| From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913): SPIRITUALITY \Spir`it*u*al"i*ty\, n.; pl. Spiritualities. [L. spiritualitas: cf. F. spiritualit['e].] 1. The quality or state of being spiritual; incorporeality; heavenly- mindedness. If this light be not spiritual, yet it approacheth nearest to spirituality. --Sir W. Raleigh. Much of our spirituality and comfort in public worship depends on the state of mind in which we come. --Bickersteth. A Spiritual Experience - I think! I was walking along Queen Street headed west when it struck me rather all of a sudden - I don't know why, or what brought it on, but I began thinking of life in a different context. Usually, it was along the lines of "what will I do today, where will I go, who will I see?" - but for some reason these things didn't interest me. I started, instead, to think of life in general, and if I was thinking about my own life at all, it was where and how did it fit into the overall or big picture, as they like to say on television. What is "the big picture", and how do I - or any of us - fit into it (if we do), anyway? I stopped walking and looked at the crowds rushing by - where they all going, really? There were some birds perched on the wires above the sidewalk, and we take it for granted they know what they're doing and where they're going - but what about us? We may say we're off to work, or to the movies, or we're going shopping or to a bar or some other place, but is that it? I crossed Queen Street and started going south, toward the lake. The hum and roar of cars and people did not abate until ten or fifteen minutes later, when I found myself at the lakeshore, drawn there by an urge to just get away from everyone and everything for a while... There were a few people walking out on the docks, and I found a spot to sit a little piece away from them, where I could be alone with my thoughts. "So here I am," I said to myself, "one person of the few millions living here in Toronto, and who am I, anyway? Who, really, are any of us?" And I didn't have an answer. Thinking of all the people who live in Toronto only made me think of all the other people scattered around the world - billions of people; and I wondered if any of them had any better take on things than I did. I knew some people sold religion by the bookful, and I'd seen enough tv documentaries to know to stay away from anything even vaguely resembling a cult. But still, I thought - someone, somewhere, must know something about who we are and why we're here. I mean - you know? And then it struck me: this was why we have wars, why people don't get along, why there's so much hate in the world: no-one knows what's going on, who they are, why they're here - if there's a reason. And, I thought, looking around at the gulls flying and crying and roaring and swooping around the docks, "it can't be that there's no answer to be found. It just 2wouldn't make any sense, if there was no answer." As I was thinking these things, just staring out across the water, it seemed as though I had become somehow removed or detached from the ordinary flow of humanity and all the noise it makes. I could hear nothing but the seagulls' cries and the sound of water gently lapping at the rocks beneath the dock where I was sitting, my legs dangling off the edge, just relaxing. Relaxing, because it was a nice day to be able to do that, but thinking, too. Thinking all sorts of new thoughts... The thoughts just sort of crept upon me, too. I don't really know why, but there they were. I found myself thinking, not only of all the people who were living in the world, but of the billions who had come before us, and those who would come after us, as well. What was it all about? Who were we, and where were we going? And why? Or, was this supposed to be it? Live out your lot in life for w time, and then you're gone and there's nothing more. Was that it? If so, it made even less sense. And, thank God or whatever, I stopped thinking of all of those people I didn't know, and began to think of the few I did. My friends and acquaintances. Those who had been good to me, and those who hadn't. Did they ever have thoughts like this, or was I, in fact, in the beginning stages of some kind of breakdown? I didn't know, and didn't care. I knew I had to be back to the shelter by suppertime in order to get a bed for the night, and I knew I would have to leave my daydreaming soon if I wanted to make it to the Good Shepherd in time for a meal - and I fully intended to do those things. So, it wasn't like whatever was happening to me was going to stop me from doing the things I had to do in order to survive another day. It wasn't like that at all. It was just... a new way of thinking, that was all. That had to be all. I didn't want to wind up like some of the other people I'd seen going along the streets or from house to house, telling everyone they met how they'd found some sort of truth and felt compelled to share it with the rest of the world. I didn't feel that way at all. The world was too big, and besides, I