Woo Woo

I call myself a reluctant atheist.  

Pinned down, I do not truly believe in anything supernatural.  And my shoulders sag a bit with this admission.   

And yet. 

My life is better, so much better when I pretend that I do believe otherwise. Those of you reading this who are not atheists…I can only imagine your reaction to that statement!  

When I believe in synchronicity, I notice a lot more coincidences   They are not that significant, but I pretend that they are little nods from….uh…something…that I am on the right path.  Little crumbs on the path. They give me confidence that I am not wasting my time when I am stretching myself by doing something I think I will fail at.

During a moment of utter despair, my bottom, my absolute bottom, I allowed myself for a moment to try to feel the presence of…uh…something…and I DID! I felt this loving presence!  It was one of those moments where my entire life shifted a bit.  What was that presence?  I tell myself that it was Future Me, looking back on that sad lost me of the past, and saying “girl, you are going to be OKAY.” And so now that I am okay, I go back to that moment and give myself a little love. Because things got so much better.  

I have many woo woo moments like this

They are moments of intuition or other things that I’m sure can be explained away. When I allow myself that space to not doubt, however, I am happier. So I don’t care if it is God, or even anything. Just that openness to magic, and meaning, and purpose is what I need. When I try to pin it down, to convince, to have evidence, then it evaporates, and I am back to doubt, and I get cynical, and I am unhappy. 

I am a wannabe mystic

I am always balancing these two sides: the atheist who descended from scientists, and the wannabe mystic, who craves that sense of infinite somethingness. It is a motivator for me when I make art. I get glimpses of that altered reality specifically during intermodal expressive arts.  When I open myself up to a more spiritual way of making art, loaded with all that embarrassing spirituality/shamanism/source/goddess stuff, I make a totally different kind of art and it feels connected, and meaningful and cathartic and oh so worth it. I am grateful.  The cynical side of me doesn’t know what to make of the experience, or the art that resulted. I am critical of it. 

But the side of me that is alive just doesn’t care.  

It is hard to share about this, I get that. This post was hard to share. But tell me…is your art connected to your spirituality?