Using my marbles

Last night I couldn't sleep, I got out of bed at 1am and realised ‘the fear’ was back; the fear that finally sent me into the hospital as I didn't feel safe at home. Last night I actually wished I was back inside and initially was at a loss as to what to do.

Unfortunately these kinds of things tend to happen at night and during the weekend so had to I deal with it- and deal with it I did.

My first action was to put the kettle on, naturally.


After two cups of tea and 5mg of diazepam the fear remained. I needed to break out plan B.


Not long after I met my (wonderful, fantastic, life-saving) CPN she introduced the concept of mindfulness. Being a horribly sceptical, cynical kind of girl I scoffed at her handouts but over time I have become a big fan.


Last night, after tea and diazepam I got out my mindful marbles- about 100 marbles in a plastic mesh bag. My mindful marbles are probably my favourite mindfulness tool (not least because I can have the occasional snigger to myself about losing them). They feel nice, they are all different sizes, I can count them, they make a lovely noise, they are cold but can be warmed up and they look great.

I 'totally get' mindfulness now I see my discovery of it as one of the upsides of becoming mentally ill.


My discovery of mindfulness brings me to something else I’ve discovered on my journey- quite appropriate for a Sunday blog post too.


I am not a religious person, have no belief in a god or gods and trust myself sufficiently to create a moral code of my own that is not dictated by any one dogma. My children are raised in a truly atheist house (though we do celebrate the Christian festivals that include gifts and chocolate) and I take a factual intellectual approach to discussions on religion, usually using them as an opportunity to discuss tolerance and acceptance. Since becoming ill I have realised we also live in a house that sadly has no spiritual dimension.


We are a very matter of fact kind of family- well most of us.


One of our family walks takes us past a Willow tree. I comment on the tree “oh that Willow tree is lovely”, my daughter comments on the tree “it’s a great colour”; my eldest son doesn’t notice the tree as he is in a huff having been dragged out for a walk but my youngest child comments on the tree “that tree is sad”. The tree does look sad, weeping, as Willows do.


Now the tree probably isn’t sad, it looks healthy enough and appears to have everything it needs. My youngest sons observation however jolted me into realising that being spiritual doesn’t have to mean being religious.


I struggle to define spirituality and I’m not really sure that it needs explaining- it is whatever you need it to be. For me it’s a kind of ‘stopping to smell the flowers’ kind of approach. It’s about stopping and thinking about situations, it’s about being grateful for who and what you have and are. It’s about seeing things differently and trusting your own, wise mind to do the right thing.


It’s not about wearing tie-dye, doing yoga or becoming a vegan, it’s about being a whole person.


Looking after your spirit is an essential tool in the pursuit of good mental health. The very fact that no-nonsense, matter-of-fact, considers the Periodic Table and a world map as legitimate works of art me is saying that is testament to how important it is.


So there are upsides to mental illness and my realisation that I need to stop and think a bit more is an upside. The rest of it still sucks though!


So today I am grateful for mindfulness and glad that I haven’t lost my marbles.

Spiritual Indecision...Or Do You Call It Pluralism?

A fair number of comments to this blog have raised provocative questions and heartfelt concerns about the linkage between ethnicity, including the problematic concept of "race," and Pagan spiritual traditions in much of modern-day Paganism or neo-Paganism. This is something I have also struggled with, and I am not yet sure who or what has won the struggle!

I have divided loyalties between two different European Pagan traditions, the Norse or Nordic Paganism of Iceland and Scandinavia, and the Baltic Paganism of Lithuania and Latvia. I have Czech and Lithuanian ancestry, but was exposed to Norse mythology at an early age--I am not ashamed to admit it was through the comic book "The Mighty Thor!!"--but always felt a great curiosity about Lithuania, from dribs and drabs that my mother would relate to us, based on her mother's recollections of her childhood in Lithuania in the early 20th century. In undergraduate college, I did a research paper on Nazi appropriations of Norse mythology--highly ironic as I am now working on a somewhat higher level research paper on the same topic that I hope to publish in a scholarly journal like "Nova Religio" or "The Pomegranate." When I started graduate school in the mid-1980s, I made Norse Mythology one of my areas of study. This carried on with study of the Old Norse language at the University of Wisconsin at the end of that decade, and led me to obtain a Fulbright Fellowship at the University of Iceland in the mid-1990s, which led to participation in Asatru Fellowship activities in the Reykjavik area, and continuing connections with Iceland and Asatru.

However, the same year that I went to Iceland, I also went to Lithuania, where I came to know Jonas and Inija Trinkunas, the husband and wife leaders of the Lithuanian Pagan group Romuva. This led to further visits in 1998 and 2002. A bit later, after teaching in Japan several years, I scored a second Fulbright Fellowship to teach at Siauliai University in Lithuania from fall of 2004 to spring of 2005, and was once more highly impressed by Lithuanian spirituality, but also frustrated at my inability to learn the Lithuanian language, which was really necessary for me to fully participate in Romuva.

I came back to the USA in 2005 with a pragmatic sense that I would henceforth concentrate on forging links with people involved in Nordic Paganism, largely because it was more accessible with most of the materials being translated into English, with several generations of Asatru in America having developed a workable American version of Nordic Paganism. However, I still feel connected to Lithuania and Romuva, and do not by any means renounce my ties to them. (Hey, what's the point of being polytheistic if you can't be pluralistic?) I see the traditions as kindred branches of the Indo-European spiritual tree, anyway, with Perkunas being the Lithuanian version of Thor, and Velnias being the Lithuanian version of Odin, and the Lithuanian World Tree being no less of a vivid symbol of interconnectedness between mankind and nature than Yggdrasil in Norse mythology. In many ways, I see myself as an Indo-Europeanist, which also allows me to feel at home in other related spiritual traditions like Hinduism.

However, I am such a shameless spiritual slut, or religious eclectic, anyway, that I cannot really accept being walled off from other traditions that appeal and make sense to me. Having lived in Japan from 1999-2004, I am very appreciative of Shinto, which of all religions I have known, is the one whose closeness to nature has most impressed me. When I pray to my various gods, spirits and ancestors, I often bow and clap my hands twice, Shinto-style, and I do not imagine that Odin or whoever else I am addressing feels slighted by this elegant and respectful gesture. Furthermore, my analytical mind tells me that all names and forms of the "divine" (or whatever you want to call It) are just provisional place markers to help the human psyche reach out to something beyond yet deep within itself; however, I find certain god-images and personalities emotionally moving. And, at the risk of sounding ridiculous--and I can assure you I am not saying this in a flippant way--I like the fact that in religion, we can return to the child in us who enjoys playing with dolls and toy figures. I think that play is actually highly significant.

An acquaintance of mine in Sweden made a very pertinent point about this kind of eclecticism. He told me that he likes to worship the Scandinavian goddess Freyja, and has also taught his daughter to do the same, but that if she were to decide to instead worship the Greek goddess Diana, he would not have a problem with it, as he sees them as ultimately meaning very much the same thing. However, he would PREFER that she worship Freyja, as this would be more in keeping with their particular cultural and ethnic context, but he would not insist on it. I think that is a lovely attitude, and I am grateful to hhm for sharing that.