The Sorcerer's World

As an exercise in stalking oneself, I'd like to suggest the following...

Think about your life over the past week. What stands out? In what way do the events that stand out relate to your journey? Are you living your path in how you live your life, or are they separate?

Name one event from the past week that stands out to you and talk about it.

Nice one.. it's very late here now and am going to bed, but will be thinking on this (lately have been thinking on this a lot) and will come back to it.

Living the path... I have come to see that I am the path, so yes, in a sense, I am living the path.
I have always seen myself as more of a "stalker" than a "dreamer", though lately I have begun to question that. I would compare my 'dreaming' to what I thought 'dreaming' was, and of course to others who were 'dreamers', and more often than not, I fell short.
But back to stalking... this last week, and every week since my renal failure, I have been stalking myself, and my death. I am aware of myself every moment, though I do not know "who I am" (*heh*)
Living the path to me means being as aware as I can be. I don't know where I came from, what happens after I die. I threw out beliefs some time ago, and yet I am still here, so some beliefs must have remained. Living the path, being the path, being aware, reminds me every moment that I am alive because of a machine, my life support. To me that sounds rather dramatic, I really don't know what to make of it. All what I had accepted over the years as 'spiritual truths' have faded away with my awareness of death. Now I don't know what I accept or not. 4 hours on a machine, 3 times a week, gives me plenty of time to ponder and wonder. I look at health and healing and wonder whats the difference.
I look at what "kidney failure" may mean esoterically.. and then I throw that out because it's really only a set of beliefs and do I want to settle for more beliefs? And what's so bad about dying anyway?
I had a fascinating experience when I was in hospital; I keep going back to it to try to understand it. Most nights before I got to sleep, I revisit the 'space' I was in then. I found myself walking through a door into a long corridor. As I walked along, I saw doors leading off the sides. I wasn't interested in the doors, so I kept walking along, I wanted to see where the corridor led to. I suddenly became aware that the further I went in, the more I would forget to find my way back. Kind of reminded me a bit of the fairy tale Hansel and Gretle. I didn't have any string to lay down to find the way back. I knew also, in a way that one knows in dreaming, that this was the passage to death. I didn't want to go, I actually feared not finding my way back even though it was very tempting to continue. I realized I had to make a choice, either continue and not find my way back to this 'dream' or else turn back. I also realized I was way to attached to this dream in the form of my son and daughter. I wondered whether that was good or bad, then also realized it didn't really matter, it was what it was and I wanted to carry on with the current dream. So I turned back. Turning back, I also realized that it didn't really matter whether I carried on or turned back. I wonder about that a lot.
As time goes by, the feeling of understanding dreaming and reality, that was sao strong in this experience, slowly fades. However, like other strong experiences I have had in the past, I do remember it, and in a huge way, it has changed my outlook on life (and death). That everything is really a choice is actually quite enormous. And that in the end (so to speak) it really doesn't matter, also is. What does matter to me is being aware and when I leave this dream, to remember it as well as I remember yesterday, in the totality of myself.

Daphne...

Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts. I am really moved by your courage in all of this, for I know it must be difficult in so many ways. You're an inspiration!

Your Dreaming experience with the long corridor was very fascinating to me, since I have had a thing for "doors" for as long as I can remember. And from a different angle, I have dreamed of a similar corridor several times, having the same feelings you described of not being able to find my way back if I went "too far." Sometimes some of the side doors are open or ajar, but I have never been able to see inside those other "rooms."

Also, just had to say it's great that you have been able to drop all beliefs and therefore just walk through the experience with an open mind and heart. That's what I admire about your commentary - particularly your closing sentence, that when you leave this dream you intend to remember it as well as you remember yesterday, in your totality.

Yes. That resonates very deeply with me.

Much love,
D

Thanks, Della! Your "much love" is well received!

You know, it does sometimes scare me in the dark of night when I think about beliefs, especially the "spiritual" ones, and that I don't have any. I would like to have some, I think they are rather comforting, but for the life of me, I cannot find some that are "real" enough. The closest that I can find, are those experiences for which I have no explanation, or are difficult to explain, often because of their utter simplicity. Like the experience of LOVE (and I put that in caps! (heh) I call it LOVE because I couldn't find anything else for it. Was one of those kind of 'out-of-body' expereinces. In 'human-form' I have expereinced both the giving of love and the receiiving of love. Yet these experiences paled compared to that which I expereinced and so it is something I hold up to me to remember and to carry always with me. It is something that I can trust, because it was "real". Strange.. that the out-of-body 'dream' expereince is more real than the in-body 'dream' experience. Makes me wonder.. which is the dream!

Hi Healing Spirit. Nice to meet you! I enjoy reading what you write! Living the path, being the path, being in your heart (like you wrote) yes.. perhaps that's all we have to learn to do.

Hey, daphne...

I know exactly what you mean about the LOVE experience. It's really unfortunate in a way that the English language (and many other languages, for that matter) only have the one word to describe such a wide range of experiences which, ultimately, have very little to do with one another. The humanform "giving & receiving of love" which you describe is certainly a wonderful thing. But that other "level" which you call LOVE is something else altogether - almost like an orgasm of spirit, what shamans call "ecsatsy". It isn't even experienced "in" the body, but almost "in spite of" the body - a freedom of be-ing that is so vast it defies all attempts at defining it.

Re the spiritual beliefs... I think you're probably a LOT better off NOT having any! Seriously. The problem with religious "beliefs" (as opposed to direct experience) is that those beliefs tend to falter when we find ourselves face to face with our death. I saw that happen in my mother before she passed, and I've witnessed it in other people with strong religious beliefs - it all seems to melt away in those final days, leaving the person bereft and fearful... not a way I would want to face my death. I like to think that in the absence of any such beliefs, we are left with our own cohesion - our double, our own projection of self into the infinite. We have no expectations on any other force or being to somehow intervene in our fate, and so we choose our own dream and enter it with our own will, whole and without fear.