An Agnostic's Retreat

On the way to a Memorial Day family outing, I posed the following question to my companions in the car:  “Is there a monastery for the Agnostic?”  Silence ensued as they tried to figure out where, in left field, did this question come from…

Well, I was just thinking that I need to get away…far away…maybe another planet somewhere.  My life is complex, complicated and I never can catch my breath.

I should be feeling free and able to focus, seeing that I just penned my resignation letter to the Hospital Auxiliary.  That one less item on my daily agenda should have allowed me time to regroup as I have volunteered too many unproductive hours in the past two and one half years.

I have a flaw…just realized in the first person sense.  Others have tried to explain this personality blemish, but I was not ready to receive the diagnosis.  Now I realize that I can’t see the forest because of the trees. I am forever detail, detail, fix, more details to sort, etc.

I can’t seem to just do what I can and let the rest go…flow into the streams of the unimportant and insignificant details of life.

Blaming my way to early introduction to Astrology and learning all about capriciousness and Capricorn ways, I always prided myself in solving the minuscule errors in others. Rules, rules, rules… I am all about the following of, establishing of and changing (if no longer applicable) of rules.  Maybe it’s time to stop.

My thinking is that if I remove myself from everything familiar and just exist, the cobwebs will clear, my heart will stop racing and peace will find a pathway in.

Problem is where to go?

A commune might be appropriate; everyone sharing an equitable part in the running of such an organization.  But there is that word “organization” which stirs the possibility of hierarchy and then my perspective on how well those in charge are really doing.

Well, how about an artist’s retreat?  That would be interesting at least and the shared excitement about the creative process would keep me focused. But the possibility of a well- intentioned criticism might prove to be the fly in the ointment.

Won’t attempt anything remotely religious, can’t be tethered to a limited view of the universe.  I already know my purpose…I am a creative soul.  I create and release, the reciprocal bond is inherent and unending.

I know I was born into the wrong decade…just a few years earlier and I could have satisfied my longing for nirvana in the 1960’s and joined in the flower power mind set.  I’m trying to do that now, but opportunities just don’t appear often in this Bible belt region of this country.

So, my effort will be ongoing.  I am displaced from myself and I feel it in my gut and aching and tenseness.  I am in the wrong place at the right time.

Sanctuary must be a wonderful state of mind.  Some people find it in the material offerings of society.  Places, buildings, writings, great music, artistic endeavors left by generations before mine offer respite to the weary.

If you researched the principal personalities responsible for the greatest works afore mentioned, would you be surprised to learn that they were tortured souls?

Centuries of men and women driven by inexplicable forces to create.  I don’t want that experience.  I don’t want to be used up and incarcerated in my own mind.

Where does the Agnostic release the constraints of social pressures?  Where does one exist and not become unnecessarily self -reliant, living with the beasts, wild and free?

The answer will come, at a future intersection of my predestined pathway. In the meantime, I will continue to rid myself of responsibilities to others and allow the gifts from beyond to beckon at my proverbial door.