Orlando Massacre

Here is my view of the Orlando massacre:

It was an unprovoked, horrible, gruesome, bloody assault inflicted by one man on many other human beings. It was a glaring instance of life-denying behavior that has inflicted far-reaching trauma on countless others.

Then it was glorified by all outlets of media, including social media. I want to minimize my participation in glorifying it by giving it more attention. Instead I want to draw attention to what I believe is a life-affirming solution.

Some say that the solution to such violence is stricter gun control. I disagree.

I believe a since of divine favor, dominance, violence, and bloodshed are dominant and dominating themes in American culture. These themes the founding Northern Europeans, that include my ancestors, brought with them. The United States of America was founded and is maintained by this Christo-European sense of divine favor, dominance, violence and blood shed.

We are hypocrites to the degree that we feel horrified by violence done to those we consider "us" and justified in inflicting it on those we consider "them."

The solution to the problem is for us to renounce our Christo-European values of divine favor, dominance, violence, and bloodshed and change how we view not just human beings, but all living beings. When we see and value all living beings as "us", related, kindred, with valuable lives to live, then we will begin to do great, life-affirming things together, things that now we only dream of. 

The Spirit of Fire

If it moves, it's alive.

If it's alive, it is spirited.

Doesn't everything move? Isn't everything alive, spirited?

I'm sitting in of my fireplace gazing at the fire I made. The flames dance and sing hums and snaps as they feed on the wood at their feet. They move. They're alive. They're spirited like every other living being.

As I watch and tend the fire, I notice that its spirit varies according to the wood and air it feeds on. When I serve it dry wood with a steady flow of of air, its spirit lifts and strengthens. It dances with delight.

When I serve it damp wood or lessen the flow of are, it's spirit calms. Its song modulates to a hiss of displeasure. Fed too much damp wood and too little air, its spirit departs altogether. It dies.

Fire can be smothered to death with water, earth, and either too much or too little air. 

It's mortal.

Like all over living beings, fire consumes and transforms what it feeds on. Ashes are fire's feces. Like all feces, they can be utilized in beneficial ways by other living beings.

In the wild, fire consumes and transforms. It kills, clears, and opens up spaces to allow in more sunlight and wind. New life comes forth. Thus fire affirms life.

For us humans, fire is both friend and foe. It gives warmth, cooks meals, protects, provides light in darkness, purifies, and helps us forge steel. It also destroys material goods and kills.

It's immoral and life-denying when it kills unnecessarily. It is moral and virtuous when it affirms life even in the taking of it.

We do well to acknowledge the spiritedness of fire. We do well to respect and befriend fire. We do well to not interfere with fire's freedom, except when it threatens our life and goods and those  for whom we care.

We do well to befriend fire.   

  

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.

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.

Why Practice Thumotic Spirituality?

Thumotic spirituality isn't for everyone.

It isn't for those at home in the status quo of the Western industrialized culture- capitalists and their machine-like factory workers building widgets and providing services in compliance with productivity numbers.

It isn't for those at home in the Western monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in which adherents alienate themselves from non-believers as well as the rest of nature.

Neither is it for those who seek an escape from Western industrialized and monotheistic culture by turning to Eastern religious ways and looking inward.

Thumotic spirituality is for those who can no longer deny the denial of life, destruction, depletion, depression, disease, and death in the wake of the so-called "progress" of Western civilization.

It's for those seeking a life-affirming alternative within Western civilization. 

It's for those who value life, all of life, and want to engage in rather than escape from it. 

It's for those courageous enough to be responsible for their own life in relation with others, blaze their own path out of the Western status quo, and shift the momentum of Western civilization, one person, one step, at a time.

Emotions: A Thumological Perspective, Part 3

Life-Denying and Life-Affirming Emotions

Generally speaking, mind-based emotions tend to be life-denying whereas experience-based emotions tend to be life-affirming. 

