All-Natural Escape Hatch!

As I bet you can guess, I get very irritated at people that look for places in the world that are "better" than the places they currently live in. Nature is better is one of the classic irritants, especially when it's applied historically as an "always true".

We, as a species, have spent most of our history fighting nature. Fighting droughts, floods, bad hunting and poor crops. Plagues and locusts. Our world was always tied up with and in contrast to nature. Woods were scary places where anything could be, not idyllic wildernesses to explore. To claim that we've always loved nature is to have absolute blinders on our own history and the way humanity works.

These days, most of our contact with what we see as "Nature" takes place in parks and zoos and other planned outings. And, of course, the forest is beautiful when you can then leave it behind and go home to your lovely comfortable house. (I love the woods. I also love my computer and microwaves). And I think we like to romanticise Nature because we *can* go home to our nice house with the computer and the microwave. Even if we don't actually do it, for most of us it's an option. We don't live off the land directly, and so we don't see it the same way.

The problem with this is, first of all, that we're destroying our human world at the same time. "Nature" exists everywhere. There are birds in the city, squirrels, even deer sometimes. The "natural" places exist within the human world, and what we do in one affects the other. They're not separate. Every time we start romaticising one over the other, we act as though what we do to the one we reject is irrelevant.

And what kind of humans are we when we foul our own nest because it's already "impure"? Pretty damn stupid, if you ask me.

ooOOoo, more questions! (what a shock!)

Why do I think we separate the "natural" and "human" worlds? Can I say because we're idiots? No? Okay, I think it's because it's safer to stick the "sacred" far away from us. If nature is where sacred is, we go there, we do our sacred thing, then we get to "go home". If HERE is sacred, we have to behave very differently. If only THERE is sacred, we can behave any damn way we want over here. (not really, but we think that way some times.)

Why is the Earth impersonal? Why do we think otherwise? I'm not really sure. Nature has always been a grand-scale encounter. Even tornados, the most small-scale appearing weather as they pick one side of the road to go down and skip every other house, are impersonal. But it's easier sometimes to see things as personal, I guess. We can fix personal things. We can't do anything about grand cosmic forces.

What happens when we deny the sacredness of our surroundings? We destroy things. Nature was the enemy for a very long time; and it shows in how we've treated the natural world. Our world is a beautiful place: both the human and the natural parts. When we neglect one for the other, we lose an important part of what makes us sacred.

Open-Source Religion

I thought about not commenting on this post. After all, it's a housekeeping detail more than a religious post, right?

Well, not really. I think the fact that religion should be free is very important. (that is, monetarily free). At the same time, I think that pastors should be given a living wage, so I'm a little conflicted on the issue. :)

I'd love to be getting paid for this. After all, this IS work. (and if you don't believe me, you try it!). And I figure if there's any demand, when I have a large enough group of essays together I'll make a bound edition that people can buy, and that I'll get paid for. But there will still be the collection of essays available for free.

Why? Because sacred texts need to be available .. and regardless of how much it freaks me out, this is a sacred text. And no one and nothing has the right to keep someone from the religion their heart is called to. That includes the copyright police.

Religion does not belong to a solitary person. It belongs to everyone involved. And a religion that demands contributions from its followers (Because, truly, if you're a FlameKeeper, you're contributing somehow) can't then claim to belong this bit to this person, and this bit to that.

This is the gift I give back to my Gods and the Divine. They have given me joy in my heart. I give back to Them a voice.

I doubt anyone's reading this .... ;)

I hate doubt. It really sucks. It's hard to find things that can't be questioned, and if you follow the train of thought too long, you find yourself staring at a chair trying to see all the empty spaces in it and wondering how it stands. (also, if you're me, you're wondering what the odds are that all its electrons are in Florida at the moment. but I'm strange like that).

That doesn't mean doubt isn't healthy. Lots of things are healthy that we don't like. I'm rather unfond of peas. They're healthy, but y'know what? I don't care. Don't like them. (that does not include sugar snap peas and snow peas, btw. LOOOOOOVE snow peas!) Doubt is sorta like peas. It's good for me. I should eat them. If nothing else, I should try to fool my son into thinking they're tasty if I can. How did I get stuck on peas? (this is Shadow's brain on random).

Questions!

