Spiritual Enlightenment

Personally, I make no claims, representations, suggestions, or any other type of endorsement that suggests I am leader in mystical, religious, or enlightened philosophical thinking.

I’m no thought leader.

Not a guru, not much more than a low-brow mystic, and that’s dubious at best.

Still, when I get certain questions, over and over, I’ve found that an attempt at wrestling the answers to the page helps. Helps me, and then, supposedly, might help others. These are my struggles, and then? The answers I found.

Borne out of an idea from the most recent synodic passages of the planet Mercury, relative to our position on Earth? I thought about this as a way to approach some of the questions about Spiritual Enlightenment. I mentioned that this last Mercury in Retrograde was an excellent time for collection, which, eventually would be followed by collation, and finally, curation.

Further refining the notation of the collection, then collation, and finally, the curation of the materials?

I have a number of sacred texts. I prefer, and I carry on my phone, a King James Bible. Not because I’m particular religious or that I believe in it, but as I happen across a bible quote, I’ll look it up in my copy. See what it says, for real. I mentioned this, in passing, and the response was about the majesty of the language, while, in my mind, it’s blatantly bias, by northern European males, for northern European males — a definite direction, I’m sure.

But I also carry a copy — a King James-like translation — of the Koran. Again, more as a point of reference rather than any belief system.

Back that up, though, I prefer Marcus Aurelius in various translations and the complete works of Shakespeare, as far more entertaining, and better source for that “Spiritual Enlightenment” crap.

For me, I get more from the plays than from the heady esoteric texts and quasi-religious tracts.

This is about collecting sources, and that’s collecting sources that matter. I have three or four versions of Marcus Aurelius Meditations, as the material can very from translation to translation. Not always a lot, but sometimes the nuances matter.

Recently, I was conversing with a fishing buddy, as he had some nasty legal crap unfolding. I mentioned Camus’s “The Myth of Sisyphus,” and my buddy responded with a description of a sculpture in New York (?) of a guy rolling that rock up the hill, “That Sisyphus?”

Sisyphus

Between Camus and his existentialism, folding in a healthy dose of elder stoics? Pop a little lightweight Lutheran on top, just for a leavening agent?

What I do is collect material. I don’t have single path, but to hear a young child’s laughter, the excitement of kid over some new discovery? Sheer, untainted, unmitigated, unbridled joy? That’s the voice of the divine, however one wants to define it.

At the rock shop in Austin, the other afternoon, there was a kid, my best guess? Between 1 and 2 years old. A father or parental-like figure was loosely shepherding the child. With the genuine innocence of youth, the kid wandered right on into the reader’s cubby, while I was busy, the child unconcerned, joyfully curious. The overseer mumbled an apology then directed the kid elsewhere. Just meant that the child didn’t perceive me or the client as “dangerous.” (We weren’t.)

Not the first time, but it certainly punctuated the thought, that little person, feeling the good vibes of the shop, the healing energies of the crystals, or just footloose and free in a space with bright, sparkly objects at eye level, not more than two feet off the ground?

That joy, that’s the juice. That the evidence of something spiritual. Therein is the source.

That’s my pathway, as it looks, this morning. It can change. I can find, and I often do, a new and exciting text that is The One — the one that makes it all amazingly make sense, the one that ties all of it together, the one that supersedes all previous esthetic, spiritual, and metaphysical tomes.

Near the onset of this career, there were three books that have continued to shape my own thinking. One was an astrology text, and to paraphrase? “Try it for yourself and see what it means.”

Another tiny press offering, I finally realized that astrology was nothing more than language.

Eventually, rereading a favorite science fiction cyberpunk novel? The root word for “spirit,” from Greek, and possibly older languages? Means “breath,” and by extension, voice.

It is a path, but more, it is a pathway. Each one is individual.

No two are alike.

The way I recall what I’ve done, and how I got here? That applies at this moment. With bulging shelves overflowing with esoteric texts, popular fiction, and weird academic references? What I just did was highlight a couple of waypoints in my current journey.

There are whole branches of Eastern Mysticism and religion left out. Then, too, there’s a certain amount Western Ritual I neglected, but let’s keep this short. High points, and navigational markers is what I start with, and from that, it is up to the individual, and dig far enough back into my online horoscopes, and that becomes evident.

• Secrets from a Stargazer’s Notebook
• Astrologik by Antero Alli
• Snow Crash

the Portable Mercury Retrograde

• Marcus Aurelius
• King James
• Koran (see special note)