have fun.

Ethical Punishment and Retribution

2006-05-22T12:49:00.000-04:00

Transgression is inherently attached to punishment and retribution. When someone crosses us, we want to make certain it doesn't happen again, and we want to punish the person that did it. But what is appropriate? What is too much? And what is the purpose of the action?

It is natural to want to punish the person for what they've done. When we're hurt, we want to strike back, even if the hurt was unintentional. There is a desire to make someone "pay" for what they have done. There is also the desire to make certain something doesn't happen again. Even if the original offense was unintentional, if there are no consequences, there's no reason to not do it again, intentionally or otherwise.

Punishment and retribution are dangerous issues. It's not feasible, nor sensible, to get rid of them completely. If there was no punishment, then people would be free to do whatever they wanted to each other. It is the knowledge of retribution that keeps the worst of us from behaving badly. It is the pushing back by another that lets us know where the boundaries are.

But what is ethical here? Punishment for the sake of giving pain certainly isn't. Any punishment that exists solely for the emotional glee of the giver is wrong. While we have every right to make certain, individually and societally, that behavior that's injurious to us doesn't happen again, giving injury to another simply for the sake of revenge isn't moral either.

It's easy to say that we should punish in proportion to our hurt. And it's reasonable. But that doesn't answer the important question: Does it solve the problem? If it doesn't solve the problem, then it's a bad system. And it's easy to say that we shouldn't punish, that punishment is somehow "wrong". But that doesn't solve the problem either. When you refuse to intervene, you simply allow others to behave as they will against you.

At heart, punishment and retribution is a societal issue, not an individual one in most cases. Vigilante justice is frowned upon at this time. But society is built up of individuals and run by those that speak up. And as parents, as groups, we punish those that transgress in ways that don't go up to the level of civil or criminal justice. When we do so, we need to think about what we're doing, but we also need to think about why we're doing it.

It's easy to simply want to punish. It's a lot harder to think about what the effects are, and to try and be effective, and make certain that you're giving the message you want. There are no easy answers when it comes to this subject; or at least, there are no easy, right answers. The easy ones are wrong.

Questions:
Why do we punish people? What do we hope to accomplish?
Think back to a time someone took retribution against you. What was your reaction? Was it the one they wanted?
If you were in charge, what would your method of punishing criminals be? Why? What would happen next?

Dancing With the Dark Flame

2006-05-18T09:04:00.000-04:00

He stood there, proud and tall,
Waiting at the crossroads.
Held out his hand to me, and said
"Will you join me in the dance?"

I backed away, afraid of him
Of the dance and all he offered
"Can you promise I'll be safe?" I asked
"That I'll know myself tomorrow?"

"I can promise no such thing,
For that's not the dance I offer.
I am pounding pulse and flashing feet
Not the softness of a lover.

"You stand here in the darkness
Waiting for what will come
But you do not reach for what you need
You will not let go and dance."

"It's dark and cold and scary
I don't know how to trust
You want me to dance with you
But I fear what I may become."

He stood and was a man
But I saw what was beneath
A flame that danced but did not give light
A darkness like no other.

"You will become what you are
What you have burning inside.
You will burn brightly in the darkness
You will burn darkly in the light.

"Take my hand and dance with me
And you will not be left unchanged."
He spoke my fear so plainly
Yet still, hand out, he stood.

What choice did I have? The fire in me burned
I wanted to dance, to sing, to be changed
Where I was was in the light
But it wasn't where I needed to be.

I took his hand.

I am the fire, burning bright.
I am fire burning dark.

In the darkness, boundaries fall
I danced and was the Flame

Transgression

2006-05-15T17:29:00.001-04:00

It's a problem we face, both as individuals and as a community. What do we do when someone transgresses against us? When they refuse to do what's expected of them? And as well, what do we do when we have transgressed against another? No matter how much we try, it's inevitable that sometimes we're going to push up against another person's boundaries. Sometimes the only way to know that there is a boundary is to cross it, even.

So what do we do with people that cross our boundaries? Culturally, many people feel obliged to take the transgression and allow it to happen. If you push back, somehow you become the bad person, and the person transgresses again by making you guilty. So we feel guilt about our own boundaries.

Transgression is when one person uses their Flame to stifle another. When it happens often enough, we begin to lose our Flame as it becomes stifled under the weight of crossed boundaries and a loss of self. It seems like a minor thing when it happens, often, because it happens first over minor things. The issue is not the actual boundary transgressed, usually: it doesn't really matter that someone didn't do the dishes one day. What matters is the assumption of power the transgression states, and that is saying that my Flame means more than yours does. It is that statement and assumption that destroys people's Flames.

This is not where I talk about whether or not the boundaries are correct. That's a different question. But when they are transgressed, as they will be, the absolute wrong thing to do is to simply take it as the person's right to cross. We have a right and a responsiblity to bring these transgressions to the public eye and to resolve the issue, not to simply take it.

Culturally, women are especially encouraged to simply take transgression. When someone crosses a woman and that woman complains, she is a bitch, or crazy, or suffering from PMS. There is no way to actively, appropriately complain about the transgression. Instead, we're supposed to simply accept that people are going to cross us, and we are supposed to simply take it.

I suggest a new way of reacting to transgression. Speak up. Male or female, regardless of the relationship, speak up the first time. This needs to be a peaceful statement of fact, not a tirade, not an explosion. This is not a case of striking first: that is not appropriate either. But we need to speak up the first time we get transgressed against. We need to learn that people's boundaries are to be respected, not trampled. If the boundary itself is inappropriate, that can be established once the transgression is in the public eye. But every time we simply sit back and take a transgression, we say that it's acceptable to do it again. And our Flames diminish and gutter under the pain, until they flare out to fight back and we transgress in turn in retaliation.

Questions:
How do you handle transgression? Does it work?
Do you feel oppressed by transgression in your life? Why or why not?
How do you react to other people's reactions to transgression? Are there things you see that you should emulate? Things you see that you do yourself but hate in others?

Gossip and Groups

2006-04-21T10:37:00.000-04:00

Guest essay day! today's essay comes from Darkhawk. Please read it
here: Everyday Theology: Gossip

Just to make it clear: Darkhawk is speaking from a Kemetic viewpoint. View ma'at as improving the Divine, however, and this essay is directly applicable to FlameKeeping as well.

Questions:
When is it appropriate to speak? When should you be silent?
Of what matters is gossip appropriate? When is it wrong? Why?
How have you been harmed by gossip? How have you been helped?

Private Lives, Public Faces

2006-04-18T13:23:00.000-04:00

Where is the boundary between our public lives and our privacy? Do we have the right to keep certain details of our life to ourselves, or should we live as an example of what we are for other people?

These are hard questions. Some religions demand openness, others demand secrecy. Lives and livelihoods can rise and fall based on what religion one belongs to and to whom one gives that information. Other personal issues can be equally as damaging.

So what do we say? To whom do we say it? And how do we have a private life with a public face?

I am a great believer in privacy. Things exist that are simply no one's business, or should be taken simply as fact and not a matter for people to get involved with. One's family of choice, for example: if one chooses to live with a spouse of the opposite sex, the same sex, three women you see as sisters, or any other choice you make, that is private. It is also public, as people can see who lives in the same dwelling.

Our privacy is our own business. We should be capable of being in public and not wearing our affiliations on our sleeve. I can be an author without being a FlameKeeper, be political without being an author, be a FlameKeeper without being a mother. I am all of those things, and they are entirely intertwined inside myself. Who we are should not be internally compartmentalized. But when we speak of things, when we discuss and learn and exchange ideas, who we are needs to be separable. My religion is not public property except when I am being a public religious figure.

There needs to be the ability to separate the discourse from the underlying drives of it. Not everything needs to be public knowledge. People should be valued or not based on who they are and what they do, not the sex of their bedpartners or their view of the hereafter. These are important aspects of the person and irrelevant in public discourse unless it directly applies.

When we believe we must live as examples, that our private lives must be public, we lose a portion of ourselves. We lose the ability to change and the ability to adapt, because our identity becomes caught up with an image. When we keep ourselves too private, we lose the ability to discuss large portions of our lives and leave the impression that certain options simply don't exist.

We need to learn when to be public and when to be private as individuals. And, as a society, we need to learn when to allow someone's privacy to become public and then to go back to being private. Not everything is our business.

Questions:
How do you know when to keep something public or make it private? Can one aspect of your life move back and forth as is appropriate?
What do you do when the public sphere encroaches too far into your privacy? What if your privacy encroaches into your public life?
What parts of people's lives do you think should be kept public? Kept private? Can you separate your public faces while still remaining whole as a private individual?

Dominance

2006-04-10T11:30:00.000-04:00

What does it mean to be dominant? How does being dominant affect the Flame?

We all have times and places in our lives where we feel the desire and need to be in control. It's important to us to have our world predictable and doing what it is that we want.

It becomes problematic, though, when we start trying to control the people around us. It's impossible to avoid doing this to a small extent: there are behaviors, for example, that I will not allow in my house. And I control the people that enter my house to the point that they have to leave to practice these behaviors. Society in general does the same thing on a greater scale. With our laws we state certain acts as undesirable, and do our best to keep them from happening while punishing the transgressors.

And then we get to the point where dominance becomes damaging: when you try to control the minutae of a person's life, on either small or grand scale. I am not other people. I cannot control their minds or their lives. When we try to control the hearts and minds of those around us, we are trying to force their Flame to bend to our will. Even if the other person allows or encourages it, there is still a perceptual problem.

No one can ever be morally responsible for another adult. (children can be a separate category: after all, they cannot be responsible for themselves). But every time we try to take control of another person's Flame, our own begins to gutter. We cannot feed off another person's Flame, and it's a horrible thing to try.

Questions:
What do you try to control? People or behaviors?
Do you let yourself be controlled? Why? When?
What happens to a person that is controlled? What happens to the controller?

A little Divine Drama

2006-03-29T12:47:00.000-05:00

Do you court drama in your life? Not just conflict, but being the center of a gripping story that swirls around you and drags everyone along in its wake? Do you only feel alive when there are things going wrong for you to complain about? Are other people real, or only actors in your drama?

There are people that feel alive only when their world is crumbling around them. They don't know how to cope with what they claim will make them happy, so they sabotage themselves and then beg for pity. And because they are experts, there is always someone around to give them that pity. They burn through people, using other people's emotional resources for their own amusement instead of growing their own and learning how to stand on their own feet.

I don't know how a person becomes drama-addicted, but I do know that it's a dangerous addiction, both to the person involved and the people around them. Instead of trying to improve their own life and the life of those around them, they try to drag everyone down. A success for someone else is a direct threat for the drama-addicted. Only bad things are allowed to exist in their world for long.

Drama-addiction hurts people. It smothers flames and destroys lives. No one can thrive in that situation.

Now the hard part: drama is something we all must deal with at times. Not only that, but it does have appeal. Being at the center of things and having people scurring to try and solve it can give a tremendous sense of power. There is a constant lure to let the drama continue that we might revel in the attention longer. There's also the desire to deny one's own drama and make people go away, to reject the help and hide out of embarrassment. We must find a middle road.

We deserve help from our loved ones when drama happens, and we should equally support those we love. But we need to be careful that we're nurturing Flames and not using drama to replace them.

Questions:
When do you indulge in your own personal drama? Why?
Do you get easily drawn in by drama-laden people? Do you enable the drama?
How do you evaluate when people need help and when they're just wanting attention?

Possessions

2006-03-27T12:41:00.000-05:00

We all like stuff. Some of it's important: shelter, clothing, food. Some of it isn't: name brand clothing, fancy shoes, gourmet food. That doesn't mean we don't want it, and that doesn't mean it isn't nice stuff. Simply that we don't need it.

So what should we do with things we do need, and things we don't? What's a good way to handle our desires for things we may not need? how do we balance desires?

There's nothing wrong with desiring physical objects. We desire beauty in our lives. The Universe and the Divine are beautiful, and to appreciate that beauty is a good thing. So it's no surprise we want to surround ourselves with that beauty.

However, there is a fine line between appreciation for something and gluttony. When our desire overcomes our sense, it becomes gluttony and is twisted. When we hoard simply because we can and refuse to share we deny the rest of the Universe.

There's nothing wrong with having. And there's nothing wrong with desiring. But we must also provide for our futures and care for those around us. Sensible use of money is much more important than brand names, expensive foods, and impressing one's neighbors.

It is good to be content with what you have. It's easy to desire more, to want clothing and entertainment and as big a house as possible. But when you live more frugally and comfortably, you can plan for the future and care for those around you, and that's a very good thing.

Questions
What do you desire? Why? Is it worth buying?
What do you buy that you shouldn't? Why shouldn't you? Why do you do it anyway?
How do you prepare for the future? Is it enough? How much do your plans depend on circumstances you can't control?

A criticism, a critique ...

2006-03-20T08:15:00.000-05:00

How do you criticize people you disagree with? Do you work by building them up, or tearing them down?

How we give and receive criticism is a sign of how we deal with people in general. Critique is painful, because we want to believe we're already good people doing good things. We don't want to hear that we can be better than we are, because it means we're not currently good enough.

Giving critique is one of the most difficult things to do well that we run across on a regular basis. We want to get our point across, but we often also want something more: either to improve the person we're talking to, or to prove our own superiority. Which of these we're attempting says a lot about ourselves and what we really are. How we come across is also important, and we have to strive to make certain that we're coming across correctly. But if our intentions are bad, no amount of prettying up is going to matter.

We are all of the Flame. Every single person is precious and special, and needs to be treated that way. Yet when we criticize each other, and approach each other in a critical spirit, we often try to tear each other down. It's as if we believe there's a limited amount of happiness or life that can go around, and when one person holds too much, they must be ripped down to share with everyone else. When we do that, we diminish ourselves and the people we critique.

Every time one tries to smother another person's Flame, one shrinks one's own as well. It's easy to be critical, to treat other people as though they're just not smart enough or good enough, as though all their ideas are garbage. But it destroys both ourselves and others.

When we build each other up, we all become greater. When we tear down, we shrink ourselves. Our Flames are not limited by the Flames of those around us. There is no scarcity of spirit, that one must be hobbled for another to grow larger.

