Finding a way to express what is often inexpressable is like finding a way to sing whilst swallowing sloppy clay.
There are too few words to express what might be summed up (insufficiently at best) as "the divine".
Words are usually loaded. They carry too many hidden meanings, too many past associations, and not all of them positive. They're a constraint I must deal with, however, if I want to try to give expression to my experience and help you give expression to yours.
So, feel free to insert your own words to replace mine, when I refer to things like "the divine", or "spiritual", or "essence", or any other word I try to use in a lame attempt at expressing what is best known only through lived experience, and through something far more profound than words can express.
I can give you some examples of what I mean...and these are best expressed through memories. Witnessing or hearing about spontaneous acts of deep kindness towards total strangers, seeing a dancer or musician on stage who has captivated an audience, hearing a baby laugh for the first time, hearing a crowd of fans erupt in a joyful cheer all at once in a stadium, a feeling of total presence when you sense neither past nor future but only the exact moment all at once, standing in nature and feeling completely connected. The sense of awe in these moments. I can only attempt to express the divine spark of wonder at life, in an essence that connects us all, in these experiences.
Whilst reading these pages, please keep your sceptical mind with you at all times. Let her know she is welcome, and that you trust her to protect you. She has been essential for your own safety and protection throughout your life and for humanity over the generations. She has been given that role with good reason.
Questioning is the only way we can hope to find more answers. Questioning is what helps humanity grow. Science is all about questioning, and we need science. We moved out of the Dark Ages and into the Age of Reason or Age of Enlightenment only through this questioning and scepticism. From this we developed so much more understanding of our world, our solar system, and life itself. We developed modern medicine so that we may live longer, and have a chance to grow from knowledge to wisdom. Through questioning the invisible and unseen, we discovered bacteria. From this, our understanding of disease and how to help humans live longer lives grew exponencially. Now it's time to question more of the unseen.
We have been distrustful of anything that hints as esoterical ever since the Age of Reason. And with good reason, for we have been tricked and mistreated as human beings, with limited knowledge of the world, and under the authority of those who claimed a knowledge of the divine. World religions, even today, have abandoned or shunned some of their own for questioning, or finding themselves and their experience of truth outside the barricades these religions hold dear.
I do not follow any religion. That is not to say, I am without a beliefs, but I do not hold my beliefs stuck in any system I can clearly identify with a name. I allow my mind the importance of expansion, over restriction. I am also, however, a product of my time and place on this earth, and of my westernised culture.
I am living on sacred Australian aboriginal land, home to the Wadawarrung ancestors of thousands of years, who had spiritual beliefs far more embedded in culture and earth and the surrounding environment than I will ever fully comprehend as a white woman, living on stolen land.
I have only limited understanding of even my own experiences and my own spirit and even less of my own culture.
Whilst I respect the divine nature of all spiritual beliefs, I am a great lover of science and discovery. Science is built on the concept of questioning all that can be felt or experienced through the senses. And I eagerly await science to give me a rational explanation for all that I experience through mine, as a medium.
I'm not going to claim to be an expert in anything esoterical or paranormal, or supernatural or beyond the physical senses, even though I wish I could offer you that wisdom in these times of uncertainty and questioning. Rather, I invite you to come with me on a journey as I share what I have experienced, and through my attempts at constructing meaning in my mind through those experiences, as well as through reading and research, through philosophical understanding, through finding a sense of what resonates as truth for me.
I invite you to share your own experience, your own cultural understandings, to find the rational in the irrational, to sing your own song, and find your own meaning in what I share, or better still through your own experiences. I invite you to question. I do not in any way advocate for following blindly any belief which does not hold true for you and your own experience or culture. But I do invite you to be open, and to recognise what is your own experience, over what you may have been told to believe if it did not resonate with you, even if you wanted it to be true.
There is only one thing which I find no place for in the realm of new understanding and the seeking of truth, especially where it relates to the divine, or the spiritual, or the senses beyond our understanding. I find no place for fear. Where there is fear, there is resistance to understanding. Where there is fear, there is disrespect and bigotry and a lack of connection with humanity. Where there is fear, there is no love. And where there is no love, I believe there is a massive separation from the divine, from the spark that makes us who we are, as living beings, sharing this space and time, together.
(image by ryan searle)