Spirit Essentials, Part 5: How to Provide Spiritual Guidance

If you came to this post expecting clear directions on how to provide spiritual guidance you might be disappointed. This post doesn't give a "how to" on spiritual guidance. 

This post teaches you what you need to do to develop your own ability to provide spiritual guidance.

Bottom line: experiment and learn from the results.

Be a true and dedicated thumonaut. Explore spirit. Learn about spirit. Figure out what affects spirit.

As in previous explorations, start with yourself.

Learn what calms your spirit. Learn what excites your spirit.

What expands your spirit and what contracts it?

What warms your spirit and what cools it?

What weakens your spirit and what strengtens it?

When your spirit is wounded or broken, what heals it?

As you experiment, keep a "no failures, only feedback" attitude. Keep a beginner's mind, open, full of wonder, and eager to learn.

Share what you learn. Share it with me. I'm eager to know what you're discovering in your explorations as a thumonaut. Let's share our stories and compare our notes.

Spirit Essentials, Part 3: Naming Different Conditions of Spirit

Perhaps you experience spirit as changing rather than always staying the same. If so, it can be helpful to name the different conditions of spirit we experience and perceive.

Again, start with your own spirit. Attend to it. Take note of how it changes and name the different conditions into which it changes.

Are you more spirited at some times than at others?

Are you less spirited at some times than at others?

Are there times when your spirit seems contracted within you or expanded beyond the boundary of your skin?

Does your spirit take on different hues? Is it darker or brighter at times?

Do you ever feel that your spirit is spent?

Are there times when it feels exceptionally strong?

Has you ever been wounded in your spirit?

Has your spirit ever been broken?

Take note of the above and any other conditions of your own spirit that you notice.

After you spend some time attending to the different conditions of your own spirit, spend some time attending to the differences in the spirits of others.

Include in your observations more than other humans with whom you relate. Include animals, plants, rocks, and all of the other things that you found to be spirited in the previous exercises in Part 2.

Create your initial list of all of the conditions of spirit that you identified and named. Also, if needed after naming different conditions of spirit, revise your definition of spirit.

You have become a well-informed thumonaut.

Spirit Essentials, Part 2: Become More Aware of Spirit

Defining spirit is only a beginning. There's more, much more. It is essential to become more aware of spirit. To experience it.

Start with your own spirit. Attend to it. How would you describe your spirit right now?

Where is it?

Does it have a color? Does it have a temperature? A size?

Is it always the same or does it change? If it changes, how?

Next, attend to the spirit of others. How would you describe the spirits of your family members, friends, co-workers, neighbors, pets or other animals?

What about plants? Are they spirited? If so, how? What are their spirits like?

What about the earth, mountains, forests, valleys, rocks, the wind, rivers and streams, waterfalls, fire, the sun, moon, planets and stars? Are they spirited or not? If so how?

What about groups of people like schools, sports teams, bands, military units, mobs, towns, cities, states, and nations? Do groups of people have their own group spirit?

Consider the seasons of the year, days, times, and events.

Do the seasons of winter, spring, summer and fall have their own spirit? Describe them.

Do different days have different spirits? What about holidays? What is the "holiday spirit?"

What is the "spirit of the times"?

Do events have their own spirit? Elections, inaugurations, births, celebrations, riots, initiations, vacations, making love, having sex, giving birth, hiking, dancing, and dying.

Revisit your definition of spirit. Revise it as necessary to take into account the new things you learn as you continue to explore spirit.

Now you're no longer a rookie thumonaut. You're becoming experienced.

Spirit Essentials, Part 1: Define Spirit for Yourself

It is essential to have a definition of spirit.

I recommend that you develop your own definitions, descriptions, and images of spirit rather than borrow them from someone else.

First, answer this question for yourself: What is spirit? Write your current understanding of what spirt is. It doesn't have to be your final word or even polished. It's a place to begin. Your answer will probably change over time as you learn more about spirit.

Second, imagine spirit. How does spirit sound, look, smell, feel, and taste? What is it like? What images come to mind? Is it always the same or does it change? What happens when something or someone who was spirited no longer is? 

Third, do some reading on the meaning of the word "spirit". Start with a few dictionaries. Explore the meanings of words that contain spirit. Explore, for example, the meanings of aspire, conspire, dispirit, expire, inspire, transpire, and esprit de corps. 

Study the etymology of the word. Find out if there are equivalents in other languages. 

Study related words like soul, mind, energy, and consciousness. Are these different words for the same thing or do these words refer to different things?

Next, rewrite your definition of spirit in light of what you have learned so far. Again, understand that as you learn more your definitions, descriptions, and images will change.

Now you are a thumonaut, an explorer of spirit.