I wrote last week about the challenges of a spiritual practice. Continuing that thought, this week’s post explores the inevitable detours we find ourselves encountering on our chosen path.
Daily mundane life is ripe with detours. We decide to go one route to work in favor of another, which takes us further out of our way because of construction and find ourselves on yet a third route. We plan to have a nice quiet evening at home and forget about the promise we made to volunteer for the schools bake sale. We tell ourselves we will go to the gym faithfully every other day after work, you know, just “do it for me time” and the car needs unexpected repair, the dog has to go to the vet, work needs an extra hour and before you know it the week has come to an end and exhaustion wins out. Now before this post takes on the tone of Debbie Downer, let me wholeheartedly tell you that detours, distractions and otherwise annoying events that keep you from doing what you had planned are a positive step towards keeping yourself honest in your spiritual work!
A healthy path to growth involves disruption. In fact that is how we physically grow. Shedding old skin cells, replacing with new; limbs stretching, muscles growing, healing and renewing. Expansion and contraction of flesh and bone and settling in to what a matured human being looks like. We take these as a given and don’t give much thought to how this movement in all directions is vital for healthy growth. As children, we constantly took detours and the less beaten paths. This was how we learned what was safe, what caused harm and what was risky but well worth the risk. These little forays into and off of the structured course formulated many of our preferences and who we became as adults.
As teens we constantly tested the boundaries, detouring from what our parents wanted in search of pure and unfettered joy in existence and being unstoppable and indestructible. We didn’t think of these excursions as detours, but each was in its own way self-imposed roadblocks that led us down the path that struck our fancy at the time. These side trips helped to set the course for what we thought our life could be and the grand visions and dreams we crafted for our adult experience.
Now, all of these examples may seem purely mundane and you may question how these relate to our spiritual practice/path. We strive on these paths to interweave the mundane and the magickal. We proclaim the fact that we live our spiritual truths 24/7 365-days per year. So in essence, everything that takes us off the main course we expected and all of the delays and roadblocks encountered at a mundane level are the products of the work accomplished on the paths of our spiritual course. Conversely every spiritual detour we take offers new wisdom and lessons learned that directly relate to how we move through our physical affairs and world and what we seek from the mundane to feed the spiritual.
I have been High Priestess of Oak and Willow for 13 years and during that time there have been many members who have joined and many who have left. Most departures have been amiable and most often the result of spiritual growth that has set that member in a new direction. Some may consider it a detour taken from the pagan path they began; particularly for those who left the Wiccan path and began the steps of Eastern practice or return to Christianity. Although saddened by each departure I have also honored the truth that any productive spiritual seeking will involve becoming more aware of what the choices of expression are and the many roads that may be taken. The challenges encountered in defining what our spiritual path and practice look like become the opportunities to detour from what is expected and explore a road less travelled. New experiences, new community and new beliefs come to light. Some may give deeper perspective and knowing as we continue on this detour and eventually return to the original road we began the journey on. Others may completely take us in a different direction, having the wisdom brought forward from where we began and refining it in accord with the new road taken and stayed upon.
Embrace these detours, roadblocks, set-backs and more. They strengthen your resolve in what you truly believe and wish to pursue in devotion. They allow time for pause and reflection in a world that often moves too quickly and leaves us hungering for what we would never have known or been able to use. They bend and mold and change who we are and who we will become. So, the next time you are driving and come to a detour, set off down a new road and grand adventure and an opportunity to perhaps appreciate the direct route you are normally able to take.
Stop, pause
Ready, set- Go!
Damn, another roadblock!
Try the other route
Not quite right but
Maybe I’ll get through.
Yellow sign ahead
Another detour on the path
Ok, just breathe
Maybe this route won’t be too bad.
Stop, pause
Ready, set- Go!
Lots to keep your
Interest on this new route.
Stop, pause
Let’s give it a try
Detours are so bad after all!
Never would have tried
Something new that
Became my new passion and
Answered my heart’s call!
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