Uncertainty and a tiny amount of fear, shade the margins of this blog. Not from the content, but of where to start, well OK… maybe a little uncertainty is about the content. I don’t want anyone to think me eccentric.
Most everyone who knows me, knows I am a spiritual. However, raised Catholic, I am forced to confess I’m not thee best catholic. Nonetheless, I say I am spiritual and that should count for something…I think.
What I’m about to share, I believe is me evolving and doing what I’ve always known was part of me. Some might think it means I’m simply not a good Catholic girl and consider my Catholicism slightly tarnished, but I can’t help it. Even as a child I asked questions and believed in things I wasn’t ‘supposed’ to. In spite of this, I’ve always had the feeling I have a unique connection to God, so what I felt and what I was taught did not always coincide…therefore I asked with a personality that wouldn’t allow me to merely accept what they were telling me. I had to see it for myself thus comprehending better—how—I was to perceive what they were teaching me. I wanted to understand, but could not take someone’s word at face value…sorry sisters (I’ve not changed much since that time either).
It never felt God got mad at me for being this way...He... instead spoke in a way—I–understood, which wasn’t always through written words, the words of a priest, or sister, but for me, through the animals, the earth, my sense of a higher being (something I sometimes question) and the voice.
Consequently, then and— now—I’d stay quiet within my thoughts and rarely, if at all mentioned the voice. I wanted no one to deem me a weird child. (The fist time I heard the voice I was four years old. Yes four. But that’s another story.)
As I’ve mentioned in another blog, the voice, is not necessarily the voice of reason, but a voice of intuition, thoughts or crazy ideas that come from…well you know where, or maybe you don’t. I think here is a good place, before I go on, to explain although I don’t always see eye to eye with my religion, I am still proud to be a Catholic. I can’t help it, its part of who I am, genes of my Scotch/Irish heritage.
Please, don’t worry, the voice, isn’t a voice like what Jack Nickolson heard in the Shining. It’s a little voice that speaks in the back of my mind or sometimes in the very forefront or sometimes a voice so persistent it can’t be ignored.
Everyone has the voice. You know it as that flash thought you ignored and wished you hadn’t, or the voice putting up a red flag telling you repeatedly, someone is not good but you don’t listen and you get taken to the cleaners or get your heart broken. You know…the voice, those inner thoughts that most of us have, but chose not to pursue, because of fear. Fearing that if we speak of it, (the voice), we’ll sound loony. We also fear that if we relay what we hear or think we heard we could be wrong or scarier…we could be right. I know…I’ve been there.
With maturity, I find myself taking bigger chances and listening to the voice more often (or maybe it’s because my outer hearing is not as a good as it use to be) and accessing deeper recesses within, finding what feels comfortable and right for me. As I re-read that it almost sounds selfish, but its not, because I’ve found, what’s comfortable and right for me, benefits others, our earth and I believe this is what I am suppose to do, its what the voice tells me anyhow.
So here goes, usually I do not celebrate New Years and have not done so in years. I don’t like it. It feels like a bunch of unhappy people trying to be happy, only to wake up the next morning with a hang over and feeling unhappier than they were the year before. Unhappiness stemming from the realization the resolutions they made for last year, they did not keep, thus convincing themselves they are failures for not doing what they had set out to do. Hence…grief at the loss of a year of un-achieved goals, and they jump head first with new resolutions, instead of spiritually, in to another year, and goals are re-resoluted and new ones added, consequently badgering themselves for another year of not accomplishing their goals. It’s a vicious unproductive cycle that doesn’t have to be, if they’d only realize they don’t have to wait until one night of the year to resolve and or try something new…any time is a good time, any time that’s right for them. And that sometimes the only thing we need to reach our goals, is to be silent and listen—to the voice. Well you get the drift of what I am saying with out beating you over the head with a noisemaker. I hope anyhow.
Dec 30th, late morning my friend Heidi called to let me know she’d be coming out to see her horse New Years eve and she’d like to bring pizza or something. When she called because I didn’t know what my husband was doing I wasn’t sure what I was doing. He wasn’t home yet. Then my husband got the call. New Years eve, he would leave for Baton Rouge. This didn’t bother me. Its not a big holiday for us and usually I’m in bed before midnight and simply like to wake to the New Year. This year would be no different and with the job market the way it is, as us farmers say, have to make hay while the sun shines.
