Dust

Okay, so I spent a few months in this blog going off on random political rants, and I think now is the time for the spiritual. There's something so fundamental, so base, about me, that settles in my gut more than knowledge, more than instinct. And when I can't feel that, I wind up surrounding myself with lots of projects and people and things that need doing and places that need going, so that I feel like I know what's going on and that I have some sort of control over my life. But when I do feel this "something"... well, it's strange. Because I feel in control, but I feel in control because I've let my control go. Something else is guiding me, and I feel very peaceful about that. When I feel that way, I know what's going to happen, I know who I am, I know things that by all right I should not know.

Within a minute after meeting Michael, back before I knew his name, we were off in a conversation about spirituality. My friend Hans and I used to do a poetry exercise called Exquisite Corpse, where you trade off writing lines to see where you wind up. Our always wound up in spiritual realms, and Hans pointed that out to me, saying that with me, it always came back to God. My friend Dan was helping me move back in Murfreesboro and said suddenly that he didn't think he had understood the extent of my spirituality until he took a look at my books. Dan was an atheist, but I don't think he looked on me in a condescending manner once he realized that base part of who I am. After Raul killed himself and I lost my faith in God, Elizabeth, another atheist friend (at the time, at any rate) made me promise to go to church and find my faith again because she said I could not be an atheist and still be Kati.

So is it a wonder that today, the dawn of the Lenten Season that I am contemplating life and death, spiritual life and spiritual death, and suffering, and denial, and accusations and fear and hate, and forty days in the desert? This is the Season of Death. I've studied other religions, but I haven't yet come across another religion where the faithful kill their god every year. And not just kill him, but torture him first and call him a liar and kill him in a most gruesome way. And then he rises again, on his own without our help, and forgives us even before we ask it. And we start out this whole season with a reminder that we are dust, and will return to dust. I think it says a lot about us that we do this every year, but honestly, I think it says more when people do it without contemplating what they are doing.

To me, this is a celebration of the worst of our parts--the worst things that we do to each other--and our expectations that what we do will always be understood, will always be forgiven. To me, this is a celebration of the best of our ideals--that we will be humble and charitable and loving and open and honest and forgiving to others, even those who have been the worst to us. To me, this is a reminder that we are the one, but we should never cease to strive to be the other. To me, this is a reminder that life is short, and yes, we will make horrible mistakes at times, but that good will still come and by God we've got to keep pushing if we want to accomplish anything.

Years after having realized that I'm hypoglycemic, and talking with doctors and finally figuring out more or less how to keep going without those infuriatingly uncomfortable times where I get all shaky and can't think straight, I feel called over and over again to hold a prolonged fast, to wait out the discomfort, to keep going through the weakness, to suffer in the physical so that I can find what's waiting for me on the other side. And I'm afraid. I'm scared to try it while there are people around me depending on me to be responsible for things. I'm afraid I'll be to weak to be both a spiritual person fasting, and a regular person working. I've been afraid to try this for years, always thinking that I need to set some time aside so that no one needs me, and then just do this. But I never set that time aside.

I feel called to the desert. It's a very strong call, very base within me. This is how I know in my gut without knowing in my head or on paper where I will find myself this fall. I feel called to leave my fear behind and see... what I am meant to do, and what I am meant to be.