Questions:
Do you build people up or tear them down? Why?
How do you react to criticism? Can you tell the difference when someone builds you up or tears you down?
What does it mean when I say that spirit is not scarce? Do you believe it?

Someone you love is Divine ...

2006-03-08T10:19:00.000-05:00

How do you handle it?

Love is complicated. We like to think it's simple. That love is an answer, not a question or a process. But love doesn't give us answers. It demands work and effort even as it gives fulfillment.

The biggest problem with loving someone is the blurring of ego boundaries. It's very easy to look at someone you love and see that person as a part of yourself. To deny that person's individuality and see only what that person does for you. But that's not love: that's when love goes wrong. Love is appreciating a person as they are and wanting the best for them. When we're talking about romantic love, that often includes a strong desire to be with that person as much as is feasible. But it's still wanting to be with the person as they currently are. When your definition of love involves molding the person into something "better", what you have is not love.

Familial love can be trickier. We see ourselves in our children, and our parents see themselves in us. It's difficult to see a child's individuality, especially since it is the job of the parent to guide behavior. Finding love instead of domination can be difficult for some people. It's easy to see oneself as part of a family and forget the individuality of the people involved. But family, especially parenthood, involves helping the child grow into the best individual the child can be, not living out one's own dreams through the child.

Love involves a lowering of ego boundaries. When we love, our Flame grows closer to that of our beloved. Love nurtures our Dark Flame and brightens our Bright Flame. We lose something of ourselves when we refuse to love, and we become greater when we open our hearts and let our Flame dance. When we refuse to risk our Flame by opening up to those around us, we stifle our Flames and sputter in our lives.

Love fails and turns into something else when we fail to recognize other people as separate individuals. Love can blur boundaries, as we put the happiness of those we love as a condition for our own happiness. But we are not the ones we love, and they are not us. Celebrating their Flame requires seeing it as not part of our own.

Questions:
How does love blur ego boundaries in your life? Who's ego gets subsumed: yours or the one you love? Either?
Flames burn bright when they burn together. Do you share your life with the ones you love? Do you cling to your ego barriers, or lower them to share your Flame equally?
Do you nurture the Flames of those you love? Do they nurture yours? Can you share love without counting the cost to yourself?

We need a hero!

2006-03-02T15:29:00.000-05:00

We all need heros. We dream of people that will swoop in and make things work when everywhere we turn, things seem to be a mess. We pray for them, worship them, incorporate them into our images of what we wish for society. And yet, when we find them, we search for ways to prove them flawed. We crave and fear our heros, because we want to find them in ourselves.

The truth of the matter is, we each need to be the heros in our own lives. No one's going to swoop down and save us from our problems. There is no mommy waiting to sooth our scraped knees and broken hearts of the soul. We have to fight our own battles or resign from the playing field already lost.

What does it mean to be our own hero? How can we live that way? We need to start by refusing to wait for someone else to bail us out of our problems. As much as we might wish for someone to save us, as long as we sit and wish, we aren't moving forward to solve things ourselves.

A hero is a perfect person that solves things the way we wish they'd be taken care of. This person comes and solves all the problems, saves us from ourselves or the bad guy, and flies away without asking for anything for themselves. People like this don't exist. We might wish they did, or even wish we were them, but it doesn't work that way. We all have day jobs, lives, things we need to do that prevent us from being able to just rescue people. Daily life and our own families come first, and have to come first. And we can't just drop everything to rescue strangers every time someone needs to be rescued. Often, we don't even know the problem is there.

We need to learn to be our own heros. To rescue ourselves from our problems. As long as we wait for someone else to do it, it will never get done.

Questions:
What do you want to be rescued from? What keeps you from doing it yourself?
If you could change anything about your life to rescue yourself, what is it? Can you focus on the possible, or only on the dream?
What value does the dream of a hero hold to you? What would you do to be a hero yourself?

Second Glances at First Thoughts

2006-02-22T21:06:00.000-05:00

Being human, we all have thoughts and ideas about others and the world around us. Often, our first impression about others is based on assumptions triggered from within ourselves. Life experience, stereotypes, personal problems, instincts, any of these things can create assumptions or perceptions.

Many times these assumptions are negative. Everyone has negative perceptions and thoughts. Being human, this is inevitable. Some may be valuable in that they serve to keep us safe, especially when triggered by instincts. Other negative assumptions or perceptions are unfounded, useless, and a waste of time. These can hinder us in our interaction with the Divine.

Everyone is a part of the Divine, and giving a second thought to a negative assumption is a good exercise in recognizing the Divine in others. Taking a moment to assess the origin of our perceptions in an effort to validate them can, over time, aid in reducing inner barriers that keep us from seeing the Divine in others. People have reasons for what they do, reasons that have much more to do with their own lives than ours. When someone does something like cutting us off in traffic, they're not behaving to irritate us. They're focusing on their own life. (This is not an excuse for wrong behavior: just an attempt to understand it and recognize its inpersonality).

This is not to say that we should go around painting everything with a rosy picture. After all, many of our perceptions are correct. However, giving a second thought and attempting to remove the unfounded assumptions, stereotypes, and internal blinders in ourselves allows us to see the Divine more clearly, both within ourselves and in others.

Questions:
Do you see others as they are or as you think they are?
Do you harbor unfounded stereotypes? And if so why, and what can you do to see past them?
Do you assume the negative in a situation, and if so why?

So your annoying neighbor is Divine ...

2006-02-21T09:24:00.001-05:00

Now what?

It's easy to say someone is Divine. It's much harder to act that way, in a way that respects both the divinity of the neighbor and yourself. Especially when everything they do irritates you. So how do we handle this?

First we need to examine our own feelings. How do we feel towards this person? The more angry we are, the more careful we have to be. While there's nothing wrong with appropriate anger (indeed, it's better to admit you're angry than it is to try and deny one's own feelings), having a right to be angry does not mean a right to act on that anger. And it certainly does not let someone act in whatever way they wish. Anger is not an excuse for action.

Now we need to think about what is appropriate. It is appropriate to try to get a person to stop behaving in a way that interferes with our own Divinity. There's nothing immoral about calling the cops on someone that's playing loud music at 3AM and keeping one from sleeping. There's also nothing wrong about going over and asking yourself. There is something wrong with going over to pick a fight with someone because the music's loud, however.

The other person is Divine. They have a right to their own desires and their own space, and we cannot wish them (or at least not profitably) to be other than they are. Instead, we need to see them as they are and accept that, even if what they are to us is supremely annoying. And while we have a right to protect ourselves from being transgressed upon, so must we also make certain we are not in our anger transgressing. We can do anything reasonable to try and create peace between us. We can wish the person far away and happy. But we cannot take matters into our hands to get revenge for slights, imagined or real.

Remember, what we do, we do to ourselves as well as to other people. No matter how much the other person irritates us, when we let ourselves focus on them instead of on our own growth, we let the irritation with the other person win over ourselves. We give a piece of ourselves up to this person that we claim we cannot stand, and lose our ability to be happy in ourselves.

Actual choices of what we do depends on the situation. The important thing to do is to not let the person dwell in our minds and consume our thoughts. This person is Divine. Let them be Divine separate from us, and move onwards.

Questions:
What does it mean to you that someone you can't stand is Divine as well? What would change if they weren't?
How do you want to treat people? How do you actually do it? Why is there a difference, if there is one?
How can you make peace with people that irritate you without compromising yourself?

Parachuting Transformation

2006-02-14T06:29:00.000-05:00

Transformation is a scary idea and a scary process. It is easy to look at ourselves and see things we wish to improve. It's much harder to actually approach that cliff of transformation and ponder throwing ourselves over it. This essay is not about the act of transforming, but instead how to do so.

The problem, of course, is that transformation is like jumping over a cliff. To actually do it requires resolve and a refusal to ever look back, much less go back. And it requires resolve to see that there's a chance we may end up hurt. Like any cliff, flinging ourselves over it carelessly is more likely to involve pain than growth, both for ourselves and for those around us. Unlike an actual cliff, when we throw ourselves over transformation, we drag bits and pieces of other people with us and risk hurting far more than just ourselves.

When we're looking at transforming, we tend to pace back and forth across that cliff edge, looking for an easy way down. We want to find the shortcut, the way to go forward without risk, without fear. There is never a real shortcut, however. We sometimes think we've found an easy way, but it tends to be either ineffectual or worse than just jumping.

What we need to do is find a way to create our own parachute for the leap. We can't rely on other people to give us a push, because no one else can make us transform. We need to find a way to spin a parachute out of our own Flame and put our faith in ourselves and the Divine and jump intelligently.

What is an intelligent jump? There are things we can do to minimize impact. First of all, when we realize we're coming up on a major life-changing event, it helps to do our best to remove all other obstacles. When facing the cliff, it's the wrong time to look at new relationships, getting a pet, changing jobs, or anything not directly related to the cliff in question. (Sometimes it is the job or the relationship - but then don't do the other big things!) Smooth out all the things that can be smoothed ahead of time. Be gentle with ourselves when we approach the cliff.

And, of course, most importantly: when we realize we're prepared enough, to boot ourselves over instead of waiting and circling and looking for a better way. Sometimes, all there is left to do is leap.

Questions:
What transformation fears you? What are your cliffs?
What would you use as a parachute? Where will you get it?
What do these cliffs and transformations mean to you? What do you expect to find on the other side?

What is FlameKeeping?

2006-02-07T12:16:00.000-05:00

FlameKeeping is a religious path that celebrates the Divine Within and the Divine Without, the nature of the Universe being that of a self-aware, Divine Entity, of which we are all parts. The basic nature of the Flame is that we are all Divine, and we must seek inside ourselves to find that Divine Nature. When we see the Divine in ourselves and in each other, we find we have the potential to make the world a better place through improving ourselves.

We are all individual, part of a group, and a piece of the Indivisible Divine Universe. There is no contradiction here, even though it appears to function in paradox, because our individuality is not threatened by being part of something greater as well. Our life functions as individual, but what we do radiates outward to the Universe, and then radiates back to ourselves. No action occurs in a vacuum.

Being a FlameKeeper involves improvement of self, not monetarily but spiritually. We need to find ourselves: first who we are, then who we want to become. We do have the potential to change ourselves and become better than we are. The path to finding our better selves is difficult, but we can support each other and find our own centers.

FlameKeeping is a path that involves self-improvement with the goal of improving both oneself and the world around one. It recognizes that we all live in embedded relationships, and cannot separate ourselves from the world around us. The goals are local, but the focus is upon the entire Universe.

On Charity

2006-02-07T09:00:00.000-05:00

Why do we give? What do we give?

These are not meaningless questions. While to some people it is enough to simply donate old things (and this should not be discounted, either. Giving at all is more important than doing it "right"), the question of why and how we do it also matters considerably.

We are all of the Divine: both the giver and the receiver. When we give to prove our superiority or to show off how much we can do, we are denying the divinity of the person or group we are giving too. Many of the charitable organizations that exist as I write this seem to do all they can to strip away the faces or the worth of the people from the giving. One gives because they are lesser, poorer people, not because they are people in need that could just as easily been you, and not because they are also Divine. Charity courts the giver with what giving can do for the giver: fancy dinners, concerts for charity, and other such things. Often these events are lucky to cover their costs, and none of the money actually goes to its desired location. So we get the "pleasure" of giving without even having to give anything to the disadvantaged.

What does this mean? It means we are lying to ourselves when we believe we're doing something good. It also means that we're doing the minimum considered "necessary" for whatever reason we consider it so, and we're not thinking about the people at the other end of the giving. But charity, whether given directly or through government aid, is worthless if all it does is keep someone down. The goal isn't to give enough to let them live another day, although that is necessary too. But the goal is to give them the chance they need to stand on their own feet and not need any more handouts. When done correctly, charity gives people their lives back, not just a meal. Meals are important, clearly. But getting back to a point where the person can feed themselves is even more so, even if it means we've no one to be charitable to. (and that would be a glorious day, when charity would be no longer needed at all).

We are all of the Divine, both the advantaged and the disadvantaged. What we must do is remember this, and do what we can to get the disadvantaged back on their feet. Because it could just as easily be us there and the other person standing over us, wondering. And even more, because they too are part of the Divine and deserving of a hand up, regardless of why they need it. While there are times that what people need most is to be left to fall down on their own, be very sure that you're not tarring everyone with that brush because it's easier than giving.

(and by giving, I do not mean that it has to be money. Time and skills are also gifts. There are jobs that are giving even though the person gets paid, because of what the job is. Don't limit yourself to thinking of charity as a money-only operation. The best gifts are often the ones that are given outside of the faceless charity machine that turns money into food. While those operations are necessary, we cannot give and then remove the poor from the world we see. Don't just give money into the system. Where you can, change the system for the better).

Questions:
What do you give? Why?
What do you think about charitable systems? Do they work? Do they exist to give a hand up or a hand out?
If you could change any charitable system, what would you change? In what way? Now why aren't you doing it?

Meditation on the Flame of Others

2006-01-29T20:41:00.000-05:00

This is a meditation that follows from the Meditation on the Inward Divine. http://flamekeeping.blogspot.com/2006/01/meditation-on-inward-divine.html

First try this at home, then try it actually out with real people.

Think of four different people: One you love, one you hate (or can't stand, or at least irritates you beyond belief), one person that is a friend/acquaintance, but not of strong emotional feelings, and one stranger/acquaintance, someone you know vaguely but have absolutely no emotional investment in.

In each of these people, visualize them as Divine. See in them the Flame that you see in yourself from the Mediation on the Inward Divine.

Now pick a day in which you see all these people, and try to see the Flame in them while interacting with them. Deal with them both as a person and as a piece of the Divine.

Celebrate them as Divine and part of creation.

Moral Flame

2006-01-28T19:40:00.000-05:00

What is the point of a religion? Is it to dictate morality, or to define and aid in connection with the Divine?

FlameKeeping does not speak directly of morality. There are moral implications, but not a code of defined behavior. The only true moral stricture is that we must all treat each other as Divine, with all the respect and care that implies.

