Spirit-Centered Living, Part Three: Relationships

This post is a sketch about how I relate to others, from spirit to spirit.

As I mentioned in Part Two of this series, I see everyone of us as spirited and alive. As such, I see us doing what we need to do to remain alive and do what we are alive to do. 

Kinship

So, I see a kinship among us all. We are related by the mere fact that we are spirited and alive rather than not. We are also related in doing what we need to do to remain alive and fulfill our purpose.

Because of our kinship, my basic way of relating to others is as a friend rather than a foe. At first, I'm a cautiously friendly. It takes me a while to know if you are a friend or foe to me. Being cautious protects and affirms the value of my life.

Friends

If you are a friend, then my basic way of relating is to accept you as you are and not interfere with you living your life as you choose. I give you space. Not interfering and giving you space is about a mutual affirmation of my life and yours. It's about both of us being free.

The only time I harm my friends, is out of the necessity to sustain my own life and the lives of those in my care. I am personally responsible for the deaths of countless friendly plants and animals that I eat to sustain my own life. 

Since the deaths of others sustains my life, I do well to honor them and their spirit by minimizing the pain of their death, wasting as little as possible of their bodies, and respectfully returning to Earth what remains.

Otherwise, being a friend is about helping each other if and when we need and want help. It is also about enriching each other's lives with gifts that only we can give.

Foes

If you are a foe, my basic way of relating to you is to avoid you. I want nothing to do with you. You go your way and I'll go mine.

If you threaten or harm me or anyone dear to me, then I will aggressively defend myself, family, and friends. In defense I will kill you if I have to. If you are eatable, I will eat you, waste as little as possible, and respectfully return to Earth what remains.

Context

Of course, I do all of the above to varying degrees in the larger context of a declining industrialized system. In that larger context, factory workers kill and process most of the food I eat. I know they do so with no respect for the spirits of those they kill. They make no attempt to use everything to honor the spirit and life of the each one killed but only to maximize share-holder profits.

Even so, I continue to develop my practice of living a spirit-centered life, of relating spirit to spirit, and respecting the life and freedom of every living being. 

Spirit-Centered Living, Part Two: The Spirit of Others

Not only am I alive, others are too. They too are spirited: 

Earth, water, wind, and fire-all moving, all alive. 

Stones, grass, flowers, vines, shrubs, and trees-all moving and alive. 

Every insect and animal, including us humans- moving and alive.

Even the moon, planets, and stars- all moving, all alive.

The spirit, that which makes alive, spirits us all. We share spirit in common.

We all are alive rather than not.

Let this great mystery move us all to wide-eyed wonder!

Some live lives that affirm their own life and the lives of others.

Some live lives that deny their own life and the lives of others.

Those who deny life, make the lives of those who affirm life necessary.

Those who affirm life, make the lives of those who deny life necessary.

We depend on each other.

Has it always been this way?

I don't know. I just know that it is this way now.

Will it always be this way?

I do not know. I just know that it is this way now.

Why is it this way?

I do not know. I just know that it is this way now.

Shouldn't we try to change it and make it better- more life-affirming?

The only way to make it more life-affirming is to deny the lives of those who deny life.

We who affirm life, affirm the lives of all the living, including those who deny life.

Spirit-Centered Living, Part One

This is the first in a series of posts about what it means to me to live a spirit-centered life.

Spirit-Centered Living Defined

Spirit-centered living is about living from my own spirit in relation to all other spirited beings. It includes being mindful of my own spirit, the spirits of others, and our relationships.

Mindful of My Own Spirit

Being mindful of my own spirit includes but is not limited to-

1. Being aware of and moved to wonder that I am alive rather than not, open to experiencing the mystery of being alive, and at peace with not knowing how or why I am alive.

2. Delighting in being alive.

3. Acting from my spirit,  engaging with my in-the-world experience, meeting the challenges I face, not avoiding what life presents to me.

