Our physical bodies are grown from genetic material inherited through countless generations. This material reaches its first full expression at birth. The second expression is ongoing and results from a combination of the material present at this first expression and the material that enters us from our environment. We are not separate from the environment around us; we are part of our surroundings, a permeable capsule that rolls around a within a much bigger sphere that contains currents of influences that swirl in micro and macro fractal complexities.

Our spiritual bodies are created from the stuff of our inherited spiritual ancestors. There is an analogy to the genetic code that exists on this plane and this complex encoded flowing substance has many names. It is a blueprint of expressions most likely to resolve as conditions allow their emergence. The spiritual genetics we are born with are not exactly a predestination, no more than our physical genetic stuff is, but it does set certain limits on the eventualities most likely to find expression.

We build these codes, interact with them, change them around, or alter them entirely as a result of various choices. Frequently we have no idea what impact we have on these various codes or indeed how long lasting the consequences of those impacts might be. Speaking specifically of spiritual codes, we risk various forms of contributive and subtractive influences as a result of mingling our stuffs with the stuff of others. This occurs in magic, in energy working, in emotional exchanges, in promises, in the accrual of debts, and so forth. Often we aren’t even aware of this mingling but then suddenly there it is, a whole bunch of spiritual junk that doesn’t even belong to us. But that’s a topic for another time.

Physical genetic code is a helpful analogy to this spiritual stuff. Genes may or may not find expression (remember how phenotype is different than genotype – expression differs from the actual code itself). Similarly the various helpful or harmful potentials within our spiritual codes don’t always find expression in a single lifetime. Typically they don’t. It takes a very, very long time for the pattern of one of these codes to find its full resolution; it takes a long time because it is very complex and because it is so given to self-perpetuation. But that’s also another topic.

The spiritual body grows and changes. It shifts in response to the influences we expose it to. It changes in response to exposure to high potency patterns, like those possessed by the Gods. There are patterns that, once set in motion, are not going to resolve without manifest emergence. The growth of a new spiritual body is one of those emergences and it can be set in motion through various types of death and rebirth. Once this occurs the very structures that hold that body together morph into new configurations.

This development isn’t exactly the same as astral shapeshifting or the changing of one’s subtle skin. It’s a rewiring of the conduits that carry the patterns around your tightly woven spiritual matrix. You end up with new bones. You end up with new organs or discover the absence of organs that used to be there or that used to have an obvious physical analogy.

My bones are made of a dark black crystal flecked with sparks of glass. There is a dark stellar vortex that functions as a reversed womb that resolves the dead back towards where the living will gather. There is transparent skin and tissues made of void. It is an empty stellar body full of minerals and crystals and deep earth stuff and void radioactive deep space with heavy iron and ice and rare compounds. It is not the hospitable stuff of fertile earth or the rich primordial potential of tidal pools or even the teeming and mysterious pockets where volcanic heat disperses into the deepest sea trenches. It is something different. Something new was grown.

Remember how the Work will change you to suit its needs? As you discover yourself changing you will learn about taboos related to purity and exposure, to privacy and tact. You will learn to protect yourself in order to protect others. You will learn to let others do their own dirty work because your emerging potential is delicate and volatile. You will become jealous and protective of your own potency and will likely become increasingly reluctant to share it with others if they are not going to further the Work’s own agenda of emergence. 

Your new body will be frightening and beautiful and so very alien. You will treasure it and marvel at its on-going becoming but remember that it’s not really exactly ultimately yours. You’re just feeding this particular daughter current of the Work Itself, allowing it to reach a purer, more refined, more concentrated potency as it courses through the many stations of the universe.

This wasn’t what I had planned on writing about today. I’m not sure if I ever planned on writing about it, not directly at any rate. The subject came up and since I feel that it’s important to discuss, I might as well begin.

We aren’t told that failure is possible on the devotional path. This is not due to any conspiracy of silence or tendency towards reticence on the subject. It’s just that most people haven’t experienced failure or, if they have, have assigned the blame to themselves rather than seeing failure as just one of many potential outcomes inherent in this path.

I’ve frequently told myself that failure – on this path and most others I suppose – only comes when I stop trying. And, well, I did.

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I’ve been under the weather for a while now and trying to catch up with lots of work. I’ve had a few new blog posts rolling around my head for a while and I even made a couple drafts but so far nothing has shaken out completely.

I’ve also been away from my blog because I was grieving for a few days. Some friends of mine had to let go a cat they’d been caring for and I was there when he passed. This was a stray cat that worked out an exchange of food an affection with these friends. They came home from work one day to find the cat injured after being struck by a car. 24 hours of intensive veterinary care later it was evident that no amount of treatment was going to give this small life a reasonable shot at life. Continued intervention would have simply prolonged a painful existence. My friend made the very difficult decision to let go of a creature she cared for deeply.

It was a hard choice and it hurt – physically  hurt – every one of us there that day. I am also convinced the right choice was made. Prolonging a life filled with pain in the hopes that by some slim chance all possible surgeries were successful would have only given this animal a life still filled with pain. I couldn’t demand that this cat cope with that kind of pain and neither could my friend. It was a hard choice and it was the right choice.

I chose to watch that little life slip away. It was over and done very quickly because even though I wanted to just sit with this poor stray cat, I couldn’t allow it to linger in pain simply for my emotional satisfaction. This was not an animal I had known 12 hours before. I still cried for two days.

I came to recognize the virtue of compassion is an unexpected way. I don’t even know when it became so important but suddenly it was. None of the traditions that make up my spiritual background especially emphasis compassion and indeed in some circles it is derided as a weak and meaningless value. Without realizing it I became very concerned with adopting a compassionate stance.

Demanding that a fellow animal continue living to satisfy my emotions and sense of ethics is not compassion. I care deeply about animals and I’m especially fond of cats. Thus I have to be realistic about their native capacity to cope. Coping with chronic pain is mentally, emotionally, and physically demanding; I know from personal experience. A cat’s ability to cope is limited primarily to its ability to endure. Demanding that another creature endure continued pain because I wish to avoid the experience of grief is not right. That is not compassionate.

Compassion, I discovered, is not simply caring about or for others. Compassion encompasses a willingness to take on a burden of pain so another doesn’t suffer, so that’s what I did. This isn’t a noble statement or even a very brave one. It is simply moral.

A final twitch from the cold anesthetic was the only indication that a life was about to end. I don’t give much thought to life after death and indeed there are times when I wish fervently that there isn’t one. However, I do have some strong feelings about reincarnation for no particularly good reason. I wished very hard that this small life would find a new vessel, a new body of life without pain and without fear and without want. I’ll continue to grieve because that is the price I decided to exchange for that small freedom.

I’d do it again and I’m sure someday, I will.