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spirituality
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2020-09-21
The Covid-19 pandemic tests everyone's spiritual wellbeing, atheists and believers alike
When looking at the pandemic, regardless of one’s religious beliefs, or lack thereof, nearly everyone’s spiritual wellbeing has been tested. On one hand, spiritual struggle has been linked to higher mortality rates as well as depression. On the other, however, proper spiritual care has been shown to help people get through a rough time. Chaplains play a major role for those who are sick or injured. Simply because someone does not identify with organized religion does not mean they can be provided with spiritual care. -
2021-04-22
Uncertainty, Spirituality, and the Inevitability of Change #REL101
I foolishly thought that it would be easy to write this post. I didn’t anticipate struggling so much with finding the right words to explain the impact the last year of pandemic life has had on me, but I’ve deleted about a hundred paragraphs of rambling, existential stream of consciousness nonsense about cherishing the small moments and growing in the face of adversity because it is surprisingly hard to be concise about your feelings on an event you’re still living through. I’m starting to think that maybe doing so is impossible, so instead of falling into cliche and flowery prose, I want to just be blunt. I haven’t seen my family in two years. My grandmother has dementia and in that time it has worsened exponentially. On a weekly basis, I have a call with my mom that starts with a debrief on whatever the newest updates in her condition are and ends with a plea to visit as soon as I feel comfortable traveling. Every day, I go into my retail job and tell them no, I don’t have symptoms or live with anyone with symptoms while waiting for the beep of a thermometer meant to ensure I don’t have a fever. I breathe through two layers of fabric, disinfect my work area between transactions, and field rants about restrictive mask mandates for six hours a day, then come home and begin the process of undressing, banishing my clothes to the washer, and trying to relax before I have to do it all again. Everything in that paragraph is, to put it nicely, so bleak it hurts. It’s easy to get caught in the feelings of overwhelm that came along with this pandemic and it would be a farce to say that there aren’t days where everything feels like way too much for one person to handle. Surprisingly, though, the thing that has blissfully not survived the most turbulent year of my life is the apathetic, empty cynicism I used to feel. Instead, I feel weirdly hopeful that this is the beginning of massive change both in myself and on a global level. Maybe it’s naive to think that way and maybe it’s just a coping mechanism to help me through the pandemic, but there’s a part of me that thinks that may not even matter because the changes are coming regardless. In the last year, I’ve moved out of Nevada and into a pink house in California with the love of my life. Despite a fraught, stressful prior experience in college, I’ve finally come back to higher education in a way that feels both healthy and exciting. The field of religious studies has reawakened my passion for learning and my ability to grow in academia. I’ve abandoned my skeptical, agnostic views and traded them out for a brand of religiosity that combines self-improvement, magic, and trust in something bigger than myself. I know how that all sounds and if the last sentence has you rolling your eyes reading this, I get it. The last year has been weird, don’t get me wrong. If I told a 20-year-old version of myself that one day we’d be living through the plague of a lifetime, studying religion with hopes of examining cultism, and practicing a version of witchcraft grounded in our ex-Catholic roots, I doubt she would believe me. It admittedly sounds pretty wacky all laid out in plain English like that. Part of what I’ve learned throughout the pandemic, though, is that suspending cynicism, skepticism, and disbelief can sometimes lead you to unexpectedly lovely places. Whether I saw it coming or not, Covid has changed my life in countless ways, just as I’m sure it’s changed the lives of everyone reading these entries. Some changes have been for the worse, certainly, but the things that have changed for the better are what I’m choosing to focus on. I’ve read articles about a reemergence of spirituality amongst young people that make me think others have been having similar ideas and something about that feels good. We’ve spent a lot of time isolated, lonely, and missing a sense of belonging we took for granted before, but there’s reassurance for me in knowing that my experiences aren’t all that different from anyone else’s. That type of community, however it manifests, is (and I hope you’ll forgive this admitted slip into flowery prose) something that the pandemic has taught us we must cherish above everything else because it’s what makes our little human lives worth living. More than anything, whenever this pandemic reaches the time where we split our lives into not just before, but after, I hope we don’t forget that. -
2021-02
My Grandmother Watches Over Me
Beep. Beep. Beep. I open my eyes and stretch. I smack that snooze button. The eagle stars at me. During these Covid-19 days, I’m able to spend time thinking about memories. Eyes close; I see darkness. I walk into my Grandmother’s house. A room has the eagle statue and a large window to see the birds. The eagle stars at me. All of a sudden, I am around family members at my grandmother’s memorial service. Beep. Beep. Beep. I open my eyes and stretch. I smack that dismiss button. The Eagle stars at me. My Grandmother is watching over me. -
2020-12-11
A New Path
