Untitled

by Kat Sto

Pssssst. Hey, you! Your spiritual practice might just be playing into the same harmful notions of the heteromonotheisticpatriarchy that you’ve been trying to distance yourself from, thus feeding into a never-ending cycle of shame&blame.

Let’s go for a walk…

Do you believe that if you align yourself correctly, good will come to you more than it will come to others? Do you believe that your spiritual practice will somehow protect you from evil— or from Death, destruction, and decay? Howabout the reverse: do you believe that you might call terrible things towards yourself because its some sort of lesson that you need to learn, or maybe because you’re ‘out of alignment’?

Let’s try this one on for size: “If you’re a good girl, you’ll go to Heaven. And if you’re bad, you’ll go to Hell.”?

Still with me?

News Flash: The world is a chaotic abyss of nothingness and wonder that you have very little control over. You can, however, control your own experience— your reactions and responses to stimuli/ your environment. And, you can, of course, work to make your environment/ life/ this world one that you care about and enjoy deeply.

But that doesn’t mean you might not die tomorrow in a horrific car crash.

And no amount of prayer or meditating or vegan macrobiotics or yoga or goddess worship or sobriety can protect you from that (though it sure as hell *might* make you better equipped to handle it)… To think otherwise is dangerous.

There is nothing inherently wrong with you that you need to fix or become in order for ‘The Universe’ to bestow its gifts upon you. The Universe will giveth as quickly as it shall taketh away. There will be no sense to it and it probably didn’t happen for a reason.

Stop looking.

Stop keeping yourself stuck in a shame-blame cycle of self-absorption where you’re never quite good enough—never quite enlightened enough or calm enough or peaceful enough. Never get that pose quite deep enough. Its the same never-ending cycle of consumerism, just wrapped in a different language.

Build a life. Build the person that you want to be, step by step. Build a community. Make art. Destroy it.

Fight. Because it will not come easy. And it is not owed to you for ‘good behavior’. (The Universe does not know this ‘good’ and ‘evil’ you speak of.)

Your people will die just like the rest of ours. You will be touched by grief, destruction, violence, and despair. Welcome them. And then rage against it all.

And never forget that the flowers come back again each springtime.

Savor these little treasures, and the moments you are able to hold them. Savor the love, the joy, the peace, and your breath. None of them will last.

And no amount of effort on your part can make that not-so.