Not having my weekly long drive has made it challenging to enter deep meditative and contemplative states. I learned early in my driving history to slip into a mild meditative state to anticipate other drivers and road hazards to avoid them, this had a secondary effect of giving me the ability to meditate and balance while driving. With the recent life changes of my son becoming a man and not traveling for custodial weekends, and now the current health crisis, my driving has all but stopped other then the occasional drive to get the engine moving and battery charged again. I have had to seek alternative methods to try and regain that state. I have never been as successful outside my car. In recent months I have discovered that I can slip into a similar state while in the shower. This shower meditation may not be as deep or as lengthy as my driving meditations were, but I have been able to achieve some similar results.

This morning during my shower meditation, I was contemplating the conflict of religion and spirituality. I came to an understanding that spiritual growth mirrors that of physical growth. As infants we come into this world as a blank slate, as we grow we learn. The early years of our lives we attend school, we are told how to do things, how things work, and given all the basic tools we will need to be successful adults. After school and when society considers us adults we use the tools we were given to start our own journey. The growth of the soul is much the same. I realized this morning that Christianity and the church are like the school for the youth. It teaches only the basics. You are given one deity to honor and worship. You have a ritual leader set up the sacred space and lead the service. There is very little interaction, other than singing, which is a way of raising energy. Since Christianity is a relatively young religion, it took elements of all older spirituality traditions and condensed it into a simplified format to be easier for those with "young souls" to have a foundation to start from. As the soul grows and evolves and learns the many [and often contradictory] layers behind Christianity, like a teenager, there is rebellion. The need to separate from those "child-like" behaviors and beliefs, the desire to act and be more adult like. This can be a peaceful transition or a tumultuous one. This can result in the practitioner sometime performing rituals or rites "in defiance of" religion, sometimes even with the intent to shock or disturb. This can be a very dangerous time for the practitioner and those around them. Once the soul reaches "adulthood" it can look back and accept the lessons of Christianity, reconcile its rebelliousness, and move forward. The older soul can look at those still in the church and understand that they are just like excited children wanting to share all they learned in school with everyone they meet. Knowledge is empowering and emboldening, just like children it gives a sense of pride, that to parents can at times try their patients. But we must be compassionate and understand their excitement for what it is.

I feel that some how during this isolation the many day and nights in quietly contemplation, reconciling all the major changes and trials that happened in the last 23 months, I feel my soul has reached it's adulthood. I see things spiritually from a whole new view point. I admit, my spiritual adolescence was a bit tumultuous. I felt betrayed by the church for it's views against LGBTQ individuals. I felt enraged by all the Pagan traditions it "assimilated" trying to convert the masses. I was annoyed by the how the church seemed to reject knowledge and deter growth. In my early Wicca years I rejected anything having to do with Angels or Demons in ritual as I felt they were constructs of the church. Along my Wiccan journey that aggression has subsided, I can now look at the church from a different perspective. Like the cycle of life, so is the cycle of the soul, some mature faster than others. Now more then ever, with powers trying to divide us, we cannot get caught up in the religious battle for who's right who's wrong ... it is not about that. We must accept that everything has a time and place and that some paths are not meant for everyone to walk. To keep the masses and young safe they must travel together in a group, but there must be those scouting out looking ahead, behind, around ... looking for and driving off dangers, those scouting for sustenance, and those leading ahead making the path for the young ones. As Witches we are those scouts. We exist to keep the young protected. At times it is appropriate to scold and discipline them when they get out of line, but we are ultimately their protectors, we must be ever mindful of this. We are the ones who can seek out and drive off the demons both real and manifest from the collective fear or focused intent of harm of others. We seek the sustenance of knowledge and enlightenment that feeds our souls. We scout into the unknown making new paths for others to follow. Our path is not for everyone, our path demands a focus and awareness that not all can grasp, but without us, the others would fall into darkness. Everything has a time and place, everyone has a role to play in the bigger picture.