What a bizarre word for death. “Lost”. Like they’re wandering around somewhere, if we could only find them again.
And yet, there’s truth to that. There is no absolute death, no complete ending. We leave this world, and that is horrible to those left behind. But we are still in the universe. Our breath still teases the wind, our voice lingers in the quiet of the night. There is no ending. There is a loss for those left behind, but there is no absolute ending.
Cold comfort, of course, for those left behind. We cannot touch, cannot hold one that is gone. Hearing a whisper on the wind reminds us of our pain, not the everlasting life of the soul. But there comes a time when we can remember the good, not just the pain. There comes a time when the voice on the wind is a comfort and not a trial. There comes a time when we find it in ourselves to believe again in hope and life moves forwards.
Grief hurts. There is no shame in missing the one we love, for we want them with us and not out in the Universe, scattered throughout the cosmos. But grief is not eternal. We are eternal and of the Divine, and when we lose our bodies, we gain the universe.
We are not lost. We are not forgotten. And our souls will shine again in the eyes of children to come.
When do people get souls? At conception? Quickening? Birth? Some completely different point?
I do not believe that souls are given and done. We are not given a quantity of soul to never again change. Souls grow, accrete, change. We can grow our souls, if we are willing.
How does a soul grow? Through opening ourselves to other people and loving them. It shrinks when we close ourselves off and refuse to care for others. To love, to be open, is to open ourselves to pain. It is a risk, and a risk that is bound to cause pain at some point. There is no love without pain. But there is also no growth without love, regardless of the cost.
What good is a great soul, if it leads to pain? It can also lead to joy. When we close ourselves off so our soul cannot grow, we block off enjoyment of other people. We stop growing, stop caring. And we starve ourselves and the Divine.
When we grow our soul, we grow the Universe. We grow each other, and growth leads to growth. If we can grow our souls great enough, we can change the world.
Questions:
What does it mean to have a great soul? What does it cost?
Do you allow your soul to grow? Or do you try to keep it safe?
How can a great soul change the world?
It is hard, to love. It is worse to love and lose. And yet, if we do not love, if we armor ourselves against caring, we lose completely.
Love is absolute. We want to treasure the person we love, care for them. Protect them.
And yet, the Divine only lends us those we love for a time. We cannot hold them, we cannot force them to stay. We love, but we do not control. We are each a piece of the Divine, separate for a time as individual beings, then drawn back together into one great Whole.
But what we love is the individual. The Divine is too abstract, too big. We attach to individuals, and then we lose them. Be it a fight, a death, a moving away, or a hundred other things, we cannot hold to those we love forever.
Treasure those you love. Hold them close without stifling them. Celebrate them often. Because we are only granted those we love for a time. And then they leave, and we must go on.
So it’s hard enough to know what to do when you find enlightenment. But how do you find it in the first place?
There’s no easy answer. It’s not waiting past a specific ritual, a proper way of life, or anything else like that. It’s something that grows from action, from thought, from changing the way your mind thinks. It’s a massive change, but it comes from the little things.
So how do you find enlightenment, and what does it mean? I don’t know. I have discovered pieces of it in the past, but never given to me as a gift entire, with a handy map to lead others to what I’ve found. If such a map exists, I don’t have it - and I doubt it exists. We are far too individual for one map to serve all.
What I do know is, enlightenment comes from the small things. It is looking into the eyes of a beloved and realizing that, yes, this person IS Divine. And so are you. It comes from looking at a flower and seeing all that has come before to make that flower, and that it is merely an ephemeral link between the past and the future - but while it exists, it is the plant’s whole focus. That time itself is like that - we stand at that precious second between the past and the future, and we create the future with every step.
Enlightenment is sharing that future with everyone, and living in such a way. Open your eyes. Share your future.
Questions:
What future do you want? Do you want it for everyone?
What moments have brought you enlightenment? How did they feel?
What do you cling to that stands in your way? Why?
Enlightenment. It’s something that’s a natural craving in the human mind, though we view it in different ways. And we think that if we just get *the* answer, everything will suddenly make sense and be clear.
And it just doesn’t happen that way. We wish it would, but it doesn’t. Enlightenment doesn’t strike out of the blue, change your life, and then everything’s different. But enlightenment doesn’t get rid of dirty dishes and irritating co-workers. It changes your perspective, but it doesn’t change the world.
And even more importantly, it’s not a case of flipping a switch and you’re enlightened. You can’t just take what insight you get, if you get any, and expect it to be done. It’s a case of constant change and constant deepening of what it is you’ve perceived. You can’t ever be done with it. There’s no one answer, no ending. It’s a journey that constantly spirals onward, and there’s always more to find.
