An accidental pilgrimage

As has probably been clear from the crickets around this blog, it’s been a long, busy summer. Work has been busy from the drop, with [largely welcome] changes in my job and in the way we do things at the university. June was given over almost entirely to a challenging show with the Columbus Gay Men’s Chorus that took a huge amount of mental and emotional energy. And then only four days after closing that show, Jarod and I went to Denver with about 60 other members of CGMC to participate in the 10th GALA Festival, a quadrennial gathering of gay and lesbian choruses from throughout North America and beyond. We had the privilege of opening Festival, even before the opening ceremony, to thunderous applause and a strong sense of accomplishment (and relief!).

After that, July was smooth sailing as we spent the rest of the week attending GALA concerts, then flew off to Washington’s Olympic Peninsula to spend a week with Jarod’s family in celebration of his parents’ 40th wedding anniversary. I had started the “mental discipline” journal for the Dedicant Path just before we left for Denver, and I looked forward to fitting in some time for contemplation and meditation in and among various family activities.

I had no idea.

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The mists, the sea, and the passage of souls

Earlier in the evening we had had a Grove study meeting. We concluded by going through a series of guided meditations, recording them for the convenience of future meditators. After a pair of grounding-and-centering meditations, I took the last reading, a brief trance journey passing through the Mists to arrive nearer the Otherworld. As the guide, I wasn’t able to make the journey myself — I was too involved in pacing my delivery and keeping an even, guiding tone for the others — but it seemed to be a successful experience, judging by the faces of the others when the meditation concluded.

Great artists steal, meditation edition

I’m not very good at meditating consistently. I’ve never managed to set (and stick to) a meditation schedule. I’m forever forgetting that I meant to meditate until it’s 10 past midnight, and I should have been in bed hours ago. Or I make grand plans to meditate in the morning when, if I’m really honest, my achievable goals are coffee and shower. And what’s more, I’m actually just bad at meditating. I’m hypersensitive to sounds around me, for one, so a passing car or a meowing cat pops me right out of my head. I have trouble finding a comfortable position that isn’t also a sleeping position. And my mind in general is not very interested in slowing down and staying focused. [I’m told that, like any other skill, much of this is a matter of not having enough practice, and I believe that. Doesn’t help much in the moment, though.]

And yet, there are occasions when everything clicks. When I’m able to feel that I’ve brought myself into a place of stillness, from which I can call out to the spirits of the earth, the sea, and the sky, to speak to the Gods and have the hope of response, to know better my place in the great interconnected web of being.