4. Being what I do.

5. Synchronizing my spirit, body, and mind in all I do. Doing this defines integrity for me.

6. Naturally doing what protects and promotes my own life. Taking excellent care of myself also benefits others.

7. Fulfilling the life-affirming desires of my heart. Doing what I am meant to do.

Part Two of this series is about being mindful of the spirits of others

The Spirit of Living Water

I live in the Southern Appalachian Mountains of Western North Carolina where the Cherokee once lived. They, as did my European ancestors, knew experientially the different spirits of different kinds of water. For example, they knew the experience of drinking living water. Later, confined and crowded together by European immigrants, they knew the experience of drinking dispirited water.

Growing up, I drank living water at my grandparents' homes in the Southern Appalachian Mountains of Northeast Georgia. Their water came directly from mountain springs on their land.

While living in Boone, North Carolina, as young adults, my wife and I with our two year son, drank the living lithia spring water in Ashe County.  Click the following link for more information:  http://www.cabinsathealingsprings.com/our-history.htm

As an adult, for several years my wife, children and I lived in East Tennessee. Our house was connected to the city water system. However, I got our drinking water from a spring of living water in New Market, a small town next to the one we lived in. Click the following link for information about the spring http://www.houstonsmineralwater.com

Over the years we've also made several trips to Hot Springs, North Carolina, where we drank the living spring water at Hot Springs Spa: http://nchotsprings.com

Living water moves. It's fresh, clean, and alive. It's found in clean springs, streams, creeks and waterfalls. It inspirits and enlivens those who drink it. It restores and lifts weary spirits, especially the spirits of animals, including us humans.

Now living water is difficult to find. Reckless, industrialization and greed for financial gain have and continue to pollute, chemically process, and dispirit the waters of fresh springs, streams, creeks, waterfalls, and almost all other natural sources of fresh water.

Many, if not most, Westerners, have lost the awareness and experience of the spirit of living water. To find living water to drink takes significant time and effort.

Perhaps if more of us experienced for ourselves the spirit of living water, we would also experience the lifelessness of the chemically processed water that flows from our faucets as well as the filtered water we drink from plastic bottles, including bottled spring water.

Perhaps then we would be inspired to treat the water of Earth with more respect. Perhaps we would protect, clean, restore, and revive the water sources on which our lives and the lives of all the living depend. Perhaps we would stop polluting the waters of life and no longer need to chemically process it. Perhaps.

It's really up to us. 

Our regard for water is a direct reflection of our regard for life itself.

  

We Are Alive! The Fundamental Fact of Thumotics

The fundamental fact that I acknowledge and affirm in Thumotics* is that we are alive. We have thumos, spirit, that which makes alive.

Everything else I present with regard to Thumotics emerges from the fundamental fact that we are alive rather than not.

Being mindful of being alive moves me to a state of wonder: Wonder of wonders! I am alive! You are alive! We are alive together! I want to constantly live in this state of wonder.

Since I do not know why we are alive, being alive is a great mystery to me: Mystery of mysteries! I am alive! You are alive! We are alive together! I want to constanlty live with this sense of mystery.

Descartes declared, "I think, therefore I am." I declare, "I am alive, therefore I pulse, breathe, hunger, thirst, see, hear, smell, touch, taste, feel pain and pleasure, emote, desire, imagine, think, speak, choose, move, and take action. The only reason I exist and can do anything, is because I am spirited and alive. Everything flows from being alive rather than not.

Since I am alive rather than not, I feel the drive to remain alive. This drive inheres in spirit. It propels me to do whatever I need to do to live. I am always answering with my actions the question, "What will I do to remain alive?"

I am not alone. I am alive because of others: my parents and ancestors before them, but also because of farmers, physicians, scientists, law enforcement officers, military personnel, and countless others. 

I live with you and all other living beings who are also driven to remain alive. So, I am always answering the question with my actions, "How will I live well with others?" How will we treat each other and all other living beings with whom we share this planet we call Earth?