What about doubt scares me the most? Getting paralized there. You start doubting, then you doubt a little more, and the next thing you know you're not entirely certain that "up" is where you left it. Finding my way back out of doubt to solid ground, or being able to accept the doubt and move forward, isn't always easy.

How can I doubt and hold faith at the same time? Well, I go with it. Either I'm crazy and this is all in my head, or it works and is real. Either way, I'm going to do the same thing .. doubt doesn't change my day-to-day life. (although if I was making it up, I would probably not be blogging about it!) But until I think something's changed, I'm going to continue as if it's true, even on those days when I'm not really sure there's any point to it all.

What am I afraid to question? I try not to be afraid of questioning anything, because it's questions that lead to essays and ideas. Also, I don't believe in answers .. or at least not cosmic-level covers-everything answers. I believe that when it comes to religion, it's ALWAYS going to be doing the best we can and falling short of perfection. But I still dislike questioning whether or not this is "True" for fear that it might not be. Or fear I'm going to suddenly find out that I'm going to convert to something else and all this work is going to be useless to me. Even though I know that it's never useless .. even were I to convert tomorrow, I would have gotten there by coming through all the work I've done. But I still don't like to ask. :)

We are all individuals .....

One of the truest parts of the human condition is that parts of us are always alone. We all have pieces that we don't particularly like and keep squirreled away from the light of day. And in keeping those parts hidden, we feel lonely. So we seek to find people, groups, anything to keep the lonliness at bay.

We so want to belong to things. I know I do: I have spent most of my life seeking connection. And it's hard, very hard for me to reach out in a way that isn't desperate for connection. (and we all know how attractive desperate people are .... as in, not at all!)

That which has made it much easier for me to reach out, not in desperation but as an equal, is finally realizing that we are all of the Divine. I already am connected, I had simply forgotten. And with that connection, I can't ever be truly alone, because I am of everything. That doesn't mean I'm never lonely .. I'm still human! But I can handle it better and move through it faster when I remember that I'm never truly alone. I can reach out from a place of love because I am loved.

What harm does loneliness bring? It destroys, when it goes on long enough. It brings with it self-doubt and a horrible self-loathing .. because, after all, if you were good ENOUGH, you wouldn't be lonely, right? OTHER PEOPLE aren't lonely! (and that is the worst lie that it brings. Because everyone's lonely sometimes .. even in a crowd, even in the middle of a loving family .. always). As far as truth/illusion .. it is always both. Because it's a feeling, and y'know, your feelings ARE your feelings .. you can't have a false feeling! But at the same time, we're never alone because the Divine is always within us. And through that, we can reach out and be with others, if we only try. (individuals will still reject us at times, of course. Not everyone was made to be friends! But an individual rejecting you isn't the same thing as being rejected by everyone).

Why do we form groups? Lots of reasons. One of the easiest: to discuss or deal with items of mutual interest. I'm not going to go to my writing group to talk about parenting, and I'm not going to ask my mother for writing advice; I'm going to talk to the people that share the interest and have some useful things to add to the discussion. I'm also not likely to join, say, a group of wrestling fans, because wrestling doesn't interest me at all and I'd have nothing to talk to or share with them. Doesn't mean there's anything wrong with them, just that there's no reason for me to join that group. Even if we were all in the same room together, the writers and the wrestling fans, there would still be two groups. The important thing to remember is that the people in "my" group aren't somehow inherently better or worse than the people in the "other" group.

How do we find compassion for out-group people? We HAVE to remember that they are Divine as well. There is no easy way to do this. By nature, we cling more to those closer to us and demonize those so far away that we don't see commonality. (or we demonize those that are close but not quite right, because they *might* be right .. and so we must make them wrong). But we are ALL Divine. You can't destroy one person without destroying a piece of the Universe.

all in all, I'm not saying that we're all one big happy mooshy pile of human. We're all individual and should stay that way. And this group is not that group. What I am trying to say is that difference isn't evil .. and that when it comes right down to it, we're all human and we're all part of the Divine. And worthy of love for that. (as hard as it can be to love some people!)

Loving Knowledge

Knowledge is, to me, very sacred. The contents of our minds, and what we do with them, make us what we are. Plus, I like knowing things. :) I could easily get caught up in researching things and never be seen from again if it wasn't for pesky issues like food.

