Insight

Growing up in the "Bible Belt" and in a conservative Christian family left me very confused about my own spirituality. For the record, I identify today as "new age", though many of my beliefs are more relative to what I believe is actually a more ancient form of religion. I'm finding that I'm not alone in this--my closest cousin spends much of her time studying Eastern theology and exploring mysticism, and my brother recently "came out" as a practicing Pagan. It is much more comforting to realize that I'm not the only person I know who experienced my own spiritual knowledge at a very young age, and certainly was not the only one to hide it from my family.

When asked my earliest memory, I never know what the proper answer is. In my true earliest memory, I am with someone else, and a third voice is speaking to us. It is dark, but familiar. I feel comfortable where I am, but I understand that something big is getting ready to happen. I am told that I have to take the next step alone, that my companion must go, and that I won't be hearing this voice again for some time. I start to feel confused, but I am assured that I will always be able to turn back to the voice for guidance. I am warned that the future is difficult, but am assured that I can handle this. The memory stayed with me every day until finally, at the age of four, I asked my mother why the other person with me--a brother, I felt--had to leave when we were born. She fainted in front of me. Turns out, I had a twin brother who was stillborn, and she and my father's family made a pact to never talk about it again.

I had spent my early years living with many different members of my mother's family when I wasn't with my father. My grandmother had become very sick since she had been widowed, and she and I lived together with an aunt. We spent our days with me at her feet and her telling me stories of her childhood. She was a Cherokee living outside of Oklahoma, a legal offense in the days of her parents. Because of this, they moved often, and they were not allowed to own property. Their primary home was a cave along the river that backed up to the farm where, coincidentally, my father would later grow up. In the winter, the family left the cave behind to rent a house in the city, but my great-grandfather's fear of the government would not allow him to keep the family there beyond the months of snow.

Grandma told me stories of her family, including her own spiritual encounters. This was not abnormal for her as it was for my father's white family, who speaks of spirits in the form of ghost stories. To Grandma, the other realm was as natural as the dandelions that grew outside our door. This open acceptance of spirits and little people would later draw me to my first serious boyfriend, a Cherokee boy from my Grandmother's clan who had grown up around traditional Cherokees in Oklahoma. I always felt drawn to the tradition of Grandma's people.

One night when I was eight, I fell very ill with a high fever. I laid on the couch as my mother and her boyfriend visited with friends. One of the friends came to me and laid her hand on my head, telling me that things would get better, and sometimes life just throws us icky curveballs. I answered her with "it won't get better, because my grandmother just died." My mother was appalled that I had said that--in her culture, you risk cursing a family member if you speak of their death or an illness prematurely. The friend told my mother to relax, that I was just delirious and probably had a bad dream. Shortly afterward, the friends left, and another set of headlights arrived in our driveway. It was my aunt, coming to tell us that my grandmother had died just an hour or so earlier. This wasn't the first time something like this had happened to me, but it would be the last time that my mother doubted my visions.

I believe that God is universal, that there is no one correct way to worship or envision him. I believe that all religions have something for someone, and therefore are valuable on some level for bringing people closer to God. Studying Cherokee mythology has made me understand that the stories of the Bible and the Quran are real, and that philosophies such as the Eightfold Path are relevant to all of us. I do accept that spirits continue to live with us after they leave the body, and I often wonder if hell is actually the earth upon which we live, with Judgment being the reincarnation we experience until we become fully enlightened. I don't question the use of crystals or incantations, and I believe that our souls are all deeply entwined in a universal realm that we cannot see or understand while we are still rational and analytical. These aren't beliefs that my occupation allows me to hold openly--I work in an area where I deal with very successful businesspeople and their money, so understandably, they want to believe I am fully grounded and rational. I balance my life very easily, as I am happy in my spiritual path and love my career. Since I don't believe in black & white living, it's not hard for me to hang up my crystal necklace and put on a pinstripe suit.

I believe that karma and universalism are what got me here today. This doesn't make my childhood history of neglect and physical and sexual abuse right, but it certainly helps me understand why bad things happen to good people. I don't believe that I was always good. I make the best of what I am today in hopes that I can right the wrongs that I may not understand of yesterday. I am curious to delve into what lives have passed before this one, but I fear what I may see. Maybe one day. Today, I am just grateful for the culmination of this life.