As a follow up to a post from a few months ago, I've been to a few specialists in order to figure out what's going on with my health. Right now there's a good bit of evidence pointing to an auto-immune issue. I'm waiting on another test result, and then in two weeks I'm due to see a rheumatologist.
I'm hopeful that I'm finally coming up on the end of a lot of wondering, and that I'll finally be able to begin some sort of treatment that will allow me to feel better. Being sick has, unsurprisingly, affected a lot of areas of my life - and that includes spiritually, which has been hard.
I still make the time to keep up with my minimum commitments, tending to Aphrodite's shrine one a week, and the other shrines once a lunar month (at least). It is very important to me that I keep up with the work I am doing with Aphrodite, and it's important to me to maintain some connection to my other deities, as well. However, there are other projects and goals which have fallen to the side for now.
The other issue has been with finding spiritual community. I mentioned before there is a pagan group here as part of a UU church, but since I would have to walk to the church I'm going to wait for my health to get a little better (or at least for warmer weather) before looking into that.
So for the moment I'm left with online fellowship. There are still a lot of days I miss my old forum hangout. It hit me the other day that it's been almost two years since the issues with ownership/activity on that forum began. It's been hard to lose that place, because even though we often believed in different things, and practiced in different ways, it felt like we were often all on the same page. Oh well, guess there's no use dwelling, huh?
Beyond all that, I also want to mention that I have not forgotten the 30 days of deity devotion, it's just been hard to get the thoughts together in my mind with all that's going on. I do plan on getting back to it this month, hopefully on Sunday or early next week, although I do think I'm going to have to say some of the days out of order, and save some of the longer topics for now.
dear siona with all ur knowledge...spiritualism,it bafles me that u still have so much health challenges;cant perform devine healing
ReplyDeleteNope. I make no claims of being able to do any miraculous healings or anything of that nature, and I am quite skeptical of anyone who claims to be able to do so. I absolutely advocate for people to seek out actual medical doctors when faced with serious conditions, and to be knowledgeable of their own physical health. It is fine to seek out spiritual aid for such conditions *in addition to* consulting with doctors, and using scientific medicine, but I do not believe spiritual "divine healing" should be any sort of replacement to standard treatments.
DeleteThink of it this way. I can go stand out in a field and pray all day to Demeter for a health barley crop, but unless I actually pay attention to the appropriate cycles, plant when it is time, water my fields, weed them, care for them, there won't be a harvest. Similarly I can pray all day, but unless I actually seek treatment and answers, where will I be? I am reminded of the story of the man who prayed for his disease to be cured, but ignored all doctors who offered to help him. When the man died he met with God and asked why didn't God heal him? God said he tried, but the man ignored all the doctors God had sent to him.
We are not purely creatures of spirit, we live in the mundane physical world, and we should not ignore that. I do not see my spirituality as some sort of cure-all that means I will never suffer from any health issue, or any other misfortune. I believe my spirituality enhances my life in many ways, but I would never expect to lead some sort of 'perfect' life free from challenges because of it, and I have never made any sort of claim otherwise.