Mind-based emotions tend to be life-denying because they are incongruent. They are based on our self-talk and mental images but expressed outwardly in our interactions with others as if they were experienced-based. 

For example, mind-based anger expressed in our interactions with others frequently harms ourselves and others. It's life-denying because it inspires action against those with whom we interact even though they did nothing to prompt our anger. Our anger was mind-based, prompted by our own self-talk and mental images. 

Experience-based emotions, on the other hand, tend to be life-affirming because they are congruent. They are our natural, life-affirming, emotional responses to our in-the-world interactions with others. They inspire us to action that is an appropriate response to what we experience in our interactions with others.

For example, when someone mistreats and harms us we can respond with anger. Our anger inspires us to act by defending ourselves from the threat. Such anger affirms our own life as well as the life of the one who threatened us. It says, "My life is valuable and worth protecting. Your life is valuable and worth correcting."

Guilt: A Spiritual Matter, Part 3

Life-Denying Guilt Continued

Life-denying guilt hinders or spoils fulfilling the life-affirming desires of our hearts. It is mind-based. Our thoughts (self talk) and imaginings (mental images) informed by external moral standards provoke it.

Life-Denying Guilt As Preventative

Sometimes the mentally internalized, external moral standards prevent us from fulfilling the life-affirming desires our hearts by making us feel guilty before we do anything. We feel guilty for merely thinking about or imaging doing something life-affirming that might violate the standard. Such guilt can lead us to think less of ourselves and the value of our lives.

Life-Denying Guilt As Spoiler

At other times the mentally internalized moral standards make us feel guilty after we fulfill the natural, life-affirming desires of our hearts. We feel guilty after we fulfill life-affirming desires because the moral standards we have internalized, which are life-denying, tell us that fulfilling such desires is wrong. Such life-denying guilt spoils our life-affirming actions by giving us a bad conscious for commiting life-affirming in violation of the internalized life-denying standards.

Whether we feel life-denying guilt before or after we act, our spirit is diminished and we think less of ourselves.

The Past Orientation of Life-Denying Guilt

When we violate the mentally internalized moral standard, our feelings of guilt make us past-oriented. They are mind-based responses to the memories of what we did. 

We might replay the memories in our minds and repeatedly regret our actions and try to undo what we did. We might repeatedly confess, apologize, and vow to never do it again. We might ask to be forgiven in order to relieve us from feeling so guilty. As we do all of this, we live caught up in a memory and feelings of guilt rather than in what we're experiencing at the moment and living our lives now.

The problem is not what we did. The problem is the mentally internalized, life-denying, moral standard of those who would exercise power over us.

Guilt: A Spiritual Matter, Part 2

Life-Denying Guilt

Life-denying guilt can prevent us from fulfilling the life-affirming desires of our hearts. It can also give us a bad conscience for fulfilling such life-affirming desires as maintaining our health and well-being, enjoying life, living our life as we choose, and becoming who we are meant to become. 

It's mind-based.

It's guilt felt for thinking about or imagining something even before we've actually done it.

It arises from a mind-based response of not complying with a moral standard that is-

- Some one else's standard

- Externally imposed from childhood and throughout our lives

- Imposed by means of verbal, emotional, and physical coercion

- Mentally internalized

- Benefits those who want power over others

- Presented by those in power as being good for those on whom it is imposed

The mentally internalized message has us say to ourselves, "No, that's wrong! Don't do that. If you do that you're immoral."

For example, it has us believe that we are immoral when we-

- See the world differently than those who would exercise power over us

- Openly share our own unique views with others when those in power want us to be quiet

- Develop our own beliefs and practices based on our own experience rather than the beliefs and practices of those who would exercise power over us

- Stand up to and resist others who try to control us and limit our life and freedom.

- Decide for ourselves when we've been wronged, defend ourselves, fight back, or re-establish justice by revenge. Those who would exercise power over us would rather decide for us whether or not we have been wronged and, if we have, what to do with those who wronged us.

- Enjoy life-affirming sex in any way other than the way approved of by those who would exercise power over us.

