Spirit, Breath, Wind

Spirit, breath, and wind is spiritbreathwind. One. The same.

Spirit is breath. Breath is wind.

Where there is breath, there is wind, there is spirit.

No wind, no breath, no spirit.

No spirit, no breath, no wind.

Inspired, we breathe in wind and spirit and become alive.

Our breath is the wind and spirit in our nostrils, mouth, lungs, blood and cells. We inhale and breathe it in. We exhale and return it to inhale it again.

We know not the birth of spiritbreathwind. We know not where it comes from. We know not where it goes or how long it will be. It is a mystery.

Spiritbreathwind is invisible to our eye. We see, hear and feel its affects: Leaves speak rustled words and dance in the wind that rustles our clothes and hair. It has done so since long before we began walking the earth and will do so long after we're gone. It needs us not and yet on it our lives depend.

Sometimes it howls. Sometimes it's unnoticed it's so still. Other times it's gentle, refreshing and inspires a smile. At still other times it's warm, thick, and sultry too. Not just the wind. Our spirit and breathe too.

When we breathe out our last breath, we breath out our spirit into the wind never to breathe it in again. We expire.

The Spirit of Earth

Like a dancer on ice skates, Earth spins. Who knows how long her dance has lasted or will?

When I walk through the woods, I see that the path on which I walk differs from how it looked yesterday. Rocks appear today that weren't there yesterday. In some places the soil is dyer than it was. In other places, the wind has rippled sandy soil.

Earth moves. She's alive. Spirited.

Wind spirits Earth. So does water and fire.

No weak, demurring spirit is she. Her solid strength supports the weight of all. She bounds raging rivers and waterfalls and limits stormy seas.

And yet her strength is passive and receptive: She-

Absorbs all liquids, the heat of fire and Sun, and the cold of ice and snow

Allows herself to be blown by the wind and takes on wind's humidity and aridity

Hardens with dryness and softens with rain

Receives the remains of the slain

Earth gives her substance to the physical bodies of all:

Mountains, valleys, caves, and plateaus

Grasses, ivies, flowers, shrubs, and tress

Fish, bugs, animals, and birds

We all are her children: born of her through our mother's womb, nourished by her plants and animals throughout our life, and received back when we die.

We are kin.

We honor her when we live following her lead.

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.

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.