Sleep? Yeah, I do that sometimes.

When I was 12 years old, I started sneaking out of my house at night. Not at 9 or 10, to go over to a friend's house, but around 2 or 3 am. What I did during those starlit adventures is the stuff of another blog. Not just another post, but an entirely new blog, not normally dedicated to my spiritual self.

For the last 17 years, I haven't managed what people would call a "normal" sleep schedule. At least not for more than a couple months at a time.

One week, I'll be up until 8am, and sleep until 4pm. The next week, I'll be in bed by 9m, and fresh by 7am. It usually travels in phases, and these phases usually last 3-4 weeks at a stretch.

The point of all of this is that while some may see this as a detriment, I have now seen and experienced things that "normal" never get to see.

Standing outside at 3:00am on a crisp January morning, the wind brisk as it nips your cheeks. The fog that rolls in with the breeze, soothing and muting the sounds of the suburban environment, making houses and cars appear as nothing more than ghosts of their former selves. Looking up at the branches of trees, where the moisture from the fog has collected in a beautiful crystalline lattice, sparkling in the light of the stars. The stars themselves, fading in and out of visibility as thicker patches of the thin cloud cover try to obscure the majesty of the heavens.

Or a pre-dawn morning in late July, when the sky is just beginning to turn the faintest shade of pink, splashed across the eastern horizon. The surrounding sky starts as that odd mix of light blue and steel gray, but as you crane your neck and start to move your vision to the west, it darkens and into the deepest shade of blue the human eye can make out, where the stars struggle mightily against the coming sun. The sound of crickets and cicadas, of birds beginning to sing, and yet it's still quiet enough that you imagine that if you knelt down, just a little bit, you could hear the worms and insects toiling away beneath the bright green grass, covered with dew.

An August afternoon in the Boundary Waters, where the song of the mosquitoes tries to lull you in for a nap. The bright sun, streaking through the few clouds brave enough to dare the warmth, to shimmer across the mirror-like stillness of the small lake that you're camped next to. The sound of an elusive lake trout breaking the surface for a bug, small ripples sliding closer. The fresh air, resounding with the minuscule and infinite sounds of a living, breathing forest, reminding you just how small you really are in the universe.

Some people claim my inability to remain "normal" is something that needs to be fixed. I say that you've missed out on some of Nature's most awe-inspiring moments by always sleeping at night.

Introducing an Impressionable Soul to Alternative Spirituality, Do I or Don't I?

By popular demand, here it is.

Dante doesn't have a specific religion. He attends a Catholic private school, has a non-spiritual mother, a Lutheran mother/great-grandfather/grandmother, a non-religious-but-highly-spiritual father/grandfather, a Catholic grandmother/great-grandmother/great-great-grandmother.

When he was a few months old, he was non-denominationally baptized by an ordained minister of a cult. When he was nine, he was Confirmed in a Catholic church, as part of his education. I think Confirmed is the right word, anyway... He takes communion now.

As far as I can tell, Dante is more Catholic than anything else, but he has been in a Catholic school for the last three years, where they have more religion than science classes.

The only thing that all of these beliefs have in common is that there is a God (a.k.a. Gusby).

My struggle is this: Do I introduce Dante to the specifics of my belief, even though they vary greatly from all of the beliefs that he's been taught up to this point?

He knows some of them, like that on the rare occasions I attend a Lutheran church service, I do not take communion. He knows that I have spirit guides, and power animals, and that I meditate and take shamanic journeys. He also knows that I channel energy through my hands, to help balance and restore the natural order and health (physical and spiritual) of whomever I'm practicing on.

He has never really asked me why I don't take communion, nor has he asked if he can have spirit guides or power animals, or what happens on a journey or during meditation. He seems fairly interested in Reiki, but seems unsure if he should ask or not.

Catholics, Lutherans, non-denominational cults... they all have rules for a "proper, Godly" lifestyle, and some of them are pretty hard to follow. My belief structure has one rule for a proper and Godly life: Do not intentionally harm. That's it.

It's similar to Christ's Golden Rule, but with subtle differences. According to the "Treat Others as You Wish to be Treated," I can be nice to people and still harm myself. Hell, I've done it before. Living according to my rule, I strive to make sure that every single one of my actions brings no harm to another or to myself. (Smoking really has to go, since poisoning myself is harmful, heh.)

If placed in a situation where I have to say something that hurts someone else, I strive to make sure that my words are coming from a higher place, a place of goodness and right. You may not like to hear that your actions are self-destructive and dangerous, and it may hurt you to know that I think you're making the wrong choices, and you may think that when I say these things, I'm breaking my own only rule. I disagree. Sometimes, we all need to hear things we don't like, in order to put aside our harmful ways and pick up the mantle of right action.

As the basis of a belief structure, I think I've got a solid cornerstone. After decades of soul-searching, study, experimentation and analyzing results, this rule, this cornerstone, feels right. And I've learned to trust my feelings.

"That's all well and good," you may be saying, "but what does this have to do with teaching Dante?"

Good question. Before you can weigh in with an opinion that is more likely to be listened to and taken seriously, you needed to know more about the decision, as well as what I'd be teaching him. A well-informed voter is more likely to elect the most beneficial person for the job.

Now, this may seem like an easy decision. I'd be teaching Dante, essentially, that I love. Unfortunately, it's a little more complicated than that. You see, all Bible-based organized religions are contradictory. Some more so than others, but all to a certain extent. In order to give Dante enough information to make his own well-informed decision, I would have to expose the contradictions of the Bible-based religions, as well as explain where and why I disagree with other teachings.

Believe it or not, this is not meant as a crusade to get Dante to stop going to church, or as a way to break him out of organized religion. My goal, the entire reason behind this struggle, is merely to educate my son, so that he understands he doesn't need to blindly believe everything he is taught.

There are other beliefs out there, some may be right for him and some may be wrong for him (just as they are right or wrong for all of us), but I want him to retain his open mindedness, rather than just swallow what he is spoon fed.

*** Spoiler alert: If you strongly believe in organized religion, I warn that you might be offended if you read further. ***

I do not want Dante to grow up as a sheep, as the vast majority of our society does. Blindly following a religion, just because it's easier to be told what to do and what to believe than it is to make the decision for yourself. The simple fact that your parents hold a specific belief does not require you to think the same way, to believe the same thing.

If you want children for the sole purpose that they would think exactly as you think, feel exactly as you feel, go buy a clone.

I wish for him the ability to analyze, rationally, his beliefs... and I wish for him the ability to set aside rationality, to just feel, to be, to live. Both are equally necessary. I feel that in this day of age, in this society and culture, too many people are choosing the extreme. Living a life based solely upon the rational and analyzable, or a life based purely upon emotion without the ability to use logic.

I wish for him to be a good person. To be caring, loving, friendly and happy. It is my belief that my spirituality will help him achieve that more quickly, easily and completely than any organized religion, with fewer pieces of guilty baggage hanging around.

And if he chooses to believe other than myself, I will stand beside him, supporting him through thick and thin, regardless of any troubles he might face.

So there you have it... my struggle.

Thoughts?