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THE PASSION OF THE PATH
By CinnamonMoon

Spirituality often begins as a flicker deep inside us, the question of the reality of a spiritual
dimension itself nags at us from an early age, we look up into the universe and the question of
what is life really about takes form. The question, like that flickering flame grows and burns
brighter begging us to feed it more fuel, to explore and find those answers. As we explore those
interests the spiritual aspects of life begin to manifest and validate the truths in a wide variety of
ways. The flame of the question begins to transform itself into a flame of passion for truth. I'd
like to pose a question to the community and ask you to consider the passion you hold for the
path you walk or your spiritual quest then share your story with us. How did you find that
passion? What feeds it? What sustains it? And how do you hold onto it? Have you lost it and if
so, how did you find it again?

BearInMind:
“How did you find that passion?”
I didn't have to "find" it; it was always there. To me, "finding" something indicates something
that is lost, and I never lost my "passion for more" even in walking away from the Christian
belief system. The passion was (is) still there but the need wasn't being fed anymore. Bishop
always used to say that when you stop learning under someone, it may be time to move on or
you'll become stagnant by limiting yourself by "settling for." Well, I did continue to learn but
honestly it was the people who disappointed me; "Do as I say, not as I do" types; I allowed "what
I saw" and what I knew about them to distract my focus, and I cannot really blame anyone in
particular for that except for myself. But I think I needed that "excuse" ~ that impetus, to push
me on to further seeking how to feed the "passion for more."

“What feeds it?”
Truth, and living/experiencing that truth on several levels to realize that truth as reality for me in some way.

“What sustains it?
What sustains my passion? Good question. Don't know, I thought deeply about this for about 2
minutes and I think what sustains it is "the fuel" ~ what the passion gets fed. You know how we
need to eat to get energy, and then that energy is used to help us get through the day...? Well It
came to me that in my passion for more spiritually, I ask questions. Once I receive answers that I
can understand, usually more questions will come... more fuel to take me further and deeper into
the matter. I guess a good way to describe it is that it starts as one question. Or even a bunch of
questions about something. Getting some answers might lead to a superficial revelation, that gets
me to thinking more on the subject, and after one layer or veil has been lifted, I see more stuff I
have questions about... so I ask... and each layer allows me to go deeper an deeper... So I think
that is what sustains my passion for more... the answers to the questions add fuel to the passion
for more.

“And how do you hold on to it?”
How do I hold onto the passion? I think it clings to me like gum on a shoe

“Have you ever lost it and if so, how did you find it again?”
No, I doubt that. If anything, I would say that I may have had to mask my passion to keep it safe,
or my passion for a particular subject would ebb as I come to conclusions, so my passion on one
particular subject would "balance out" (for lack of a better term) but as far as spiritual passion as
a general, I don't think I ever lost it

RavensStarr:
Well, this is an interesting subject for me.......though I'm not sure it'll be of any help to anyone
else.....In fact I hope they don't tread it the same as I have.....

“How did you find that passion?”
Well, to start with, I didn't really find it....it was always there when I was little, but I did lose it
along with any and all other types of passion. Due to that, it has only VERY recently (last
month??) started the beginnings of reawakening in me.....I think, maybe....I hope......

“Have you lost it and if so, how did you find it again?”
I definitly lost it, for a long time. As for finding it again, I'd say more that it's finding me
again....or maybe I never REALLY lost it, but closed myself off to it, to any kind of passion. I
think maybe.....I hope.....my heart is starting to open. Without that, I don't believe that passion is
possible, or at least not what I define as passion....So I guess you could say that I found it again
by healing enough to begin to open my heart....

StarBearWalking:
Greetings! The realization that organized religion was more political than spiritual started me
looking for something more. Answers I could feel, not just do. I found that about 10 years ago in
the Sweat Lodge Ceremony. And from a Teacher who showed me Ceremony is the tool to
connect with the Spirituality within me. Then I met Cinnamon and she started asking questions
that made me think. Thus proving to myself I am learning *wink*

Synchronicity is what fuels my passion for my Spiritual Path. Life became easy, things fell into
place. Objects become more defined, brighter. I can tell when I am walking in harmony with my
Path by looking at the nearby mountains, The look closer, as if I could reach out and touch them.
I feel energized. I hear more clearly. I see more clearly.

When I feel out of sync with my Path things fall apart. I bump into stuff, blocks. Things just
don't work. That's when I sit in Nature, close my eyes and feel the Heart Beat of Mother Earth. I
breathe in the rhythm, I once more feel aligned and energized.

BearInMind:
“The realization that organized religion was more political than spiritual started me looking for
something more.”
I can definitely attest to that!

