Crafting the Spirit

Most of the projects that I do with my hands help me to deepen my connection to the spiritual forces around me. I am lucky because every moment of my life has the feeling that the sacred is present. When I am involved in craftsmanship, that feeling is amplified tenfold.

One of the most important activities in which a shaman can engage is establishing and deepening one's connection to Nature and their environment. I won't explore the details of why at the risk of sounding like a know-it-all. But I think it's safe to say that a shaman isn't a shaman if he doesn't know and have a good working relationship with the spirits of his environment.

This week's entry at my craft blog, Craft Harder, is about trees, plants and deepening my connection to my environment. If you are interested, you can read it here.

Half Asleep

I spend most of my waking hours in a state of half-asleep. Though I'm conscious, I'm not quite alert. There was a time when I was alert at all time during waking hours, but that was several decades ago when I was in school. All the worries of an adult life were handled, I lived alone without a partner (or the desire to have one), and I had all the friends who understood me that I could want. Basically, I wanted for nothing and worried about no part of life. I kept a very regular sleep schedule consisting of exactly 8 hours of sleep at the same hours of the night and I took a 30 minute nap after eating my lunch every day. My sleeping periods were deep and restorative. When I was not asleep, I was awake and alert like no one else around me. During that time, lucid dreams occurred every day, my memory was impeccable, and my immune system was impenetrable too.

Today's shamanship practice was more a matter of fighting to stay awake. Most of my practice is like that. Without the soundness in my sleep, my sleep is not as regular or restorative as it used to be, so my waking hours are a bit drowsy. This makes practice very difficult. I try very hard to find a practice time when I feel rested so I will not be inclined to just drop into sleep the moment I lay down. But it seems like there are no moments anywhere during the day when I am not prone to sleep. Yes, I could exact more control over my sleep schedule, but there are things I can't control, like a partner who thinks the cuteness of his romping dog is more important than my sleep. I'm going to try to take control of this, yet again, to see if he and I can agree on a regular sleep schedule from which I can benefit. It's the only way my practice will find any alert time.