So how will people be moral? That is up to each individual, as it always has been. There are extremely immoral people of all religions, and moral people with no religion whatsoever. God does not and really never has inspired any to be truly moral people.

FlameKeeping believes that humankind is Divine. This implies that we are good people, or at least have within us the ability to be good people. Lists of rules, and an assumption of humanities "fallen" nature, does nothing but encourage lists of laws, and just as many attempts to get around these laws. Assume humankind is fallen, and it will live up to that assumption. Assume we have within us the ability to be Divine and surpass ourself, and we will do our best to live up to what is expected of us.

So there will be no lists of rules, no commandments. Those who need them would probably not follow them anyway, and those who do not need them would be more likely to be led astray by those things that are not mentioned than guided by those things that are. There are only two clear moral strictures, and all else comes from them.

1. We are all Divine, and must be loved and respected as such. By this I mean that we need to treat ourselves and other humans with as much respect and love as we can. Every time we treat another person as a means, every time we denigrate someone because they are not what we wish they are, we are going against our own nature and against the Divine. We are ALL holy, not just the people we like, not just the people like us. Everyone. Even the people we hate. And we need to respect them as such.

2. We must improve the Divine as we can. The Universe is not already perfect, it moves towards perfection, and we are a part of that. When we see something we think is wrong, we should act to fix it as we can. And we should also be aware of what lies behind the problems we see whenever possible: it is easy to say poverty is bad and to place a few dollars in a fund drive once a year. It is much harder to look at the systems that benefit us but encourage poverty, and to try and find ways to change the system to keep poverty from happening. (In the meantime, of course, we should also continue to give those dollars. There is no virtue in working for the long term and letting the short term suffer needlessly).

Questions:
What does morality mean to you? Do you judge it in positive terms (you should) or negative (you should not)?
What does it mean to see everyone as Divine? Is this hard for you? What moral strictures does that rule impose on you?
What does it mean to improve the Divine? Is this one difficult? Again, what strictures does this impose on you?

Meditation on the Inward Divine

2006-01-27T14:01:00.000-05:00

This is an expansion on the Meditation on the Nature of Flame. http://flamekeeping.blogspot.com/2005/11/meditation-on-nature-of-flame.html I would suggest waiting until you're comfortable with that meditation before you add in this part.

When you have the bright flame and the dark inside you balanced, let them merge together. One flame, throwing off brightness and darkness both, in the center of your being. That Flame, bright and dark both, is the Divine. Let it expand to fill up all the corners of your body, bright/dark, powerful. Let your body resonate there.

When you are ready to come back to yourself, let the feeling flow out of you. Open your eyes and see again the burning and unburning flame. And know that the Flame is still within you: dormant, but ready to spring back to full strength when you need it again.

blow out the candle, and say "I participate in Creation."

Sacred Body, Sacred Soul

2006-01-24T11:42:00.000-05:00

I speak a lot about the individual being sacred, but not exactly what that entails.

We are holy, body and soul. (of course, so is everyone else). How we treat ourselves directly affects how we are able to treat others and how well the Divine flows through us. When we treat ourselves as though we are garbage, we lose the ability to improve ourselves or the Universe around us. When we treat ourselves well, we can grow and improve the Universe.

How do we treat ourselves well? Part of it's obvious. We need to eat right, we need to exercise, we need to care for our bodies. A sickly body is a time sink, one that requires us to take effort to care for our body at the expense of things we'd rather be doing. We take preventative maintenance for our cars, but we sacrifice our bodies for things we see as more important. Pounds and inches aren't what's important. Health is what matters. We need to find a place where our bodies are healthy, not losing that last five pounds or getting that perfect sixpack of abs.

Our minds are also sacred. What we are, in many ways, is our mind. It's how we define our personality. And how we treat our minds is important. It's easy to fill our minds with garbage, to focus on nothing of substance because it's too hard and to treat ourselves as though we didn't matter. But that's harmful, just as harmful as trying to live off nothing but potato chips. We need to nourish our minds, to give ourselves things to think about that aren't just easy. That doesn't mean we can't do anything but read great literature. But it does mean that we need to be aware of what our minds focus on, and to take care that we don't spend our days thinking about things that cause us harm. We can control our inner chattering voice, if we're willing to learn to try. And what we let that voice say has a big impact on our lives.

It's difficult to realize how much our minds can be controlled by ourselves. What we believe, what we think the world should be like, it affects us. We see the world as we wish it was, as we fear it is, as anything but the truth. We fill our minds with casual violence, with casual pain and hatred. These things are poison to us. The more we think about anger, about pain and hatred, the more our minds become programmed to think of pain and anger and hatred. This is not to say these emotions are bad, they are not. Emotions simply are. But choosing to dwell in them (and it is a choice) can destroy a person.

We are worthy. We are loved. We are sacred, and of the Divine. We need to treasure that.

Questions:
How do you take care of your body? your mind?
Do you think you do a good job celebrating your sacred nature? Why or why not?
How do you love yourself (keep it clean, folks!)? How does that self-love interact with your sacredness?

On Love (and I mean the mushy stuff)

2006-01-23T11:40:00.001-05:00

Love is a goal and desire for many people. We fall in love with love, with the idea of finding a perfect person to fill the holes in our lives. It's the focus of much of our artwork, our efforts, our stories. We can't conceive of a world that doesn't involve the romantic love story.

But what is the truth behind the story? How do we balance the story of a perfect love with the reality of our lives, with an appreciation of the sacredness of the one we love?

The story involves two people becoming one whole, never complete again without the other person. In reality, though, this is a terrifying thought. Finding happiness with someone is desirable, but losing your identity to get there isn't.

Love needs to be seen as two people coming together and finding strength and joy in that companionship. No identity loss, no one person being absorbed by the other. Love is people choosing to walk together, finding strength and comfort in that companionship. As soon as it stops being separate people, though, and becomes me-and-shadow, it's not love. It's using a person. When the identity of the other person becomes irrelevant, and all that matters is that someone is there, you're not in love with the person. You're in love with love.

Romance is a wonderful thing. Being in love can be life changing. I have a husband I adore and would give up for nothing. But love in and of itself is not enough. There needs to be respect of the other person as individual, with his own needs and desires. Each person needs their own space at times, as well as time together. If we lose our identity in love, we become inherently unlovable, because there's nothing there to be loved.

In no other aspect in life are we as likely to try to change ourselves and other people than we are for romantic love. People give up their hobbies, their jobs, pieces of themselves, all for the hopes of a perfect love that will rescue them from their lives. But there is no rescue. If we take an offer that involves sacrificing ourselves for love, what we get is neither ourselves nor love, but instead a prison of our own choosing.

We need to find ourselves before we can find a partner. Or all we are is sacrificing ourselves and ignoring our Flame.

Questions:
How does being Divine relate to your love life? How does your partner being Divine relate? Which is harder to deal with?
What happens when you don't see both yourself and your partner as Divine?
If you had to choose between being whole yourself, or being in love, which would you choose? Why?

Fifteen Minutes of Emptiness

2006-01-18T10:23:00.000-05:00

We live in an overscheduled world. Every minute must be filled with something, every moment accounted for. Are we living as fully as we can? Are we busy? Can we prove we’re doing something with our time? Do we have an excuse to not do something we don’t want to do because there’s something better going on?

We’re afraid of emptiness. Of actively sitting back and letting our mind wander. We’re afraid of finding out we’re actually hollow inside, that we’re nothing more than packaged images from the television and sound bites from politicians. But the more we run from introspection, the more we need it.

Introspection doesn’t mean that we sit there and beat ourselves up for what we have or haven’t done in our lives. It’s not a time to be self-critical, but instead a time to be self-reflective. It’s a skill many of us aren’t quite sure what to do with. After all, if we look at ourselves, we may find something we don’t like. And what do we do then? Introspection can be quite scary, when we’re not sure what we’re going to find.

On the other hand, whatever it is we’re afraid to see already exists. We are what we are, and the longer we keep from facing ourselves honestly, the longer it is that we may be something we’d rather not exist as. Whatever we are already exists. The question is whether or not we can face it. And, certainly, if what we are is something so terrible we cannot face it, it is also something we should not be anyway, and need to learn to change.

“But I don’t have the time.” We do have the time. We just fill up our time with stuff so we don’t have to fill it with thought. We crave and consume entertainment as though we cannot find fulfillment and interest in our own minds. And as long as we fill up our minds with other things, we keep from seeing ourselves.

Take fifteen minutes of emptiness, and learn to meet yourself.

Questions:
Do you know who you are? Do you like who you see?
What does emptiness mean to you? Stillness? Is it a concept you can deal with?
What are the advantages of taking this time? The disadvantages? How do they look to you?

Balancing Action and Judgment

2006-01-17T10:16:00.000-05:00

We are doomed, as humans, to make mistakes when we act. And yet it is impossible to not act. And when we fail we judge not only ourselves, but those around us; those we have failed, those that observed. Those that judge us as well, and often more harshly. And it is often through external censure that we learn the inappropriacy of our actions, as well, making judgment not only inevitable but necessary. But our judgments are also frequently based on incomplete information and not quite correct on the circumstances. So how do we act, and judge, as best we can? And how can we correct our mistakes when we do make them?

Whenever we interact with people, we affect them. Something so little as a smile or a frown can change another person's day, even when you don't even see them in the crowd. Which means we are always interacting with people and affecting each other. The question is how we do so in an ethical manner, what is appropriate, and how we make amends when our actions have unintended negative effects. And things like the Golden Rule are incomplete at best, for there are many situations where we don't want what the other person does. So how do we act? How can we be the best people we can be?

It starts with mindfulness. We cannot simply act on instinct as we fly through life and not dim Flames, both our own and others. It is very easy to be caught up in the moment, in the everyday, and simply respond to things. And it is also easy to become mired in a sea of confusion, and realize that we can't know for certain how people are going to react, and what the best path is, and choose inaction over action, in the belief that if nothing is done, there is no fault. But fault is irrelevant, and inaction is just as much an action as anything one chooses to do. So try we must, even though we know that we are sometimes going to make horrid mistakes. And when we make those mistakes, instead of throwing our hands into the air and giving up, we must then do the best we can to fix them.

We all have the right and duty to help make the world a better place, to better ourselves and others so that we improve the Divine with our existence. We do not have the right to corrupt Flames, our own or other people's, or otherwise injure the Divine. We are all part of the Divine, and as such, to injure ourselves or each other in any way is also injuring the Divine. While we cannot be perfect, we have to be the best we can be.

How do we accomplish all of this? There are many ways, many possibilities, and we should be open to them all. The most important thing one can do, however, is care about and love one another. The Divine in each of us recognizing, no matter how much we can't stand someone, they, too, are Divine. And as we are all Divine, we all deserve and require our basic needs met, a chance to pursue love and happiness, and a chance to improve ourselves. While we cannot help but act, and judge others only as harshly as we judge ourselves.

Questions:
Why is fault irrelevant? Do you agree? Why or why not?
Why is inaction an impossible choice? Why does inaction have a moral quotient to it?
How do we get past confusion to action?

Demands of Friendship

2006-01-17T10:06:00.000-05:00

Friendship is a skill that takes work, skill, and determination. It keeps us together, makes us human, gives us comfort and meaning. But what is it, and how do we treat our friends correctly?

Friendship is a recognition of commonality, a recognition of some form of sameness between two or more people. This commonality can be, and often is, anything from living nearby to taste in music to hair color, and it can be a recognition of what we are, or what we desire to be, or a mixture of both. When this appreciation is reciprocated, it is a friendship.

This appreciation of commonality is what starts a friendship, but it is not enough to sustain it. Whatever the start of the friendship, to maintain it requires a give and take relationship, and understanding of balance between each other. One cannot give or receive exclusively. To give without receipt sets up false expectations as we suffer in silence, and to take simply is not friendship, only using.

To treat our friends correctly is, in part, simply what we should do to treat all people correctly. It is easy to "demand" that those close to us accept and understand our anger, our problems. But our friends, too, are of the Divine, and worthy of respect and love both for themselves and their Divine nature. We cannot separate out our friends from that Divine nature and truly consider them friends or ourselves religious people.

Of course, our friends are not simply people off the street. Friends are special, different, and to not understand that would be a lie. Friends are people that can make us stronger and better, or casually cruel, or anything in between. We care about how our friends see us, and we should. Of course, we can use that same power of approval over our friends, as well, and we should. Caring for people, and caring for their approval, is part of being human. We need to feel for each other, and we need to be worthy of being cared for.

So how should we choose our friends, and then how do we treat them? They are related questions. We should choose to associate as much as we can with people that uphold attitudes we find uplifting and moral, to associate with people we like being associated with. We become like those we associate with, over time, so if we allow ourselves to associate with people that are not as we wish to be, we will become lesser than we were.

We need to be the sort of person we would want to be a friend to, willing to share, willing to give, but not being a pushover.

Questions:
What do you give to your friends? What do you receive? Does it change by person? Is it, to you, balanced?
Why is it wrong to expect people close to use to “understand”?
Are the people you consider friends “safe”, or do they challenge you to be a greater person than you are?

Sharing the Flame

2006-01-13T09:01:00.000-05:00

When I started this blog, FlameKeeping was a religion of one. As I write this, it's a religion of two. (That I know of, at least!) It was a way for me to get my thoughts out about things that interested me, that disturbed me, that struck me as true about humanity and the Divine.

But this is not now nor has it ever been intended to be my thoughts alone. The Divine thrives on the exchange and growth of information, not stifling and hoarding of it. FlameKeeping is the combined work of everyone that is part of the religion. As such, contributions to the body of work is part of sharing in the religion.

We all discover things we need to work on in our lives, thoughts we need to think, ideas we need to change. These essays are my way of sharing my thoughts on some of these issues. When other people find FlameKeeping the way of their life, they too can add to this body of work, sharing their own thoughts and transitions. Everyone that is a FlameKeeper adds in their own way: through service, through writing, arts, music, or whatever else their skills are.

