The sublime

rowangolightly wrote in her LJ today:
"It's a very homey and homely thing but sacred in the doing and if done with consciousness,
is Blessed regardless of the religion being practiced or lack of it, for that matter."

Her entry reflects on autumn, and her feelings about harvesting the garden they planted this spring. It reminded me of a conversation I had with 0verdrive a long time ago, about how differently we viewed religion and spirituality. For me, the sacred is mostly internal. Anything can be an act of religion (or pick your word) if done with the right mind. Grocery shopping in a quiet store on Sunday morning is a spiritually rewarding act for me. So is cooking, sewing, or crafts (again, if done with the right mind).

I don't need to participate with a group or be led by a priest/master/whatever to reap spiritual benefits from an activity. I don't even use the tools of a solitary anymore. In fact, I recently used my ritual knife to break down boxes. Now that's practical magic. I do keep a minimal altar, but mostly to help keep myself in the correct mindset. I don't believe the three on my dresser care one way or the other if I leave them up or light candles for them. They merely act as a focal point for my own intent. Please understand, I don't think people who feel differently are wrong or any less enlightened than I am. Different strokes. That's cool.

But back to the point: I've let too much of my life happen to me lately. I've not been doing much of anything with intent. I have brief moments of clarity and purpose, but they quickly fade and I return to passivity. I need to take some time to do things with consciousness. I will focus intent on both the sacred and the mundane.

Chop wood. Carry water.

The ridiculous

I didn't want to sully the earlier post with trivial crap. It's not often that I turn introspective and I thought it deserved its own post. So, a couple little things:

1.) How does one make an MP3 from a song on a CD? Is there freeware I can download someplace?

2.) When and why did Gmail change the way it formats replies? Yesterday my replies were formatted the way I like, with sideways carrots preceeding the text being replied to. Like this:
__
>Original post
>Original post

My response
___

This morning, not so. Now I have these annoying lines, like you get in MS word Track Changes Format, that run perpendicular to the text. I don't like it. Not at all. How do I change it back?

3.) I have to go to Target, World Market, Tuesday Morning, and Hobby Lobby today right after work. Bah. I'm tired of spending money. At this point, retail therapy is helping me just about as much as a punch in the head.