We discover and invent because it is in our nature to do so. There's a joy to creative thought which makes life so much more beautiful than it could ever otherwise be. When I was younger, I wanted to do research, preferably in medicine, and make many people happy and healthy. Unfortunately for that dream, my skills lie elsewhere. But I still create and I still learn. And I hope I bring people new thoughts and ideas which make them mentally and spiritually happier and healthier.

Why is learning important? Beyond all the obvious reasons (knowing stuff useful!), learning makes us what we are. We come into this world thirsty for knowledge, thirsty for stimulation and wonder. We run to our parents and show them the new thing we've found like it's the greatest thing ever. And that joy of discovery is precious and should be retained. Why isn't learning an absolute good? Both because we need to do other things (pesky food again) but because there are ethics above learning. Just because a question interests us doesn't mean we can trample over people to learn about it.

How we get information .. I think that depends on the person. I love discovering "new" things, even if someone else discovered it before. I hate being told what I'll find in advance, though. I think how we get information best depends on the person. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't be willing to look for information in new places or old, regardless of our preferences.

How does knowledge pass between us and the Divine? Easy answer: damned if I know! harder answer .. I do think it happens. We are part of the Divine. What we are is part of It. So what we know is part of It as well.

Love of the Divine

I wrote here as though feeling the love I feel for the Divine, and the love I feel from it, was something anyone can feel. And I recognize that not everyone feels that love, and most certainly, not everyone feels it like an overwhelming force. I don't think that detracts from my main point, though. We can love the Divine and let it be what it is, or we can try to shove it in a box and contain it and make it safe .. and make it meaningless.

Love is transformative, especially love of gods and the Divine. Since accepting that love, my life has changed. I've learned to accept myself, I even more or less accept this calling. (more or less. it's a terrifying calling). And I've even stopped questioning my sanity on the talks-to-gods issue .. well, mostly. I know that it is my truth and that regardless of whether or not it's "real" to other people, it's real to me. And perhaps more importantly, it brings me joy and love. Given that I can function well enough in society, sanity seems an irrelevant issue.

The Divine isn't what we want it to be. It is what it is, and loving the reality of it means so much more than loving a false image of what we wish existed.

What does faith mean to me? Going forward, whether you doubt or not. Accepting both what you can and what you can't control. Not clinging to the love of the Divine bacause I don't need to cling: the love is there, all I have to do is accept it .. and by accepting it, sharing it. It is a love too large to hold to oneself.

hrm. looks like I answered all the questions there .. because they're all related. Love brings such a change that questions of faith and doubt become very difficult to answer clearly. And doubt .. I don't know that I'm getting it right. I frequently think I'm mad for trying to write everything down and share it with people. But doubting the Divine .. I might as well try to doubt the laptop I'm currently typing on. I can doubt whether or not it is sentient and whether or not it cares. But the Universe exists, and it is full of beauty as well as pain and other less-desirable things. We can add to the beauty and make things better, if we're willing to try. And to me, that's the truest love to give to the Divine. It is the love we give to everyone we love: to care for them enough to want to see them better, happier, more jpyful and more complete.

Relating to Others

Power, responsibility, and other people. Three inseperable topics. Three very dangerous mineladen topics, as well.

People, in general, like power and fear responsibility. Given that they're inseperable, this clearly doesn't work well, but people do it anyway. Responsibility sucks, after all. It's work, and even if we delegate we're responsible. Power is easy: we do what we want. Responsibility is hard: we have to do it right. When you see only the power side, it looks great. But it never works that way.

We are all Divine. Not just the people that we like, unfortunately. I'd be happier if I only had to recognize as Divine people that I agreed with and was able to say other people weren't. But not only is that a lie, it's a very dangerous one. Almost every atrocity we commit, from the everyday horrors of abusing each other to the extreme ones we do in war, come from the segmentation of humanity into those we like and those we don't, and putting the ones we don't into some kind of lesser category. We are ALL Divine. Every last one of us. While we all have the absolute right to dislike each other (thank goodness, there's a lot more people I don't get along with than I do, and quite a few I really don't like at all .. I am NOT a saint!), we have no right to treat each other as anything less than Divine.

It's just, y'know, some people are a particularly annoying piece of the Divine. :) But holy for all that.

ooh, question time .. or really, answer time.

