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.