So if everyone adds, what part is authentic, and what isn't? The answer is that it's all authentic, even the parts that contradict. Different people come up with different answers to the same questions, and the Universe is big enough to encompass that, too. That doesn't mean everyone will follow everything. What it does mean is that each person is going to have to evaluate what essays, what questions have meaning to them, and which ones don't. If people find an addition doesn't work, it's clearly not a correct addition to FlameKeeping. Only those pieces that are accepted by others are truly part of the Flame.

For those for whom FlameKeeping finds resonance in their minds, the Flame is theirs to fan in themselves and others. We share our minds and our hearts with each other in the hopes that we can all grow and bring out the Divine in each of us. Let the Flame grow.

I would be happy to host or link to writings or other media made by others involving FlameKeeping.

Embracing one's Path

2006-01-09T16:51:00.000-05:00

We all see the Divine as different things. Truth, beauty, God, mathematics, science, or anything else we find that makes our heart sing and gives us a feeling of being where we belong. There is that spot when everything comes together and we find our place, where it seems like we have found the path ordained for us. While I do not believe these things are fated, that sense is holy and should be followed whenever possible.

For each of us, depending on the direction we take in life, there are places and choices that can lead us to that feeling of completion, of finding our place in the universe, of meeting the Divine. And that place, be it as a parent, as a teacher, a scientist or anything else, is the place you belong and need to find a way to be. It's not always possible, of course. We need money, we are bound by regulations and idiocies that block us from our desired path, all kinds of things can stand in the way. But there are ways and ways to find these places in our lives: if the standard way is blocked to us, we should find another way to the same goal. We can trap ourselves in expectation, believing we are only a teacher in the classroom, only a scientist in a lab. We forget that a label is just a definition, not a trap, and that we can follow a calling without any official sanction whatsoever.

Our callings can and often do change over our lives as well. We need to be willing to bend with grace, to shift to a new perspective when our world demands it. The only constant in our world is change.

Questions:
What is your calling? Do you have one? More than one?
What have you given up for a calling? What have you gained?
Is there a calling you wish you had but don't? Something you've always wished you could do? Is there a reason to not try?

Gods and the Divine

2005-12-26T17:56:00.000-05:00

We are all of the Divine. However, the Divine is a hard thing (and a thankless thing) to worship directly. It is, instead, more of a reality to comprehend than a being to worship.

The Divine, however, has created beings to live between us and it for us to love and worship, and to guide us in the direction the Divine would like to go. These are the gods. And these gods are symbiotic with humanity. They watch over us, guide us, love us. Sometimes they simply deal with us impersonally, and we do not know the identity of the one we deal with. Sometimes they identify themselves and work more closely with a person. Neither of these relationships is more valuable, but they are different in effect.

The gods lead us to better ourselves, to change ourselves, to become more the hands and eyes of the Divine. This also leads us to become more ourselves, better people, better citizens of the world and stewards of the planet. We are led into harmony with other beings. This does not, of course, make us living saints. We are still people, still subject to all of the vagaries of human existance. They can guide and suggest, but they do not dictate and cannot force us into something we would not do. Also, in some cases they simply let us make our own mistakes and find our own answers.

We must prepare ourselves if we wish to have a god to communicate with us. While a god may choose to watch over us or interact with us, unless we open ourselves to the contact, we may never realize that god is there. And even if we prepare ourselves, the gods are under no obligation to communicate directly with us. They are not human and do not think as we do. But there is a deep caring and need for humanity, whether or not we actually acknowedge their existance at any given time.

We are of the Divine and a part of the greater whole. The gods, however, are beings that are symbiotic with us, but separate. We do not know how they act or why they lead us as they do, but they do care for humanity. (this does not mean, of course, that we lose our own moral agency when we act as a god wishes. Regardless of who requests our action, we are responsible for what we do). But the gods, even though what they ask can sometimes be strange, usually have the best interests of humanity at heart.

Questions:
Do you deal directly with any gods? Do you think any deal with you indirectly?
Do you have any use for gods? Are they something you find outdated? Meaningless?
How do the concepts of gods and the Divine interrelate to you? Can you believe in both gods and a Divine Universe? Does that seem counterintuitive?

Ideals and Reality

2005-12-20T10:37:00.000-05:00

We all hold things in our mind as ideals. Things we want, ways we view the world. It's how we think we see things. And then there's reality, which frequently has nothing to do with these ideals. The problem is not that ideals and reality don't match, though. The problem is finding a way to have a good balance between them.

Ideals are how we think the world should work. They're necessary for us to function in this world, to actually thrive instead of just surviving. We look at the world and think of how we think it should be instead of how it is. We imagine how we would change things given unlimited power, what we'd remake reality into. And while they often have nothing to do with reality, this kind of imagining is not only not harmful, but actually helpful if done right.

However, one needs to take that ideal into the real world. And while the actual end-state of the ideal may be impossible, and certainly should remain up for revision, one should use that ideal to try and do what one can to bring reality closer to that ideal. Throwing up one's hands and choosing to do nothing because the difference is too great is not an answer, it's an abrogation of responsibility. If the ideal is not only impossible, but also has no relation to reality, then there's a problem of ideology.

Reality changes in steps. We take our ideal and hold it up against the choices we have available, and we take the best option. With some choices, like a choice of mate, we choose that none of our options are close enough to our ideal, and we choose to take nothing. And that's good, because while reality never holds up to fantasy, we must also accept that going with what is available is sometimes a worse choice than staying with the status quo.

We have the power to change reality around us. Not merely in the simple things, like mate and job, but in the big picture. We change reality by voting, by being activist, by writing letters and speaking out. (Note: I do not speak here of being activist in any particular direction. While I have my own ideals, I also believe we all must question our own inner being to find what those ideals are). When we do nothing, when we sit silent and let things go in ways we do not like around us, that is also a choice. It is saying that reality as it is is close enough to our ideals that we're going to leave well enough alone. If that is not what we want to say, then we have to act. And while we cannot change everything everywhere, all change began in the mind of one person that looked at a problem and said "I think I can make this better."

Questions:
Where does reality seem lacking to you? What would you change? What can you make better?
Where have you compromised on your ideals? Was it worth it?
Where have you stopped thinking in terms of ideals and just given up? What questions are you most afraid of asking and why?

Nurturing our Flames

2005-12-12T12:45:00.000-05:00

Bright flame and dark. These are powerful metaphors for our life. When they are fed, our lives are filled with warmth and many good things. When they're ignored, they gutter and stifle and leave us cold.

We feed these flames differently, for we are all different people. However, there are some similarities in what we do to nurture our flames.

The most important thing to remember is that the bright flame burns outward, and the dark flame inwards. We need the dark flame to give us the fuel to burn the bright flame without sacrificing ourselves. However, we also need to be certain that we do not focus exclusively on our inward selves, ignoring the rest of the world to sink into comfortable egotism.

When we want to nurture our dark flame, we must nurture ourselves. Some of this is simple self-care: exercise, eating well, the occasional treat because we like them. However, it also involves things like meditation, automatic writing, prayer, or simply being alone with our thoughts. We need time to think, time to understand ourselves, time to compare our actions against what we claim are our beliefs. It's of integral importance for us to take that time, to give ourselves a chance to pause in stillness and examine ourselves.

When we want to nurture our bright flame, we need to nurture others. This is the flame that expands to those around us, that is seen in our relationships and our work. We need this to get through our day, to keep good relations at our jobs, with our families, with the greater community. We do this by thinking of the other person and what they need and want. And we do this intelligently: there is no virtue in giving of oneself to someone that is using you to keep from growing themselves. But there is also no virtue in refusing to help because it offers nothing to us or we can't be bothered. We must give when we can, when it makes the world better.

We are all of the Divine, and we need to nurture our Divine Spark of flame. And we need to give each other space to nurture their own sparks as well.

Questions:
Which flame would you say you nurture more? how?
How would you nurture the other flame?
Do you think balancing these flames is important? How do you see them interrelating?

The Joy of Ignorance and Insignificance

2005-12-06T10:08:00.000-05:00

We are each the center of our own Universe. But there are thousands of overlapping universes, one for each person. And while we are the center of our own, we are of much less importance in every other one.

It's a matter of perspective. We see ourselves as wise, smarter and more attractive than average, better in so many ways than the people around us. And they see themselves the same way. Everything here is a matter of perspective.

When we see ourselves from the perspective of the Universe itself, we are small and insignificant. It's impossible to see all the people, all the world that exists and not see ourselves as small. There is more we do not know than we do know. There is more that is not us than is us. We can never know everything or be everything, no matter what we want.

And that's one very true perspective. But it's equally true that when our minds reach out and touch the Universe, we find ourselves loved and cherished for our uniqueness. We may be one of many, but that does not change that we are also one individual, and special and cherished for that.

I am Individual, One of Many, and Part of the Divine Whole. These are not mutually exclusive pieces, they are in fact reliant upon each other. When we find the balance point between these realities, we become more able to deal with each other and reality as whole adults, and give the Universe in all its aspects the respect they deserve.

Questions:
How are you individual? one of many? part of the Divine? How does it vary?
Do you love yourself for who you are? Do you love others for being part of the Divine? (even if you don't like them?)
How do you balance being special and individual, and being insignificant compared to the greater reality? Which of these two truths is more difficult to deal with?

Knowing, Truth, and Unknowable Reality

2005-11-29T14:26:00.000-05:00

We like to believe we know how the world works. We want to understand and control everything we can, including religious matters. And we want to be right.

But who's right? Religions directly contradict each other. There's no way they can all be 100% correct. So how do we learn what is right and what is not? And why do religions hold things that aren't true in them?

Faith comes from contact with the Divine. Religion, however, is when that contact is codified and rituals created for people to find that same contact. The contacts themselves are True. But everything we create around that contact is just as flawed as all other human institutions. We place our own preconceptions, our own desires and flaws inside the religion. Over time, some people come to see the preconceptions and other human flaws as the religion and ignore the actual faith aspects, causing schisms and broken faiths.

We need to accept that we aren't capable of truly comprehending the Divine. We don't have a box big enough to shove a person in completely, much less a god or all of creation. The more we try to hold all the answers in our hands, the more we're left with smoke and straw. What we can hold is infinitely smaller than what exists, and even what we can hold is larger than what we can express. Humanity as a whole constantly tries to expand its knowledge as to the functioning of the Universe. No religious box can be smaller than our scientific knowledge. Everything that exists needs to be acceptable to religion. The parts that do not match are not Truths, but human preconceptions and flaws that we create to make the world a little smaller and a little easier to hold.

We need to accept that we cannot be 100% correct in how we think the world works. The more we try to hold and shrink it, the more it slips through our grasp.

Questions:
How do you try to hold the world smaller? How does that limit you?
Do you see a conflict between science and religion? Reality and religion? How do you resolve these conflicts?
Do you see faith as something that needs to be constrained or set free? Do you have the faith to let the Universe be what it is, instead of what you want it to be?

Perceiving the Dark Flame

2005-11-21T15:10:00.000-05:00

There's a lot of talk about seeing the light, about light vs dark, about light as goodness. Dark is therefore perceived as the opposite, the source or place of evil.

The problem is, however, that this view is shortsighted and incorrect. Life with only fire, only light, burns without control. One cannot see nor function if everything is light and fire. There also needs to be darkness, cool, a chance for quiet and healing and change.

The dark flame is the hidden part of FlameKeeping, the hidden places in ourselves where growth and change can happen. It's the part of life which hides from the light, from scrutiny, from examination by oneself or others. We grow and change in the darkness, in rest, with only the results being seen in the light. It is the flame that comforts and keeps you whole. It is cool and dark, a place to rest and restore oneself.

The bright flame, the normal flame, is a flame we share with others. It is visible in how we act and what we do, shining into dark corners and creating boundaries, showing who we are and aren't. It burns from within to without and shows in our lives. The dark flame is different. It is hidden, quiet, cool. It burns for ourselves. It revitalizes and refuels us. In the darkness, we find ourselves again. We connect with our inner Divine spark through quiet as well as action. The dark flame gives us a point to connect that Divinity to.

Questions:
Are you in balance? Are you even aware of your inward dark flame?
Is the darkness in you nurtured as well as the light? Why or why not? Does this imagery make you uncomfortable?
Can you feel the Divine connection to the dark flame? The lit one? both?

Meditation on the Nature of Flame

2005-11-16T16:19:00.000-05:00

You need two candles or oil lanterns. (I personally like the symbology of the oil lamp better, but candles are fine. The biggest difference is that if you've got candles, one is going to burn down while the other doesn't.) They should be next to each other, close enough you can easily focus on both at the same time. Light the one that will cause the other lantern to cast a larger shadow.

Ritually light one lantern. Recite as you do so "I celebrate and participate in creation seen. I bring light into the darkness."

Ritually don't light the other lantern. Make the same motions, but don't strike the match/lighter/whatnot. Recite as you do so "I celebrate and participate in creation unseen. I bring darkness into the light."

Focus on the flame and the shadow. See the flame that isn't burning on the candle that isn't lit as well as the flame that is burning.

focus on the lit flame. See how it sheds light and clarity.

focus on the unlit flame. See how darkness pools.

Find the lit flame inside yourself. Find the unlit flame. Are they balanced? Do you focus more on one rather than the other? Can you face the darkness?

When you're back in balance, blow out the candle. "I celebrate and participate in creation."

Socializing Ecstacy

2005-11-14T12:44:00.000-05:00

How do we take our ecstacy, our experiences that simply do not translate into words or our daily lives, and go back to our jobs and our families? How do we balance ecstacy and being a parent, being a worker, being a friend? Where do we find a balance?

There's no room for ecstacy in everyday life. We cling, as a society, to the banal, to the safe. Ecstacy is scary and other, something that cannot be controlled or institutionalized (although we try in our religious groups).

Yet pieces of ecstacy leak through into everyday life. In our creative work, in our dealings with friends, in our quiet moments by ourselves. We never know quite how to handle it, but we manage to keep from bottling it up.

Our society, our lives need more room for the other, for the lack of control and manageablility ecstacy brings. We need to be willing to bring that sense of other into our lives even when it doesn't fit, even when it demands our lives change in response. At the same time, we need to keep up with our obligations or end them honorably. We serve no one when we use ecstacy as an excuse to drop out of our lives, to ditch responsibilities and act like a rebellious teen.

