My chakra's are aligned but this blister on my foot is a real buzzkill

Sometimes I think about how we exist in this world experiencing the odd duality of being a creature of soul in a mortal body, walking a path of spiritual expansion and yet somehow still needing to tend to your liver and brush your teeth every day and remembering to turn the lights out when you leave the house. (I know, I think too much but I like it, ok?)

There’s this weird sort of sense of existence as something “other” a spirit maybe, consciousness perhaps. Something that could possibly exist outside of time and space.

We are in all moments - both something divine and something definitely mortal. My bills still need to be paid, I’ve got a bad headache today and I forgot to buy milk yesterday.

And in the same moment, the sunlight spills over the counter and I am struck by how present the air of divinity is - in every exhale I am both matter and spirit.

This contrast between seeking enlightenment and remembering to pay the electricity bill never ever ceases to entertain me. Between a moment of prayer and needing to put the kettle on, life flows between these two poles every day. It’s almost as if the essence of this world is duality, and we get to explore and embrace all of it.

Much of the “grandiose spiritual teachings” encourage transcendence—rising above earthly struggles, detaching from ego, and remembering our origins. But to exist in this human body is also to be tethered to time, to hunger, to exhaustion. Sometimes spiritual teachers say, ignore these physical distractions and focus your attention on heaven above! Only then will you find peace! Only then will you find ascension!

I’ve been through a lot lately, and I can’t help but think actually, there’s no real separation between the sacred and the mundane. Washing dishes is sacred. Feeding your family is sacred. Weeping is sacred. Laughter is sacred. The blister on your foot, the ache in your back, these are sacred.

And in the same absolute breath, these are ordinary, annoying things. Spiritual practices are not separate from the mundane - they are the mundane.

I think that when we cling too tightly to a belief or an ideal of what it means to be either human or spiritual, we lose the plot a little(maybe there isn’t a plot at all, I don’t know).

But here’s what I feel - spirituality, religion, is not about escaping or transcending the mundane(or the sad). It’s not truly about bypassing the shadows in the dark, but about learning to weave them together into our sense of divinity.

We are here, for what every reason you believe, and in this moment we can experience both the divine sacred and the mundane. Maybe one’s not better than the other, they just are. You just are, you simply exist here.

And maybe, the next time we find ourselves caught between aligning our chakras and tending to our mortal needs, we can laugh—not because it is absurd, but because it is beautifully, perfectly real.