"Your Joy is your Sorrow unmasked"

^ One of my favorite Gibran quotes.

Solstice did not go as planned.  And although it was out of my control, I still find ways to criticize myself.  I should have planned better, had back up plans, had a focus that didn't depend so much on one variable...  Or if I'm not criticizing myself, I'm trying to put some meaning to it.  Did I do something wrong, practically or cosmically?  Is there some lesson or message in my plans going awry?  But I recognize myself doing this, and just try to take a deep breath and move forward.  Mercury is in retrograde, after all.

These last couple months I've been "living close to my emotions".  It's a phrase I keep coming back to because I don't know how else to describe it.  As a result, I experience many more moments of peace, wonder, gratitude and happiness.  But nearly as often, I will suddenly feel this overwhelming sadness.  Sometimes in the same day, sometimes for all the same reasons.  I feel that it's a result of trying to remain connected and stay true to my Self and my path.  I'm not bottling up or dismissing anything.  And more significantly, trying to follow your bliss is damn difficult.  It's an emotional tight-rope walk in the nude. 

In rereading The Secret Magdalene, Yeshua's description of gnosis stirs up this desire in me, and a struggle.  My own path is a paradox -- believing we are all One, we are all God, while worshipping very specific gods as individual entities.  This is quite reconcileable, in the end.  The gods are individuals as we are, which is to say we are but aren't.  And I feel that Oneness is the end result/goal regardless of the tradition, religion or practice.  But is focusing on the separateness to get to the path of Oneness just making things more difficult for myself?  And yet through cultivating relationships with certain gods, we can get closer to that god, and therefore to the All.  The maenad versus the bodhisattva.  Sometimes I feel I must be a maenad, dancing and raving my barriers down before I can be bodhisattva -- an embodiment of divinity that is calmer and more giving.  Like I must first lose myself to become selfless.