Sunday, May 15, 2011

We interrupt your regular knit blog for these pontificating messages

This past year has been an interesting one for me and it's probable that both of you who are reading this have been with me for the entirety of this journey. I've been thinking a lot about my career path and my spiritual path as I continue to work on my thesis and move toward the end of the Master's degree journey. There's so much here that I've worked to build in my local community and so much more that I want to do, but it seems that my academic and spiritual paths are diverging.
I'm not entirely convinced that this is the case now. I'm going to have to leave the town I've grown to know as home and the spiritual community that has offered me support for so long so that I can pursue a PhD in my field of study. Anyone who knows me knows how much I love biology. I've been a scientist longer than I've been a Pagan and, in fact, became a Pagan because I'm a scientist. A religion based on the natural cycles of the Earth just makes a kind of sense to me that other faiths didn't.
Anyway, no matter where I go, I'm going to take my spiritual path with me. It's more portable than travel socks. I know I can do a lot of good here and I'm grateful for the friends I've made, the family I know, and the bridges I've built, but I'm now beginning to accept that the way in which my spiritual life is going to be turned upside-down as I reach for that next degree can but lead me to where I need to be as both a scientist and a priestess. My chosen career path lead me to where I needed to be to begin with, so there's no reason that it should be any different now.
With any luck, graduation is about a year away, but I'm hoping that coming to this conclusion now will serve to motivate me in doing what needs to be done for my thesis and whatever else I've got going on. It's going to be okay, no matter what. I don't know what the tapestry of life looks like or why it is that the Fates are weaving me in a particular direction, but I can go with it and be the best example of myself that I can manage. That's really all a gal can do.
...we now return you to your regularly scheduled knit blog.

3 comments:

Bekah M said...

::hugs::

Yes, it absolutely will be okay -- and you will end up where you need to be, doing what you need to be doing, both in your academic as well as your spiritual life.

That said, I am not loving the "moving away to get my PhD" part of that equation...even though I can accept that it is what you Need.

But I dun hafta like it.

Unknown said...

Yeah, that's pretty much where I'm at, too.

Cindy said...

Yeah,what Kade said. I'd say it, but she beat me to it and I couldn't say it better.

*hugs*