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.

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.

How Shall We Live?

Earth is our mother. We are her children. By "we" I mean all of us who came from, depend on, and will return to Earth.

Blazing Sun penetrated Earth with his phallic beams and she conceived. From her moist womb she birthed and brought us forth.

Our bodies are our mother's earth and water. Her breath, the wind, is our breath. By her life in us we live.

We humans are the babies among our mother's children. We came last. Everyone else was already here. The other animals were here. The plants were here. So were the rocks. They were the first-born.

All our elder siblings did just fine before we came into the family. If the day of our extinction comes, they will do just fine without us again. On us they do not depend. We depend on all of them for our very lives: Earth, her water and wind. Sun. The plants and animals. All.

Wonder of wonders!

Mystery of mysteries!

We are alive.

Here.

Together.

Now, what kind of children and siblings will we be?

Have You Tasted It?

Why are we alive rather than not is a question not instantly answered by an internet search.  

"Why are we alive rather than not?" It's a question we either never ask, answer with the canned, generic answers provided by others, answer for ourselves, or live with unanswered. 

Even though we do not know the answer to the question, I find value in allowing the question to move me into the altered state of wonder. There's nourishment for my spirit, vulnerable and  wondering in the presence of the great mystery of life. 

Have you tasted it? That wonder?

Wonder! Mystery! We Die...

Many believe they know what death is and why we die. Again, some try to rob of its mystery by reducing it a door to the "next life" in the "next world." Some avoid the mystery by calling it a "transition." Still others, shield themselves from the mystery by confining death to the language of biology. 

No one knows why we die. No one knows death's beginning. No one knows its end, the death of death. 

No one knows if some invisible part of us lives on after we die. No one knows. 

Wonder of wonders. Mystery of mysteries. Death is a great mystery.

No death, no life. No life, no death.

Death feeds life. Life feeds death.

They depend on each other.

The living feed on the dead. Why? We do not know. We just know that is the way it is.

Human death is what we humans make it. The less healthy fear it even as they long for and promote it. It is, after all, the ultimate escape from this life in this world to the next life in the next world.

The healthy live in spite of it. Fearless of death, they live in it's face fully until they die. As they welcome each pleasurable and painful "little death" that punctuates their lives, so they welcome death as the ultimate period on the finished story of their lives. 

If they live on, they'll take it as it comes.  

Wonder! Mystery! We Are Alive!

Wonder of wonders! Mystery of mysteries! We are alive! We are together, not alone. All living beings are alive and living together, right here, right now.

A few articulate and influential humans make up stories but no one really knows how or why we are alive. We just are.

Some humans welcome being alive. They are healthy, able, and willing to face the challenges of living. They are truly pro-life and pro-choice. They value and affirm their own life and the lives of all other living beings. They choose to live their lives fully and do so their way.

This world is their home. They seek no other. Here they live, work, struggle, and play.

Others are less healthy, less able, and less willing to face the challenges of living. Some even resent those who are healthy. They resent being alive. They oppose choice and life. Rather than valuing and affirming, they devalue and deny their own life and the lives of others. They restrict the choices of others.  

They dream of a better life and world, the "next life" in the "next world." They seek to escape life, work, struggle, and play.

There are three great mysteries. The first great mystery is this: the mystery of life. Wonder of wonders, we are alive!

Being vs Becoming

Being is unchanging, unmoving, permanent, eternal, and now.

Being is beyond, supernatural.

It just is.

It's a mental concept, imaginary.

Those who believe in and value being

resist life and change.

They want to "be." They want eternity.

Spirit is invisible, non-sensible to them.

They close their eyes and seek to ascend, to transcend.

They seek escape from this world of becoming and change.

Becoming is changing, moving, temporary, mortal, and alive. 

Becoming is what is happening here and now.

It's natural, sensual, and experiential.

It's real.

Those who are and value becoming

embrace living and celebrate change.

Spirit is visible and sensed in all things by them.

They live seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, tasting, and 

knowing without knowing how they know.

They love, give birth, grow, mature, decline, die, and decompose

to be reborn again. 

This is home to them, this mystery here.

Knowledge and Belief or Wonder and Curiosity?

The previous posts raise a few of the questions we can ask about the great mysteries of life, death and sex. More important than answering the questions is allowing the questions to have their way with us. 

Let's not pretend to know the answers. Rather than knowledge we have beliefs. Wonder and curiosity are better. 

Wonder and curiosity trump knowledge and belief every time.

The Great Mystery of Sex, Part 3

For many sex involves physical pleasure: touching skin to skin, the firm embrace, the moment of penetration, the ride, orgasm, the physical desire fulfilled.

For others sex involves pain, even death (How does the Black Widow spider become a widow?) Why does physical passion go hand in hand with sex? Why are they linked?

For many sex involves intense emotions- fear, excitement, happiness, anger, guilt, shame, and sadness. Why are sex and intense emotions linked? 

Some recognize that sex is spirit-related. It's about life. It sustains life. Why are sex and the continuation of the living linked?

For a few sex is a devotional practice and the sexual embrace a sacred and magical act. Why? What's behind that?

The abundant pleasure, pain, and power of sex raises so many questions.

Why is life squirming in sex?

The purpose of asking questions is not to get answers. Behind our pretense, we do not know. Our questions are met with silence.

It is okay that our questions link with silence. It's okay that the answers remain secret and hidden.

It's okay to stop making up answers to fill the silent void in our mind and eclipse our wonder.

We can open ourselves to wonder and smile in the presence of the great mystery of sex.