- Say anything that might offend those who want to exercise power over us.

- Desire abundance for ourselves and those for whom we care. Those in power would have us be quiet, content with, and grateful for what we have even when we lack basic needs.

Part 3 will present more on life-denying guilt.

Guilt: A Spiritual Matter, Part 1

Like fear, guilt is an acute condition of our spirit. Guilt is real and plays an important role in our lives. We do well to develop rather than diminish our ability to feel guilty. 

Guilt indicates that we mistreated, threatened, injured, or ended the life of another living being. Since spirit is that which makes alive and guilt indicates that we harmed a living being, guilt is a matter of the spirit.

It is more a thumological rather than psychological event. 

While we do well to develop our ability to feel guilty, it is important to understand that there are two kinds of guilt: life-denying and life-affirming.

My next post will be about life-denying guilt.

Fear: A Spiritual Matter

Fear indicates a threat to our life. As such, it is a spiritual matter. How so? Since our spirit is that which makes us alive and fear indicates a threat to our life, fear is spirit-related.

Fear is an acute condition of our spirit. It is a thumological rather than psychological event.

There are two kinds of fear: life-denying and life-affirming.

Life-Denying Fear

Life-denying fear hinders or prevents us from fulfilling the life-affirming desires of our hearts. It is mind-based. Our thoughts (self talk) and imaginings provoke it. 

It's past-oriented in that memories of our own experiences or other's stories of harm inspire our thoughts and imaginings. We speak to ourselves and imagine scenes about things that are not actually happening. They're happening only in our minds. Even so, they provoke fear in our spirit and thereby deny us acting in ways that fulfill the life-affirming desires of our hearts.

Life-Affirming Fear

Life-affirming fear preserves and sustains our spirit and life so that we can fulfill the life-affirming desires of our hearts. It is based in our immediate experience, instincts, and intuition.

It's present-oriented but also about our immediate future. There is a real threat to our spirit and therefore our life. Our life is at risk. There is someone or something that could harm or kill us. 

Taking immediate action to protect and keep our spirit affirms our life. We either freeze, fight, or flee. Since we keep living, we can act in ways that fulfill the life-affirming desires of our hearts. 

We do well to recognize and banish life-denying, mind-based fear. We do well to recognize and develop life-affirming, spirit-focused fear. It sustains our life and enables us to fulfill the life-affirming desires of our hearts.

Wonder! Mystery! We Are Alive...and Sexy!

We are alive and we are very sexy. Look around. We're sexing all the time. Sexing is going on right now as you read these words. Males and females are sexing. Females and females are sexing. Males and males are sexing. Every species is sexing. We're sexing alone, in pairs, and in groups. Orgasms abound all around!

Sex is the second great mystery. Why sex? Many try to explain it by reducing it to either a metaphysical fall into physicality or mere biology. No one knows why life goes on by way of the pleasure and pain of joining genitals, sperm and eggs, earth and sky. It just does. 

Sex is inherent in the great mystery of life. It is a natural part of life. Life and sex go together.

No life, no sex. No sex, no life. 

Human sex is what we humans make it. Healthy humans make sex one thing. The less healthy make it another.

The healthy, those who welcome and celebrate being alive, affirm the pleasures and creative powers of sex free of inhibitions.

 

Only the less healthy, those who despise being alive, make sex life-denying and distort it into something to despise, restrict, and minimize.

Thumotic Living, Part 7: Creativity

Thumotic living is creative and productive. Living beings create in a variety of ways. We create more living beings. We create safe places to bring forth more living beings, nurture them, and add to the rich tapestry of living beings. We help nurture the offspring of others. 

We produce abundantly. Look at how many seeds one dandelion produces, how many acorns one oak tree produces, and how many mice one mouse produces. Look at how much honey one hive of honey bees produces. Look at how many eggs a human female produces and how many sperm the human male produces. Abundance is natural.

