Transcendence, or "Transcend-dance"

In 2002, I became a college student.

It was a journey that I began warily; unsure of who I was and what I wanted, I was reaching for shadows cast by a light I could not see in a room I could barely move around in. My spirituality was a solid alloy of liberal Christianity, Eastern philosophy, and eclectic paganism. It was the only shadow I was sure of--there was a God and a Spirit and Magick and a Self!

Then the philosophy classes began.

I was sure my spiritual shadow was solid, but I was shown that it was as evanescent as an early morning mist. There was no God, no Spirit, no Magick. There wasn't even an "I"! There was only...thought?

Existential malaise set in, and I grew despressed. I could not figure out why these things meant so much to me when they had never existed in the first place. I was a wanderer without stars. A candle without a gleam.

Looking back on it, I don't remember any epiphany. I began to realize that through philosophy, I was given the tools to reconstruct my spirituality in a way that transcended "I." There was no longer a fenced in Self, but an all-embracing observer that could travel further than "I" ever could.

It was a new pair of glasses. Through these, I looked at the scarred remains of my old spirituality and began to rebuild. It was the rebuilding of meaning. The rebuilding of a Temple to observe the Garden lost.

(If a tree falls, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Yes! and No! The Universe exists because we observe it. Without observation, there is no Sound, no Sight, no Me, no You.)

And so I walked in the woods a little more. I played my guitar a little more. I wrote poetry a little more. I tried to make transparent my eyeballs and become them. I fused art and science through the power of epistemology and rewrote my personal Scripture and Book of Shadows.

The shadows grew darker.

Joining Religiousforums.com was a baptism into a bigger world. Through discussion and debate, I was able to forge and hone my newfound Temple into something greater. I was able to mix my metaphors into a crux that intersected all roads so I may journey even further. Specific posters have and continue to suppliment my mysticism by challenging my thoughts and allowing me to challenge theirs.

I am reaching for the Garden, knowing I haven't reached it and may never except in those times of quiet solitude when the forest and I make love and cease to define each other.

I am dancing with transcendence!