About Balancing your Mundane and your Magical/Spiritual Life
The autumn/fall equinox is a time of balance, and that's what I want to remind you of today: a good balance between spiritual and everyday activities. Why is this so important? Here are some examples.
A friend of mine told me she used to keep herself busy with a lot of esotericism and New Age spirituality. However, this caused her to become depressive. How did that happen? She was preoccupied with the idea of the "ascension" of mankind (or of some "chosen ones"), which is so popular in the field of New Age spirituality. While she was preoccupied with it, it more and more spoiled her everyday pleasures (like reading a novel, watching movies/shows...), because this now seemed to her to be a completely insignificant pastime. And there was another problem: She had difficulties to deal with ordinary people, among other things because they had a "low vibration" from the New Agers' point of view and that's how my friend felt at that time. But when it came to alleged "dark forces", this whole belief system became too weird for her. In the meantime, she turned away from it and found a good balance between the worldly and the spiritual for herself.
I had a similar experience, although on a smaller scale: during the workshop of a spiritual teacher I had a profound spiritual experience. After the workshop, however, I asked myself: how do I best deal with this now? How do I integrate it into my everyday life?
I found my answer in an old Zen saying: "What does the master do before enlightenment? Chopping wood and fetching water. What does the master do after enlightenment? Chopping wood and fetching water." In other words, no matter how profound your spiritual experiences are, it's best to integrate them into your everyday life, or to learn to switch easily from what we might call spiritual energy to everyday energy. In her book "Intuitive Witchcraft", Astrea Taylors speaks of a high energy for spiritual experiences and a low energy for everyday activities.
And here is another example why balancing these different activities is so important. There are people who get so overwhelmed by a spiritual awakening or enlightenment experiences that they fall into a spiritual crisis, which the psychologist Stanislaw Grof has called a "spiritual emergency". If these people are not well supported by their environment during such experiences, they may completely lose touch with reality and become psychotic. Spiritual emergencies, by the way, also seem like psychoses to some therapists, since they are often unable to classify the experiences and dismiss them as insane. Transpersonal Psychology (also known as Spiritual Psychology) deals with spiritual emergencies. There is some literature on this subject at the end of this blog.
And another saying comes to my mind in this context: "We are spiritual beings having a human experience." As long as we are incarnated, we are bound to our body and mind. Gravity also binds us to the earth in a very tangible way. And yes, that is ultimately materialistic. And beyond that, we live in a very materialistic world (compare my blog "Capitalism, Consumerism, Competition and Spiritual/Pagan/Witch/Occult Identity").
One can refuse a bit of materialism, e.g. by conscious consumption or reduction of consumption. But as humans, we cannot completely detach ourselves from matter. Even hermits who live lonely on a mountain somewhere, perhaps spending most of their time in deep meditation, have to eat and drink to survive.
There are several methods for grounding and centering. These can basically been seen as safety measures to not get lost or half stuck on a astral plane or other realms after you have done pathworking, hedge riding or deep trance or meditation.
You can find a guided meditation of mine for grounding here:
It's vital for any spiritual path or craft to maintain a strong and healthy connection to your mind, your body and your every day life. For some people, spiritual experiences are an escape from their problems in every day life and some even get addicted to this. If you are a witch or a magical practitioner and have this tendency, please keep in mind that magic takes the path of least resistance. That means, if there are serious and ongoing problems in your every day life, you most certainly will not be able to remove them by magic only. Often, something mundane has to be done as well. This is another reason why the balance of spiritual and mundane activities is so important.
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Video about Centering and Grounding, by Hearth Witch
Further reading:
Astrea Taylor: "Intuitive Witchcraft"
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45901741-intuitive-witchcraft
Books about spiritual emergencies
Sean Blackwell: „Am I bipolar or waking up?“
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12731139-am-i-bipolar-or-waking-up
Stanislaw, Christina Grof and others: „Spiritual Emergency: When Personal Transformation Becomes Crisis“
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/638137.Spiritual_Emergency
Jules Evans: „Breaking Open: Finding a Way Through Spiritual Emergencies“
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44904251-breaking-open
Catherine G. Lucas: „In Case of Spiritual Emergency: Moving Successfully Through Your Awakening“
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10221128-in-case-of-spiritual-emergency
Emma Bragdon: „The Call Of Spiritual Emergency: From Personal Crisis To Personal Transformation“
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1534328.The_Call_Of_Spiritual_Emergency
© Andrea Grünbaum