Over the holidays, I had a chance encounter with a beer that had been sitting a little to long. It made a mess out of me; the saving grace of which was timing. I was no longer in the throes of cooking 3 trays of cannelloni, and due to a certain global pandemic which shall remain nameless I managed to not have any company beyond my adoring girlfriend and canine karmic guide.
I don’t drink often nor do I drink in volume, but I haven’t exactly abstained from alcoholic beverages, either. As a matter of fact on a good day I would probably tell you that I have a ‘healthy relationship with alcohol’ but if we were to sand & file that sentence down past it’s veneer, I would likely tell you that I have a tumultuous relationship with every ‘consumable’ (for lack of a better term) available to me at any given time.
Without labeling myself an alcoholic, I can tell you quite easily that I have consumed alcohol as a means of escape and that I’ve done so with great ease and greater excess – but I’ve always had a problem with overindulgence of all kinds. What this particular instance rings back at me in the echo chamber of my thoughts is how powerful a substance can be. For me; it’s any substance, but in this case it was a brown ale.
Reflection has taught me that this power is to be revered, and deserves it’s reverence, because power is so easily abused. It’s unfortunate that so many ‘normal’ things in my life, both as an adult and as an entertainer and artist, yield that power. Or… maybe it is fortunate, and maybe I need to be cautious in letting my guard down.
That power deserves reverence.
Now, reverence is one of those words that drags my brain back to church, but it doesn’t have anything to do with Love, or God for that matter. Reverence is unabashed deep respect. The respect that you would pay anything that has the capacity to end you completely. The way a craftsman regards his tools, the way a samurai respects his sword. In that way, these things have the power to compromise my judgement, and thus my safety and my livelihood, and have certainly killed more people than cancer.
I don’t know where you are in your journey with anything, but I can say that every last one of us are on a spiritual journey of some kind or other, and that my experience has been that as I gradually remove the toxins from my life through various means, my mind & body & spirit are able to build their connection stronger.
Maybe I won’t abstain completely. Maybe I will.
I believe there are times for celebration and times for focus and discipline, but I will endeavor to revere that power more fully.
As an addict, I know that I will always need structure around these things in order to maintain order in my physical, mental, and spiritual life.
Training this week has been a challenge. There have been more than a few obstacles in my path in regards to time, but the time spent immersed in physical fitness has been beyond therapeutic. It’s very grounding and upon our first swim of the year, Lu and I both remarked that everything seems to have queued up after getting back into the fitness program.
The Conscious Pilgrim 