In a different time...

...Young women tend to find themselves seized, now and then, by strong urges and strange impulses. To them, it feels as if the world has jumped completely off its axis. Catherine lived at a time when convents were the only outlet for a girl who felt and acted oddly. And she flourished in a structure that not only praised her odd behaviors but rewarded them with names. Starving is "fasting." Whips are "disciplines." Self-mutilation is "penitence." Suicidal tendencies are channeled into longings for martyrdom, such as those that inspired Therese of Lisieux. Erotic daydreams, as in the story of Gemma Galgani, are "demonic temptations." Altered states and what you might call hallucinations are "visions" and "ecstasies."Born later, Catherine may have pierced her tongue, been a chain-smoking performance artist, been prescribed anti psychotic medications, and wound up in an eating-disorders clinic.-from "To Wear His Ring, St. Catherine De'Ricci" from the book "Magnificent Corpses: Searching Through Europe for St. Peter's Head, St. Chiara's Heart, St. Stephen's Hand and other Saints' Relics" by Anneli RufusWe are coming full circle. I really believe this. The current movement and experience of what many of the spirit worker community would refer to as unconfirmed personal gnosis, or if confirmed by the experiences of others or historical texts, personal gnosis, is taking hold in our current age. There are a thousand reasons behind it, from the coming of a new millennium (either just passed for the Christian calendar, or coming fast by the Mayan one) to a response to a sterilized and mass produced world, the place we live in is hungry for personal experience of faith.We have chain smoked and been fed antipsychotics for too long I think.Personal faith hit a cord last night watching the season finale of lost. What do we do now that we know they are heading back to the island? What would you do if the dead walked among you?Personal faith hit a chord this afternoon as another vision came, one that hit hard, one that I must nurse in my own mind until the others involved in it say otherwise. I am not alone in my journey.Crystal children, indigo children, a call a hope a desire for the world to not just have escalating ADD, ADHD, and a thousand other acronyms that mean more energy, more need to see somethings outside of the box of prescribed society norms. A reminder that we don't all fit.We never did fit.I look around and see so many people hungry for personal experiences of faith. By the thousands we flock to mega churches to see God inspire first hand. We flock to pagan festivals. We search for shamanic retreats. We fill baseball stadiums for Mass. We strive to do good in every work we can. We wake up realizing that we have tossed our world down the garbage bin and unless we turn around and learn how to recycle not only the refuse itself, fish out every last piece of plastic from the oceans, recycle every idea we have in a hope of creating something new from the refuse- we may not be able to have our children's children dance.I keep meeting people on a search for meaning.And so many that have found it.So many that the divine, in a thousand faces and a thousand forms, have in fact touched directly.I meet priests who speak of seeing God again, feeling the love of Jesus directly, and being unsure if that is ok to say at Mass.A Themeite priestess shares her tale of wanting to just be another good follower of Crowley et al, but gets handed orders by Babylon herself to take up sacred whoredom.A bevy of Norse faith practitioners ask themselves in front of me why the Gods are speaking again, and ideas and answers pour forth.More people than ever turn to Buddhism, Yoga... and instead of it just being prayer, it is actually changing lives on a personal level.In a different time I would have been a nun.My visions would have could have made sense.I could have been bricked in and fed bread.The time for visionaries has been returning, and it is a different time again.