Sonia Choquette's book on using your intuitive sense at work has an exercise that stymied me. She presents this list of life areas:
- spiritual
- home
- relationships
- creative expression
- work
- possessions
- health and body
- finances
and then wants you to put them in the order of importance to you right now. Being the cantankerous sort I can't put a priority on just one thing. So I did a map instead:
(Click on the image to get a better view.)
What makes me tick is my inner life, so I suppose the spiritual side is the most important. But spirituality overlaps with my creative work, my relationship, and my home. That's why I can't just put one area above another one: they interact. So where am I?
I've evolved a spiritual life that's increasingly rich. One of the poles of that life is my relationship with John. Now we don't do spiritual work together, like meditation. What we do is what I call the alchemical marriage.
There are those who say you can't be married without a ceremony. Those folks are wrong. There's a marriage of spirit that can happen, and when it does no external validation is needed. The alchemical part comes from my experience of intense internal transformation through our intimacy. The other spiritual work I do - meditation, ritual practice, and writing - pale in comparison.
Creatively I've been wrestling with the notion of right livelihood. Don't get me wrong: I like the computing work that I do. But doing my regular work no longer resonates deeply inside me. I envy John in his work: he creates from his essence in what he does. There's a phrase in Lord of the Rings that I've always remembered: We put the thought of all that we love into all that we make. It's not mass-produced, or scheduled, or optimized, or managed. It comes out of love. That's where I want to head next with my life.
I have stuff happening outside of work that excites me. My work designing a new Tarot deck has occupied me for about a year so far. I've largely given up my photographic work because I spend so much time doing digital imaging in service of this new deck. I love it, and I love being able to express my understanding of esoteric matters through my art. (And I'm getting better at it, too.) I'm excited about my new website, too, CosmicTiming. I've created an astrological website that presents daily information in a way I've never seen before.