{"id":78116,"date":"2014-07-20T12:00:20","date_gmt":"2014-07-20T16:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=78116"},"modified":"2014-07-21T13:10:56","modified_gmt":"2014-07-21T17:10:56","slug":"i-cringe-when-i-hear-the-word-spirituality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/daily-astrology\/i-cringe-when-i-hear-the-word-spirituality\/","title":{"rendered":"I cringe when I hear the word ‘spirituality’"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Amanda Moreno<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

It seems like the number of people approaching me on the verge of, or very much enduring, some kind of existential crisis has increased quite a bit lately.<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a>
Photo by Eric Francis.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I\u2019ve encountered clients facing fear of death or dreams of annihilation by asteroid; friends with families in crisis; colleagues feeling rage over a court verdict, or the lack of coverage of Fukushima, or just expressing malaise at the state of the world.<\/p>\n

And most of the time what I want to talk to them about is spirituality and the search for meaning. But I feel like I have to find the right language, like that\u2019s such a loaded term — one that can evoke a whole slew of negative associations. And I hate it when language gets in the way.<\/p>\n

This past weekend I was wandering around one of the massive parks that grace the city of Seattle, trying to get back into my body after a week of intense training of the shamanic kind. I was sitting on the grass, staring across the lake at a view of Mt. Rainier. There are days when that mountain, shouting out above the tops of the Cascade Range, is so surreal in its picturesque beauty that I can\u2019t help but take a deep breath, let my jaw drop and wonder at how epic the chance to dance around this Earth really is.<\/p>\n

I then began to think about the natural violence that has shaped\u00a0the Earth — from volcano to wind to shifting plates — and the ways in which that violence is not\u00a0malicious, but instead necessarily transformative and creative.\u00a0Somehow that linked into this thread of wondering how to\u00a0find a word or term for \u201cspirituality\u201d that is more expressive\u00a0and more cyclical — and less loaded. And I realized that in order to try to shift the language, I have to try to understand what spirituality means to me.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In my world, spirituality is writhing and deep. It transcends downward, as water or lava or snake. Sometimes it digs up old residues or drags shit down to the depths to coax it into molten state so it can flow, and cool, and re-form. It knows the energies of the Earth and can become them in order to learn how to structure reality, bring the knowledge back to the surface and then embody, bloom and grow in the light. And I have to work with it with reverence and respect — and quite a bit of humor.<\/p>\n

My focus on the depth is one of the reasons I cringe when I hear the word \u201cspirituality.\u201d Because that word takes me instantly to thoughts of crystals and bubbles of light and all kinds of New Age \u201cwoo.\u201d I\u2019ve gotten past associating spirituality with religion — because the latter is only a part of the former. And it\u2019s not to say that woo isn\u2019t helpful too — in fact, I refer to myself as a fan of Practical Woo (P-Dub).<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve definitely become a fan of the allies I\u2019ve found in crystals and upper world journeys and heaping doses of gratitude and joy. But I believe that the only way through the complex jumble that is the modern experience is to feel — and express — our way through our spirituality, and through our evolution. I believe that evolution occurs through the emotional body, which translates and anchors all of those bubbles of light to the physical world.<\/p>\n

Embodiment and experimentation are the aspects of experience that are sacred to me, and I\u2019m infinitely wary of anything that encourages bypassing straight to the mental. That\u2019s why the metaphor of a spirituality that runs deep, rather than just soaring to heights, makes sense to me.<\/p>\n

But then there\u2019s the whole issue of the stigma of \u201cspirituality,\u201d which seems to be due largely in part to its conflation with \u201creligion.\u201d What is poignant for me right now is a deep fear of the anguish and emptiness that can come when faith is lost or when god has left; the floundering and depression that can come with a change in personal mythology.\u00a0Even if it\u2019s just a change in a simple belief, like the belief that romance will last forever. Or a betrayal of the trust that doing what has heart and meaning will pay the bills.<\/p>\n

Or perhaps the loosening of an identification with the archetype of priestess or warrior or artist. There is so much wounding around belief — which I believe is the function at the crux of it all — especially when we can\u2019t think outside of spirituality\u2019s consolidated form: religion. Once faith — in god, in love, in family — is broken, how do we endure the pain, let alone heal it? And why even bother going there in the first place?<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t believe that immersion in bubbles of light is the go-to healing remedy for such pain, nor do I think that ritual for the sake of tradition offers much consolation for deep levels of soul change — at least not on their own, or maybe just not for me. But I do believe and hope that something is emerging as we shift paradigms (well, assuming we are). It might be more of a seeker\u2019s spirituality, individualized and yet universal. Whatever it is, I hope it has enough space for flexibility and ambiguity. Because I don\u2019t see us getting very far without strategies for dealing with both.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Amanda Moreno It seems like the number of people approaching me on the verge of, or very much enduring, some kind of existential crisis has increased quite a bit lately. I\u2019ve encountered clients facing fear of death or dreams of annihilation by asteroid; friends with families in crisis; colleagues feeling rage over a court … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7221,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78116"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78116\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}