The Great Mystery of Sex, Part 1

What death takes sex gives: life.

Sex and spirit go together. Sex is spirited and sustains spirit. Sex sustains life. Sex affirms life. It celebrates life.

As you read this sex goes on all around.

Right now billions of the living are touching, stroking, sucking, mounting, penetrating, thrusting, clawing, biting, smacking, humping, riding, banging, panting, moaning, groaning, screaming, spewing, gushing, collapsing, gasping for air, relaxing and calming back down.

Members of the opposite sex writhe together. So do members of the same sex. Members of the same species join. So do members of different species. Some squirm alone, others in pairs, still others in groups.

By light of day and darkness of night, the living dance a wet and wild orgy.  No law or moral code constrains it.

Why all the slippery, messy sex? Why is it that sex sustains life rather than something else?

Why is it that sex and spirit, that which makes alive, intermingle?

Why are so many conflicted that they do?

The Great Mystery of Death, Part 4

Afterlife?

Do we continue to live after we die? I ask on behalf of all the living.

That I ask confirms our not knowing.

I hear two replies: beliefs and silence.

Why do we even ask this question? Is it born from an innate drive the living have to keep on living? 

If we do live on after we die, who among us lives on- only humans, other animals, plants, the stones? 

If, as some believe, only humans live on, do all or only some live on after they die?

If we live on, how? Where? 

Do we ever live again on this earth?

If what is living inherently desires to keep on living, isn't it natural for us to create stories about how we continue to live after we die? Isn't it natural to create beliefs about living on and reinforce them with divine authority?

Rather than beliefs, I accept the silence.

We do not know what happens after we die. We do not know. 

The answer to this question is hidden from us. It's a secret. It always has been. It is one of the great mysteries.

What happens after we die? We do know one thing.

We decompose.

But then there are also those intuitions, dreams of the dead, ghosts, NDEs and other allusive experiences that leave us wondering. 

The Great Mystery of Death, Part 2

Death: The Crust of Earth

Former rocks, plants, and animals, including humans, make the crust of this global grave yard on which we live. It's a crust of death.

Death supports life. All of the dead feed all of the living.

Life supports death. All of the living feed the crust of death.

What does it mean to die? Is dying the act of giving life?

The living kill. We share in the violence of death. We force deposits into the crust of this global grave yard.

Why? Why do we kill each other? Why all the death? Is it to feed life?

The Great Mystery of Death, Part 1

We expire, spirit-out. We die. We all die.   

Death is omni-present. It's all around. It's within. Cells of our body are dying right now. We're all in the process of dying.

Dying is happening right now. Do you know how many died as you read this?

From the moment we're conceived we begin our journey toward death. Any moment could be our arrival time.

Why? Why do we die rather than keep on living? 

Why does our arrival time remain hidden while we live?

The Great Mystery of Life

Why are we alive rather than not? Is this not the biggest question of all?

Does life have a purpose? If so, what is it? Is it the same for all living beings?

What does it mean to be alive? If something changes, is it alive? Is there anything that doesn't change? Is everything alive?

Did life have a beginning? If so, when? Where? How? 

Are some lives more valuable than others? If so, which ones? How do we decide?

Why is sex such a huge part of life?

Why does life feed on death? 

What determines how long we live?

These are just a few of the questions we can ask about the great mystery of life in which we participate.

Some borrow answers from others- parents, religious authorities, spirituality celebrities, philosophers. 

Others presume they're wise enough to make up their own answers. 

Either way their discomfort with not having an answer is numbed. 

I prefer the discomfort of not having an answer. I call it wonder. 

For me the point of the questions is not to answer them but to let them inspire in me a profound sense of wonder. 

Life, Death, Sex: The Three Great Mysteries

The word "mystery" comes from an ancient Greek word that meant "secret, hidden". It's related to the word "mute" which means silent.

We humans  are limited in our ability to know and understand what we experience as we live. As a result, we feel that much about life is secret. Much about life is hidden from us. 

Things hidden attract us. They feed our curiosity and compel us to ask questions. We ask about life. The answer is silence. Nature is mute about so many things. The gift nature offers us wrapped in muteness is wonder.

So, we live with our questions unanswered. We live with secrets in the presence of a nature that is mute about most of our questions, especially our big ones: 

Why are we alive? 

Why does anything exist rather than nothing? 

Why do the living die rather than keep living? Why do we stop existing? 

Why is sex so intimate with both life and death? 

Why are the living driven to unite in sex for pleasure, pain and reproduction? 

Why sex?

These are the three great mysteries: life, death and sex.

My next three blog posts ask the unanswered questions about these great mysteries that give us the gift of wonder, if we accept it. 

What I Believe: The Thumotics Manifesto, Part 4

I Believe in Knowing Spirit

That we humans and all living beings are spirited moves me to wide-eyed, open-minded wonder. What a profound mystery! Is it not an awe-inspiring mystery that we exist and live here and now, rather than not? 

How can we prevent ourselves from exploring this great mystery of being alive? Our natural sense of wonder compels us to look more closely at this in order to know more about it and understand it better. What is it that makes us alive? What is spirit? What can we know and understand about it?

Some say that space is the final frontier of exploration. Others say it is the oceans. I add to the list of vast frontiers to explore spirit. When we attend to and explore spirit, we attend to and explore the mystery of life itself.

I call out for daring explorers of spirit, and name those who would pioneer the frontier of the spirit thumonauts. We thumonauts lead the way in attending to and exploring spirit.