Raven’s Hollow
Julian, CA
March 15, 2021
It’s been a long, long year. One year ago, on 3/13/20, California went into pandemic lockdown for 2 weeks, and we’ve never really come back out. Yes, restaurants are open again now, yes people are getting slowly vaccinated, but on the whole life is not the same, and we wonder if it ever will be.
I miss concerts and large crazy parties hanging out with all my friends. I miss sit-down dinner parties and gaming with my inner circle. I miss playing music with other live musicians. I have only seen my best friend in person twice this last year, and we haven’t been able to hug each other or put a hand on a shoulder for comfort. While it’s nice to have access to FaceTime video, it feels somehow hollow and inadequate to me.
Wearing a mask, while it’s the right thing to do, is just so uncomfortable for me. I hate it, but I do it. Even though I’m one of the lucky ones who is now fully vaccinated, as a former scientist I’m aware that it’s uncertain how much protection this will actually give me, and I still feel afraid every time I leave the house.
On the positive side of the balance sheet, I’m lucky. My career (the thing I do for money) has exploded with the crisis, and 2 months ago I was able to leap into my dream job full time. I have a solid and happy romantic relationship in my life, an adult son who lives with me, and I live in my dream house in a rural area where I can get outdoors every day.
But even with all of this, I’m still not happy.
Unquestionably it’s a hard time, but in some ways it’s an easier time for me personally. And I realize that for me (and for many of my clients), the real issue is that there has been so much change and uncertainty. There has also been grief, and loss, and fear.
So this morning I sat down and asked my patron Goddess Aphrodite for her guidance. I wanted to understand why even now as I have entered into my dream job, live in my dream house, and am in the romantic relationship I always wanted, I am still so unhappy sometimes. My prayer wasn’t formal or scripted, but it went something like this:
“Goddess, please, can you help me understand why I am still so unhappy so much of the time? Can you help me find my way to more happiness? I’m so tired of feeling this way so much of the time!”
After I allowed myself to cry a little and feel my feelings, I settled into 10 minutes of meditation to listen for her guidance.
The answer I heard was simple: Sustainable Happiness = Sustainable Spirituality.
Something clicked into place for me at that moment. This is something I’ve known with my mind for many years, but today I felt it sink into my heart and my belly. It really integrated for me and became a true knowing. For me to really be happy, to appreciate all that I have, and to weather life’s difficulties, I need to stay connected as much as possible to Spirit’s guidance and awareness.
Then I remembered that yesterday morning during my meditation I felt as if a hand were resting on my head during my meditation time. It was an odd sensation, one I haven’t felt before. Was that the Goddess making contact, comforting me in the same way that a parent would comfort a child? Perhaps.
Just as the pandemic separation from my best friend was making me sad, so too was my accidental disconnect from the Goddess. I had gotten so caught up in all the negatives and stressors in my life that I wasn’t taking the time to really connect with Her, or to ask for help.
And here’s the thing, I believe that just as humans need secure attachments to people to stay emotionally balanced (it’s true – there’s a huge body of research), so do I also need secure spiritual attachment to my Goddess to stay sustainably happy.
With this awareness in mind, I made a little list to remind myself how I can create this attachment to Her (and sometimes to Him) for myself:
- Altars and Sacred Spaces
- Prayer
- Meditation
- Ceremony (moons, holidays, fire ceremonies)
- Music
- Art
- Yoga
- Tantric practice (solo and partnered)
- Time in Nature
I’ve decided to call this a spiritual connection plan. It’s not that I will do all of these things every day, but these are the things that frame my shamanic practice, that I need to do regularly throughout each week.
So as a reminder to myself and to all of you, I’ll be writing about how I do these things throughout the coming year, and sharing some videos of my altars, sacred spaces, art, and ceremonies. At the end of the year, the Goddess tells me it will coalesce into a new book on basic shamanic practice.
I hope that you will join me on this journey and share these writings and videos with anyone in your life that needs a roadmap to happiness.
Because it’s just time.
Blessings,
Kypris 🙂