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Date Posted: 03:41:02 02/17/06 Fri
Author: chrys
Subject: fire and spirituality
i have been thinking a lot about this lately...
in doing tarot readings, the four suits - wands, cups, swords, disks relate to the four elements - fire, water, air, earth - respectively. usually i like to draw upon these suits when explaining what a card means. if someone gets the eight of swords for example, which in the crowley deck is "interference" i can explain that it's a mental thing, often a teetering between two choices, and just going back and forth in the head about weighing something out. anyway my point is i can say that it's mental, it's of the mind. if it's a cups card, the emotions. disks, the physical and material.
wands though, is much harder to explain. some would say it relates to the spirit, but i really hesitate to say it has to do with the spiritual. anytime i say that, i know i am giving the wrong message, because it's not so much about god or enlightenment, it's about spirit. the fire suit is about passion, about strength of character and integrity, about trials and tribulations of the fighting spirit (and not physical fighting). it's about adventure, about not holding back or rehearsing, about how that fire can get out of control sometimes, about courage, about valour.
so that got me to thinking, what is with the fact that we don't have a good word for that? think of all the diverse feelings that we experience as humans - love and pain and loss and anguish and trust and comfort and awe and devastation - and we have a title, a category, for all of that: emotion. there is really no such category for the fire suit, no one word to sum up what it represents, while there are for all the others. i'm wondering what that means about us as a culture and what we value. why is this sort of thing so undefined?
and conversely, when you do use the word spiritual, i think people automatically understand it through one of the other categories. to some if you say spiritual, they will think of the mind, philosophy, meditation. for others they may think of the more watery type things, feelings. they probably wouldn't think of it in terms of the physical, not on first glance cuz in most of our traditions the two are very separate, spirit and body. but what does it mean that spirituality is also divorced from passion? that we understand it thorugh all these other ways but not that one? why is it never related to bold acts of creation, adbentures, anger, fighting for what we believe?
i really think that a lot of times spirituality has been too domesticated, is too docile. again i'm not talking about physical fighting, going into rela battle (though we have seen plenty of that) but like why isn't it something that's active too?
i was also thinking about what twan said once on the old cc.com place, about how we dont' have epic quests any more or that our culture is lacking in them - 23 you can explain what you meant better than i can. for some reaon when i was trying to think of what i understand the suit of wants to be about, that's what i kept picturing, b/c it has a lot to do with inner strength and vitality, spiritedness. and so i just thought i'd point out that those sorts of quests and journeys are lacking, maybe it's a parallel to what i'm trying to get at and not saying all so well.
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Re: fire and spirituality -- Iymlad, 07:12:48 02/17/06 Fri [1]
I'd say that "passion" conveys what fire represents as well as "emotion" conveys what water represents. No one word can really describe the totality of any of the four.
You kinda have my head in a tizzy trying to sort out your underlying point, but this comes to mind ...
Note that any one thing/event can be described in layers. Let's try an example ... let's say we are speaking of a storm. First we may think this is purely an air thing. But that is just the overlying category. There is also the fire of air (e.g. lightning), the water of air (e.g. humidity and rain), the earth of air (e.g. all the dust and stuff carried by the winds), and even the air of air (e.g. the winds of the storm).
And this can be taken further and further ... for example ... the salt smell carried on the winds of a storm could be considered the earth (salt) of air (smell) of water (from the sea) of air (carried on the winds).
Lemme know if that actually addressed your question or not ...
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Re: fire and spirituality -- lump, 08:29:58 02/17/06 Fri [1]
Not much help here, but isn't it our spirituality that confuses us - that we kinda discard? When something happens, good or bad - we immediately consider the other 3 and toss spirituality aside. And I don't mean this either in a religious sense (which is how I see people take the concept all the time). Perhaps we don't have good words for it because we tend to ignore it within ourselves. Perhaps we are not meant to understand it. I certainly don't understand that part of myself (though I have a pretty good handle on the other pieces I think). Perhaps that's what holds us back and makes us so primitive. But you're right - it's a confusing subject because there aren't any good words to convey spirituality.
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Re: fire and spirituality -- 23, 09:35:36 02/17/06 Fri [1]
(a painting by glass artist Dale Chihuly, I think it does a decent job of representing what this concept describes)
You're right, I don't think we have any good words for what you're describing. It's something we all inherently understand, but it's not something we particularly know how to articulate.
In poker, we call it heart. It's a weird blend of courage and desire and gumption. It's the place where we are more than our physical selves, the best part of us, in a sense. The part of us that sees the odds stacked against us, and still jumps in anyway.
And yeah, I think that's what the old myths were there to cultivate - this sense of possibilities to strive toward. It's the thing that allows us to do or be whatever we put our minds toward.
Strength of character, integrity, spirit, heart, all these words dance around the concept, but none of them really hit it head on.
It's what defines heroes, I think.
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Re: fire and spirituality -- 23, 09:44:25 02/17/06 Fri [1]
A Confucian saying (quoted in one of my favorite books, Diamond Age, by Neal Stephenson) that is somewhat relevant to this discussion:
To put the world in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must cultivate our personal life; and to cultivate our personal life, we must first set our hearts right.
