Inner Peace
I just wrote about my spiritual history, and the cusps that have lead me to where I am now. I’ve been on the move for most of my life, searching for something outside of myself, in the past and future. I have finally found what I have been looking for. Inner peace is here and now.
The post that I wrote two days ago, on how I could not find that sense of peace, nor a sense of anything else, was indeed the calm before the storm… and the storm is only beginning. It prompted me to travel my past, to understand why I came to where I am now. It prompted me to travel my future, to understand what I am doing now. These last two days, I have retraced the steps around the world that I have made as a soldier.
I know guilt and sin. I am not a perfect person. I know peace and forgiveness. I am whole.
After writing on how I didn’t have a sense of peace two days ago, at how vague the whole experience was, I was strongly compelled to write to Slade and Jeff to ask them for help. The email that I sent each was short and simple, explaining that I didn’t know what to do next… They gave two different replies, and individually, they do not equal what they had both come up with together.
I had the energy… Slade provided me with the method to use that energy… Jeff provided me with the direction to apply the energy. I realize that this seems a bit vague and ambiguous, but I’ll explain shortly.
My life purpose is to bring peace to everybody… Since taking on that purpose, I have started this blog in the hopes that I could bring peace, so that I could find peace myself. I realize that I had it backwards, and I knew at the beginning that it was backwards as well… Peace is not found outside of yourself. However, the clues to finding peace could indeed be external.
Take care of your body, for it is your vehicle to finding these clues.
Take care of your mind, for it is there to find the riddles behind the clues.
Take care of your environment, for it is the tool through which you experiment, to work through these clues.
Take care of your spirit, for it holds the key to unlocking peace.
Without your body, mind, environment, and spirit, you can not find the door within yourself that leads to peace… If one is lacking, then peace can not be obtained.
Take care of your body the same way that you would make a sword… Give it good ingredients, or the foundation will be corrupt. Stretch it, beat it, and strain it, but also let it rest… If you do not apply enough stress, it will be weak and soft. If you do not let it rest, it will be brittle, easy to break. Eat healthy food and exercise often, but do not push past your limits.
Take care of your mind the same way that you take care of your body… Give your mind good information and challenge it with puzzles. Avoid the bad, such as uninformative television and fear-based propaganda. Read books, write, and pick up a hobby that makes you think, such as the currently popular Soduko puzzles. If you are addicted to TV, and don’t want to give it up, watch trivia game shows and informative documentaries, such as those found on The Science Channel. Play as well… Letting your mind rest helps it to sort things out. Of course, also get enough sleep is important as well, but too much sleep can cause just as much trouble as not enough.
Take care of your environment by keeping it clean and orderly, and by maintaining and strengthening your relationships. Don’t be afraid to cut off relationships that are harmful or abusive, but don’t be afraid of gaining new relationships either. Manage your relationships judiciously as well… Don’t take responsibility for other people’s thoughts, since you can’t control what goes on in their head, but do recognize how their thoughts and resulting actions affect you. There are many, many self-help books out there that are devoted to finding equilibrium with your environment, whether it be financially, romantically, or organizational.
Take care of your spirit… There’s a tricky one. More than anything else, spirituality is subjective. There is no single right answer for everybody… but at the same time, there is no wrong answer either. The best advice that I can give everybody is to simply pay attention. Just like you can’t not communicate, and you can’t not practice, you can’t not grow spiritually. You can, however, slow down to the point where it seems like you’re standing still.
Taking care of the mind and body may seem to be concentrating on opposites… Taking care of the physical and spiritual may seem to be exclusive as well… but it is only when they are all together that you can find peace. Just as many depictions of the tarot card Temperance show fire being mixed with water, it is through combining the earthliness of our environment, the fieriness of our spirits, the airiness of our thoughts and the watery needs of our bodies that we arrive at a whole being… (I’ve heard it described before, by a computer engineer explaining a diet plan he hacked together, of all sources, that in its most simple terms, the human body is simply a highly inefficient water pump. Appropriately, the tagline on the diet plan is “How to lose weight and hair through stress and poor nutrition.”)