Later on, the same day, a friend, Kathy, reminded me this was a Blue Moon New Year and I had to celebrate. I wondered, how could I celebrate something I don’t like celebrating. But, this…this was a Blue Moon New Year with a partial eclipse of the moon and if I didn’t celebrate in some way—I knew I would be very disappointed.
It then dawned on me it was as if God had made reservations for me to celebrate. So I searched of what one does on a blue moon celebration in December and then called Heidi with the idea I had for Dec 31st. We were about to celebrate with the blue moon. Or the oak moon, or cold moon, the moon of December, indicating the impending long cold months of winter.
Dec 31st, unfortunately, we could not see the moon. The sky was hazy with wet snows, but we knew it was there so our celebration commenced.
First, we ate pizza and salad, while drinking ginger ale, a feast fit for our small gathering. After we ate we had a nice cup of tea.
Through dinner, we giggled, talked and laughed, then went outside, tromped in the snows readying our prayer area. My two dogs romped around, and the coyotes yipped in the distance. We lit candles for those we were about to pray for, here and gone. We sat on Mother Earth grounding ourselves, burned sage to purify our thoughts, heart and area of prayer. Earlier we had written prayer requests, wishes and convictions on paper, and were holding them in our hands. It was then the world around us went quiet. The breeze stopped, the snows fell silent and straight to the earth. My dogs sat behind us, as we raised our voices to the heavens and read each prayer request aloud so our words could reach our heavenly father. We then lit the papers to let the smoke also carry the words to the heavens and saints.
After our ceremony, we had dessert and coffee, Heidi went home, and I went to bed before midnight. I closed my eyes, and saw soothing shades of purple and white. Relaxed, I fell asleep while thinking of the prayers we’d prayed. I slept better that night than I have in a very long time. Upon waking, I experienced lightness in my chest and a happiness that was almost scary. I was worried and wondered….why do I feel so happy? My psyche did not want to allow this happiness because some how it felt wrong. I called Heidi and she told me she felt the same. I knew then, the way we celebrated was right.
Still, uncertainty and fear shade the margins of this blog, because I fear as when I was a child, sharing the way Heidi and I celebrated, would cause the church or others to chastise me for not celebrating in a holy manner, but then the voice spoke…and this is what I heard.
Kellie…be silent and listen.
When you go to church and light a candle, why do you do that?
I answered, “We light it for those we pray for, to demonstrate special devotion or to make a specific appeal”.
Then I heard,
Don’t you think the Catholic Church does this because they view candle burning as a natural religious expression, not something tied to a specific form of idolatry? “So this was my need to light the candles. Got it.”
When you go to church on Christmas Eve and the priest burns incense… why is that…“
Burning incense reminds us our prayers, like the smoke of incense, ascends towards God and mingles with the prayers of the Saints in heaven?”
Psalm 141 (140), verse 2: "Let my prayer be directed as incense in thy sight: the lifting up of my hands, as evening sacrifice."
And ins't it often used as a purification ritual.
I pondered, “The sage?”
Yes…
When you go to church and sing, why do you do that?“
So the words of our prayers rise to the heavens? OMG (no pun intended) our prayers spoken aloud is music to your ears.
Yes…
And, where have I told you, your church can be?
I raised my eyebrows and conceded, “Outdoors, with the animals…in my conversations with you. Where ever you and I walk, or the places where my thoughts are clear and my soul is pure…such as in my garden, in the barn, being one with Mother Earth…anywhere you and I are together.”
Yes…
I get it
It’s as I’ve always thought…
It’s not about the religion… its about believing.
Its not important how I pray… its that I do.
Its not where I talk with you that’s important…. its that I do.
Its not about holding hands with someone saying I have faith, its about holding hands and walking with you, believing in something I can’t see…That’s faith.
Its not important how or where I celebrate….but that I celebrate with you, for you and on behalf of you.
So then, how do you know I’ve listened and I’ve answered?
The voice…
Yes
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