*Thumotics is an umbrella term based on the Ancient Greek word for spirit, thumos. It includes thumology, thumotherapy, thumotic spirituality, and thumotic theology.

Goddesses, Gods, and Spirit, Part Five: Our Relationship

Goddesses, gods, and we humans share much that is significant: We are alive. We share spirit. We are conceived by parents and born. We grow up to become adults. We mate and have children.

We live in the same universe. We experience pleasure and pain. We experience the full range of emotions. We have our own strengths, unique abilities, and weaknesses. We make choices and take actions that sometimes help and sometimes harm. 

We communicate with each other. Some call our communication with deities prayer. Some call the communication of deities with us revelation. Others call it divination.

Some goddesses and gods have no interest in us. Some do. We have no interest in some goddesses and gods. In others we do. Some of us have only one goddess or god. Some of us have two or more.

The point: There are goddesses and gods. There are us human beings. And there is the relationship between us.

Some believe their god is the only god. They also believe there is only one right way to be in a relationship with their one true god. That's fine. They are free to believe as they so choose.

Some believe that everyone who believes in one god believes in the same god. They just call him by different names. Others believe their god is the one true god that all should worship and the one god others believe in is not the one true god.

Others believe there are many goddesses and gods and each is related to in their own way. That's fine too. They too are free to believe as they so choose.

The relationship between deities and us varies from deity to deity and human to human. The relationships are dynamic and complex. That's what makes them so interesting.

Goddesses, Gods, and Spirit, Part Four: Eternal Life? Cont'd

Instead of being eternal, I believe that goddess and gods are potentially immortal. Here's why:

First, within our visual range most, if not all, of the living things we see are conceived by parents in some sense of the word, they are born in some sense, grow to maturity, decline, die, decompose, and are reborn in some sense of the word. Consider the life cycles of oak trees and  cats for illustrations. It seems reasonable to me that the life cycles of living beings outside our visual range would follow the same pattern. Living organism too seen only with microscopes follow this pattern. It seems that goddesses and gods would follow the same pattern.

When we consider the narratives about goddesses and gods handed down to us from our Greek, Roman, and Norse ancestors, we see the same pattern with one exception. Goddesses and gods are conceived by their parents, born, and grow to maturity. The difference is that they consume food and drink that keeps them young and makes them potentially immortal. The Greek deities consumed nectar and ambrosia. The Norse deities consumed golden apples. 

The Greek, Roman, and Norse goddesses and gods can also die. For example, most of the Norse gods die in Ragnarok.

The deities of our Greek, Roman, and Norse ancestors live and act in the same world as do we and the rest of nature rather than an eternal, unchanging realm apart from this world. They even involve themselves in human events, such as war and and sex. Their existence is consistent with the rest of living beings that we know. Rather than devaluing life they value and live it as do we.

I can believe in such beings that value and affirm life.

Goddesses, Gods, and Spirit, Part Three: Eternal Life?

As mentioned in the introduction to this series, spirit, understood in terms of the Ancient Greek concept of thumos, is that which makes alive. Everything that is alive has spirit and is spirited, including goddesses, gods, and other beings invisible to us humans.

The question I address in this post is whether or not I believe goddesses and gods are eternal. In addressing this question I reflect on the meaning of "eternal", the effects of believing that goddesses and gods are eternal, the meaning of immortal, and the effects of believing that goddesses and gods are immortal rather than eternal.

First, I do not believe that goddesses and gods are eternal. Here's why:

In Western civilization "eternal" tends to mean "always has been and always will be." An eternal god is without beginning and end. He is unchanging. He has no parents that conceived him, no birth, growth, decline, death, and rebirth. Such a god by necessity exists "outside of time", apart from the universe, and in a supernatural/metaphysical realm.

The effect of such a belief is the valuing of a realm, life, and existence that is outside the world we live in. It exalts what is eternal, unchanging, separated from "this world." It values life before and after the life we live in "this world." Those who believe in eternity often speak of going to a better place than this world after they die. Such a belief devalues, and often denies, all that is temporal and mortal, all that changes, and all that is of "this world"; that is, all of nature.

