SCATTERED

     All throughout my life, I have felt scattered.  One of my early journals, entitled the "Captain's Log," was actually subtitled as "the Story of a Man Trying to Get His Shit Together" (but unfortunately that chronicle has been lost to history).  Nature (as pictured above) has helped me to feel grounded, but even so I have a hard time staying focused.  Honestly, I'm surprised that I made it as far as I did academically, as I now hold a master's degree in Community Counseling.  I'm suffering under the spell of the great cacophony that is our modern culture.  As many of my peers have already done, I could probably meet the criteria for adult ADD and get legally prescribed stimulants which would increase my focus tenfold.  I have considered this.  However, my main concern with that is that I already have trouble sleeping as it is.  What would happen if I added amphetamines on top of that?  Probably nothing good...

     Lately, I have been reading a book which I bought in Dallas some time ago at one of their Half Price Books stores.  The book is called Positive Energy, and it's by a psychiatrist named Judith Orloff.  Yes, it's some mainstream New Agey-type stuff, but it's got some good ideas contained therein.  She has brought together some ideas and insights which I have heard before from other occult sources and grouped them under what she calls "Energy Psychiatry".  The book gives useful little bites of simple exercises designed to ground you, insulate you from the negative energies of your environment, and build your intuition safely.

     I like the idea of the subtle energy fields of the body and relate strongly to them.  In fact, some of the best work on myself that I ever did had to do with when I engaged in the Middle Pillar ritual nightly before I went to bed.  If you simply make an effort to look within and feel where your energy is body-wise, you will not be disappointed.