Open Buddha

This is a kind of cheese sandwich entry…

I spent most of the morning cleaning before R got home from Portland. We have a weekly sheet and we’re supposed to alternate chores and such so things both get done and no one person gets stuck doing them. I kind of suck at this sometime so I’d promised to do more this weekend. I can’t say cleaning it fun but I did get a bunch of stuff done.

We’ve been in our house since July and still haven’t put everything away, up on the walls or down into storage. I cleaned up a bunch of my old books and put them away. I need to get a box together of all of the old books, mostly Germanic ones, that I don’t want anymore. I’ll take them some place to trade in. I don’t expect to get much for them but something is better than nothing and they just take up valuable space now.

The Citadel of the Ouroboros, the Ogdoadic (Ordo Astrum Sophiae) group that I’m in, met tonight. We use the ritual space in my house normally since I’ve partitioned off a 12′ by 12′ section of the basement into a ritual space. The ritual working went well and we chatted a bit about an upcoming public ritual and the class that we’re going to do.

I meander from feeling satisfied with my spiritual activities to feeling dissatisfied. Sometimes I feel like I’ve been on this path for 13 years now and haven’t accomplished a lot. Oftentimes, I have too many disparate interests and do not go as deeply into things as I should. I don’t feel like an accomplished ritualist or practitioner. I mean, my basic skills are good enough but I don’t often feel that spark of contact that tells me that I’m really there and connected. I’m not sure what to do about it. Sitting down and blindly doing ritual work isn’t going to help it necessarily because if you don’t do ritual with the right intent and awareness, it can be empty and without real value.

I think working on my day to day meditation and ritual habits in order for them to be more realiable will probably make the most difference. I’ve always struggled with the discipline of daily work, often losing, even though I know its value and tell other people to focus on it. (heh…) It’s hard to walk the walk. I think that’s true of everyone though, I just need to keep on it and focused.

I’m also trying to figure out how to do my Buddhist work in the context of my Western work. Perhaps one in the morning and one in the evening will work. I suppose that we shall see. At the very least, I want to start doing the Red Tara sadhana on a daily basis.