anima

Today, I tried to spend as much time as possible outside. It was a great day. I get lulled into a daze so easily when inside, in the air-conditioning, with the tv on. It's amazing how much more time I had today, how much more time I was aware of experiencing. I don't like being indoors. I look at the walls, and I see where they came from and what it cost in life and energy for them to be here and the life they inhibit the existence of. I do not see anima. I do not see movement, spirit, life. I know that it's just that I'm not looking deeply enough, that life is everywhere, that this home has a spirit of place, and that my family is contributing to it's evolution by inhabiting what used to be an abandoned board-up. But even so, in my weakened state, in the process of healing spiritually, emotionally, relationally, intellectually, and physically, I can draw more easily from the strength of life outside of these walls, even in this urban habitat. I found a place last night to sleep outside where none of the streetlights or porchlights reach me, leaving the AC units' buzzing as the last main nuisance. It's wonderful to wake up to the sun's warm rays heating my body, like a wierd alarm clock that is comforting yet gradually coaxes me out of my horizontal position. Later in the day, I bathed in the heavy rain of a thunderstorm. My shorts and I had been air-drying ever since. (I think the shorts are finally dry - and cleaner! And look!- no lint!)

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There's a relevant passage from the book I'm reading now, Island, by Aldous Huxley. The islanders are talking about how their particular religion/philosophy (which happens to be mahayana buddhism) causes them to relate to the world-

"If you're a Tantrik, you don't renounce the world or deny its value; you don't try to escape into a Nirvana apart from life... No, you accept the world, and you make use of it; you make use of everything you do, of everything that happens to you, of all the things you see and hear and taste and touch, as so many means to your liberation from the prison of yourself."

It's the journey out of myself and into the world that I'm on. (Conversely, its just as much a journey of rediscovering who I am, going deeper into myself, through that journey deeper into the world)


I do not believe in God. But I have faith in God. (I'm using a broader perception of "God" than people usually do, but I'm using it to be able to share the common terminology with other people and so connect with them better through that language. I could just as easily substitute in "the gods" or "the universe", and I would prefer to, actually, for my own benefit, since the word "God" comes with a lot of baggage, like in explaining what the hell I mean by what I just said...) By that I mean that belief is static, unchanging. It is something people cling to and defend and prove and push on other people. If belief is a holding on, faith is a letting go, a trusting. My understanding of these terms come from Alan Watts-

"Faith is a state of openness or trust. To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don't grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float. And the attitude of faith is the very opposite of clinging to belief, of holding on. In other words, a person who is fanatic in matters of religion, and clings to certain ideas about the nature of God and the universe, becomes a person who has no faith at all. Instead they are holding tight. But the attitude of faith is to let go, and become open to truth, whatever it might turn out to be."

I made the seemingly contradictory statement at the beginning of this paragraph to try to get across the idea of where I am spiritually. Occasionally, I take to calling myself, again ironically, a religious atheist. It's because I truly don't believe in or perceive a sky father deity-type personal god, but I do perceive a spirit, a life-force, in everything around me, in the universe. And I entrust my existence to that life-force. I yearn to live in the hands of the gods. When I say I don't perceive a personal god, I'm not saying that the universe is impersonal, only that I personally feel silly talking to the universe in the dark alone at night (it doesn't mean the universe isn't listening). Any sort of sincere prayer that I could muster would be beyond words. And yet I also find myself searching for ritual. Fun, easy, spontaneous ritual, but ritual nonetheless.

I'm attempting to explore the good that I can extract from my adolescent hyper-religiousness as a part of healing. I can't make the past disappear. Healing requires balance. I think I'm getting through my reactionary phase, and I'm hungry for some soulfood. Great timing, too, because I'm going to spend tomorrow (well, *today*, according to the clock) having fun in the meramec river with some friends.

Tags:

• religion
• rewilding
• ecology
• animism