Earthwalker:
Spirituality I believe now and in hindsight has always been with me but it took on different
perspectives and names over my life. My earliest recollection of feeling at one with spirit was
when I was about 4 sitting on my grandmother’s lap (Nana) while she read Hiawatha to me;
Nokomis being the more important person to my mind. I retain that feeling of love that came
through the reading even today and even then I knew I was loved by my parents and
grandmother yet the feeling when reading the book was special and different.

I was raised Catholic and in preparation for first communion the first doubts about religion came
when a nun said only Catholics could go to heaven. I didn’t accept “because” as a reasonable
explanation to why and went home mad and talked to my parents. They gave me a different
perspective that we learn the church laws but we are each responsible for our own feelings and
actions. Most import5ant was honoring that which you know is right. The decision you make are
between you and god only; you must do what you feel is right. I knew then that what the church
said was wrong for me. I couldn’t exclude people different from myself from Spirit, love and
beauty. I question how there could be different gods and why my best friend would live in one
heaven and I in another. It made no sense; it was illogical and felt wrong. I learned to be quiet
and respect others but to also honor what I felt right. I then went on and at twelve the Prophet by
Kahlil Gibran became a very important book in my life. I still love the words in this book and get
new meaning each time I read it. even today. At 14, I was on the playground during lunch
thinking Love is Energy and God is Love; therefore God is Energy. In high school I became very
close to Mary and was thinking about going into the novitiate; however, I decided obeying
wasn’t exactly something I could do since I felt free will important in evolution. I felt we are
each responsible for our own life and I could not let another make decisions for me: I need to
experience life and make my own decisions ones I respected as opposed shirking responsibility
and allowing others to decide my path.

I therefore went to college full of life, optimism and open to experiencing the world. I found
discrimination and bias and worked to break down those biases. I learned what it took to break
with convention but was guided in these pursuits. I knew I had to say yes to a blind date with a
black man, a Puerto Rican man and Armenian man. It was during this time when I had to walk
my talk. They became friends and I learned about other cultures through these dates and many
others. I went to the university during the time of the Vietnamese war and dated several
individuals that had been in the war. These individuals some of whom died made me question
why we there? I asked one boy (man), a green beret that I dated, if he felt we should be there?
Despite two tours of duty, all types of medals and a plate in his head he indicated “hell no”. I
realized during this time than I did not believe in war or violence and chose to protest it in a
peaceful manner. Later I had a good friend come back from Vietnam. He was a very special and
sensitive person and had flashbacks for years; he was working as a counselor in a halfway house
when he perished in a fire. Even then I knew he was being protected and I learned from him
strength to endure.

While I didn’t believe in drugs and free sex which became the norm of the sixties and seventies,
I did support the humanism that came from that age, went to Woodstock and a few years later
found Eric Fromm in particular the book To Have or To Be. I got married after graduating with a
degree in Biology/ Chemistry still very much questioning the religious practices of Christianity
although still holding great belief in the peaceful aspects of Jesus as the good Shepard and Mary
as a mother. Those images were always present yet I became more involved in defining or
looking for meaning of life in science.

After graduation from college I explored Buddhism a bit but it felt wrong for me; not offering
anything that Christianity did for me. I continued to search and read about Hinduism and
Taoism. I learned more at work when I was in research I got to meet and work with a Jewish
woman from Russia that had immigrated to the USA as well as a communist from Russia that
was on a scientific trade program. We touched eachother’s lives in undefined ways but
ultimately we shared the beginnings of the decline of communism. I also found a love for
Taoism since it fit with science and my feeling of God as energy.

My next growth was to expand several years and involved the mundane and using all that I had
been given. I got married and realized as I was pregnant with my second child that my husband
was an alcoholic. Over the next two years I tried everything I could to break the pattern but it
was not to be. My son was born and had DS. I had to accept that fact that I could love a child that
was less than perfect. I learned why not me. I learned I was strong enough to take my children
and break the cycle of alcoholism. My son then came down with probable epilepsy. I questioned
the recommendation and was always guided to the right articles to disprove what was being
recommended. It was during this time I learned to trust my intuition.

At age 4, 2 years after I got divorced my son came down with leukemia. This was a time when I had to face the probable
death of my son and potentially my father as we went through the first course of remission,
relapse, second remission, relapse and a third remission followed a bone marrow transplant. This
was a time when I had very little time for church. It was a time when the best words most people
could say were “god never gives you more than you can handle.” One of my best friends, a
psychologist, said this to me and I just laughed and asked “why then are there so many people in
psychiatric wards, I really don’t want to hear it”. Nevertheless, life leaves you no choice you
simply must do what needs to be done and I learned very quickly I had a choice. I could choose
to feel sorry or pity for myself, I could choose to live in fear or I could look at how much I had
been shown and given. I asked myself how many people really get to understand the subtleties of
these types of circumstances and I felt very blessed by being given the opportunity to feel and
learn, even though most of these problems were viewed as horrors by others.

