I’ve lost the muse.
Well, maybe that’s not quite it. I’ve lost….something. I’m not sure what caused me to start thinking about this, but my views on spirituality and teaching have taken a strange turn lately. For a couple of years now, it’s been in the back of my mind that I don’t really enjoy teaching or counseling or trying to be a leader. I don’t know if it’s burnout or if there’s really something to this. What I do know is that I’ve spent years working on this plan of doing something good for the Pagan community. Here we are, some twenty-some-odd years later, and nothing’s really changed. There will always people who enjoy seeing us in chaos and who enjoy being the protagonist in every situation – they will never change, and as long as others continue to feed into their little dramas, they will always be there, disrupting any good anyone else might have done.
So I feel like I’ve wasted a large chunk of my life. Here lately, I’ve been bombarded with the question of “is this really what you want out of your life?” Well, no. I’ve had to consider why I’m no longer finding satisfaction in the pursuit of spiritual matters, and I’ve come to realize – maybe I don’t necessarily believe all the things I’ve been teaching.
Of course, that brings me to the next question, just what do I believe? There’s a loaded question, right? It would take me forever to try and explain what I do believe. I do believe in something of a Divine quality, not all-good or all-evil but more like Nature on a much larger scale – It exists, It provides a life-source and I feel on some level there is awareness and knowledge. I was trying to explain to a guy I dated for a while last year (who happen to be an atheist) how I saw God, and the best answer I could come up with was God is all that space that’s in between the planets and the stars. God is what keeps it all half-assed organized – that’s what keeps worlds together and keeps our cells from dissipating into the ozone. Yeah, yeah, I know, there’s a series of chemical compounds and reactions that actually keep it all together, but I do believe there is something, maybe in the tiniest of particles, that works on a level we aren’t able to comprehend.
Back to my original topic -- trying to figure this all out. I still consider myself Pagan. I’m pretty sure the whole concept of working within Universal life forces and all my other beliefs don’t qualify me as one of the Book religions. I’m not charismatic enough to start my own religion (or cult!), so that’s out of the question. In the meantime, I’m just kind of here.
However, with these changes, I’ve suddenly realized just how much of my life did revolve around spirituality and teaching and all that other stuff. I’ve lost something in all of this, and it’s pretty huge. I seem to have misplaced my passion and my drive. I’ve started wondering, “what’s the point?” I’ve come to realize, I really don’t know what I want out of life -- so what the hell am I doing here? What is the point of existence and what am I supposed to be doing here?
Maybe it’s just a mid-life crisis…..
