Guilty Pleasure + Paradox
How human practice is spiritual practice
A couple weeks ago I taught my first online workshop. I opened the workshop by inviting the attendees to type their guilty pleasure into the chatbox and then at the same time everyone pressed “send.” There was lots of tv and chocolate and one of my favorites was “Chanel lipstick” because I aspire to that level of bougie.
I had to open the workshop this way because in order to offer it in integrity I knew I needed to share my own guilty pleasure. The workshop was titled “Spiritual Practice + Purification.” The content was about why we practice, how we co-create with God, and the significance of bodily cleansing to realizing our divinity.
My “guilty pleasure” is smoking a cigarette. Part of the point being that one can enjoy this toxic activity and simultaneously teach a workshop on spiritual practice and purification. I can hardly conceive of a more appropriate paradox.
I will go months without smoking a cigarette. I’ve gone years. But as I stepped into the call to “spiritual companionship” I found the draw to this practice grow. When I first started seeing clients my office was next to a 200 year old cemetery. I think it began in earnest when my brother-in-law lived with us, who would sometimes leave me 2-4 cigarettes in my desk as a gesture of gratitude. “I’m so happy to be here, thank you, here’s my offering” it seemed to say.
I’d squirrel those away until the moment was just right, then sneak off to my favorite tombstone, facing the sun, and light up.
I had to get real still to really drop into the experience. That’s the true addiction.
I’m a mother of two young boys, in the earliest years of my entrepreneurial career, married, a chronic over-achiever, and a neat freak. My life is really fucking full. But when I’m with a cigarette, the only thing there is to do is smoke.
Tobacco is the most sacred herb to many Native American tribes. So I’ve imagined that this secret practice is my tobacco offering to Great Spirit.
Hopefully this confession is so interesting to you that you haven’t yet stopped to think, is that what this newsletter is about? Cigarettes?
I need to tell you about the cigarette for the same reason I needed to tell the workshop. If you follow me on Instagram, which you probably do, my content is spiritual af. And I might have given you the impression that my newsletter would be too. I assure you, everything I’ve written so far is, indeed, spiritual af.
If you’ve ever seen the image of Christ’s sacred heart, you’ll notice Jesus holding up two fingers. “Matter and Spirit.” Jesus came to bust the myth that there’s ever been a separation. So it’s entirely possible that, for this season, the cigarette is my practice.
My human practice. Which is inherently spiritual.
The thing about this newsletter is that I refuse to box it in. The only reason I am writing it is to animate the fullness of my experience living.
It’s also not very interesting to say: today I sought God meditating. It’s much more interesting to say: smoking cigs is my spiritual practice.
It’s much more interesting to say: I microdose with psychedelic mushrooms and a few months ago I took nearly three grams in my basement while my entire family was home.
You kind of want to hear about that don’t you?
My intention, in my work and in my larger life, is to be dead honest and radically intimate so maybe there’s a chance the ripple of my own vulnerability will pierce our collective hiding, from ourselves and one another. Secrets rot intimacy. And I’m not interested in that at all.
May this newsletter be a bedroom for the undressing of our humanity, just enough, at least, to unveil the glory of our divinity.
I’m so damn happy you’re here for it. I pray to the angels and mystics that it would minister to you, expand you, undress you, heal you, wake you up and inspire you to the most glorious expression of your own sainthood.
.
.
If you want to support my work, please subscribe for $6 a month.
Your contribution allows me to keep creating and gives me the sense that I am fulfilling my destiny as a writer. You get a love letter every week, plus exclusive access to my Inner Eye podcast and a discount on all classes.
.
.
In the meantime, I offer you Logion 77 from The Gospel of Thomas for your reflection and contemplation:
Yeshua says, I am the light shining upon all things. I am the sum of everything, For everything has come forth from me, And towards me everything unfolds. Split a piece of wood, and there I am, Pick up a stone and you will find me there.