Spirited beings cannot not produce and create. It's what spirited beings do. We do not have to try to produce. It's natural. Rose bushes do not try to produce blooms. They just do it. It's what they do.

We humans also work in cooperation with other living beings to produce language, tools, food, clothing, shelter, jewelry, paintings, flower gardens, statues, musical instruments, music, dances, imaginative stories and songs, countless machines, and so much more.

We do not create and produce just to survive. We do it to thrive and enjoy living. We often strive to create beauty, that which gives pleasure and delights ourselves and others.

Only those who, for whatever reason, do not value life produce life-denying creations. They suppress, hinder, and destroy their own lives and those of others. They rob life and the world of its value. 

Until they can make life-affirming contributions, they forfeit the privilege of having significant influence in the world.

We all need them to do better.

Thumotic Spirituality: Basic Practices

Some of the basic practices of Thumotic spirituality include the following:

- Mindfulness of one's own spirit and that of others

- Awareness of the current condition of one's own spirit and that of others

- Awareness of spirit to spirit connections

- Knowing in one's spirit

- Identifying one's own life-denying activities and diminishing them

- Identifying one's own life-affirming activities and developing them

NOTE: Affirming life in a life-denying culture is not a matter of 10 easy steps. There is no short cut. There's not even a map.

Little, if anything, is more challenging than diminishing life-denying habits and developing life-affirming habits.

Engaging in the challenge is an elitist endeavor that demands heroic effort. Few Westerners take it on. Fewer succeed.

Source of the Death Wish

Since I am a spirited body, I am naturally driven to take good care of myself as a living body. To do so is instinctual. What is living desires to keep living. 

Since I am a spirited mind, I am naturally driven to take good care of myself as a living mind. Again, the desire to keep living is instinctual. 

I am spirited and naturally driven to take good care of my spiritedness. What is spirited desires to remain spirited. The desire of the spirited to remain spirited is inherent to being spirited. 

Only when something is seriously wrong do I lose my natural desire to keep living. Only when my body is too weak, ill or injured; my mind too irrational or full of life-denying beliefs about myself and the world; or my spirit too ill, wounded, or broken do I desire to escape from life or wish to die rather than live. Then I might wax poetic and speak of death as a door to the "beyond" and "something better."

When I am healthy in body, mind, and spirit I enjoy living and desire to live fully. 

Religious Belief a Thought Virus?

As far as we know, we human beings are the only animals on Earth that have religious beliefs.* Dogs are not religious. Cats are not religious. Neither are crows nor catfish.

Does having religious beliefs make us superior or inferior to other animals? I wonder...especially since we, like other animals, are not born religious. We humans are made religious by other humans- parents and others in positions of power over us.

Religious belief is not natural. At best it is artificial. It consists of stories we humans make up and tell to help us cope with the challenges of life. At worst it is a serious, life-denying thought virus spread by word of mouth and reinforced by guilt and fear- guilt about our natural instincts and fear of divine rejection and punishment. Guilt and fear, expressed in words of divine love, join in our hearts and give birth to a bad conscience, the symptom of a sick spirit.

If religious belief is a serious, life-denying thought virus, we do well to cleanse our hearts and minds and cure ourselves of it. When we are clear, we will be free. We will be free to live spirit-related lives in which we love and celebrate spirit as that which makes us and all the living alive.

* Those who are "spiritual but not religious" may replace "religious" with "spiritual."

Life-denying and Life-affirming Spiritualities

I define spirit as that which animates or makes alive. I define spirituality as a collection of words and practices of or related to that which makes alive, spirit.

Two Categories of Spiritualities

In my view there are many different spiritualities: Vedantist, Ancient Egyptian, Taoist, Tantric, Jewish, Buddhist, Platonic, Native American, Christian, Muslim, Neopagan, American, Nietzschean, and many more. Even within the categories I listed there are subcategories of spirituality. For example, there are many different Catholic and Protestant spiritualities, Native American spiritualities, Neopagan spiritualities, and so on. I think we can sort all spiritualities into two general categories: life-denying and life-affirming.