Enlightenment isn’t finding the answer. It’s finding a way of living that incorporates the questions.
Questions:
What do you look for with the concept of enlightenment?
What do you expect to change with insight? Why?
How do you incorporate changes in worldview with a life that continues as it did the day before?
As humans, we long for connection. Sometimes we connect with other people. Sometimes we connect with animals. When one of those animals is our pet, the connection is deeper and stronger.
Our pets are part of our family, part of our lives. We love them, and it hurts when we lose them. Our hearts are broad enough for many loves, but the more we love, the more we may lose what it is that we love.
That doesn’t mean we should stop loving. Our pets are part of our lives, and having them enriches us. But that doesn’t make loving them easy. And it doesn’t make losing them easy, either. Love is a constant process of letting go and losing as much as it is taking hold and grasping.
Love your pets. Love those that share their lives with you. And when it comes time? Let them go, and know they go back to the Universe. We never owned them. We just had them to love and care for for a time.
Questions:
Do you have pets? Why or why not?
What does it mean to love something you know will live a far shorter life than you?
How can we balance love with the realities of loss?
Jealousy is another emotion that’s often considered “dark”. We’re supposed to be jealous only when it’s culturally appropriate, and even then, as little as possible.
But what is appropriate, and what isn’t? It isn’t as simple as saying that one can never be jealous. Emotions can be managed, but not by lying about them. It’s a natural reaction to be irritated when something we want to keep to ourselves is shared or threatened to be shared.
The real question is, over what things do we have the right to control them? It is a natural feeling for a mother to feel jealous when her child reaches for someone else, but most people agree that children exploring and having more people to care for them is a good thing. That doesn’t change the emotion. What’s threatened, or feels threatened, is that exclusive bond.
A more “acceptable” jealousy is that of one’s relationship partner. Even then, though, there needs to be reason and care. The ground rules need to be set to begin with. Then, as long as things are happening inside those rules, jealousy is something that needs to be examined closely. Are you being reasonable? Are you trying to take something you have no right to? We cannot own other people. All we can control is our own actions - and if the other person’s actions seem to cross our boundaries, we need to leave.
It is reasonable to want to hold things to yourself. But it isn’t always reasonable to act on it. Just because we are jealous, that is not a call to action. Just because we want to control someone doesn’t mean we should. There needs to be care and reason implemented in how we respond to our emotions, and jealousy is one we must be most careful with. Because we cannot control other people. We can only control ourselves.
Questions:
What situations make you jealous? How do you respond?
How do you feel when other people are jealous of you?
When do you think jealousy is justified? When isn’t it? Why?
Bumps in the night. The rattling of a tree branch against the window. We all know the fears, great and small, that keep us awake when we should be sleeping and distracted when we mean to concentrate.
What does it mean to fear? Fear is usually seen as a bad thing, but we also crave it. We find terrifying stories to tell each other, terrifying things to do. Things that we can fear and conquer, leaving us the victor.
But not all fears are conquerable. We can survive the roller coaster and walk out of the horror movie, but life itself doesn’t have credits where everyone gets up at the end, and it doesn’t ride along a predictable track where you get off the coaster when you’re done. It just keeps going. And fears that are perfectly handleable on their own can grow larger and larger until they eat you whole.
So what do we do? It is easy to say to simply not fear. But it’s unrealistic. Fear is a native sense of danger-awareness. To cripple that feeling would be dangerous. So when we have fear, what do we do about it?
We need to accept our fears. They make us human and show us our limitations. They are not the enemy - they point to the enemy. When our fears have no basis, then we must work to remove our fear. But when fear has a reasonable basis, the thing to attack is what is causing the fear, not the fear itself. To remove the danger system because it is functioning is counterproductive, after all.
Fear isn’t a bad thing. It’s a warning. What we need to do is face what it is that we fear and decide if it’s a reasonable fear or not.
And if it’s reasonable? Fix the problem. And if you can’t do that, if it’s reasonable - run!
Questions:
What kinds of things do you fear? Why?
When is fear reasonable? When isn’t it?
Why is fear a necessity of life?
Comedy. It’s often viewed as the opposite of what is serious, the opposite of what’s important. But comedy is a critical part of what we are.
To laugh at our own follies is what gives us perspective and comfort when things are difficult. We see the world differently when we can laugh at ourselves. When we cling to what is serious, refusing to admit to laughter, we shut off a large part of what makes our lives tolerable.
