Symbols

I was raised Catholic, so physical symbols have always been something very significant for my religious life, and that's also translated over into the rest of my life as well. The ring I wear on my right hand and the heart I often keep drawn on my left both have their own meanings for me. In talking to a friend the other day, he brought up the fact that he really felt strongly about needing to wear a cross lately. It reminded me of a conversation I'd had with another friend who suggested that the symbol of the cross is good to wear when you're in close proximity with the spiritual realm and demonic activity. After he brought up wanting to wear a cross again, I felt a strong desire to have one as well. I ravaged my room when I got home to find one, but came up empty handed: all of my crosses were back home in Alaska. The antique store popped into my head and I resolved to go the next day.

The next day I went to the antique store and picked one out. There were quite a few there, but I picked a flat one that had a black background with silver edges and designs on it. Generic and simple. I got home and my chain didn't fit through the hole on the top, and I had such a strong desire to put it on as soon as possible that I took a plastic twisty tie and looped it around as a mediator between the chain and cross. It's all a bit mismatched, maybe a bit cheap looking, but the second I put it on I felt a cleanness and lightness, not in weight but in purity, that was very all encompassing and peaceful. I felt as though I put on not just a necklace, but an initiation to a journey. It wasn't an ominous feeling of impeding hardship, but a matter of fact knowledge that something was changing and I was putting on a new period of life and responsibility: but it carried no weight. I've felt God on occasion before, and I clearly felt him in a way I hadn't felt for about two years. It feels like a weight pressing on you, surrounding you, a filling that carries the same intensity in your chest as intense worry, but without the negative connotations. It was a clear, clean, apparent reality that something was starting.

Symbols hold real power. Their role is not just spiritual, but also physical.

4/13/11