hadn't found any answers - only a few questions - questions I'd never asked myself before. That's all there was to it, really. I sat there for about an hour, until my stomach growled to let me know it must be getting on time to eat, and I got up and walked back up to Queen Street, and began heading east. As I walked along, though, I think I started to see people in a different light. I watched a man shake his fist and yell out of a car window at someone in a pickup truck ahead of him, who hadn't moved fast enough, I guess. I watched a couple of people all dressed up in suits and ties waiting for a streetcar, glancing anxiously at their watches every once in awhile. And the people in the park, flaked out from the heat and stickiness of a Toronto summer day. And the lady standing in the middle of the street yelling at no-one and everyone. And the Salvation Army couple, walking up Jarvis Street, their holy books tucked neatly under their arms. And, I wondered. I wondered what the word 'spirituality' meant, and what life was all about. I wondered why, for a little space of time, I had begun to think of myself and my life in a different way than I had done for the past forty-five years, and what it could possibly mean. I wondered why I'd asked myself those questions, why I - or anyone - was alive in such a crazy, mixed-up world that seemed, on the surface, to hold so many answers (and yet none at all) to those questions. And I wondered, too, what was for supper. I might have had a strange experience that day, or maybe it's something that happens to us all once in awhile, I don't know. And I don't know if, because of it, I'm more lost than I ever was before, or if I'm just beginning to become aware of how lost we all seem to be, all the time. And while, you, the reader, may think I've perhaps gone over the edge, I must assure you that's not true. I just dangled my feet over, that's all. I was touched by something beyond my ordinary scope, and it made me think a little differently. And don't worry if you think the experience is going to change me. It won't. It already has. I'm still the same person I started out as, too. I promise not to try to convert or change you. It isn't like that. I see things a little differently now, that's all. I may not yet know who I am, so I'm not about to try to tell you who you are. But, I do know now - that I am. I just don't know very well how to explain what I mean by that. Because maybe I don't know what I mean. But I think someday I will. And maybe it'll happen to you, too. I won't say "I hope so", because you might very well react differently. You might do more than just dangle your legs over the edge - I think there's a danger of falling in! But there may also be a danger in life of never knowing the edge is even there. And of never thinking, of never questioning your - our - existence. And that might be tragic. I mean, just look around. Watch the news on tv, see the world at six. Things could be better, couldn't they? - Wayne MacDonald ...and I looked, and behold! I saw a living spirit coming out of the heavens. It came out of the west, shining as the sun, and came rest on the desert floor. I was much afraid, and fell on my face. It had eyes on every side, and breathed a strange fire. When it came to a standstill, a door appeared in its belly, and a being that looked like a man but was not a man appeared. The angel. I shook and became even more frightened as the messenger approached, and called me by name: "Be not afraid, Fido," it said, "for I am not come to harm thee, but to be your friend. For I have noticed that you are a dog without a home, and have no-one to care for you. Come with me, and I will take you for walks among the heavens, on planets you have never set paw on, nor dreamed of, for that matte. "Stop whimpering and get up, you silly mutt; and I will show to you wonders you have never thought possible. Behold!' And the angel-messenger-being-who-looked-like-a-man-but-was-not-a-man put his hand into a pouch that grew out of his side, and produced a bone-shaped object made of dried manna, which was good to the smell, and so I barked for the being to toss it to me, that I could taste it and see for myself whether or no this was indeed a miracle. The messenger from the stars or the future or wherever he or she came from then tossed the bone-shaped biscuit to me, and I leaped at it joyfully, grabbing it with my paws. Its taste was so remarkable that I wrote this down in a little book, using BIG letters, so all dogs could see and believe... Fido A Whisper to the Elements Above and Within Us All: Dear ... We ask first that we be given the power to look at our selves in a new and radiant light, one that will not allow us to see the negativity that has caused us at times to falter on our way to Becoming. We ask, too, that we begin to see others in this same light, and that we not dwell on past errors, but instead dwell upon the fact that they, too, are on the same journey toward Becoming. By saying this, we acknowledge that each of us have taken different