There needs to be a place for ecstacy in our lives and our society, scary and transformative as it is. However, that place cannot be replacing those responsibilities that cannot be laid down. We need to be mature even as we are children, responsible even as our world is remade. That which we claim as ours may change, but that which we are responsible for does not.

Questions:
How have you embraced ecstacy? How have you denied it?
What responsibilities does ecstacy call for you to lay down? Which ones might it? Can you do so honorably?
How do you deny room for ecstacy in the people around you? How do you attempt to hold them to your perspective of what they should be?

The Oddities Of Ecstasy

2005-11-08T08:35:00.000-05:00

Ecstasy is something totally outside daily experience. It transcends us, throwing ourselves into a world of beauty and wonder and terror. Ecstasy breaks all boundaries, destroys preconceptions, reshapes the world in a frightening instinct. It is that moment when things become clear that weren't, that the world around you changes into itself, that everything you've ever believed is charged with new significance or destroyed as meaningless.

Ecstasy defies easy description. It is that moment when your soul reverberates with the Universe, and no words can describe that. But we try, oh, we try. We build religions and boxes of words to shove transcendant ecstasy into, and try to contain that ecstasy into safe parts of our lives. We want it in the box where we can pull it out when we want to bask in it again, and shove it back away when it's not convenient. But we can't. Ecstasy transforms all or doesn't come to us. It exists in a place out of words, out of easy understanding.

I cannot say what ecstasy means. The words we have don't describe it. It must be experienced, and each person's experience will be different. Or perhaps they're all the same, but we perceive it differently. We can open our lives for it and never find it, or we can run ourselves to the ground and have it appear out of nowhere. It is a gift and sometimes a curse that blows us away.

Ecstasy needs to be welcomed into our lives. It makes us more ourselves, more powerfully changed by the world around us and more powerful to change the world. We need to make space for ecstasy, even while admitting that ecstasy cannot be shoehorned into specific space, forced into time that's convenient for us. We have to allow our lives to change, to look at more than day-to-day concerns.

There are ways to welcome ecstasy into our lives. We have to give ourselves time for ecstasy, time that allows for our world to change in ways we can't predict and control. We have to allow for change and chaos, to accept the change that will happen to our lives and still seek it knowing we won't know what will happen until it's too late. We have to let go and accept that the Universe is bigger than we are, and just allow what will happen to happen. We cannot control. The best we can hope for is that the transformation is something we accept instead of resisting.

Questions:
Do you allow room for ecstasy in your life? Do you try to keep it boxed?
Could you accept transformation if it happened to you? Do you want it?
If ecstasy came to you, what parts of your life would have to change? What box of words would it open?

People as Means/People as Ends

2005-10-31T17:13:00.000-05:00

How do you view people? How do people view you?

It's very easy to view people as a means to an end. We're nice to our boss in hopes of getting a promotion or keeping a job, not because we actual like our boss. Some people view their significant other as nothing more than an object for getting sex, not a separate and individual person.

When we view people this way, as what we can get from them instead of actual people with their own needs and desires and personalities, we diminish ourselves. People are not objects to be manipulated as we desire, they are individuals and of the Divine. When we see them as objects, we lose our own ability to connect with that Divine, to grow in their presence and let them grow in ours.

Every time we see someone as a means, we say that piece of the Divine doesn't matter. We deny reality in favor of control, putting ourselves in the center of a world that doesn't match reality. We set ourselves up as petty gods, denying even the humanity of the person we're dealing with. And, in the long run, we damage our own world, because people don't like being treated as objects.

Questions:
Who do you treat as a means? Why? What do you hope to gain?
Do you let other people treat you as a means? Why?
How do you see people you don't have a real connection with (shop clerks, people on trains, etc.)? Do you think there's a difference if they're strangers you're unlikely to see again?

Prejudice and Postjudice

2005-10-24T18:33:00.000-04:00

There are a lot of questions about judging. About what are appropriate and inappropriate things to judge on, about what judgment even means. While I don’t have cosmic answers, I do have some insights into the question.

The biggest question that I see is the difference between pre-judging and judging based on actual information. Pre-judging involves things like skin color, sex, clothing, and other things. Of those, I think the only ones one has any right to judge on are those that are clearly chosen (like clothing) and even there one must be careful. While someone choosing to pick a certain clothing outlook may well want to be seen a certain way, that doesn’t make that perception accurate.

Judging based on actual information, however, is not only acceptable but necessary. We cannot simply claim to not judge and walk through life with our head in blinders. For one thing, it is a lie no matter how much we claim to value being non-judgmental. It is impossible to not judge as we go, to not evaluate the worth of the people around us and what we think of their choices, their actions. For another, it is actively harmful to ourselves and those we care for when we don’t evaluate the people around us to make accurate decisions.

So what do we do? We do our best to make certain our judgment criteria are worthwhile ones, that what we worry about are things that are meaningful instead of superficial. It’s perfectly reasonable to worry about what people are doing around you and how that effects you. We judge if the person is someone we want to spend any time around, if this person is someone safe to associate with, if this is even someone we enjoy the company of. When we don’t do this, we find ourselves spending a lot of time with people we don’t like.

Prejudice simply blinds ourselves to the possibilities that exist, and belittles people into superficial categories. True judgment frees us to treat people as they are instead of as generic groups.

Questions:
Why do we judge? When shouldn’t we?
What do you think are appropriate things to judge on?
In what way do you want to be judged? What characteristics do you want people to see? What ones offend you when you’re judged on them?

Death and Life

2005-10-03T17:21:00.000-04:00

We are born only to die, only to cease to exist as we are. Knowledge of that ending, of a time to come without us, is terrifying to many people. So we search for immortality, guarantees, anything to predict what will come when, and how to plan for or against it. But our daily life offers no guarantees, no promises of the future except that it will come. Promises of the future can only come from faith.

How we handle the knowledge of mortality defines us in many ways. We spend our lives striving for immortality, hoping for survival against all reality. Yet in truth many of us desire certainty even more than immortality, desire to know the date and time of our death, and to know how it will happen and how to pass painlessly and with grace. Such knowledge cannot exist, of course, because even if we knew our own body's original time limit, we constantly do things to change that and shorten and lengthen our timeframe.

This uncertainty and brevity of life, far from the apparent curse people see it as, is actually a great blessing in disguise. Only because we do not know the time of our death can we risk it, always in the hopes that it won't be this time, won't be us. We strive and struggle against the unknown, to learn, and grow, and become better than we were. This drive for immortality, not in the body, but in the minds of others, drives both the best and the worst of human behavior. We seek the immortality of opinion, of remembrance, and that seeking can guide us in many directions of life.

We exist, and strive, for a reason. As part of the Divine, we are separately-willed individuals that work to improve ourselves and the Universe around us when we are at our best. These drives to strive, to grow, to change and improve ourselves and others, push us only because we have a time limit, because we cannot put these desires off indefinitely, but must work at them from a young age if we hope to achieve them.

All words, however, are cold comfort when faced with mortality and the mortality of our loved ones. The Divine can seem cold and uncaring compared to personal pain and hardship. Yet, the Divine suffers, as we do, with each death, and rejoices with us in each life. Our Flame is that of the Divine, never lost or forgotten, even when we leave our bodies and cease to be separate, and are again one with the Universe.

The loss of ourselves, of our individuality, is scary to many people. We value our identities, our separateness from each other, even as we bemoan it. Anything that threatens our separateness, our knowledge of self, is a potential threat even as it is a potential gift. And so we fear death, knowing that we will no longer be ourselves when we do not wear our bodies, and fearing what we might be without them. We try to find ways to save our individuality even beyond death, beyond all knowledge into the realm of hope and faith.

But the Universe does not conform to our will and desires, much as we wish it did. Our lives end, but we are never forgotten or lost, but instead returned to the greater Universe.

Questions:
What do you do in fear of death? Does it help? Hurt?
What blessing has mortality brought to your life?
How can you live without certainty? Would life be better if we knew of how we would die?

Life and Cycles

2005-10-03T17:18:00.000-04:00

Life moves in cycles and in a continuum. We are part of rippling history, created by what has come before and constantly creating what will come. The universe is not created once and done, but a constant process of creation that flows through us. We create our future through our actions, and we create the futures of those around us as they create ours.

This does not mean we create everything in our reality. Some things we cannot help, because someone or something else has already made that choice. Not everything is changeable. But we are still responsible for dealing with the reality that is presented to us and for creating a future we want to live in.

We are part of a continuum, not simply individuals. And we cannot live solely as individuals, either. What we do ripples throughout time, sometimes small ripples, sometimes big ones. We are the Universe made manifest, we are the eyes and hands of the Divine. What we do, how we perceive things, these things have effects. We cannot see ourselves as an end point, our lives beginning the Universe, our deaths ending it. Life is circular and flowing, births and deaths and beginnings and endings all flowing into the greater whole, each affecting each other.

We owe it to ourselves and to the Universe to be mindful of our future as well as our past, to see the continuum and to look to a better future rather than a worse. We see this most clearly in our children, our genetic and mental replication, pieces of ourselves replicated generation after generation. How we raise our children, how we replicate ourselves, replicates for as long as our descendants continue to replicate. What we do with our thoughts and minds ripples out faster and replicates even more, in ways we can never see. We are responsible for the beginnings of both.

When we see our lives as cycles, we realize how our lives affect each other and see more clearly how our lives should be. When we are our own futures, what we do clearly affects everything we care about coming into existence. Nothing else creates our future but ourselves and those we live with. We do not create the world as it is. We create the world that is to come.

Questions:
What does the concept of creating one’s world mean to you? How do you think your previous choices have shaped your present and will shape your future?
What cycles are you enmeshed in? Did you choose them? Would you choose them now?
How are we individuals? How are we part of a greater whole? What happens when those two views get confused?

Conflict

2005-05-10T16:35:00.000-04:00

Conflict is a natural state of life. We all face conflicts with ourselves, with each other, with the world in general. We have to learn how to handle conflict with grace and dignity, and how to fight problems without fighting people. It’s not an easy issue. It’s very easy to personalize conflict, to claim that the problem is the other person, not the situation. I’m going to refer to interpersonal conflict, but the same issues exist in conflict within the self or against nature.

The first issue in conflict is how the entity one is in conflict with is seen. It is very easy to see the other person as all bad, as evil, as an enemy forever and always. When we start seeing the other person as something other than a person, we lose a grip on our own humanity.

Conflict is when two or more people strive against each other. It is a natural outcome of scarce recourses, of the fact that there is always more to be desired than to go around. It is not the nature of conflict that is the problem, but how it is approached and what the desired outcome is. It is very easy to turn from a natural competition of recourses to an unnatural feeling of anger and hatred of the people competed against. We must recognize the right to strive against each other for the same goal while only striving for that goal, and not simply for the desire to strive against the other. We should only compete for needed items or equally-desired items, and for those things which are not needed, only wanted, we should compete much less strongly. (When fighting for one’s life, I do not feel capable of saying what one can and cannot do. For anything less valuable, however, one should and must use moral judgment. Do not do anything one would not do to the Divine, for that is who you are striving against, even as that is who you are striving for).

We must learn to handle conflict in a mature manner. While it is an inevitable part of life, we still need to handle it with dignity and grace, and be sure that the conflict we enter is one we need to be in. When we fight simply for the sake of fighting, we belittle ourselves and the Divine. When we strive only when we need to and for those things that are worthwhile, we enrich the Universe.

Questions:
What things are worth striving for in conflict? What things do you find yourself in conflict over that aren’t worth it?
How do you handle conflict with grace and dignity?
How do you see those things you are in conflict with? How should you?

Misfortune

2005-05-10T16:34:00.000-04:00

Why do bad things happen? Is it karma, a learning experience, cause and effect, blind chance? Do we deserve what happens to us, and can we blame others for what happens to them? Religion standardly tries to answer two questions about misfortune. "Why does it happen to me," and "How do I deal with it when it happens to others?"

They're basically the same question, of course. If karma happens, it happens to everyone. If everything is random chance, then perhaps there really is no difference between someone on Wall Street in a business suit and the homeless man outside. The reasons we believe why misfortune happen affect how we handle the random chance in our lives, and understanding those reasons changes everything as to how we deal with it.

We are all affected by the decisions of each other. Much misfortune in our lives is the result of someone else's action, whether or not it is meant to affect us. A layoff, a car accident, relationship issues, all are because of other people's actions and reactions to what is happening in their lives. We cannot live unaffected by other people's actions, and to blame human actions on Fate, or Karma, or Divine intervention of any sort is to claim to rob all other people of their free will. Whether or not certain actions are predisposed, at heart we all are mutually responsible for all things that happen as the result of human action, and individually responsible for those things we do.

And of those things that have no human agency? Sickness, genetic miscues, random natural disasters? Why, we scream at the sky. Who is at fault? Who can we blame? Unfortunately, there are no good answers to that, either. Bad things happen through no fault of anyone, God or Man. And when they happen, simply because of the way the world works, someone must be affected by that. Good, bad, or indifferent, when bad things happen, everyone around is affected. No one can be specially protected or punished. A perfect world does not exist, would not have created us even if it did exist, and would never allow the growth that gives us meaning. Which sentences us all to misfortune and pain, along with good fortune and joy.

So how do we cope with these misfortunes? Are we merely subject to the whims of chance, without control over our lives, unable to plan ahead? Of course not. Our own acts have consequences and cause changes, and how we act determines how people react to us. While we cannot control how other people respond to us, we can and should control how we interact with others, and how we affect people. What we do returns to us, sooner or later. As we live, so are we affected by others, trusted or not, loved or not, by how we behave.

And we have the choice, at all times, to change our actions, to be more like what we hope to gain. While we still need to reap the results of previous actions, we are never forced to behave in a way that has results we no longer want. We are the authors of our own destinies, and we can change the predisposition of our future at any time, if we so choose. It isn't easy, but it is possible. And remembering the possibility removes us from the role of victim, and gives us the role of author of our own lives.