How are we related/how are we separate .. that's one question to me. We're related because we're all part of the Divine. also, we're all human, and we're all dependant on each other. We're separate because we're each individuals. I am not you, but we are both Divine, even though we show that in very different ways.

Why are we responsible for the choices that we take, but not for the ones offered? Because we're only responsible for those things we have power over. If I get stuck with the choice of giving a mugger my purse or getting shot, it's not my fault I got mugged. (it IS my responsibility to minimize chances where I CAN get mugged, because it's really damn stupid to court that sort of thing. But that doesn't ever mean one deserves to be attacked). On the other hand, it's absolutely my responsibility to deal with the results of GETTING mugged once it happens.

Power over ourselves giving us responsibility. I think that's the most important point. If I have the power over myself, I can't blame other people, Satan, or anything else for the choices I make. For the choices I have AVAILABLE, perhaps. But the ones I make, I make of my own will. As a culture we seem to like chipping off bits and pieces of our own power and giving them over to people. Often, oddly, people we hate, because those we hate do seem to end up with a lot of power over us. But we are the only ones with power over ourselves. It IS always our own choice what we do. And when we're held between two very ugly choices, sometimes that's a very hard pill to swallow. Nevertheless, it is our choice. It's never something where we were powerless once there's a place where a choice can be made. We simply need to learn to recognize our own options.

Relating to Ourselves

This is a hard topic for a lot of people to discuss rationally, myself included. Self-love runs the gamut from vanity to bizarre self-help groups and everything else that one little phrase can mean.

I'm not fond of vanity. It's easy to place our self-worth into things like our looks or our jobs or other transitory things. And while one can GAIN worth from them, it's always struck me as a bad idea to place our entire worth into something that can go away. I see people spending so much money and effort to try and keep themselves looking young not because it makes them happy, but because it's the only thing that gives them self worth, and it makes me sad. People destroy their entire sense of worth by basing it on their fleeing appearance and chasing after it.

As far as bizarre self-help groups .. well, I think bizarre says it all. I've nothing against self-help, and nothing against liking oneself. But liking starts from a sense of worth, not cuddle-piles with strangers and screaming "therapy". There's a lot of good out there in the self-help field, but there's a lot of garbage, and finding the wheat in the chaff can be quite the tricky business.

We are all sacred. We are all parts of the Divine. These are cornerstones not only of my faith but of my life. And yet I suffer routinely with self-doubt that practically paralyzes me sometimes, and have to work to not question the sanity of those that love me. A reasonable sense of worth is almost impossible for me to attain. That doesn't mean it's not worth doing, but it does make it a constant uphill battle.

How do I find love for myself? Some days, I don't even know. But I try to remember the good things I do, the fact that I try to be a good person. And I try to believe that I'm worth love. It's easy to list of things that I have to believe this: my husband, my son, my friends. It's harder to just believe it without the laundry list of people that love me. But I've been getting better about it, hopefully without straying too far into the realm of the weird. :)

Being the center of my Universe: wow that sounds arrogant. True, but arrogant. It's much easier for me to focus on this one impersonally, that other people are center of THEIR Universe. But that's cheating. :) I try to make myself central in my life, and move from that position of strength to dealing with other people. And when I manage it, it is a stronger place, because my base is strong and honest. But the only time I'm truly comfortable being central to myself is when I'm writing fiction .. when the world not only revolves around me, but revolves inside me. Plus, it's lots of fun. :)

How do I see myself, and is it accurate? I know it isn't. My self-image is still very much the pimply overweight girl in high school, and I haven't been her for a long time. I'm frequently startled when I look in a mirror, and flattered all out of proportion (and embarrassed, too!) when people find what I write insightful. And yet, clearly, I'm good at writing, since people are reading it and finding it useful. And I get complements and second looks when I go out, so I must look good. But to truly believe it? I don't know how, and I wish I did. I'm working on it. And, of course, like all things, it's a process. Some days are much better than others.

I would say that I'm doing fairly well in most things, actually, in relating to myself. But there are some very easy ways to punch huge holes in that self-confidence, because it's built on shaky foundations. At least the things that I do value in myself are, as far as I can tell, true, and I'm not built up on false beliefs. True things are accentuated over time, so I should become only more stable.

An overview of FlameKeeping

This essay is an overview of FlameKeeping. It's pretty much a list of beliefs without much of anything to hang it together. I go into detail later.