Life Denying Spiritualities

Life-denying spiritualities deny the value of life, all life. Since spirit is that which makes alive, to deny the value of life is to deny the value of spirit as well.

The words and practices of life-denying spiritualities tend to be about avoiding, escaping, suppressing, inhibiting, and weakening life or spirit.

The methods of life-denying spiritualities often include a preference for pain over pleasure, banning laughter, fasting, keeping vigils, poverty, obedience to authority instead of personal freedom, wearing uncomfortable clothes, sleep deprivation, submission to suffering, flagellation, virginity, celibacy and other restrictions on sex. Since sex is often denigrated and restricted, marriage is often viewed as an inferior status as is conceiving new life and bearing offspring. In life-denying spiritualities relationships based on a shared faith tend to take precedence over family relationships.

In life- or spirit-denying spiritualities spirit or life often serves death and death is the final liberation and escape from life. The goal is to escape "this life" for "the next life" or individual annihilation and absorption into whatever is named the ultimate reality. Martyrdom is often glorified. The desired next life is often a purely disembodied, inherently eternal life of bliss or joy.

Life-denying spiritualities are anti-spiritualities rather than spiritualities. They are anti-spiritualities because they are against spirit, that which makes alive. They form weak and withdrawn human beings, often dependent on the charity of others, and who contribute little if anything to the common good.

Life-Affirming Spiritualities

On the other hand, life-affirming spiritualities value of life, all life. In valuing life they value spirit. Their words and practices tend to be about embracing both the pleasures and pains of life, being fully engaged in life, promoting, liberating, nourishing, strengthening, and celebrating life.

The methods of life-affirming spiritualities often include such things as a preference for pleasure over pain, sensuality, an affinity for beauty, eating, drinking, both laughing and crying, dancing, singing, passion, sex for pleasure, sex for conceiving, bearing and raising offspring, freedom, and happiness.

In life- or spirit-affirming spiritualities death serves spirit, it supports the continuation of life. However, because life-affirming spiritualities value life above death, all life is deeply respected and honored. It is taken only when necessary, reluctantly, with reverence, without waste, and in order to sustain life. The goal is sustaining, strengthening, and continuing spirit, that which makes us alive.

Life-affirming spiritualities are true spiritualities because they affirm life and therefore spirit. Their words and practices of and about spirit celebrate, sustain and strengthen spirit, all spirit, all life.

No Pure Types But Degrees

There are no pure anti-spiritualities or spiritualities. Different spiritualities vary in their degrees of both spirit-denying and spirit-affirming elements. That being said, I do think it is possible to distinguish between anti-spiritualities and spiritualities. For example, Vedic or Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, Islamic, and many New Age traditions tend to be anti-spiritualities. They tend to deny the value of life and look to an other-worldly future beyond life.

On the other hand, Shamanic, Taoist, Pagan European, African and many Native American traditions tend to be life- or spirit-affirming spiritualities. They tend to affirm the value of all life, celebrate it in numerous ways, sustain it, strengthen it, and assure its continuation.

Five Questions

I close with a list of five questions for distinguishing spiritualities from anti-spiritualities:

1. How do the adherents relate to all life- the earth and its water, wind, land, plants, and animals including humans? Do they affirm or deny the spirit of all that live? Do they treat all that live with respect or not?

2. Do the adherents kill without real necessity or regard for life, exterminate other species of life, consume more than they need to sustain themselves, and deplete and pollute where they themselves live or do they support the life of others, take life only when necessary to sustain their own, consume only what they need, leave little trace of their presence in an area, and minimize their impact where they live?

3. Do the adherents enjoy life, engage in it, rise to its challenges or dislike life, avoid it, and looking forward to going to a better place after they die?

4. What does the spirituality say about and practice with regard to pleasure, sex, child-birth, and family? Does it promote these or their opposites?

5. Bottom line: does the spirituality promote life or seek salvation from it?