paths in life that we have not always purposely chosen. In the midst of the chaos surrounding our lives, we ask that we and our brothers and sisters with us be given new hope for personal peace. For we know that this chaos is often not of our own making, and yet it has the ability to affect us in ways that can divert us from our way. We know that poverty does not mean we must be poor in spirit. We know that wealth does not make people rich in spirit. We know that the road to Becoming has many intersections with sometimes pleasant-looking paths leading to destruction. We ask that we see these intersections for what they are, and that we learn to know the one path that will lead us on to our greater self, that we may become as we are meant to become. For we are meant to live in peace with one another, and with our selves. Help us, we ask, to do this and to become the people we were meant to be. Thank you and Amen and Amen and Amen A Note about Spirituality from a Prisoner in Texas Try as I might, writing on spirituality is very difficult, as it's something I feel rather than know as a fact. And it's really unusual for me not to have an idea about something - because I usually have an opinion about everything! Everyone has a spirit, as do all the animals and other creatures - it is our universal connection - our umbilical cord with the Earth Mother and the environment. Yet, like so many other words, spirituality has been defined and redefined by people, often with selfish motives, that it is difficult to describe. But I can say: there are new and old spirits; there are good spirits and there are those that have been corrupted, most often by man and his ignorance of its existence; other entities deliberately attempt to destroy spirits... often in children. Spirit is very precious and delicate when new (and that is why it is so important to nurture children). Evil is a result of a damaged spirit... and if most often manifested in humans, i.e. wars, greed, hatred, etc. (I mean, do you see herds of cows making turd bombs to blow up chickens? Do bees steal honey from other bees?) My Hepatitis C has a new companion - Hepatitis B. Now I've become worried if I'm going to be able to make it out of prison. Here in Texas, on paper, they can make me do another 11 years... This is when I step up my prayers to the Goddess that I can get out with enough time to set up a movement for global equality. That's really all I want - a few years' freedom and do my dream of laying down the foundation for: The Foundation of ther Revelation of the Goddess, which will be a lot like the Salvation Army, except pagan and with a few peculiar differences - yet the same basic mission to help the needy and make available the spirituality of the Goddess... I feel that only a religious force can change the world toward equalitarian ways. The current religions have failed, so I have reached into the past and am re-birthing a pagan one. I am not offering anything "new", and I don't try to make out like I am (which the "new age" attempts to do with repackaging several ideas)... "A rose is a rose, and by any other name is still a rose" - "equalirty is equality, and by another name is still equality"; the latter is what I'm doing, or rather - the older I get and the more I read, the more I realize that the basic concepts stay the same. Just the packaging is updated. The greatest imposter of the "new age": energized pieces of plastic! They are to replace energized crystals! "Get a life" is what I say! I love the natural - but plastic?? They can probably do it - I just can't hang with it. May the goddess shine brightly upon you all. - Pat Earl Somewhere, hidden so well it brightly shines all around us, is the key. Not just a key. The key. The key to the many locks we have upon our inner beings. Locks we did and didn't place there. Locks we were born with, maybe, inherited from our genetic past. Locks we can and at times cannot see. Locks, perhaps, we don't even know exist. The key that will open each and every one of these locks has many different shapes and forms - one that relates to each person among us as only they will know. As only they could know. Seek, therefore, for the key that is yours, and yours alone. It is so well hidden, it is in plain sight - but only you can see it. And the locks are everywhere. Ah, but so is the key... so is the key!! Spirit is matter seen in a stronger light. +L.+P.+Jacks+ The Stars Our Home The many faces of God are old and wrinkled His (or Her) countenance beyond years; Gold is down this week And He (or She) couldn't care less We are getting old and tired... We must go outward to the stars To seek the faces of God (our perceptions not being true) We must go Out where there is no gold (only other, far better treasures: life, meaning, youth, peace, love...) Where the face of God is One And young, and we will understand this When we understand our selves And We shall now not die Until the stars become Our meeting place - Author Unidentified |
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