Questions:
How do you control the way people see you? Do your actions match your desired consequences?
How can you cope with misfortune with grace and dignity? Does that change how the problem feels?
Why is it important to realize that we control much of our destinies? To realise that we affect the destinies of t hose around us?

Hell-Dreams

2005-04-22T10:26:00.000-04:00

Many humans long to believe that they are right and other people are wrong, that people will be punished for what they do that is wrong. We like to believe that those that do right will be rewarded and the rest will be punished, that the world is, in the end, a just and fair place. It bothers us, sometimes, that those we do like but believe differently may also be punished, and we try to correct them to believe as we do, but all in all, people like the idea that bad people are punished and that only other people are ever the bad people.

An eternity of punishment, however, is not something that anyone deserves, nor is it just, no matter what the crimes of the person. Hanging a threat of future punishment later as the way of justifying certain behavior now only encourages people to hedge their bets and find ways to play both sides of the issue. Some people will behave out of fear, but most people will simply do as they will anyway, and rationalize their behavior in a way that allows them to do what they would see as wrong in another, but acceptable in themselves.

The other problem with believing in a life of punishment, whether it’s an eternal afterlife or karma giving someone bad lifetimes until they learn, is that it takes the burden of judgement away from the Divine and into the hands of mortals. It gives comfort and smugness, knowing that those we like are going to be happier and those we don’t sadder. It doesn’t serve any real purpose to believe in such things. It doesn’t make people good or keep behaviors we don’t like from happening. It just causes more justifications and pain.

Hell, or bad karma, or whatever the horrid afterlife we might wish upon other people, is simply something that isn’t acceptable. We have no right, nor cause, to speculate upon what will happen to other people in the afterlife. We are all of the Divine, all special and sacred to the Universe, and should be treated as such, even when we disagree with the conclusions that people come to. If we truly have faith in the Divine, we need to also have faith that the Divine will choose to reveal Itself as It sees fit, and that we cannot dictate how that will happen from one person to the next. To do otherwise is to have no faith at all.

Questions:
Why do we wish bad lives or afterlives on other people?
Is there a more effective way to attempt to control people’s actions? A moral way?
What advantage do we get by believing in afterlives we can control? Is it a false sense of control? What are the dangers involved?

Creation

2005-04-22T10:24:00.000-04:00

In the Beginning, there was Void, Nothingness. And in that Void floated a single speck of Possibility, of power and chances and potential. And it floated forever, for an instant, in a time before Time began. Nothing changed, everything in perfect stasis, until the speck of Possibility became aware of itself, and thought "I am."

There was not room, in that speck, for both what was there and awareness of Itself. And that speck of Possibility exploded into energy, expanding rapidly, changing from only possible to actual. Both physical and spiritual in every particle, a thinking, self-aware Universe exploded into reality.

As the Universe physically expanded, rapidly changing from superheated plasma to energy and matter, coalescing into suns and planets, it watched itself with amazement. Without frame of reference, there was nothing to compare its changes to, but changes were happening nevertheless, and each change was something new to wonder at.

In time, however, the Universe stopped changing so quickly. Change became predictable, regular, and boring. But awareness did not cease, so the Universe sought for that which would be interesting, different, new. As fascinating and beautiful as everything was, everything was somehow static. And so the Universe sought for something different, something to occupy the time.

A small corner of its body, a small planet, caught the Universe's attention, and it looked closer at the strange tickling sensation it felt there. There was life there, rapidly changing life, and even as the Universe looked more closely the burgeoning life changed more rapidly. It seemed even the very awareness of life's existence, and the noticing of it, changed that life and made it multiply and change even faster. And the Universe began to wonder, to speculate on what this life could become.

The first time the Universe saw one piece of itself consume another, however, it began to rethink the entire idea. How could one eat another? How could one piece be valued above another? For a long moment, the Universe speculated destroying this small world, finding a way to extinguish the teeming life that preyed upon itself for survival. But during the speculation, the Universe saw signs of communication, of awareness. Of something that might someday lead to intelligence. And curiosity of what might be became more important than the methods of survival. Currently, there was only rudimentary communication, seeking mates, seeking food. But if life could communicate with itself, however rudimentarily, perhaps someday something would be able to communicate with the Universe itself.

For the first time, with the possibility of companionship, the Universe felt desire. And it began pushing the possibilities of life around, attempting to force, as quickly as possible, that which would be company. A creature that would be sentient, that could be made in the image of the Universe itself, possessed of a mind, a body, and a soul. Anything that could be manipulated was for the desired effect, and ignored when they no longer served the main desire.

Finally, there was humanity. Using tools, using their minds. Capable of having souls in the image of the Universe, the Universe sectioned off parts of itself to be the souls of these humans, that which would see and remember, and learn from all that happened. And the combination of their more complex brain, and the soul, allowed for a mind that could ask deeper questions, have more complex thoughts than simple questions of food and mates. In them, the Universe saw the possibility of communication directly. To answer their questions of why even as it gave them, and give them hope as they gave It.

Communication proved to be harder than anticipated, however. The mind of the Universe is vast and complicated, and the simple act of touching that mind to the human drove the person insane. To understand the vast totality of the Universe was too much for any individual to comprehend, much less cope with. There needed to be intermediaries, or some other way of communicating that did not do so much harm, some way that would actually lead to effective conversation in time.

So the Universe created Gods, separate beings, but aware of their connection to each other and the Universe itself. And the Gods lived in the bits and pieces of human minds that they weren't using, and communicated with humanity. Some followed the wishes of the Universe, and tried to teach about the interconnectedness of all things, and advance humans to where they could speak directly with the Universe. Others were selfish, and tried to deny their nature, and sought to gain more worshippers for themselves, and live in more minds to the exclusion of other Gods. And the Universe itself sought for minds that could handle the contact.

And so we live, children of the Universe and yet still part of It, struggling to achieve that same sense of connection that the Universe itself craves. Struggling to find community and understanding, for our souls are also reflections of the greater Universe, and aware of loneliness even though we can never be truly alone, for we are all a part of something greater.

Questions:
Why is it nigh-impossible to communicate directly with the Divine?
What does Creation mean to you? Being a part of a greater whole instead of a specially created individual? Being a special individual instead of just part of a greater whole?
Why are we forever lonely and alone? How do we cope and adapt? How do we make life less lonely?

Divine Relations

2005-04-15T17:16:00.000-04:00

Our relationship with the Divine is complex. All that we are is of the Divine, as the Divine is the entire Universe. However, our own ego and masks block us from the Divine, leaving it a thread that runs through us but not our entire personality.

We put faces on the Divine to separate ourselves from it, to relieve ourselves of the responsibility of recognizing that we are faces of the Universe. And we relate with those other faces as though they are separate beings, not a part of ourselves. While there is nothing wrong with relating with the Divine in this way, it is a fallacy and it does need to be recognized as such. We are the Divine, we are the Universe, and we cannot neglect this reality for the comfort of distance.

We are called to be greater than we are, to strive to make the Universe around us better. We do this through internal and external action, neither neglected for the other. We see the face of the Divine in our mirrors and in those we pass on the streets, and it is how we treat them (and ourselves) that is how we treat the Divine. Prayer, while important, cannot ever replace action and interaction. No amount of debasement can make up for refusing to take action when action is called for, and in fact, debasement goes against what we’re called to do. When we debase ourselves before the Divine, we also debase the Divine itself.

There are no simple answers for what the Divine is, for every definition merely excludes. There are no boxes in which we can place the Divine, and there are no boxes we can place in ourselves that we can remove from the Divine. We need to accept that we cannot hide from reality, cannot hide from ourselves, cannot hide from the Divine. There can be a hundred thousand views of the Divine, and all of them correct. We cannot declare the Divine is as we view it, because we all see with the eyes of the Divine, and these eyes see different things. While we can misinterpret what we see, none of us are capable of verifying another’s view.

The Divine can only be discussed remotely accurately in metaphor, allusion, and contradiction. There is simply no way to boil down such a being into the mundane world of language, because every word we use limits. Our relationship with the Divine, similarly, evades language. I can give ideas and hints, but there is no way to accurately describe a relationship with the Divine, other than the fact that it must be sincere and it cannot help but be life-altering, or it’s only a relationship with yourself.

Questions:
How do you see the Divine? Do you feel words are accurate, or do they fall short?
What do you wish you could hide from the Divine? What does it mean that you can’t?
What do you think is an appropriate relationship between yourself and the Divine? Why? What does it mean to mess that relationship up?

Dichotomies of Pleasure and Happiness

2005-04-12T13:10:00.000-04:00

Humanity has always had a love-hate relationship with pleasure, especially "fleshy" pleasures, or pleasures of the body. On the one hand, pleasure is enjoyable and sought after, and for good reason. Every pleasure that the human body has comes with advantages, within reason. On the other hand, though, is the problem that pleasure, in and of itself, does nothing. It is an end, as opposed to happiness, which is more often a product of life.

Pleasure and happiness are often confused, considered similar if not the same thing. But pleasure is like a paper: thrown into our Flame, it gives a great flash of warmth, but is then gone, leaving us colder than before. Happiness is a log, placed carefully in our Flame. No great heat, no moment of astonished warmth, but a long growth of warmth that lasts as long as it is nurtured.

Of course, the flash of pleasure is more dramatic, more noticeable. It's much easier to seek, and indeed a search for pleasure may well be genetic, as well as the desire for happiness. But pleasure is easy, too easy. When sweets were hard to come by, sugar was a pleasure that could be safely indulged in, were there enough money to afford it. But over-saturation cheapens pleasure, like taking an occasional piece of chocolate and making it a daily habit makes that chocolate taste not nearly as good. As one becomes accustomed to pleasure, old pleasures become boring, no longer enough. So one must seek new pleasures, casting old ones aside in the heedless search for stimulation.

One might ask, so what? What difference does it make if we need to seek new pleasures? If it makes us happy, what's the problem? The problem is, pleasure doesn't lead to happiness. Pleasure leads to desire, and desire leads more often to sorrow than happiness, because everything is wanted and not had. Pleasure and desire are not wrong, but they must be understood for what they are, and weighed against long-term happiness, when one desires what is not had.

In many ways, happiness is learning to desire what it is we already have, as opposed to focusing on that which is out of reach. We consider ourselves happy when we have what we desire, and unhappy when our minds are occupied by thoughts of those things we lack.

Isn't happiness selfish, one might ask? By what right do I have to seek happiness, when I could be doing things, making things, creating wealth, whatever the excuse is. In truth, however, happiness is our gift to the Divine, as well as our gift from the Divine, if we are capable of simply grasping it. What we do and who we are reflects and changes the Divine. When we are happy, when we live simply, having good relations to those around us and the world we live on, we better the world around us and the Divine. Instead of happiness being selfish, it can be the most unselfish thing one can do.

Happiness is not easy, however. It must be maintained, must be nurtured, must be cared for. It is easy for desire to blow through the mind, a mental wind that carries beliefs of inadequacy and false needs, and such winds are hard to dispel. As long as we hold to happiness, however, as our goal, we can help ourselves, and slowly bring this concept to those around us as well, bettering their lives.

Questions:
How does pleasure differ from happiness? How can the desire for both be balanced?
How do we overcome our desire for pleasure?
Why is happiness unselfish? How would you define being truly happy?

Dreams of Perfection and Ego

2005-04-12T13:08:00.000-04:00

We all carry multiple selves with us. The Hero. The Lover. When we interact with other people, each person has a self that speaks, and hears, and obscures the truth behind idealizations. The Winner. The Loser. We all do this, to an extent, and we treasure those dreams of ourselves, both the good and the bad. The Pious. The Sinner. When we find ourselves without masks, without a role to play, we are often struck silent with fear or confusion. The Strong Man. The Hermit. Seeing a true picture of ourselves, or even a truer picture than previously seen, can be frightening in its intensity.

Yet we are shackled by our illusions. They hold us in ways that keep us from truly changing, truly becoming better. "I am the Hero, I don't need to worry about ethics, I can't help but do what's right." "I am the Powerless, everything happens around me. I have no control and do no harm, for I do nothing." The more we use these illusions in our lives, the more they become our lives, and the harder change becomes. People expect certain attitudes, certain behaviors, and we act the part we've given ourselves to keep the peace and keep ourselves from seeing dissonance in our lives.

As children, we learn certain feelings and actions are not acceptable. As we grow older, we incorporate both the spoken and unspoken norms of our society, holding to those beliefs and attitudes that cause us the least dissonance with ourselves. We find ways to make our actions fit our image of ourselves, no matter what the necessary justification to ourselves, and assume that other people see us as we see ourselves or as we desire ourselves to be seen. Even though the pieces don't always match, and the masks slip and stretch to cover us as we wish to be seen and not as how our actions brand us, we hold to the beliefs that we are what we wish to be and have no need to grow and change.

We cannot change our true self, and become better people, until we realize who we are and how other people see us. Yet we fear our true selves. They are vulnerable, the reason for the masks in the first place. We can never fit completely into the proper role our society sets for us, the role we feel we should play yet do not. Do not show fear, weakness, ignorance, or anything else that does not fit the role we are to play in society. Especially to ourselves, we cannot show our true nature, for that nature does not match the nature we wish it to be. Our true selves cannot help but be weak, cannot help but have fear, cannot help but be ignorant. Not always, of course, but no one knows everything, fears nothing, and is undefeatable. It simply does not exist. So we hide our weaknesses with masks and shields, lying even to ourselves that we do not fear, or believing that no one will notice our fears.

When we come to religion, to the Divine, we come with our masks, hoping to hide behind them, be accepted for them. But the Divine sees no masks, only the truth of each person. For many people, this is a terrifying experience, even as it is freeing. No masks, no illusions, no questions, just the real person standing there without covering before the Divine. And we find fear, both of ourselves and of the other, because we don't know how to live without our masks, and we don't know how to face the power of the Divine without the safety of our masks. All the thoughts of the masks, seeking to hide that which we dislike, pretend to be that which we are not, stills, and we find ourselves quiet, and alone with ourselves. There, quiet with ourselves, we find the Divine waiting for us to turn to It.

Until we face ourselves, and see ourselves without our masks, we cannot easily face the Divine, because what we see is our own masks looking back at us, coloring everything we learn.