I did and do realize what gifts I have been given and am thankful for them. I raised my children alone with my
parents who lived close but not too close. When my father passed away my mother choose to
come and live we me and stayed with me for the next eleven years until she passed over five
years ago. During that time my daughter went through a difficult period in high school and into
her early twenties. I also worked full time as a research scientist in a pharmaceutical company
and worked with a group of people from around the world. It was an intense period but I was
also given that which I needed in terms of an appreciation for the diversity of the world despite
never having the finances to travel. In terms of my spiritual practices during these years, I was
aware but was pulled in so many directions that in reality my spiritual practice was limited to
reading books and walks in nature. It was during these very busy times of my late twenties to
fifties that nature became the place to find the Sacred; albeit, it was rooted in my early
wanderings with my Dad. We both shared a love of nature that was different than my mothers or
brothers feeling. During these times I knew I was also guided in finding an appropriate home. I
bought four during this time period, and none were found by a real estate agent. I always seemed
to know where to go even in places I had never seen before. Guidance was there. It was a name I
liked, a mountain that seemed right to etc. (Ps doesn’t work on horses, at least for me).

After Mom passed away and my daughter moved out on her own about 2-3 years ago, I had more
time on my hands and I was guided here and to a new path; that I believe is already posted in
another article. I feel somehow at home on this path; a path fused from a lifetime of exploration
and questioning. Home doesn’t mean I have stopped questioning just that I have found a path
that embraces and encompasses all that I have experiences and somehow feels right. Home today
means I go within and listen a little better.

DoeWalker:
I lost mine for several years, I knew it was there but I could not find it. I was going through a
total meltdown and felt at that time, I was unworthy of it. After all of the negative stuff became
the past, I was going through the motions but without passion until one day while planting my
garden of wildflowers in a new area, I found a healing rock or maybe it found me. It was not a
warm day but the intensity of energy the rock held made feel once again. That rock has helped
heal not only me, but a few animals who came to me in need.

There was a time when my world had no light that I could see and I thought and tried many times
to end my life. I was successful a few times but was always brought back to the darkness of life.
No matter how hard I tried and had success, no one allowed me to go. The last time i tried and
before I could slip into the end of this life forever, I called an ambulance and told them where I
needed to go, even though I knew little of the place. The doc told me I had a 10% chance of
living and if I did, I would live in a group home for the rest of my life. His words did not cause
me any change as much as he wanted to think. I was the one who made the call from death, to
find a way to struggle for life. The road was long and hard. I was working on past trauma while
living each day with an abuse alcoholic, who had managed to get a little more legal control over
my daughter while I was in and out of hospitals. One day my Grandfather came to me again, this
time while I was not on the path to another dimension. He told me it was time for me to
remember what we did when I was a child. I had been given the gift to be a healer and the road
is often long and hard, but I had to remember I was given a gift. He left after saying this before I
could ask any direct questions to him. I saw a little tiny speck of light which fell into my hand. It
was warm and I was so cold, but I realized it not until that moment. I decided to take comfort
with that little speck and knew somehow it would be my guide back into a world where I may just
be able to behold something. I walked and I fell, I began climbing and slipped often and had
many bruises along the way. but as I climbed, the speck grew larger and suddenly, I began to
feel the pain of my life, I was no longer numb.

I knew the road would be rough. I continued to have to live with daily abuse while working on
my past, and I did it each day knowing it was hope I was living for at that time. No matter ow
often past memories slammed me and tried to make me feel numb or want to go away again, I
held strong. I still had no reason but hope but that was good enough for me at the time as I knew
I would find questions and reasons and why I needed to stay here. One never gets over the pains
of the past, one lives through it. I look back only to see what I have gained. I am grateful. I
began walking The Red Road as I had started to when I was younger before the pain of
molestation, rape, and physical and emotional abuse took hold. I began to see what I was to do
and part of it was healing myself first before I could heal another and search for peace from
within. Each day I humble myself and give thanks to Mother Earth and all her beautiful gifts and
give back some of what she has given me. I talk with our Creator so that I may continue this
path. My hunger for learning is strong and I gobble information as much as possible. I am back
to healing now, not myself though I must save energy as the body suffered much abuse and
caused me to be in bed for the most part for a few months. But, I am healing little animals again
and remain at peace with our Mother. Her beauty is a daily gift, the animals who come to me are
healing, my body is healing and my mind is filled with beauty. For all of these gifts, I am
thankful, I have found the Road again.

