Where the Path Leads

I'm a big believer in listening to intuition. I started my spiritual journey too many years ago to admit, and it's turned into quite the twisty road. I studied occult sciences, shamanism, ancient religions, goddess worship, paganism, wicca, the new age, and many other paths, and each time I learned some of the same lessons, deepened them, added new pieces. 
I think, maybe that's how it's supposed to work. We're like those crabs that glue bits of everything around them to their shell, constantly reworking and redesigning our external trappings and collecting more bits to our design. 
Some stick, some fall off, we keep walking.

No matter which route I walked, however, I became frustrated eventually. I wanted more, I wanted bigger answers, I wanted results. 

It doesn't seem like too much to ask, in particular in communities that believe in magic, in qi or positive thinking, or whatever else you like to call it. Nine times out of ten, however, my insistence that "this stuff should work" was met with confusion and disdain. 

I usually moved on at that point. I know that this is fun and it feels good, but if it doesn't apply to our life and make it better, what are we doing?

Apply to our life and make it better.

Stick another piece to the shell and keep walking. Look deeper, push harder, grow. I think, finally, somewhere along that winding roadway, I worked out that the stuff on the outside isn't important. What we call it, which way we face, how we work, what tools we use, what color we visualize...none of that really matters. 

Because while we pile all of the trappings on the outside, the real work is happening inside our shell. Deep inside. We grow and change. We apply the learning and pretty soon the old shell doesn't fit. 
It's time to shuck it and find a new one....and start over.

I love that part. Shell shopping.  And I think that's where our intuition can really help. Hopefully we've fed it well, trained it well, listened to it enough to recognize its voice.
So that when we see that line of shiny, new shells, one will stand out from the rest--even though its exactly the same shape and color--and we will know its ours. The right path, the next step...

at least for now.

~Neffis