Questions:
What are the masks you wear and why?
What dissonance do these masks cause in your life?
How do you drop your masks? How do you live without them?

Dichotomies of Order and Chaos

2005-04-12T13:05:00.000-04:00

A perfect world, a perfect heaven. The aspiration of so many people, for a perfect life, one without sickness, without death, without chaos. And that is a cruel lie, and a cruel hope, for there is no life without chaos, no order without change. Only nothingness is static, and even that lies full of possibility.

So what do we hope for, if not a perfect world to come? Growth can only come out of chaos, although understanding that growth comes from times of order. Our goal, our purpose, is growth and understanding of the world around us and ourselves. To find a static world, or to change to one, would make us useless and our purpose unreachable. Instead, we should hope for learning, for growth, for becoming more than we currently are, as painful as that can be sometimes.

That doesn't mean all chaos is good, any more than all order is good. Every change holds within it seeds both of growth and pain, of advantage and disadvantage. And times of order degrade over time, taking what had been good to simply what is, and often what is bad. Chaos and order are both good and bad, depending on what is done with the opportunities, not the fact of order or chaos itself.

Order however, is much more comfortable than chaos. We crave order, security, comfort. Even when the order is obviously not serving the people involved, it is still quite difficult to take the risk of chaos and make changes. When we cannot find order, we find ways to force order, see patterns, create comfort out of confusion. We call upon Gods to create order or explain what is, blaming chaos on divine disfavor. We deny growth because it scares us, because the potential for growth is always the same potential as loss.

We must learn to embrace chaos as we embrace order, to accept that our lives cannot remain pleasantly constant. To understand that how we deal with change and chaos are the things that truly define us as people. And to accept that our lives are short, and not constant, and that to embrace anything in life is to embrace the fact that it is impermanent.

Questions:
What are the limits of order?
What are the limits of chaos?
How do we balance our desire for security with our need for change?

Deserving?

2005-04-11T09:01:00.000-04:00

What is it we, as humans, deserve? It's a common plaint .. "I do deserve this" "I don't deserve this" .. as though there's some cosmic scorekeeper, and we're supposed to get X.

But do we really deserve ANYthing? As Americans, at least, we are told in our founding document, the Declaration of Independance, that we are endowed with certain inalienable rights .. Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. That simply because we are alive, we deserve these things, and no one has the right to take them away from us. (interesting historical sidenote .. it was originally going to be pursuit of PROPERTY. interesting change). But at the same time, our own government has the right to take these away at times .. you transgress the law, you lose your liberty for a time, at least in certain ways. In death penalty states, you do something horrible enough and even your life can be taken by the state.

And these *simple* rights also leave questions .. we have a right to life. Does that mean that we have a right to health care to stay alive? Or simply that people can't go around killing us? Do we have a right to die? To sell ourselves into slavery for some reason? And, of course, these are only rights that our *government* guarantees us.

I deserve. Such simple little words. And powerful all out of their size. When we claim we deserve something, we've stopped thinking, stopped questioning. We're not asking anymore, when we claim we deserve .. we are demanding as a right.

Do we deserve anything from the Divine? Even our life is a gift, something given freely by our parents. (hopefully without strings attached, but we all know how parents can be). The basic building blocks of life are things the Universe gives freely .. air for us to breathe, sunlight so our crops can grow, soil for it to feed off of. We don't even question these things .. we take them as granted, as automatic. As things we deserve. No, when we say "I deserve" we speak of things that are not freely given, but of things we desire but have thwarted from us.

I'm truly uncertain whether we deserve anything in our lives. We can earn things based on societal norms, but that is not from the Divine directly, but from each other. When we play by the rules, we *deserve* a fair chance to win, for example. But even here we are closing our minds to other possibilities, to the idea that maybe the game is flawed, or a tie is the best option.

But the Divine owes us nothing. It gives us life as a gift, gives us identity and individuality so that it may live through us and so that we may experience life. But the Divine owes us nothing. We should treasure our lives as gifts, not see them as something we are owed, something we are deserved.

Questions:
What do you think you deserve? Why? Who owes it to you and why?
How would your life change if you saw life as a gift instead of something you deserve?
What is the difference between the community owing things to each other, and the Divine owing things to you (other than the ease of collection)? What do you owe to other people? Do you owe anything to the Divine?

Submission of the Self

2005-04-08T15:06:00.000-04:00

There are many times and many places in our lives where one can wish to submit. Submit to the system, to the rules, to another person. It appears easier, in many ways. When we give up our own filter of moral judgment, we allow another’s judgment to step in, let them make the decisions. While it is necessary to submit to reality and to ourselves, to accept our limitations and the consequences of our actions, it is just as necessary to not use submission as an excuse to abrogate responsibility for ourselves. Even though the consequences may not be what we would wish for, they are still the consequences we earn.

Submission is directly tied to the concept of consequence. We fear consequences in our life, both not getting the consequence we desire and receiving the consequence we don’t. So we try to find ways to dodge the consequences, ways to change our realities to match what we desire. We play games with ourselves, find excuses where no such excuse can possibly exist. One of those games is submission.

Submission is an attempt to give to another our own responsibilities, to say that another person has the right to say what we can and cannot do. We say, “We’re just doing our job,” when we realize what we’re doing isn’t something we’d do otherwise. Or, “It’s the law,” even if it’s something we morally disagree with. We sometimes even come to finding a desire to give all our responsibility to another person, and become totally submissive to another’s will.

The problem is that we cannot truly give our will over to another at any time. While we say we are not responsible, that does not make it so. We cannot simply give up responsibility morally or legally, for we are what we do, not the spin we put on it.

When we try to give our responsibilities to another, we saddle them with something impossible.

Questions:
Why is submission wrong? Why is it impossible?
Why do we try to dodge moral culpability for our actions?
Why is the law not a good excuse for moral submission? Do you think such an excuse exists? Would you allow it if someone else used it and hurt you in the process?

Submission and the Divine

2005-04-08T15:04:00.000-04:00

Submission is a scary concept. It involves giving up control, perhaps for just a moment, perhaps longer. We like to believe we're in control, that we choose what we allow to happen to us. Or we go to the other extreme, believing we have no control, that everything is out of our hands, and that some other agency, either mortal or divine, has control. As in most things, the truth is somewhere in between.

We have total control over ourselves, although not all of that control is conscious. No one else can truly take away our ability to choose how and if to act at any given point, although the world around us does limit the choices we have, and limits even more our appearance of choices. The choices we make, and the consequences that come along with that, are our own, though.

So where does submission enter the picture? Part of submission to the Divine is the knowledge that we can't control all variables in our lives, that we must know what we do and do not have control over. We must let go of those things we do not control, and realize our limits. We must control ourselves, but the rest is left up to the Divine in the shape of other people and the world in general.

The other part of submission to the Divine is realizing that no matter how we may try, we will never be and have never been perfect. We must transcend our limited, daily selves, and see ourselves as part of the Divine exploring itself. We are individual, but we are also a piece of the Divine, and we must accept that duality of existence and submit to the fact that our ego, our *I*-ness, will someday pass, leaving us once again one with the Divine without artificial division.

What of submission to mortal agencies? Clergy, spouses, bosses, friends? Do we submit to them, and if so, how? All I can say here is that the choices we make are still our own, no matter whether another person ordered it or not. We are each the center of our own universe, and no one has the right to attempt to change that fact. To attempt to completely submit to another, or to require or allow someone else to completely submit to you, is both immoral and impossible. This does not mean we should ignore authority, for authority exists for good reasons. However, the moral culpability rests in each person’s hands that does (or doesn’t do) the act in question.

In short, we must submit to reality, to our lack of control over anything not ourselves. However, we must also realize that each person has control over their own selves, that there is never anyone but ourselves able to have control over our actions. When we submit to the Divine, it is a freeing submission to ourselves, allowing us to blossom to the extent of our potential.

Questions:
On what issues must we submit? What does that entail?
What does moral culpability mean to you?
Why must we accept a lack of control in our lives? The existence of control in our lives?

Wilderness and Chaos

2005-04-07T15:35:00.000-04:00

We live in a world of rigid order run by external forces. People seem to control us, telling us what we can and cannot do, when we can act and when we must wait. We feel forced to conform in every way, with sanctions for when we behave in some way other than what’s acceptable. So we find places that we feel are safer, places there are no humans to make us conform, and we romanticize them. Currently what we romanticize is the wilderness, a place of unimaginable potential and believed safety.

However, this belief of nature as some kind of romantic safe place is incredibly incorrect and historically inaccurate. Our ancestors never worshipped the wilderness. Indeed, they feared it. The idea of worshipping nature as a being to be loved is a completely modern idea, and one usually done from the safety of civilization, or the ability to return to it quickly.

Nature is harsh. When we rely upon the weather, we realize that the moods of the Earth can be quite deadly and are completely impersonal. The planet does not care if we live or die, if we eat of other being’s lives or feed the animals with our still-living body. We believe that we’re different, that we’re special to nature itself, but there’s no reason to believe that other than the conceit of viewpoint.

We romanticize what is separate from us, what we see as pure. That doesn’t make it true. When we separate ourselves from our reality, and view nature as better than the world we actually live in, we lose a great chance to actually affect our own world. We’ve already written it off as impure, profane as opposed to sacred. And that which is profane is something which cannot be improved, only destroyed or hidden from.

We deny our own nature when we deny the world we live in, when we try to recreate reality to degrade the world we live in. It cannot serve us, only cost us dearly. We must learn to accept the world of humanity as sacred as well as the world outside of ourselves, for truly, we are part of nature anyway. The dichotomy is false.

Questions:
Why do you think we try to separate ourselves and our world from the natural world?
Why is the Earth impersonal? Why do we believe otherwise?
What happens when we deny the sacredness of our own surroundings?

Comment on Copyright

2005-04-07T09:27:00.000-04:00

I've put my posts under a Creative Commons license, as is clearly seen on the sidebar. I should probably attach that to every post .. but I'm challenged enough I'm not quite sure how. :D

I think, though, that my choice deserves an explanation, because I think it's important. Religion is free .. I cannot own it, nor can anyone. While one can copyright one's work (and ooh, I'd be ticked if someone took it!) the religion itself isn't mine. I'm just a messenger, a carrier. If it is to survive, other people will take up what I write and add to it, create from it .. and that's a GOOD thing. I do not want to stifle that. In fact, I'd HATE to stifle that, which is what current copyright law does.

So I encourage people reading .. come up with your own rituals, essays, beliefs, experiments. Let my work be an inspiration to your own. My only requirement is that you make your own work free for other people to use as well .. to find as inspiration to build off of. It's not open-source software .. it's open-source religion.

Let it go, and let it grow. Let's see where it leads us.

The Virtues of Doubt

2005-04-06T18:53:00.000-04:00

Doubt is often viewed as the opposite of faith, a problem in our lives or a moral failing. The pain of doubt causes us to try and avoid the question, cling to certainty, pretend we do not feel the questions we have. We go to great lengths to avoid being in a place where we can even hear the questions, fear being alone with our thoughts and nothing to block them.

There is no question about the discomfort of doubt. When we question, it can be difficult to find a point upon which we can stand, a place where doubt fades to certainty. It’s true that few people doubt the world of solid objects, that the sun will rise the next day and the chair they sit on will continue to exist if they stop thinking about it. But questions without concrete objects, questions of faith and virtue and wonder have no clear-cut answers no matter how strong one’s faith is. When doubt raises questions about those articles taken on faith, it can feel as though our very foundation is being attacked.

Doubt is the act of questioning, looking at our beliefs and thinking about what they mean, what they’re worth, whether they are still correct to us. The very fact that we are questioning our beliefs does not mean we do not still hold those beliefs or that our faith is in question, but that we are learning more about ourselves, and understanding more. Doubt is not the opposite of faith. It is instead an integral component of a mature faith. It is a form of spiritual exercise, like physical exercise in that is painful when performed, but has the long term virtues of greater physical health. Doubt cleans our minds, helps identify what is toxic in thought and what serves us no longer, and reaffirms those beliefs that are truly meaningful to us.

The pain of doubt is the pain of realizing that what we believe is uncertain. The morality of such doubt, of such uncertainty, is more difficult to articulate and frequently sneered at, particularly by those who are not brave enough to confront their own doubts. But beliefs unquestioned are not strong faith, but a weak faith that totters on a slender foundation. When questioning destroys faith, the faith was weak or nonexistent to begin with.

Doubt is not the opposite of faith, but the complement. Indifference is the opposite of faith, that uncaring avoidance of the entire faith question. Doubt is the questioning that keeps faith alive and enables one to explore and grow in that faith. To fear doubt is to fear faith itself, to be so convinced of the flimsiness of that faith that it will disintegrate when examined closely. Doubt is a blessing even as it is a curse, as it makes us what we are: Thinking animals that can determine for ourselves what we believe and why.

Questions:
What about doubt scares you the most?
How can you doubt and hold faith at the same time?
What aspect of your own faith are you most afraid to question and why? What do you think you may find behind it?

Membership and Separation

2005-04-06T17:12:00.000-04:00

We belong to groups, ideals, religions, creeds, and races. The very act of belonging is important to us; it gives us meaning and companionship, a bulwark against the loneliness of the human condition. In return for that gift of companionship, we do for those in the group what we would not do for those outside it.

The Divine surpasses groups, defies group definition. We are all part of the Divine whether or not we believe in it or care about it. There is, at heart, no out group, for we are all made up of a greater Self, and when we connect to that Self we lose the illusion of being alone.

When we deny our commonality, our greater Self, we feel free to behave differently, even cruelly, to those we see as an out-group. We deny our universal nature to justify our behavior, our lack of compassion. We blame those in the out-group for their out-group status, figure out ways to believe they picked out-group status for themselves in a way that makes them look bad, wrong, or evil, and use that as justification for whatever we wish. After all, they are outsiders, and that makes them wrong.

When we believe that all people get what they deserve, we find ourselves denying reality itself. Not only that, but a large part of understanding of how to associate with other people is gone. We all need help sometimes, regardless of the choices we make or the beliefs we hold. Only extending that help to those that match our religious convictions or personal friendship implies that people outside that circle do not deserve help, denying their humanity and need.