During quarantine, another way that I tried to spend my time was reading books that focused on the religion of Wicca as someone that is interested in the practice. In this photo are the two newest books which focus on Paganism and Tarot, mainly an introduction to both as someone just starting back in November. I like to complain that I haven’t read anything this year but forget about the four different books on Wicca and witchcraft in general I’ve found, along with various articles. This ties into an item that “demonstrates something significant about your generation” since the rise of TikTok and quarantine have created the perfect launching pad to spread the word. Before, it was mainly a niche group on Tumblr that needed specific search terms to find. With this growing popularity, much of my time is spent double checking information and making sure that the author is a trusted resource in the community, especially since many authors often leave out the trans and non-binary community because of the stereotype only women can be witches. There is also the need to educate me on close practices like Voodoo and the different types of sages to avoid using the endangered white sage that was illegal for natives until the 1970s. -
2020-09-06
Karmic Retribution
On September 6, 2020, I drove down to Boulder, Colorado to spend the day with a close friend of mine. Wildfires had been raging across the state of Colorado for a few weeks and this day, the reality of the natural disasters was especially apparent. The entire Front Range was shrouded in grey fog of smoke. A bright red sun loomed overhead as ash gently pirouetted down from the sky. The air was thick with the stench of burning forests. And it was hot. It was like something out of a movie. Apocalyptic. Ominous. Foretelling some impending doom. My friend and I started our day with a walk down by the Boulder Creek. It was unusually crowded that day and a majority of the park-goers were not wearing facial coverings. Masks were (and still are) mandatory in busy public places and my friend and I were definitely shocked to see a lack of responsibility among what we thought was a community of informed progressives. We chose to wear our masks, not necessarily because of COVID etiquette, but more so because we were worried about breathing in all the smoke and ash in the air. You could smell the smoke. You could see the smoke. And it was clear to us that we also ran the risk of breathing it in. We never checked the air quality index to verify if the air quality was indeed poor, but we didn’t have to. We both had itchy eyes and scratchy throats and that was evidence enough to wear our masks if we were going to be outside. We made our way around the area, trying to find a place to sit and relax. We passed through a tunnel that ran underneath the road. Spray painted on its walls, in red paint, was “Chief Niwot’s Curse” and “Stolen Landz.” My friend and I both took pictures of the graffiti because it “spoke” to us in a way that art or a well-timed coincidence often does. Our country was birthed in blood and forged in violence. This got us thinking about how the United States might quite literally be “cursed,” so long as Americans collectively refuse to acknowledge that fact that we stole the land from Native Americans. My friend and I found a picnic table and immediately pulled out a Tarot deck to do a reading. Whether or not divination is an accurate reflection of reality, does not matter. The subjective interpretation of a story, (and the symbols therein,) is subjectively real. It’s also fun. And sometimes, it’s scarily accurate. My friend and I brainstormed a theme for our reading and concluded on “the story of 2020.” We shuffled the deck a few times. And then drew. The first two cards we drew at random were Temperance and the Tower, both of which are Major Arcana cards. We interpret the Major Arcana cards as the narrative archetypes, or overarching themes, for our reading. So, in this reading, the overarching themes for 2020 were Temperance and the Tower. According to Golden Art Nouveau Tarot’s explanation, the Temperance card displays “An angel performing a mystical rite to restore spiritual harmony, pouring water from one cup to another.” The Tower card depicts, “A blast from the heavens” that “destroys a tower that seemed unconquerable, its magnificent crown-like dome tumbling to the ground. Two people fall helplessly from the heights. The tower was built with such a forbidding design that it imprisoned them in their own creation, with no easy exit.” Golden Art Nouveau Tarot continues, “Seek liberation on your own, or the universe may give it to you in unexpected ways.” My friend and I saw these cards and immediately locked eyes, sharing a mutual astonishment. Amidst the tumult of 2020 – a global pandemic that changed the way humans socially-interact and go about their daily lives, an urgent call for civil rights, widespread systemic frustration, climate change fueling natural disasters, ideological warfare fueled by misinformation and social media addiction – the themes of destruction and spiritual renewal seemed to bear an eerie resemblance to everything going on in the world. We then drew the King of Cups. The King of Cups “is a steady presence in a turbulent sea.” He is kind, peaceful, keeps his emotions in check, and offers comforting strength in times of trouble. As a king, he is who the people look to for guidance. My friend and I interpreted this as the need to practice detached compassion in order to navigate the waters of 2020. With an upcoming election, the United States is more divided than ever. That division could easily lead people to “drown” in their emotions and “wash away” their civility. The rest of the cards we drew were wands, representing the element of fire. Spiritually, fire is connected with creative energy, action, willpower and ambition. As our home literally “burned” before our eyes, my friend and I thought about the desire for change that seemed to be “fueling” transformation. After our Tarot reading, my friend and I drove up into the mountains. We noticed some Tibetan prayer flags flapping in the wind and pulled over to take a closer look. At a higher elevation, it was even easier to see the smoke settling down below in Boulder Canyon, enveloping the land in this impenetrable haze. We were on top of the world and had a “clear” view of everything. *Photographs taken in Boulder, Colorado boulder, colorado, wildfire, global warming, climate change, destruction, stolen land, chief niwots curse, karma, karmic retribution, cause and effect, tarot, spirituality, intuition, perception, logic, past, present, future