That’s not to say that we should laugh at people in pain, or otherwise in need. We should not punish those that are less fortunate with jeering. No, I speak of laughing with, not laughing at. Finding the comedy in our own situations and celebrating it, because without that comedy, life becomes thin and boring.
How can we find the humor in life when all seems dark and difficult? It takes practice. We have to look for it at first. But when we grow accustomed to finding humor in the difficult times, that which is difficult becomes easier and less painful.
Questions:
How do you find humor in life?
Why does humor make such a difference?
Is there a way to make humor out of a bad situation? How?
One of the prime duties of FlameKeeping is to improve the Universe. Of course, at the moment we’re rather limited in what parts of the universe we can reach, so practically, it’s a call to improve our world. Our society. But what does that mean, practically?
It means we cannot disengage. It’s easy to say “this is not my problem” and step away. It’s easy to say that what we do doesn’t matter, because there are so many people that surely someone else will pick up the slack. We are busy, after all. We have so many things to do. Surely it doesn’t matter that we don’t recycle/vote/turn off lights/take the bus/look out for our neighbors/whatever.
Only problem is, we’re ALL doing it. If one or two people coast, it’s not a big deal. But we all coast to some extent. One person is adamant about voting issues, but doesn’t look to their own community to help solve problems. Another cares for the people around them, but throws away an astounding amount of waste that they don’t need to. Etc. (and in no way am I excluding myself from this!)
So what can we do? Clearly, none of us is perfect, and no one can do everything perfectly. But we can do a little more than we do, and then maybe a little more than that. We can stop assuming someone else will do things. We can look at our heroes as people to emulate, not impossible saints that we simply admire from afar.
We can be heroes to those around us, if we reach out and try. And if we try hard enough? We can be heroes to ourselves.
Questions
What have you done that’s heroic? What would you like to do?
How do you improve the world around you? What don’t you do?
How can you view the people around you as potential heroes, and nurture their heroism as well?
We live in a society that’s on the go. There’s always something more to do, something else to cram into our limited hours. We short ourselves on sleep and relaxation to get things done. Even our games can be made to schedule one more thing into our lives that we feel we must rush to.
But why do we rush so much? Do we need to get done all of the things we push on ourselves? Probably not.
While some things are critical (basic safety, our health, keeping our families fed and housed), some things aren’t. When we start organizing our day around recreational activities that only give us more stress, we’ve forgotten the point of relaxing. When we try to shove as many “relaxing activities” into a day as possible, to the point that we never actually enjoy them, we’ve forgotten the purpose of relaxing.
It’s easy to believe we need to get things done. Our culture is based in a long tradition of getting work done, and that idle hands are a bad thing. We want to keep going and going. But we can’t. And when we don’t need to, forcing ourselves to keep going beyond the point of collapse only hurts us.
We’re allowed to be idle. There is nothing wrong with taking time to think, to relax, to introspect. We cannot spend all our time this way, but we should spend some. We need to replenish ourselves, and that cannot be done when we are rushing from one activity to the next. Even if it needs to be scheduled in, we need to give ourselves time to be ourselves. Because if we don’t, the cost is much higher than the cost of whatever it is we neglect to do in nurturing ourselves.
Questions:
What do you do that’s “you time”? Does it relax you?
Do you schedule such time for yourself? Or have it regularly without a schedule?
What happens to you when you don’t try to find this time? Do you like what you see?
There comes a time in everyone’s life when they just feel empty. You want something, but you don’t know what. Life isn’t what you want it to be, but were you asked what to change to make it better, there aren’t any words. What do you do when you find this place?
Clearly, I’m assuming here we’re not talking about depression. If it’s full depression (and the symptoms are VERY similar!), go to a doctor. But sometimes you just feel that way for a little while, or it comes and goes when you stop to think. The answer isn’t to avoid stopping and thinking, though, even though that seems like the easy answer.
Sometimes you just need to take a step back and look at what you do have. It’s easy to feel overloaded and like you’re using all your life for other people, and there’s nothing left for yourself. And sometimes we spend our flame too freely and forget that we need to nurture ourselves, too. We need to look at what we enjoy for ourselves and take time to do that. To read a book, or make a craft, or take a run - whatever you enjoy just for you.
That emptiness can expand until it eats up your life, if you avoid it or ignore it. There’s always something else that needs doing, someone else that needs caring for, one more thing on the to-do list. I keep turning myself into a workaholic when I’m not careful - and while I love writing, it is WORK and it takes a lot out of me. It isn’t rejuvenating. Reading other people’s fiction and escaping to a different world is (at least when it’s well-written). And I need to remember to take time out to read - not for work, not for some purpose, but just to nurture my soul. We all need to nurture our souls sometimes.