While we do, and should, react to those closest to us before we reach out to those farther away, that does not mean we can refuse to help those in need at all. Indeed, it is our duty, as fellow-humans, as part of the Divine, to extend that Divine love with each other as well. There are no answers in isolation, only lies.

Questions:
What harm does loneliness bring? Why is it true? Why is it illusion?
Why do we form groups?
How do we find compassion for people that are for some reason out-group?

A Universe of Knowledge

2005-04-06T17:10:00.000-04:00

Of all the creatures on the planet, we are (so far as we know) the only ones that exist aware of time and choices, able to chose one thing over another. To learn, not simply through direct cause and effect, but from being told from one to another.

What makes us no longer the creatures that once lived in caves, but instead the society we are, is that very ability to transfer knowledge from one person to another. With that, we can learn from each other’s experiences instead of simply repeating our own. This knowledge is more than simply what we store in books and in our heads. Knowledge by its very nature is meant to be shared, passed from one to another. Concepts are shared both deliberately through direct communication, and indirectly through shared knowledge base, individual minds distilling the same concepts from the data available.

As we are part of the Divine, so are our thoughts shared by the Divine and rippled back outwards throughout humanity. Our thoughts are both our own and of the Divine, distilled and learned and shared. When we learn a new skill, a new piece of knowledge, that knowledge or skill gets strengthened throughout humanity, reinforced as worthwhile. Knowledge cannot be stopped or hoarded, because understanding ripples throughout our species, one to another as we can understand.

Knowledge and learning are holy, precious gifts from the Divine that we can return unto it, sharing knowledge with ourselves and each other. It is transmission of knowledge and the discovery of new things and new ways to understand things that helps us grow, that makes us better than we were the day before and gives us hope for the future.

We are creatures of knowledge, learning, and beauty. What we learn and share, what we create, betters the Universe and betters ourselves, radiating inwards and outwards. It is through learning and sharing knowledge that we better ourselves and the Universe.

Questions:
Why is learning important? Why isn’t it an absolute good?
What is the difference between information gathered firsthand and that obtained by other sources? Is there one?
How does knowledge pass between ourselves and the Divine?

Belief, Faith, and Divine Love

2005-04-06T15:56:00.001-04:00

Belief and Faith are irrelevant, Love is not.

Faith is a very delicate issue. We believe, but we are never quite sure how to explain that belief, how to share that belief. It's incredibly important to us, and yet faith is by nature private. We face the reality of our isolation in our faith, for even when we celebrate together, the experience with the Divine is forever personal. Because of the vastly overwhelming experience, we find doubt when not directly interacting with the Divine. The overwhelming reality of the Divine, of the Gods, seems impossible when not directly interacting.

That doubt we feel is good, a blessing and not a curse. As long as we allow ourselves to doubt, we can continue to grow, and our understanding can continue to deepen. Only when we fear doubt, fear not having answers, do we being to obsess about rules, about security. We cannot have security in this world, and perhaps not in any. When we fear doubt and seek that impossible security, we give up an uncomfortable reality for a harmful illusion, an illusion that leads us to attempt to regulate the doubt out of our lives, to deny that doubt wherever it might be, and to try and force other people to believe the same as we do to hide that doubt from ourselves.

When we experience the Divine, the Gods, and feel Their love for us, there is no room for faith or doubt. However, we cannot stay in that safe place where we live in the Love of the Divine. Daily life interferes, with bills and duties and problems, drags us out of communion with the Divine and makes it hard for us to remember what that feeling was. It takes work to bring that feeling with us throughout our lives, to keep it even in situations which try our patience. At times, we even feel betrayed, because we cannot keep that feeling with us and cannot understand why.

However, the Divine can only act in our lives as we allow. The more we try to control and regiment the Divine, the more we lose the Divine. Love cannot be contained in a box only opened when it is convenient. Either we welcome the Divine into our lives, and allow ourselves to be swept away by the changes or we do not; but we can't live halfway. The Divine will love us the same, but we pull ourselves away and block the Divine off and refuse to be changed. And that love the Divine has for us will keep the Divine from forcing the issue, as well. After all, sooner or later we all return to the Divine. The hurry is only one-sided.

This is not to say we should surrender our lives to the Divine and take no control of what we do or what happens around us. We are the hands of the Divine, but we are also responsible for our own actions. We are called, not to inaction and passivity, but action, thought, and work. We need to accept our callings as active, and do our best to take the love of the Divine and share it with others not through proselytization, but through having large hearts and being loving ourselves. When we can do that, we can become better people and make the world a better place. When we accept the love of the Divine and don't take that love back into the world, we betray the Divine by not fulfilling our end of the bargain.

Belief is, in most cases, irrelevant. For when we have faith and belief, there is no room for doubt, for our hearts are filled with love. And when we do have doubt, clinging to belief while fearing to question robs us of a chance to learn, and grow, and understand that love and faith better.

Questions:
What does faith mean to you?
How do you handle doubt?
How can we embrace love of the Divine even when we doubt?

Human Relations

2005-04-06T15:55:00.000-04:00

Part of what religions speak to is the relationship between humans and each other, and humans and the greater world. We do not live in isolation, but instead are deeply nested in a world of overlapping responsibilities and friendships that ripple outwards, linking every person to everyone else.

What does this mean? Humanity is interdependent upon each other, and upon the planet on which we live. All is part of the Divine, and we are all part of each other, unable to survive without the rest of creation. We believe in self-reliance and self-sufficiency, but the only way we can believe such a thing is by viewing all that we do rely on as nonexistent and unworthy of consideration. We are part of a greater world, and it is through seeing our interrelation we can find our true selves and how to interact with others.

We like to see ourselves as individuals, in control, having the power to change our lives and the lives of those around us. The problem with this view is not that it’s false, but that the power that we have is not always what we think it is. We have ultimate control over our emotions, over our actions and reactions, although we do not always have control over what the choices for those actions are. We are not responsible for the choices set before us, however, only the ones we choose to take.

Power is responsibility. The two cannot be separated out, one cannot have responsibility without the power to do something about it, nor can one have power without the fact that how you use that power will affect other people. As we have power over ourselves, so do we have responsibility for ourselves, for being what we desire to be and making the choices we believe are right.

Seeing ourselves, our powers and responsibilities, in a clear manner is essential to improving our relations with other people and the world around us. When we ignore our responsibilities, we betray ourselves and the world around us, causing a rippling effect. Even as the Divine teaches us, so do we teach the Divine, and when we betray, and are untrustworthy, and claim that power is not linked inexorably to responsibility, we tell the Divine and the world around us that their power is not linked to their responsibility either. We do not exist in a vacuum. Everything we do affects others, teaches others, and we must be careful to make sure the life we lead is one we have no shame of being used as an example to others.

Questions:
How are we related? How are we separate?
Why are we not responsible for the choices set before us? Why are we responsible for which choices we take?
How does having power over ourselves give us responsibility? What responsibilities does it give?

Inner Relations

2005-04-06T15:37:00.000-04:00

Religion speaks of the relation of a person to themselves, of how we relate with ourselves when there is no one else to see us. How we temper our minds and hearts and learn to be the best person we can be. It is easier in many ways to simply look at religion as how we relate to the Divine, but when we remove ourselves from the equation we remove that which chooses and gives force to our choices.

We are each the person we spend all of our time with, the person whom our relation with affects all other relations. When we like ourselves, we are more likely to like other people. When we see ourselves as connivers, as people out to get the most for ourselves, we see other people as falling only into the categories of user and sucker. How we see ourselves affects everything in our lives.

Which begs the question of how we are supposed to see ourselves. There is not one simple answer. It’s not a matter of simply saying we should be X or Y and forcing ourselves into that mode, for we are all different people with different needs and desires. When we try to force ourselves to be other than we are, we simply make ourselves and those around us miserable.

Instead, we must first learn to love ourselves. Not as the young girl that preens in the mirror, but a true affection for who and what we are. In seeing ourselves as we are, we are bound to find flaws that we do not like, and start to work to change them. It is when we find ourselves worthwhile that we can even begin to try and make ourselves better.

We are each the center of our own Universe, the primary actor in our own personal dramas. When we treat ourselves with respect and room to grow, we give ourselves and the world around us a chance to improve as well.

Questions:
How do you find love for yourself? What about that is hard? Is easy?
What does being the center of your own Universe mean to you? What does it mean to know that everyone else you know is ALSO the center of the Universe to themselves?
How do you see yourself? How accurate is that image? Is there something you’re trying to hide from yourself?

The Flame

2005-04-06T15:14:00.000-04:00

We are all a part of the Divine. Sentient and self-aware projections of the Universe, we are part of a greater Whole, and yet individual. And we, collectively and individually, are part of the Divine, and able to change It.

As we improve ourselves, we improve the Flame of all as well. However, self-improvement can only occur when basic needs are met. Therefore, to improve the Flame, we must help all have access to the basic necessities of life: food, clean water, shelter, and medical care. Those that seek to survive cannot care for more esoteric things, for they are constrained by survival needs.

When survival needs are met, then we can seek improvement for ourselves and others. No one has the right to stand between another person and the fuel for their Flame, or the basic needs they must fulfill to become able to seek their Flame.
Our Flame burns most brightly through proper fuel, through feeding our souls as we feed our bodies. We feed our souls through caring, through love, through creating. Through finding our passion, and then sharing the results of that passion with others. And through helping others find fuel for their flames as well, helping others learn and grow. We all benefit from each other's Flame's burning brighter.

We are an interdependent species, reliant upon one another for our very survival. However, we are also separate individuals, with our own desires and needs. We must learn to nurture our own Flame while constricting others as little as possible, to let each Flame burn brightly without inhibiting another. We can, if we so choose, help everyone achieve their goals. For the first time in human history, survival to old age does not need to be in doubt through lack of basic necessities, if we choose to make it so.

Like any fire, however, we must also be sure to keep it fueled only by appropriate things, and burning controlled. Simply desiring something is not enough of a reason to obtain it. We must school ourselves to feed our souls what is appropriate, what nurtures us, what helps us grow and become better people. Our Flame can be bright and warming, nurtured carefully and a joy and blessing be part of, or a raging forest fire that consumes all that it touches and brings only destruction.

All which is, is Divine, part of the self-aware Universe. There is nothing in existence that is profane, no split between the body and the soul. There is nowhere and nothing but the Universe, physical and spiritual. That is not to say the physical world is the sum total of existence. The Universe is bigger than any one mind could hope to comprehend, and the layers of existence and possibilities are endless. But there is no beyond to move to, no better life elsewhere. What is here, is.

Many people speak of "seeking God" and talk of places to look to find the Divine. And they define God, and place limitations and strictures upon what God can and cannot do. And people say how one can and cannot reach the Divine, and where God is and isn't, and refuse to acknowledge that God may very well choose to ignore human strictures. In many ways, the defining characteristics of the Divine is that human strictures are ignored, and that the Divine is free to all humans, irrespective of social status. We like to limit what God is, and pretend we know what is and isn't what the Divine wants of us, and more, of other people. The truth is that we can only surmise what the Divine wants of us, and work as hard as we can to be the best we can be. Any rules we try to place to comfort us, and place sections of our life as safe from Divine intervention, are doomed to failure.

We all like to believe we're good people, and seek ways to prove that belief. However, we also all like to be lazy and seek the easy way out of things. We like scapegoats, villains, a bad guy that tempts us to do what we already know is wrong. We want to believe we are good; that someone else is evil and not us. And we seek to justify those things that we do and we know are wrong, and find ways to make our transgressions correct while punishing the transgressions of others.

We need, to become whole individuals, to learn to accept our own faults and flaws as well as our virtues and abilities. We are human, we are divine, and we stand wholly responsible for what we do. The constant struggle to justify, to explain, to create excuses, only keeps us mired in confusion and sorrow. When we can truly accept our mistakes, learn from them, and take responsibility for them, then and only then can we grow beyond them and cease to make the same mistakes again and again.

This is not an excuse to play the blame game, however. Only we know the real reasons why we do things, and no one else can decide what is someone refusing to live up to responsibility. All the blame game does is make everyone wrong, and confuse the real issues that people need to deal with on their own.

There is no way to avoid misfortune in our lives. Bad things happen to everyone, including people that seem to have done nothing wrong, and our problems are always bigger to ourselves than other people's problems. However, although our problems are always biggest to ourselves, it is a falseness of context to believe that our problems should be as big to other people. The difference is how misfortune is handled, both in ourselves and other people. We need to learn to face the vicissitudes of fate with grace and poise, and to keep from getting knocked down more than we get back up. The more we glory in our own misfortune, and label ourselves by our failures, the harder it will be for us to succeed. And when we glory in the misfortune of others, we simply lessen ourselves and dim our Flame.

Penance and forgiveness are unpopular concepts today. We want to believe that what we do is okay, as long as we had a good reason, and that feeling sorry for our mistakes should be enough. The truth of the matter is, good intentions only carry so far. Good acts, repairing ones mistakes, those are the acts of a good person. We will make mistakes. There is no way to live life without sometimes making horrible mistakes, either of action or inaction.

Questions:
What are your flaws? What are your virtues? Which question was harder to answer and why?
What feeds your Flame? What stifles it? Which do you court in your life?
How do you nurture other people’s Flames? Allow your own to be nurtured? Do you live in a nurturing environment?

Starting out

2005-04-06T15:06:00.000-04:00

Yes, it's one of those horrible starting off posts saying that Hi, I'm HeartShadow, and looky, a blog!

This will be a replacement and update of my website about Keeping the Sacred Flame. I'm hoping for lots of useful feedback to keep me motivated in writing my essays and finding out more about myself and humanity and the universe.

Please, let me know what you think!

*added*

I have study questions attached to my essays. You can answer them here, answer them to yourself .. never answer them at all. I think they're important questions related to the essays .. if you come up with other ones, feel free to post those as well. They're meant to be an aid to understanding, not a test with clear answers. I don't expect any two people to have the same answers .. or even the same person to have the same answers two different times!