The Pagan Heart
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June-July 2005 Issue
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The Spiral Path
By Rebecca SerVoss
My cycle this year has been all manner of crazy. I spent the Spring enmeshed in shadow work, looking at all the things in me that I needed to deal with. And while in some ways it makes sense that I should grow and change during a season who's driving force is growth and change, in other ways it made Spring a most confusing time. But then too, I need to get over my inability to look at the Crone with both my eyes and my heart open. Otherwise I'm going to get a huge lump on my head when I get hit with, what I lovingly refer to as, the Goddess' 2x4 of smack-age. One of the main things I discovered about myself in all this internal work, was a need to better define some things I hold as truth. And a big one is karma; and through karma, reincarnation. Ever since I was little (maybe 6 or 7) I have believed in reincarnation, thanks in large part to my father's explanation about the matter/energy cycle. Some might think Newtonian physics a bit thick for a six year old, but I had an intense desire to KNOW when I was young. A thing which has stood me in good stead all my life. He explained to me that, while energy could become matter and matter could become energy, neither could be destroyed. He also explained to me that our bodies were run by energy, and we were made of matter and thus could change form, but never be destroyed. And so I went forth into the world knowing I would always exist. In some form or another. But now...well, I haven changed my mind about reincarnation, but I have been taking a hard look at what I believe exactly. And I find I don't agree wholly with either the Eastern or Western ideology on the subject. In the West, reincarnation holds that the soul becomes impure through living and the only way to become clean is to banish the impurity from the body. And I can't get behind any ideology that holds life to be unclean, impure, and corrupting. I find I think more along Eastern lines here, in that the soul learns through each incarnation and the road to enlightenment is through knowledge. In the East however, they hold that no part of the consiousness of an individual exists after their death and that the soul or body energy does not retain any past life knowledge-- only past life karma. While I definitely think that karmic debt explains a good portion of why people have the lives they are born with (some rich, some poor, some lucky/gifted, others not), karmic justice makes little sense to me if some subconscious sense of one's past lives is not retained. So in this, I suppose, I follow Western ideology. Have I confused anyone yet? Either way, I find that I am thinking more now, and making myself examine some things, and I find I feel stronger in my center. Which is a good thing. Now, if I can just anticipate from which direction She's going to swing at me, I might be able to duck. Beca |
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