Now, I’m a big fan of cycles… but dwelling on them really hertz… (Please, pardon my puns.) If I do finally write the piece of fiction which has been stuck in my head, it will contain 21 books, of seven stories retold three times from the same person, as his past present and future. The world is made up of cycles, from the changes of tides every six hours, the day/night cycle, the lunar cycles, and even the yearly wheel, cut into quarters with spring, summer, autumn, and winter. Even the sun has a cycle, with its magnetic field being twisted and bent every eleven years, finally settling into a new equilibrium. There is a 20,000 year cycle of ice ages and warm periods, and even our view of the heavens have a cycle, as constellations move over hundreds of thousands of years.
Fortunately, these cycles serve as a good way of dealing with the different elements of ourselves. A full moon can remind us to accept the bounty before us, and a new moon can remind us to be more giving. If you can’t run, then learning how to walk might be more appropriate… If you can’t combine the spiritual with the worldly, or the mental with the physical, then you could work on them in cycles, shortening the length of each cycle until they overlap.
Having all of the pieces together doesn’t guarantee inner peace, though… It only makes it easier to find, and easier to maintain. That is what I realized yesterday, with the help of Jeff and Slade. Having your body, mind, environment, and spirit in tune gives you the energy to push forward into a state of peace, but without knowing how to apply the peace, or having a direction for your energy to go, peace eludes you.
Slade’s response was that I act in the present only. I can plan for the future and remember the past, but I can only act now… I can only be at peace now. (What he wrote was much longer than what I’m putting in here… but the parts that weren’t specifically saying to live in the now were specific to my situation.)
Jeff used divination to find his part of the message… He pulled three cards, The Hermit, The Sun, and The Hierophant, and aligned them as he did in a recent spread… The Hermit was on the bottom left, the Sun was in the top middle, and the Hierophant was on the bottom right… I was represented by both the Hermit and Hierophant, with the Hermit being myself now, and the Hierophant being who I’ll be when I’ve reached my goal.
That gave me the means to work, and the direction to work towards. I realize that the Hierophant has made a pretty bad name for himself… Thoughts of persecution at the hands of the Inquisition spring immediately to mind, but the Hierophant has another side to him, especially when you leave out the prejudice that both those dealing with him, as well as the Hierophant himself, seem to enjoy.
The purpose of the Hierophant is to bring spirituality to the world at large in practical terms… The Hermit simply explains things whenever you are lucky enough to find him, but you don’t need to be lucky to find the Hierophant when you’re looking for him, since you always know that he’s firmly entrenched within his palace of gold spartan cloister.
Just as with the Hermit, I’ve been wandering around searching for knowledge, and I have been trading answers in exchange for questions to ponder over… I have helped many people, on an individual basis, but I wouldn’t stick around to see the results, or to offer any follow-up help. I was hard to find, and it was often random fate which allowed me to find the people to help.
Now it seems that my direction is to become the Hierophant, however the role plays itself out. I’ve got my golden palace spartan cloister here in the form of this web site, with a contact form that is well guarded from spam, and public message boards in the form of comments; as well as a couple of back doors in the form of instant messengers and forum private messages, for those who know where to find them. (The keys to those back doors are not on this website… That should be enough of a clue for those who have followed me so far.)
So, what is the role of the Hierophant? To be an easy to find source of inspiration, who takes complex or spiritual ideas and simplifies them into worldly knowledge, and who can be a stubborn jerk at times. I promise that I’ll only be stubborn when it really matters. 
Oh, and the Astrological basis for the Hierophant is Taurus… mooo.
The one thing about a Hierophant is that he attracts acolytes. I don’t want acolytes, I want people to go out and spread their own message. The best way to help me is to not be a “yes man,” but to go out and use your own words… Argue with me and point out what I’m doing wrong… Be my friend, not what you think I want in a friend. If you haven’t already, go out and make your own blog and write about what you feel is important. Stop waiting and just do it. Yes, you. Go, make a blog. Now!
Since finding the role, the means to fit within it, and gaining the energy and discipline to follow through, I’ve found a measure of peace far greater than I’ve felt before. Welcome, everyone, to Adam’s Peace. It isn’t a place, it is every place. It isn’t a time, it is every time.
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