FireStarter/Karen:
Oh, man, I love to be asked questions that make me think!
I have I guess a passion for learning, still, and part of my learning is putting words to things.
How can I share my passion and how I found it in words?
humm, it's hard to say that a spirit Woman came to me as a young child and put something inside me.

It was something that was a WIND for sure...it was warm and I only feel that time and agian, like
when I fell in love with my hubby or when a hawk flies even with the window of my car as I'm
driving....lol, ...and many other times such as those.
Maybe it was a seed? The winds of heaven? Shamanized?
lol. Who knows, but, after this, my passion was strong to go home, home being, not here.
I didn’t know where, but not here.
My passion began to change from wanting to go home when home came to me.
Across the river was my best friend, my best friend from all my lives.
A beacon, or a star person I call it.
My passion was alive and I was passionate about getting to the river and just being with this
light...this little light of mine.

I tried hard to be normal for many years after that, because I knew of nothing else. Other than
being drunk.
It all fell apart and I met the void, my death.
It was after my death I again woke up to my passion for finding out what the heck just
happened!!!???
I wanted to find out.
I had big spiritual experiences at that time but I also got an appetite that .... well, it was like I had
gone my whole life without eating and just sat down to a big ole china buffet!!!!
LOL!
I am still hungry, though my life is a little fuller (is that a word?) and I have more to do than
devour books and meditate, but it is there, more like seasons. I feel the seasons of my passion
and they scare me less as they change.
I trust in the seasons.
I have never lost my passion, though I have gotten mad and turned my back on it, Heyoka
teachings are deeply loving but can be frustrating as all get out!
I truly loved the questions Cinnamon.
I promised myself not to read other posts before I wrote mine, now I get to go back and read
youalls’. lol.
I have to share my southern accent sometimes!
Y'all take care!

WhiteBuffaloWoman:
“How did you find that passion?”
The passion found me. I was awaken one day as a child. I told my friend that there was only so
much room in heaven for angels and when heaven was full, then the angels came back to earth.
Dreams were always vivid as a child. Dreams of animals talking to me, dreams of things that
had happen to friends and relatives, dreams of things to come.

“What feeds it?”
My passion is fed by giving it attention. I read an article today about souls and how some people
have a tycoon soul, others an artist soul, others a manager soul.
While I have an engineer's soul, that is to solve problems, to figure out solutions, I also have an
artist soul. One that has to create things. For a while out of cloth, but also out of string or yarn.

“What sustains it?”
Sustaining the drive, sustaining the passion, is done by validation. Validation that the dreams
have meaning, validation that my energy and life flow makes a difference to those around me.
That I actually make the world a little better today than it was yesterday. That I help others on
their path, whether they work for me or I work for them or with them.

“And how do you hold onto it?”
By letting go. Letting go of the need to explain the whys of what is happening.

“Have you lost it and if so, how did you find it again?”
I was in a deep hole from 2000-2002. Friends helped me out and let me know that no matter
what, they still loved me for who I am or was. That my light could shine even in a rain storm.
My song when I was little was: This little light of mine I am going to let it shine....It comes back
to me. Also Grandmother's love, lead me back to the passion of my path. Her afghan that she
made me, help me feel loved.

Treasa:
“How did you find that passion?”
Hmm, the answer to this is long and complicated and yet simple. My mother was always a part
of a church somewhere as a chapel organist. I was exposed to all sorts of different denominations
of Christianity, but they weren't the only experiences I had because my step father had grown up
in New Mexico and had a very Earth based, natural, not organized sort of belief system.
It was spending time with him that got me interested in reading Science Fiction, which most
people don't actually think about as being a kind of religious basis for anything, but when I'd
read enough, I came to realize there are certain truths that transcend each organized religion and
boiled down all the muck to the few kernels of truth, which was sort of liberating.
My parents were very much into learning and book reading so they didn't care what I was
reading as long as it wasn't pornographic or hate-based. I started learning about non-Christian
religions in the mid-70's. Like the Science Fiction books, when I had read about enough world
religions and met enough people actually in those religions, I started to notice similarities, rather
than differences.

Eventually, I realized I didn't need a name for what I believe, I just need to be strong enough to
keep my beliefs and they need to make sense to me, not anyone else.

“What feeds it?”
Everything!
“What sustains it? And how do you hold onto it?”
Sometimes, I can get too busy in everyday life, but it's always there for me. I don't know why,
just that it is.
“Have you lost it and if so, how did you find it again?”
I have never lost it. It's changed, grown, but it has never left me.

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