I simply cannot believe is something so life-denying.

Goddesses, Gods, and Spirit, Part Two: What I Believe

When it comes to the existence of goddesses, gods, and other beings invisible to us humans, I describe my current perspective as that of an optimistic agnostic believer: I'm an agnostic because I do not know with certainty that goddesses, gods, and other such beings exist. I'm optimistic because I have good reasons for believing that they do exist. I'm a believer because I think it is reasonable for me to believe that such beings exist and I chose to do so. Here's why:

There's More Than Our Human Eyes Can See

First, I believe it is possible that divine and other beings invisible to us humans exist because I know that our physical senses are limited in their abilities. For example. our field of vision is within a very narrow energy range. It's between approximately 400 and 790 THz (terahertz). We cannot see in the ultraviolet range below 400 THz. Neither can we see in the infrared range  above 790 THz. Moreover, we cannot see gamma rays, microwaves, radio waves, x-rays or anything else outside our visual range.

Using microscopes we can see very small and otherwise invisible forms of life . But we do not yet have macroscopes with which we can see very large and otherwise invisible forms of life. I think it is reasonable to believe that there is much more that exists in the universe than what we are now able to see with either our unaided or aided eyes. I think it is reasonable to believe that living invisible beings that have been called goddesses, gods, angels, deamons, fates, geniuses, and other names exist. Why not?

The Weight of Testimony

Secondly, the testimony recorded throughout history and currently in the world today bearing witness to direct encounters with such beings carries weight with me. Reports of direct experiences with goddess, gods, angels (messengers), evil spirits, and other invisible beings are common throughout historical records and in the world today. Indeed, I am among those who bear such witness. 

A Conceptual Framework

Thirdly, Henri Corbin's article,  Mundus Imaginalis*, in which he articulated the differences between the imaginary and the imaginal, provides a conceptual framework for me to believe in the existence of goddesses, gods, other invisible beings, and other realms. 

So, when asked if I believe that goddesses, gods, and other invisible beings exist, I say, "Yes, I do and I am optimistic about one day developing our technologies that help us better know and communicate with them." In order to develop such technologies in the West, we will have to further shed the materialistic view of the universe that still dominates our culture.

* http://www.bahaistudies.net/asma/mundus_imaginalis.pdf

Part three of this series will present my current view on whether or not goddesses and gods are eternal.

Goddesses, Gods, and Spirit, Part One, An Introduction

This is part one and an introduction to a multipart series on goddesses, gods and spirit. As in all of my writing, spirit is understood in terms of the Ancient Greek understanding of thumos. Thumos translated into Latin as spiritus from which we get our English word, spirit.

Spirit understood in terms of thumos is not a religious concept. It's not "spiritual" or supernatural. It is very much a part of nature. It's associated with the wind and our breath.

It is that which makes alive. When we have spirit, we are alive. When it leaves and returns we faint and recover. When our spirit leaves permanently, we die. 

It's quasi-physical. We feel it in the center of our chest, behind our breast bone and between our breasts. We often refer to it as our heart. It is the seat of our emotions. 

According to the Ancient Greeks everything alive has spirit; for example, rivers, trees and other plants, animals, humans, goddesses and gods and other beings invisible to the human eye.

Human spirits and the spirits of all living beings vary in quality. A few spirits are great; that is, strong, expansive, and influential. Most are average and some are weak. Some spirits are warm and loving. Others are cold and mean. Some are expansive, others contracted, and so on.

The series of posts to follow are about goddesses, gods, and other beings invisible to the human eye. It will include my thoughts on the existence of goddesses, gods, and other beings invisible to our human eye, about their being spirited, my answer to whether or not they are eternal, and their relationship to the world and us humans.

Part Two will present my thoughts about the existence of goddesses, gods, and other invisible beings.