The important aspects, to me, are those of self-sufficiency and interdependance. We are both individual and part of a group, and focusing on one to the detriment of the other never fails to screw us up.

So I'll answer my questions.

What are my flaws? oh dear .. there isn't enough space. :D My biggest flaw is the problem I have with people that I feel are acting stupid and know better. When I see people doing things I think are dumb .. I don't react well. I don't react well when I see myself acting stupidly, either .. I'm very egalitarian in my hatred of stupidity. This disgust of what I see as stupidity leads me to a horrible about of anti-socialness .. I like being a hermit. And the more I close myself off, the more I like the freedom of mind being by myself brings me and the more I want to close myself off more. I work on it.

My virtues? I think I'm a very good writer. I work very hard to be able to get my points across well to people, and I like to think I do that well. I work hard to be an honest person. Although that could also be lazier .. it's easier to be honest. Then you don't need to remember what you said. :) But I do think that truth is a virtue in and of itself, and I try to live up to that.

Which is harder? Definitely my virtues. I don't like talking about myself that way .. it feels odd.

What feeds my Flame? Well .. talking about it. :D My family and friends nurture me. My religious obligations in helping others as I can. And I try to court things that feed my Flame.

What stifles me? My self doubt is the worst problem. I fear that I'm just dealing with my ego sometimes, and that what I think is Divine revelation to share is actually just the nattering of my own mind. And I fear that someone will use my words in a way that I find morally reprehensible. Self-doubt really makes it hard to work sometimes.

As far as nurturing other people's Flames .. well, I'm writing the religion AND this blog, aren't I? ;) I can't really give specifics, because I don't know. And I probably should, but .. I don't. I hope that my essays nurture people. I hope that I'll get my novels published and they'll nurture people through entertainment.

And I try, very hard, to be fair to other people. I'm not saying nice, although I try to be nice as well, but fair. Because nice is good, but only goes so far. I try to be courteous and honest, and tell people what I really think. But honesty is integral to respect, and I try to respect people.

I try to create a nurturing environment.

Why I'm a FlameKeeper

Hi, I'm HeartShadow, and I'm a FlameKeeper. (Hi, Shadow!)

I became a FlameKeeper because I believe in humanity. I couldn't find any religion out there that had the same viewpoint I did regarding humans themselves as part of the Divine and sacred, so I began to write down what I believed, and it's rather taken off from there.

That's not to say I see humans as more sacred than anything else; I don't. At least, not exactly. But I am human, and there's a certain egocentrism that says we're important because we're here to say it. Also, I've never yet been able to advise or educate a cat, but I can influence other people. So there's a rather obvious focus there.

I try very hard to live in a way that celebrates our sacred nature. (I'm not always great at it .. I must confess, I have an abrasive personality. (if you know me, you already know this)). It's not always easy to do. However, not easy and not worth doing are two very different things. I live in hope that I'll be able to, someday, see every person as sacred first and my other impressions of them second. Usually I tend to remember they're sacred later. It's a work in progress, and I rather doubt I'll ever be happy with it, because I am not a saint.

I started writing this and sharing it because I feel I have a valuable view, and to hold it to myself would be selfish. Also, I feel that much of this is inspired both directly by the Divine and indirectly by Apollo, and He wants me to write it down as opposed to just thinking about it. So I do. It would be easier to keep it all to myself, certainly, but it's also a cheat. Knowledge kept close to the heart and unshared that could be shared strikes me as robbing the people around me. Our minds are sacred, as is the knowledge we share. Hoarding the sacred feels not just greedy, but blasphemous.

Basically, I have been given a gift of both the ability to word things in ways that make sense to others, and knowledge that needs sharing. Both this blog and the other one, then, exist to do that. And this is how I try to improve the Universe around me, by sharing my gifts freely. Join me as I explore the essays I've written and are written by others and discuss what they mean in real life.

New Blog new blog la la la laaaa la

Here I'm going to have my personal thoughts about the essays posted at flamekeeping.blogspot.com. I'm going to answer questions I pose, talk about what I was thinking when I wrote it, that sort of thing. these posts are open content ONLY insofar as when they are linked to the essay in question. You're welcome to use my words to understand the essay better; but these posts are not for copying randomly.

I hope that these comments will help give the essays better context. And, of course, I hope it's interesting! :)