Questions:
What do you do to nurture your soul?
How often do you actually remember to do it? Or is it something that’s more in concept than in actuality?
Do you think you do soul-nurturing activities often enough?
There are many kinds of pain. Here I’m talking about the physical kind.
We all end up in pain sometimes. We stub our toes, something’s dropped on our foot, maybe even a broken bone. But such pain is temporary. It hurts a lot then, but you can see an end to it. But sometimes there’s pain that isn’t temporary. Sometimes it’s better and sometimes it’s worse, but it’s pain that won’t go away. That kind of pain saps at the strength, at faith, at everything.
So how do you live and keep faith when you ache? It’s hard. It’s easy to get mad at the world and the gods for letting this happen to you. It seems unfair. And it’s true - it isn’t fair. But reality often isn’t fair.
So how do you cope? How do you hold faith when everything hurts?
Part of it is simply accepting. Yes, it hurts. Yes, it’s not fair. It’s miserable. But that doesn’t mean life is miserable. There’s life beyond the pain, if you can find it. You have to focus outside the pain, even though it’s hard. You have to seek out and cherish the things that make life wonderful.
I’ve been in a lot of pain lately because of my eye problem. And sometimes it’s really hard. But I have a child that needs me, and when I cuddle him I see all the love in the universe. There are problems in my life. But there’s also life to cherish, and I can’t forget that. I haven’t been abandoned by the Divine. Nor have I abandoned the Divine. I just have another obstacle to get through to find the Divine I know is there.
Questions:
How do you cope with pain? Why?
How do you find reason to keep going even when you hurt?
How can you find the Divine even past the pain?
Sometimes, no matter how much one plans and tries to take care of things, one’s life falls apart. Keeping up with all one’s responsibilities becomes impossible, and all you can do is keep up with what’s absolutely crucial and let everything else go.
It’s hard when that happens. It’s hard to not feel like a failure or to have guilt for the things you let go. But at the same time, we all go through times like this. No amount of faith or planning or anything else can keep reality from intruding. What’s important is that when it falls apart, you put it back together.
As I’m sure people have noticed, this blog went silent for a while. My life went sideways, and it’s taken me some time to get back on my feet. But now that I am getting back together, I’m picking up the pieces, including this blog. Because it’s okay to let things go for a while, but not to let them go forever.
It’s hard, when everything’s falling apart, to believe in things. I knew the universe was there, of course. It’s hard to miss. But it’s also hard to feel connected and loved when my own body started to betray me. It’s easy to believe when things are good. It’s harder, but more meaningful, to believe when things are falling apart and you want to hate everything outside yourself for not hurting like you do.
We are all part of the Divine Universe - even when things fall apart. We might feel separated, but there is no separation from all that is. And when we start to put things back together, we can feel that connection again. Sometimes there’s nothing to do but take that connection on faith. But when we find ourselves again, we find that connection, too. It’s something you have to search for, just like putting things back together is something you have to do on purpose. The world doesn’t just stop and put you back together for you. You have to do it yourself.
Questions:
How do you respond when it all falls apart? How do you put yourself back together?
How do you find faith when everything’s falling apart?
Why is faith most important when it’s hardest to find?
I am a Temple
My feet go down to the roots of the earth
My hands hold up the stars
My heart is the twinned Flame of the Divine
Dark and Light
Obsidian and Gold
Creation flows through me
As I flow through creation
I am a Temple of the Divine
I anchor creation
I hold back uncreation
I am sacred
And so are you.
Once, in Egypt, temples were built to mirror creation. They went down to the groundwater and were positioned in line with the stars.
We can be these temples. Not literally, of course, or we would never move and our feet would be buried in water. But we can anchor creation through ourselves, and live as forces for goodness and proper living. We can let the Divine flow through us as we flow through the Divine.
This is not an easy task. It is a call to action, to be the world we wish to see. To act for justice and rightness in the world. It is a call to fix what we see is wrong, not to stand aside. We can be temples. We can anchor the Divine in this world.
The Egyptian term for this is ma’at. FlameKeepers refer to it as Improving the Universe. By any language, it is a call to be that which we wish to see in the world around us.
Questions:
How are you a temple?
What does it mean to let the Divine flow through you? Do you do it?
How do you bring about creation? Are you aligned with the world around you? Do you anchor the world against that which is wrong?
