I’m Not Sure It’s Working

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I have a set of prayer flags hanging across the center of my room. They’ve been with me for some time now, though I can’t recall how many apartments they’ve seen. When the first light of the day pours into my room, they immediately catch my eye and as the day fades to night they blend seamlessly with the colors of the sunset. If I leave all the windows open, a Santa Ana wind can make them dance. In the Buddhism of Tibet, it is believed that these flags will take your prayers up into the winds and directly to those you love. It’s a fun little belief that makes me notice each and every time the flags flutter.

But lately, I’m not sure it’s working.

I have a set of hematite mala beads that hang on my wall and, on special occasions, from my neck. I’ve also broken several hematite bracelets and then poured the remaining beads into the candle holder at the buddha of my altar’s feet. Hematite is a semi-precious stone that is fairly dense and looks like a polished metal. The properties it exhibits lead us to believe that it is a very good stone for healers to utilize. It helps for the healer to retain their own energetic safety without taking on any of the stress, sickness or energy of those that they work with. Mala beads are sacred in the yogic tradition. 108 beads connect in a circle, and meet at the center with a power bead. It’s sometimes useful to pass the mala along your fingers one bead at a time as you recite a mantra.

This practice will keep you focused and, like the properties of the hematite, grounded.

But lately, I’m not sure it’s working.

Above my bed, I have a window. On the window sill sits a certain amount of holy water in a container whose likeness is that of The Virgin Mary. In Catholic school I was taught that the best person you could pray to was The Virgin Mary. Jesus Christ’s first miracle was turning water into wine at a wedding. If the story is to be believed, he had no intention of performing any miracles that day, but did so because his mother asked it of him. Jesus loved his mother very much, so if you were to beseech her for help, she may intercede for you and you would be granted the Lord’s grace. Holy water dates back to Matthais, the thirteenth apostle who replaced Judas Iscariot who betrayed Jesus in the garden. He was supposedly the first to teach priests how to bless water so that it could drive away sickness, restore health and banish demons. I’ve utilized this specific bit of holy water to do just that in my own life.

But lately, I’m not sure it’s working.

On the cabinet that holds my ever growing book collection sits an incense holder in the shape of a tree stump that has assumed the face of an old graybeard. I call him Treebeard in honor of the old ent from Lord of the Rings. I’ll burn any and all types of incense at this special place. Some types of incense bring focus, some bring relaxation. It’s a good practice for setting an intention on how I want to approach the next little duration of time. I also keep a bit of sage for smudging at the end of his trough. Burning white sage is called smudging. It dates back to the Indigenous peoples of America who would use it for spiritual cleansing and to absorb negative energy. From time to time I will smudge my room in an attempt to wipe myself clean of the current state of things and start fresh with something else.

But lately, I’m not sure it’s working.

Above my desk there is a grease board that I decorated long ago. I had just listened to a podcast interviewing Golden State Warriors’ head coach Steve Kerr about his unprecedented success in the basketball world. He spoke about taking four key aspects of how you wanted to run your team, business or life. Not your goals, but your intentions of how you wanted to approach all that you did in pursuit of your goals. One of the words that he used was ‘joy.’ He wanted his team to approach everything from film sessions to workouts to practice to actual games with a sense of joy. I stole that as one of my words. For the second word, I chose ‘presence.’ I always want to be awake and invested in whatever I am doing, rather than thinking about something else. The third word is ‘arete,’ a Greek word that I first encountered in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It is sometimes translated as virtue, but we’re told in the book that a better translation may be excellence.

I want to approach everything I do with a degree of excellence.

The fourth word I chose was the Taoist word ‘te.’ It refers to the sense of self that only you can bring to a certain situation. When I think of this word, I’m reminded of Dr. Seuss saying, ‘you are you, that is truer than true, there is no one alive who is you-er than you!’ I want to bring a certain sense of self to everything I do. I want to do it as only Kevin could. This grease board and the words on it serve as a reminder of how I want to intentionally approach each and every day.

But lately, I’m not sure it’s working.

On the wall above my small altar hang three metal prints arranged in a triangle. The lower two panels depict Avatar Aang and Prince Zuko from the animated series Avatar the Last Airbender. Aang is a boy who at first runs from his destiny, but eventually becomes the hero that he was always meant to be. Zuko is a prince who was always told what his destiny was and what role he should play, but eventually found his own way in his own story. The two serve as a balancing reminder that it is in me to become who I was always meant to be, but that this is a decision for me, and only me, to decide. Above these two characters stands Goku from Dragonball Z. In the panel, Goku is elevated to the level of a glowing, golden god who has unlocked his incredible potential and power. He is a reminder that with hard work and dedication, anything is possible. The three fictional characters are stories that I can look to for inspiration and reminders for how I want to live my life.

But lately, I’m not sure it’s working.

It’s really the strangest thing.

There are so many totems, so many practices, so many reminders. And yet sometimes, things don’t seem to be going your way. At times like this I wonder if all of the practices are worth the effort. I wonder if honoring the totems and crystals and gods and goddesses is really worth all the trouble. I’ve yet to reach enlightenment. I’ve yet to find understanding and clarity. I’ve yet to start glowing.

But lately, I’m not sure it’s working.

Or maybe, it’s not working the way I want it to.

Maybe those things aren’t there to make bad times go away. Maybe they’re here to help me through bad times when they appear. Maybe you’re not supposed to pave the road in front of you. Maybe you just make sure you step out the door with some good shoes.

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