I believe we are all inventing our spirituality. Sometimes we disdainfully refer to this as “pick and choose” religion, I feel that’s a mistake. It’s not only good to pick and choose what works for you, what resonates with you, but it’s what we are doing regardless of whether or not we think it good or bad.

Each of us has a unique electrical imprint of reality, from nature to nurture, from quantum to bodily. There is no cloud server, no file type, each of our brains are utterly unique. Each word carries slightly (or vastly!) different meanings, each of our phobias and neuroses express themselves in different pathos. Who and what we love are signifiers of our deepest selves.

When we attempt to accept any dogma as absolute truth, we immediately build a wall around our own experience and intuition which then prevents us from being able to experience reality as it truly is and prevents an individual from discovering their true nature.

We must forge our own path and understanding, as well as know that ken is distinctive to our individual imprint. We cannot pressure, dominate, or coerce anyone into following our beliefs; that would dehumanize their reality.

Dogma is a nice guidebook, though! There is much wisdom to be had from the thinkings of those who thought before. I have developed my own concepts over time, my way of approaching what the Taoists call The Path, what some North American Indigenous call The Good Red Road. I call my way Flux Numen: lucidly experiencing the indwelling divine spirit.

Raised in a situation of innocent neglect, I received formative blessings: being able to trust myself, to not require external validation, and to not be taught boundaries or fear of the natural world. This has led me to places of naive wisdom, unconditioned (to a certain extent) by the colonizing, racist, capitalist, patriarchal, industrialized, progress focused, reductionist, authoritarian, individualist forces of Western Culture.

Bruce Lee said it best, I think: my technique is to have no technique. I evaluate each experience from the viewpoint of “case by case and context rich.” There can be no rules, because to create one also creates a situation in which the opposite arises.

This is not to say I’m some sort of bootstraps and ego human, rather what I have learned most entreatingly is the absolute need for community, shared knowledge and mutual aid. The absence of strong family taught me the value of company, coterie, and kin. And I have come to find that western white culture does not value the people and community as much as they value power, supremacy, and hoarding finances.

This divorce from modern ethics is crucial to the discovery/invention of my spirituality. When we move away from the known, traditional, the handed-down, the accepted mores, we enter a vacuum. You cross over an event horizon into an unknown universe, what so many of us naturally come to call the void. In the void, you are again a babe, finding your way in the dark, the ground falls out from beneath you, the foundation is shifting.

Many folks can never overcome the horror of the void and so remain followers. This is fine, Buddha always said, the teachings are for everyone. However, some of us begin to find solace in the void, in doubt, in uncertainty. We recognize a liberation follows from this excursion away. When one expresses liberation fully, it will likely follow that one feels suddenly the weight of responsibility that comes with complete agency. Many here will turn back to the comfort of blame, handing their power over to someone “in charge”.

"He who blames others has a long way to go on his journey. He who blames himself is halfway there. He who blames no one has arrived." ~ Chinese Proverb

I have cast three primal spells in my life, the first two by accident. The first primal spell I cast as a child: a vow of renunciation. The second I cast in the first month of my sobriety: a supplication to lose everything. The last primal spell was purposeful, at the winter solstice of ‘22: I prayed for a foundational shift. I will write more about these some day.

Otherwise, my rituals make no calls for favor from the All. I prefer signifying rites of passage and protection, as well as practice for health. I have healed a brain tumor, a bunion, my bi-polar, my alcohol addiction (and others), I have returned feeling to my legs where nerve damage severely reduced my ability to feel. I am currently working on bringing my kidney function into balance, which was damaged by the brain tumor.

Being in the wild is a key aspect of my balance, harmony and capacity. So is renunciation and service. I will always lean to the side of purging over hoarding. Money is next to meaningless to me. I love worms and snakes. I am not afraid of death. I learn from the wisdom of the land. The trees and river speak to me and guide me. My intuition is active and alive within me.

Here I am, adventuring, loving, and delightfully dependent on this everything.