The Engineer and the Mystic

My mother was a devout Catholic but she was also a woman with an intense curiosity about the world around her.   As a result, she cast her intellectual net wider than most Catholics.  For example, she became a fan of Jean Dixon, the self-proclaimed psychic and astrologer that many Christians loved to hate.  She passed her open-mindedness on to me, which I believe she came to regret because I eventually gave up Catholicism.   From my Dad, I got my rational side, in part I’m sure from genes but also because he regretted his choice to join the Army instead of going to engineering school.  My rational side won out and I became an electrical engineer.  But from the time I gave up my Mom’s religion, I also became a Searcher.  I often picture myself with my Engineer on one shoulder and my Mystic on the other, both of them whispering in my ear about whatever spiritual concept is intriguing me at the moment.   They rarely agree and for many years, the Engineer called the shots.

Knowing

Most mornings, I write two pages of stream of consciousness prose in a notebook, a habit I picked up from Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way.   She recommends three pages because of what she calls third page revelations that often turn up in the third page.  Three pages can be a grind at this point in my life so I start out with two and go on if I feel like it.  Sometimes, revelations show up early, in page one or page two.  Like today, halfway down page two:

Think about it.

 

Twelve …

Sunday, a friend posted a video on Facebook offering Twelve Tough Truths About Life No One Wants to Admit.  To me, it seemed to pretty much summarize how I’d like to live my life.    Here it is, in case you are interested.

Hmm, my Inner Mystic thought as we watched it.  There’s that number again.  Twelve truths.  Twelve Steps.  Twelve apostles.  Twelve days of Christmas.  Twelve months in a year.  I wonder if there’s any numerological significance to the number twelve.