So, Lily So-Too helped me to realize that through beauty (aesthetics, sensed harmony) we can experience fullness. Specifically, we were exploring how (real) education requires some level of discomfort caused by the necessary temporary coexistence of conflicting perspectives (ie, the old assumptions, and the new observations). Since this integration process takes time and patience to not be aborted, it helps to have some kind of a salve, which can be beauty, humor, good food, or other things that remind us that life can be good and reasonable and that we are not alone. I figured this also relates to the general idea that states of mind are contagious (ex, someone who experiences generosity is more likely to be selfless when the choice comes up again than he or she or whoever might otherwise; someone who has experienced mostly selfish acts is more likely to think cynically about Nature and people and make selfish choices). In my own life, prayer and meditation have been ways to put myself in a more selfless, compassionate mindset because in doing so I am able to accept my sense of how things are without bitterness and feel like I have everything I need. Its like a human-consciousness version of what happens to chlorophyll in sunlight -- agape-synthesis, or some such Greek. I know others feel similarly about dance and music. Anyway, I have been revisiting the Christian canon lately and have recently come across the concept of the holy spirit. I knew already that spirit (from Latin spiritus) (often) means breath, and that holy (possibly from Greek holos) may have something literal meaning of wholeness or health (as in, intact). Ok. Here it goes. Wouldnt it be amazing and empowering and easy to understand if holy spirit refers not to a mystical and sporadic possession by a divine phantom, but the direct, accessible, transformative act of a focused, submissive, receptive inhalation of limitless and unconditional love and the commission of ones very own place in the 4d fractal mosaic kaleidoscope of an unfolding contesseration of Peace on Earth? Huh. Disclaimer: I am an idiot and no biblical authority. But I do know that the modern mainstream message has it wrong. Ive looked up a few passages concerning the holy spirit and they are not in conflict with this possibility. Love and do what you want. ---- etymonline/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=holy&searchmode=term Primary (pre-Christian) meaning is not possible to determine, but probably it was that must be preserved whole or intact, that cannot be transgressed or violated, and connected with Old English hal (see health) and Old High German heil health, happiness, good luck (source of the German salutation Heil). Holy water was in Old English. Holy has been used as an intensifying word from 1837; used in expletives since 1880s (e.g. holy smoke, 1883, holy mackerel, 1876, holy cow, 1914, holy moly etc.), most of them euphemisms for holy Christ or holy Moses. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit The English word spirit comes from the Latin spiritus, meaning breath, but also spirit, soul, courage, vigor, ultimately from a Proto-Indo-European *(s)peis. It is distinguished from Latin anima, soul (which nonetheless also derives from an Indo-European root meaning to breathe, earliest form *h2enh1- [2]). In Greek, this distinction exists between pneuma (πνεῦμα), breath, motile air, spirit, and psykhē (ψυχή), soul[3] (even though the latter term, ψῡχή = psykhē/psūkhē, is also from an Indo-European root meaning to breathe: *bhes-, zero grade *bhs- devoicing in proto-Greek to *phs-, resulting in historical-period Greek ps- in psūkhein, to breathe, whence psūkhē, spirit, soul[4]). The word spirit came into Middle English via Old French. The distinction between soul and spirit also developed in the Abrahamic religions: Arabic nafs (نفس) opposite rúħ (روح); Hebrew neshama (נְשָׁמָה nəšâmâh) or nephesh (in Hebrew neshama comes from the root NŠM or breath) opposite ruach (רוּחַ rûaħ). (Note, however, that in Semitic just as in Indo-European, this dichotomy has not always been as neat historically as it has come to be taken over a long period of development: Both נֶ֫פֶשׁ (root נפשׁ) and רוּחַ (root רוח), as well as cognate words in various Semitic languages, including Arabic, also preserve meanings involving misc. air phenomena: breath, wind, and even odour.[5][6][7]) A being that possesses us or a breath that unites us?
Posted on: Mon, 10 Mar 2014 06:39:50 +0000