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It seems that I’ve fallen a little far from my theological roots. You see, when I was younger you could say I grew up in the ojibwa faith. I’m not native, although my dad looks the part. I’m a full blown white blooded cracker. Yet, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to follow the faith with a rogue teacher of sorts. I learned various rituals and rights of passage. I even got a few native names along the way.

Funny thing is, here I am, 10 years later, trying to figure out my purpose in life. What makes me really resonate? If you’re read my previous posts you’ll know that I’ve come up with

To be at home with my head in the clouds and music in my heart.

What you don’t know are my native names. I can’t really tell you all of them because they are so sacred that only me and my teacher can know. But what I can say is that I looked at them and when you put them together they pretty much spell out this phrase. Coincidence?

Native names are intended to be pointers and goals. Things that you should learn and understand. A way for you to reflect those lessons on your life to make meaning. Take one of my names, “Walks in the Sky”. What does that mean? How should I be learning? Well I should definitely be having my head in the clouds to do that shouldn’t I? Maybe I should learn something about astrology, or weather patterns? Maybe learn a thing or 2 about the physics of flying? What kind of animals are up there. How do they hunt? Well you have to be able to look far away and with great accuracy to see your prey if you’re flying so high. Hmm, maybe life is like that, maybe it’s a metaphor with how I should be looking at the world from a higher perspective, more globally …. see how this works? It’s like your guide or purpose. And the best part was, you couldn’t forget it because it’s your name! Everyone in the tribe said it. Talk about setting goals.

I should have known this the whole time! Question is, how could I forget these very important pieces of information? How could I forget my names? How can we forget our spirit?

This is time for my midnight rant! I love these sometimes.

Well somehow society and life have a tendency of pushing it away. I’m not sure why, but I think it’s part of the same reason why so many people out their put on a suit only on sunday; pray only on sunday; and have only 2 spiritual hours of the week, which is on sunday. They feel that they can’t be spiritual during the week, so they reserve this one day to repent for all the bad things that life makes them do during the week. Sorry, to those of you, this isn’t spiritual. But why is it our lives and spirituality can’t mix? It’s almost like oil and water. I think I know, it’s because to live in todays society people feel that they need to conform. They feel that they need to do things that they don’t want to. Society has made the majority of people fight their internal beliefs and values to do the “rational” thing, which I’ve found always conflicts with the “passionate” thing. I’ve been conflicted with this my life. Do you know why I work with computers and programming, why I learn about the internet? It’s not really because I love it. Matter of fact, I don’t. I’m good at it, yes. But it’s a rational thing to do. Which would I rather be, a “dreamer” or a “computer programmer”, a “musician” or a “internet consultant”. Answer a “dreaming musician”. Following that heart and desire is at the cornerstone of so many spiritual journeys, and so many people fail because they are afraid, because it’s “silly”. I know I’m afraid. How can I make money at being a “dreaming musician”?

We need to change that. This is why it’s so great to have people like Curt, and now Steve, working with people on how to rekindle their passions. Because it’s much more then just a passion they are helping you with. They in fact are bringing back your spiritual understanding. They might call it something different, have different tactics to foil and cloud the logical mind into submission, but they in essence are helping you find your name. And, thanks to them, they are helping me remember about mine.