Ashes Ashes

Ann Litts
Mar 6

Photo by Ahna Ziegler on Unsplash

Ash Wednesday. Today begins the season of Lent. Typically when I was growing up in my mother’s very Catholic home it meant No-Meat-Fridays and “giving up” something you really really enjoyed. My mother “kept the fast” on Sundays. I was well into my 30s before someone told me we got a reprieve on Sundays and could, in fact, eat chocolate or drink beer — whatever said enjoyable something we had “given up” was.

My mother was hardcore Catholic.

As I grew spirituality I left the Catholic Church and developed my own personal relationship with The Divine.

Note to self: She didn’t give a fuck what I ate or when I ate it.

She was way more interested in how I treated My Life. Was I using My Gifts? Was I learning? Was I echoing Love? Or was I stuck in the stupid shit? Stupid shit like “fasting from meat” on Friday by eating seafood which costs twice as much. Now there is a great loophole every Catholic worth their salt knows about!

But back to Lent.

Forty Days. That’s the Magic Number for us to get our spiritual house in order. Forty Days. You see it a lot in religious traditions. Every. Single. One.

In Christianity and Judaism, it’s referred to the number of testing. In Hinduism, it’s the number of repetitions for prayer. In Islam, Muhammad was forty years old when he began his ministry and he sent forty followers out into The World to spread his teachings. It’s a fascinating number — check it out — it has it’s own Wiki page. No lie.

But I digress. Back to Lent.

I keep getting sidetracked because this is what Lent is. It’s a tangent. It’s a spiritual sidetrack in Our Lives.

The Universe didn’t set up Lent or any of other the Forty Day Excursions into Spirituality. We did. The Magic Number is completely a Human Construct.

The Universe doesn’t check out the other 325 days of the year. She is always with us. ALWAYS.

Please don’t misunderstand me, I think it’s a wonderful idea for a Human to take time out of time and pause to deep dive into their Soul. Every Soul requires this kind of maintenance. But my point is this — We have this ability to do it outside of the constraints society and organized religions set up.

We can access The Universe at any time. She is always with us. In Our Hearts and hanging out with Our Soul just dying for a chat. She does some of Her best work off the cuff — in our daily lives.

This is not Rocket Science. We are on The Earth to experience Our Lives. Every single moment. In Our Now.

All you have to do is Be Open. Let Love guide you. Be still for a split second and you will hear Her Voice.

From personal experience — I know exactly what The Universe will say.

She will tell you — Eat the Chocolate. Because we all know chocolate = Love.

Namaste.

Ann Litts
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