We are all gateways for each other to the Divine. I allow you into the Divine through me, and you allow me into the Divine through you.
It is easy to see ourselves as separate, individual. This god comes to me and not to you, that one comes to you and not to me. We are separate. But if I open my heart, and open my soul, I become a gateway for the gods into the world of humanity.
This is not self-abnegation. It isn’t destroying the self to serve. It is opening the self and being more. It is finding the power inside yourself to open, even knowing that it will lead to hurt. Our souls are flowers, and a flower can only live if it unfurls. We can hold tight to what we are, petals curled over our tender innards, and never let anything near them. Or we can open to the sun and those that pass by, and I can enrich you, and you can enrich me.
It’s easy to deny, to curl ourselves into balls on our stems and hold what we have for ourselves. But it is the nature of a flower to share. When we hold to ourselves, we rob ourselves and others of what we can be.
Open to the sun, and let the world in.
Questions:
Do you keep yourself contained, or do you allow yourself to be open?
What is the risk of being open? What is the benefit?
How are you a gateway for the Divine?
Humans make laws, and then they break them. People frequently say that the punishment given is insufficient or even too much – especially too much in the case of a death sentence.
The purpose of a punishment is threefold, which are most simply described as Revenge, Recompense and Deterrence.
The three principles need to balance, as closely and fairly as possible in every case but what guides should we look at when enforcing our rules? (I’m assuming that none of my readers are judges or otherwise enforcing law directly, but the same principles apply to smaller groups rule sets where judgment requires more finesse.)
When looking at deterrence and revenge, the punishment needs to let people know what they are facing and ensure that they do not feel that “its worth the chance”. It’s easy to go overboard and hand out an excessive punishment regardless of the severity of a crime simply to deter and gain revenge.
Recompense therefore becomes key – what is fair? The punishment for theft should attempt to ensure that the person stolen from gets their goods returned if possible, but how to you repay someone for the damage they suffered in an attack?
Care must be taken to be moderate, which is why it is always a Flame-Keeper’s responsibility to judge rather than blindly seek revenge. Once society says a person has been rehabilitated we must accept them back into society instead of attempting to extend their punishment. This does not mean we forget to think, of course: one does not give a former thief one’s wallet and walk away! Still, if we do not allow a person to rejoin society, we stifle rehabilitation and encourage more lawbreaking.
Questions:
Do I seek to punish excessively? Do I seek a just punishment?
Do I evade my responsibility to judge? Do I seek to continue punishment by refusal to associate?
Am I willing to take responsibility for my own law-breaking, be those societal laws or smaller group mores?
I’ve recently made a big thing of social rules (”laws”) and punishment. However there is another social contract that we need to accept.
We have to share the work of maintaining our society, especially in the small areas. This is easy - but I often overlook it, and end up forcing others to do my share of the work. This is both unfair and against the Flames of the other people.
In a small, shared house there are a number of jobs that need to be done, and some have to be your responsibility. In a town or village people are needed for social committees and to look after children (and endless other tasks). You may not have time to take part in everything, but you should be able to say “I do THIS for my community.”
I work 7 and a half hours then go home and collapse, and my own community contributions are often limited to those I can arrange through work time - but taking an active role in organizing or participating in just those events helps your bright flame AND the flames of those around you.
Questions
Do I contribute to my home? Do I often allow myself to let the flames of those I live with suffer from my laziness?
Do I contribute to my community? Do I allow myself to be open to helping my neighbors?
What are the costs incurred when I don’t do my fair share?
When 2 people are in the same place working on the same thing they need to co-operate, and so they make agreements about how they will behave. The more people there are the more they need to co-operate and the more force those agreements take.
In a small society the rule may not be explicit but they are present and if broken can result in expulsion from that group. In a larger group the rules must be clearly defined and accepted in order for the group to continue working together. Laws are the backbone of a society, stressing behaviors that MUST not be allowed for the society to function.
As Flame-Keepers we have responsibilities to our groups, adhering to the rules that allow our societies to function and develop. We do not follow those rules blindly – understanding WHY a rule is in place is important, and making value judgments may well be necessary.
When we are developing new rules we need to ensure that they are consistent with those already in place. Without consistency a person can be punished multiple times for the same wrong doing or slip through a gap between those rules.
Questions:
Do I assault society? Do I take part in behavior that damages the groups of people around me? Why?
Do I follow blindly? Do I obey a law without ever asking if it is just or needed?
Do I insist on arbitrary justice? Do I wish to use the rules as a weapon against people who have wronged me? Why?