The Peripherally Engaged Armchairist's Guide to Shift Points

I offer this first tale of a neophyte's search for spiritual (re)discovery, derived from the bowels of the Peripherally Engaged Armchairist's psyche. By "peripherally engaged," I mean holding a curious though somewhat passive or tentative interaction with, say, spiritual inquiry. Per Wikipedia, the term "armchair" can refer to "a person who experiences something vicariously rather than first hand, or to a causal critic who lacks practical experience, such as armchair revolutionary, armchair general, armchair architect and so on." Add to the list armchair magician, armchair witch, armchair shaman, armchair Buddhist, etc. Tack on an "ist" and - voila! - a person who embodies the armchair stance.

I start here with the "Peripherally Engaged Armchairist," as this serves as a potential shift point. Transforming any point into a shift point requires first naming the current dynamic. In this case I'm naming the fact that, despite the moderate pleasure I derive from amassing a small spiritual library and like-minded blogroll, spiritual growth is both an intellectual and embodied, experiential pursuit to which I’ve erred on the side of intellect. Throw me a book or URL and I’ll devour it, but ask me to meditate, create art, perform ritual, or practice an astrological system and I hesitate.

Not that I don’t meditate or create or perform ritual or consider my astrological influences. I do, and when I do there’s this feeling of “Ahhh, now I remember.” My breathing and voice tend to deepen, my senses intensify, and I somehow become vividly aware of the energy flowing throughout my soma.

But there’s something to that moment of hesitation, that funny, paradoxical pause that precedes a course of action. On one hand, there is an expansive, spirited, quixotic element, which lends me to assume a gung-ho posture to finding It. It - that system of ideas to which I would undoubtedly respond to with a resounding “Yes, sign me up!” My eyes glint with the shine of possibilities, of doors yet to be open. I heave with the fantasy bordering on delusion of what could be - if only I found It.

Then there’s the space within that pause that’s steeped with reticence. Reticent to move from head to heart to spirit. Reticent to trust in gurus, dogma, and belief systems created by others. Reticent to trust in my ability to be supported by my own inner guidance.

The overwhelm of frenetic searching settles in. The resistance emerges. The distraction commences, thinly veiled by the External Gaze that fuels the obsessive search out there in books, on websites, in café’s, in metaphysical stores.

It’s not so extreme as this. For the sake of story, I exaggerate the polarities to communicate an experience, my experience, which is this. There is a Universe out there, within, and all around. The art is in weaving together the threads, threads that flow in lovely shades of gray to counterbalance the harsh contrast of black and white.

This blog, this exploration and direct engagement with my own thoughts, feelings and intuitions, is but just one part of the mechanism that transforms a point into a shift point.