DP: Mental Discipline Essay
December 2nd, 2009
Mental Discipline Essay
I am a visual and hands on-learner. Reading is lovely, and I love to read but if the information is to stick in my memory solidly I must do the task with my own two hands. I mentioned in my Two Powers essay the training I was receiving at school to learn discipline during meditation, and I’d like to expand on that a little more.
As a youth, I used to sit in my room, burn incense and meditate to the sounds of nature, or Janis, or the Beatles, and oftentimes Enya. I would let my mind go and let my grasp on all the things that were plaguing me and escape for a while into the calm of meditation. This grew to be especially valuable to me during high school, as my family was becoming more broken and painful. Even though I was upset, I learned to be able to calm myself when I desperately needed to relax. I just let the music take me where it wanted to, and stayed there until I was ready to come back again. What this developed in me was a willingness to surrender my body to my imagination and cultivate creativity. I have always had vivid dreams, some of which have come true in life down to the last detail. I began to accept that there are some things, horrible as they may be, that I cannot change even if I know about them. I began to wonder at my ability to accurately predict these milestone moments in my life, and thought for a while that it had something to do with the ghosts in my house.
What was different about how I used to go about meditation then was that there was only one purpose: to calm me. I never sought the guidance of spirits or Jesus or anyone like that, and though my path workings as a young person took me marvelous places, I did not yet understand their significance. This was during the time I still believed I was Catholic, and couldn’t yet understand why Jesus never had anything to say to me.
For about four years, I attended a Haidong Gumdo class at Salisbury University, which taught me focus, concentration and discipline. The value of martial arts on meditation is invaluable; it teaches stillness of mind while controlling the body. I learned to think of my body as a physical expression of my spirit rather than just a shell my spirit resided in. Unfortunately, I had to transfer to another school and the classes had to stop.
My next serious attempts to improve the control over my meditations occurred when I started attending Towson University’s Theater Program. My life had been filled with turmoil, and crisis’ of faith and the timing could not have been more perfect. It gave me the tools to guide myself into Paganism where my true calling lay. We began each class with standing in a circle and connecting with the earth. We would close our eyes and carefully visualize each detail: our roots going deep into the earth, where we stood in the universe, and being able to feel the people next to and around us. We did this three times a week for an entire semester, and carefully added toning into the mix. By the end of the semester, we were all so intune with each other’s movements that we began to communicate wordlessly about when a tone or meditation should end. Our teacher spoke of the innate ability birds in a flock have to change direction without signal, and that we humans have stifled that ability in ourselves. So, the aim of the class was not only to be able to control our voice, but to maintain intimate knowledge of our own bodies, minds, and the awareness of the spirit of others. Method acting is tough stuff, and there were a couple breakdowns that occurred in people during this process. However, I left that semester with the tools I was lacking from my earlier attempts at path workings and eventually found my home in Cedar Light Grove. It amused me how similar the Two Powers meditation was to what we did in my Theater class.
Since attending Cedarlight, I’ve began to call the Gods and Guides by name because I now know and understand who they are. From the moment they had been revealed, we have been locked tightly ever since. I walk closely with my guides Morrighan, Panther, Bunny, and Raven in all of my path workings and meditations. They guide me and protect me fiercely from things that may harm me needlessly. I have grown familiar with meeting a white hart and several nameless sidhe that accompany me along the way. I have also been able to feel and understand the presence of my Ancestors more.
Over the last six months, I have thrown my entire lot in with Cedarlight Grove, and made many friends among local practitioners of other Pagan faiths who have been enormously helpful to me. I have attended several guided meditations, each one more intriguing than the last. I have also taken up a nightly ritual (sometimes every other night) of meditating at my bedside altar just before sleep. I also greet my altar in the morning, as I know that my loved spirits have residence there. Often meditation before sleep produces fruitful and fascinating dreams. I’d always had amazing dreams, but since meditating more frequently and gaining control over my mental facilities I’ve even begun writing some of them into books. I found this to be especially fascinating, my growth into becoming a writer, because it’s something I never saw coming. I attended one journey working held by a friend at our local ‘new age’ store, and I’m very glad I did. In it, I received a gift from my higher spiritual self in the form of a golden quill. I found that puzzling at the time, and now it means so much more. I’m writing more, (books even! Although they are yet unpublished)such as this Dedicant Program. I also contribute to our resurrected Grove Newsletter with three other gifted individuals. It is possible that my life was aiming me at this role that I have been nominated for on the Grove Witan as scribe (of all things). I’m curious to know where it will take me from here, but I am very glad for the accuracy and insight I gain through practiced meditation. It has been an eye opening experience regarding the power I have in myself to harness the gifts I possessed and I had not recognized before.
I am often really bad at keeping journals, and that’s an understatement. I have begun writing down the events and images from journey workings though in a book I keep on my night stand altar. I’ve learned that doing so can help me access those same places if I choose to visit them in the future. I also include omens, such as the one from the most recent Samhain. I feel something changing quite rapidly in the future and am trying to document it as it happens. Sometimes when meditations or dreams are significant enough, I share them with my Grovies. That is something I’d always had difficulty doing with other people, for fear of being written off. My fear has since been erased.
I really think that I’ve come a very long way from being a frightened child seeking to escape the pains of her life, to realizing that powerful spirits walk with me (they always have) and I can interact with them just as I can anyone else. I hope to continue growing in these abilities to hone them more sharply, and I also intend to start writing about them more regularly.
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