InnerBliss: Sinking into the North

Bird tracks in the tiny bit of snow we
had (which is now gone).

Listening to: This Indian singer and composer also helped write the soundtrack for Lord of the Rings.

Bliss: Is there anything quite like sitting and reading with the glow of Christmas tree lights and holiday music in the background? (And perhaps a little something -- eggnog, a bit of chocolate, a cookie -- at your side?)

(We have already covered, East, South, and West.)

I come to the North.
I ask the earth and stones
for wisdom, stability,
and endurance. Absorb from
me all stolid heaviness.
I come to thee seeking growth
and the quiet of thy night.

-- from A Priestess's Litany for a New Day by Grey Cat

When I first started doing yoga in the house in which we currently live (the "lilypad"), I didn't know it, but I was facing North. Always.

Then I got this bright idea that I needed a yoga room. So I moved my mat and DVD's and straps upstairs into what is now my writing and yoga room. But years ago, when this happened, I couldn't stay here. I had to move it all back downstairs.

Then I started taking classes at a studio and that was when it hit me...I was doing yoga facing North -- at the studio and at home. When I experimented with facing other directions, I got antsy and had to turn around.

What was going on? Was I just exhibiting more OCD tendencies than usual?

I don't think so.

Now I can do yoga facing any old direction, but I think when I first started getting serious about my practice, it just so happened that I chose the direction that would most likely contribute to my sense of stability, according to pagan, Celtic, and Native American belief systems.

I learned of this when I found the Priestess's Litany copied at the top of this post, and after a few summers doing this litany in the morning, it seems I am more stable on the inside -- my true North is now in my heart, so to speak.

If you feel the need to work with this direction, here are the pertinent correspondences: North is of the earth; it rules the body, growth, nature, material gain, creativity, money, death, and anything that comes out of or goes back to the dirt; North's time is midnight; its season is winter; its colors are black, brown, green, and white; the angel is Gabriel; the sense is touch; the jewels are rock crystal and salt; the plants include comfrey, grains, barely, ivy; the tree is oak; and the goddesses are Ceres, Demeter, Gaea, Mah, Nephthys, Persephone, Prithivi, Rhea, and Rhiannon.

The Lakota see North as ruling over wisdom and thought; the Celts work with the North to increase the energies of earth, home, and security; and modern Pagans look to the North for wisdom and clarity.

Some questions to get you thinking about this direction and its role in your life:

How often do you move, whether it be from apartment to apartment, house to house, or town to town? Think of the U2 song "Running to Stand Still." Does that speak to you in any way? Are you moving for adventure or are you moving away from something? Do you know what it is you are trying to leave behind?

Do you feel stable in your current home or barely tethered? Do you have roots where you live or are you a perpetual nomad? When was the last time you planted a tree or something that would take years to bear fruit?

Do you commit enough to projects, ideas, and relationships so they also might bear fruit or do you take off before anything has the time to mature? Are you in for the long haul or do you expect immediate results?

Are you grounded and comfortable in your own skin? Do you treat your body with the respect it deserves or are you constantly expecting more or better from it? Do you feed it well? Do you exercise in a healthy way?

In your spiritual life, do you stick to any path long enough to see where it might take you, or have you become so very cafeteria style that you move from one tradition to the next with no breath in between?

This past summer, I went, again, to Lilydale and met with a medium there whom I'd met with before. After experiencing two big deaths, this has been something that has been helpful -- and not because she gives me some airy fairy, pretty picture of my life, but because she seems to have some genuine insight into death.

Anyway, this last time I went she told me that whatever I was doing, it was working. What? I asked her to clarify. I have become so accustomed to trying in my life that I was amazed that I might just have gotten to a point of being.

She repeated, "Whatever you're doing spiritually for yourself? Keep doing it." I didn't need any more from her after that because I knew in my heart that she was telling me the truth, showing me something I already knew but had to become aware of.

All this work on stability, endurance...all this prayer...all this accepting myself...I'm here to tell you that it can finally work. So keep trying. Someday, if not today, someday you will get to just be, and it might not last forever but it sure can feel good while it does.