A Spiritual Path Requires Balance

What is a spiritual path? Great question! The two preceding posts by Woman in the World definitely stir up some familiar thoughts, memories, and feelings. I, too, grew up Protestant. (Although likely in very different flavor than she did - the whole mega-church thing is a little suspicious among the Christians I know and love.) And by my young adult years, I also was yearning for something more.

For me, the initial hallmark of that longing was better recognition of the balance between the male and the female energies. I went to churches and prayed with people that were very inclusive of women, but the Christian pattern of either starting with male images and references and then working to expand from there, or of relegating the female to key support roles while defining the starring roles as male, just didn't work for me.

I found the counterbalance to this in pagan/wiccan spirituality in my 20s. There, the honoring of the feminine helped me learn about the unbounded mystery and power of the feminine, and taught me to a better connection to the earth and sky and moon, and to honor the wildness of nature that I found both around and within me.

But, indeed, my experience in pagan spirituality was a counterbalance - as skewed toward the feminine as my experience of Christianity was skewed toward the masculine. In both places I found myself subtly at war, working against the settledness and constraints of these spiritual expressions in order to honor something I knew instinctively as missing or off.

When I found the Flowering Tree Lodge, a teaching the Sweet Medicine SunDance tradition, I breathed a huge sigh of relief and had a palpable feeling of "coming home" - in large part because male/female balance is such a core tenant in this tradition. Here I found a radical challenge to know and discover on a daily basis how men and women are equal, even amidst all our differences; to honor and develop both the masculine and the feminine energies within me in balance; and to understand how its the balance and interaction of these two energies that makes creation possible.

And that, creation, is what I see as the defining characteristic of a spiritual path. Woman in the World talked about it as growth, some might call it evolution, or you might even just call it change. All of it is an act of creation, a birthing. And birth requires the egg and the seed and the mystery of what is made in their joining.

Like Woman in the World, I now have the sense that many forms of spirituality have the capacity to be a spiritual path: Christianity, wiccan spirituality, Judaism, etc. To find that stream, though, requires finding those arenas that are truly alive, that are based in the balance of female and male energies and thus able to produce life.

Celebrating and appreciating the life that has been produced has its place - I do enjoy showing up at 2 p.m. for the guided tour of some historic mansion where I learn about the story, triumphs, and challenges of some historic figure. There is much to be learned and appreciated there. But wandering repeatedly through those rooms is a path to nowhere.

The old saying "we create the path by walking it" says it well. Walking naturally happens in balance, shifting from left to right to left to right in a smooth flowing motion that takes us where we want to go. And it's out of that balance that we create the world we choose to walk in, and the person we choose to be in that world.

For me, that's the basis of a spiritual path.

More on the concept of Spiritual Path

I finished up my last entry with a statement about finding what I needed, namely, a spiritual path.  That, of course, brought up more questions for me.  For example: why did I need a spiritual path?  Why wasn't what I had in my church-of-origin "good enough"?

And here's the truth, sad though it may be: I needed a spiritual path because this whole connection to spirit thing was very hard for me.  I could not conceive of what it was, nor how to do it.  (Or, at least, say I was blocked in my conception of it.)  Though I definitely got something, a variety of things, out of going to church, I felt something missing, and I did not know how to take what I had into what I was seeking.

In other words, I needed more help.  I needed something that would start where I was, and that would speak to me in a language that I could understand.  That is really what I was looking for.

And the very first thing I needed was a better (that is, more understandable to me), broader, different, deeper, something, understanding of what spirituality is, of what "spirit" is.  Some of the first teachings (they come along in the first year of Red Lodge, for example) in the Sweet Medicine SunDance Path are related to exactly that: our human aspects (emotions, physical, mental, spiritual, and soul force) and what part they play in our lives.  For me, that was very helpful indeed.  Without that teaching, I'm not sure I would have made it.

So, one of the biggest gifts this Sweet Medicine SunDance Path has given to me is simply the ability to expand my understanding of what a spiritual connection is and how one might make that connection.  For that, I am and will forever be grateful.

What Is a Spiritual Path?

Not so long ago I asked a friend - someone I know has a variety of spiritual connections - what she considered to be her spiritual path.   After some reflection, she responded that her art was her spiritual path. 

That conversation set me to thinking about the meaning of "spiritual path" as opposed to "spirituality."

I grew up in a Protestant family.  I went to church for many years, and had very moving spirtual experiences.  But, as I look back on that time, I know that it never felt like a path.  That is, I felt like I was either in or out; either connected to Christ and God, or not.  And in my conversations with Christian friends, and with folks who were evangelizing, that was usually the question: have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior?   If one had, then one went to heaven; if not, well, tough luck.  Rather than a path, it felt more like a fork in the road. 

The church I attended has grown from a rather small neighborhood church to a mini-megachurch in the years since then, so obviously what they are doing works for a lot of people.  It just left me feeling like there should be more - but I didn't have any idea what that "more" might be.

Though I was aware that one could mature emotionally and physically, and continue learning, I had no concept of the development of spiritual maturity. 

Years later I found the Sweet Medicine SunDance Path.  In this tradition, there are progressions of ceremonies and teachings for the development of spiritual (as well as emotional, physical, and mental) maturity.  I initially came in because some of the teachings were so immediately useful - but have stayed because it consistently helps me to see increasingly deeper things about myself, about life, about spirit; and gives me tools to grow with that.  It's incredibly rich and varied, and has this progression - which, in my experience, works.

As I reflected on the conversation with my friend, I realized that this progression, this growth path, is exactly what I missed in my earlier Christian experience. 

So, for me, there are 2 keys to "spiritual path": the connection to spirit, and a path for growth.

Now, with more knowledge and experience, I know that Christianity also provides this. Could I have found this at the church I attended early in life?  Not easily.  Had I wanted to become a minister, I might perhaps have found it in the education.  In an earlier era, I might have found it as a nun.  But my childhood church was more focused on building a cohesive community than on individual spiritual growth (beyond the necessary acceptance of Christ, of course).  It wasn't quite what I was looking for.

I was looking for what I needed: a spiritual path.