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Re: fire and spirituality -- 23, 09:56:53 02/17/06 Fri [1]
That book, The Diamond Age, is largely concerned with how one would cultivate this fiery spirit and depth of character that we're trying to describe. I would highly recommend it to anyone. Here's another quote from said book that has some relevance here:
"As far as laws of probability, they can not be broken, any more than any other mathematical principle. But laws of physics and mathematics are like coordinate system that runs in only one dimension. Perhaps there is another dimension perpendicular to it, invisible to those laws of physics, describing the same things with different rules, and those rules are written in our hearts, in a deep place where we can not go and read them except in our dreams"
Here's the book, if anyone's interested (I just finished re-reading it a week or two ago, which is why it's on my mind so much):
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0553380966/sr=8-1/qid=1140187978/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-5755067-9945627?%5Fencoding=UTF8
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Re: fire and spirituality -- chrys, 15:43:54 02/17/06 Fri [1]
sweet, that book sounds really awesome.
i guess (for iym) my point boiled down is that we don't name a realm for it. people tend to split things (like health, for example) into mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, but we don't have a category like that for the fire things, and if a person says spiritual, which i think comes closest, anyone else in the conversation will not think of the fiery things. so my point is, socially, when we split things up and ask people about their physical/emotional/mental/spiritual health or well-being, we don't have the words for the fire. we don't say how is your passion health doing? how is your vitality? my point really, is that part gets overlooked.
and also that we tend to separate spirituality from those things. not everyone, but as a general rule in our society. just like we separate the spiritual from the body (with all those doctrines about denying base, animal and earthly desires) we all separate spirituality from a sense of passion and all of that.
just looking at it like a pie graph and seeing that fire may be somewhat neglected, in language and as a cultural value.
"yes i read it in the new york times
that was on the stands today
it said that dreams are out of fashion
we'll hear no more empty promises
and there'll be no more twisted passions
to clutter up our play
it really was a good sign,
the words went on to say
it shows that we are growing up
in oh so many healthy ways."
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Re: fire and spirituality -- Iymlad, 08:03:14 02/20/06 Mon [1]
I guess I can see what you are saying, but I don't associate fire with spirituality either. I'd say that we often focus on the mental, physical and emotional, and leave out vitality as well as spitituality. My guess is that, to many people, the mental-physical-emotional health is the result of good vitality and spirituality. We look at the symptoms in the west.
"According to the Greek mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras, five was the number of man, because of the fivefold division of the body, and the ancient Greek division of the soul. According to Pythagoras, the five points of the pentagram each represent one of the five elements that make up man: fire, water, air, earth, and psyche. (energy, fluid, breath, matter, and mind; plasma, liquid, gas, solid, and aethyr)."
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Re: fire and spirituality -- Robert, 09:54:20 02/18/06 Sat [1]
Chrys,
Of all people, I was talking to my father about this last night. I attribute the seeming lack of spirituality and soulfulness that we're all experiencing today to our culture and the attitudes that people take...at least on the coasts. It's almost like our spiritual awareness is a 6th sense that has been numbed out, dulled down, or just simply overloaded. I hope that it's not a product of evolution, because I feel it would be a regression.
We're bombarded with messages that tell us who or what we're all supposed to be, and also what we're not if we don't sign up to the group think of the moment. These things have a profound impact on our subtle selves...our spirit selves. To experience the spiritual self is a very subtle, fragile experience until one reaches a point of sustained connection with their own soul. I experienced this extended connection with my soul once....lasted about 3 months, and it was the most revolutionary time of my conscious life.
We don't ask these things of people because most people have not established, maintained, or experienced a sustained spiritual connection...be it with themself or with others. Those who have try to talk about it and spread the word, and they're looked upon as people who might not be the most mentally or emotionally sound. See, people only want to deal with things that they can understand...justify in large groups...explain away...profit from...or otherwise have a very superficial involvement with that allows them to say "I did that too" without ever putting in the work. Spirituality/soulfulness weeds these people out quickly, and keeps them drunk on their own sleeping state. It's real work to break through that unaware condition, and walk wide eyed into a world where spirituality is not necessarilly valued.
That's about the closest I can get to an opinion about it. It's not meant to be exclusionary or condescending to those who have never experienced it....just that you can't know what it is until it persents itself to you, and then you have to honor it or it leaves and you can go back to sleep easily.
Hold onto your spiritual experiences, people. There's more wisdom in those fleeting moments than you could amass in years of living asleep.
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Re: fire and spirituality -- Iymlad, 08:10:01 02/20/06 Mon [1]
Robert-
"It's almost like our spiritual awareness is a 6th sense that has been numbed out, dulled down, or just simply overloaded. I hope that it's not a product of evolution, because I feel it would be a regression."
It comes and goes in waves ... I think we are actually ramping up at this time.
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Re: fire and spirituality -- lump, 08:54:55 02/20/06 Mon [1]
Chrys - do you see auras? I know you do tarot readings, and maybe it'd be easier to describe this part to people if you also could see their auras? I don't see them (although my guesses are usually right on). Perhaps if you could see this, and study it - the description would come easier for you since the aura shows so much of the well being.
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Re: fire and spirituality -- chrys, 16:30:49 02/20/06 Mon [1]
iym, i'm very curious what you mean by ramping up.
no i have never "seen" anything. i had a friend here who used to ask me all the time, through which of our five senses do you get intuitive information. she said most people get it through one of the five. i had a hard time answering that, and she had a hard time understanding that i couldn't. i don't see it in a color or hear it in a sound. there have been a FEW times though, that its been visual. one time i knew who was going to win a contest cuz i could see her name in my mind, just in a split second sort of thing before it was announced. there are also times i sort of visualize things happening, and then they do. but it's not like i sit there visualizing it on purpose saying i hope this will happen, in fact if i do that, or "try" to see an answer the way i saw the name, it almost never works.
mostly though anything i get is just a feeling. if i'm in a crowded room, i usually have a good hnadle on how everyone is feeling, sometimes much more than i know how i am feeling. it can be to the point where i don't separate, and thats not good. i wonder if thats why i spend so much time alone, lol, so my psyche is safe. but often it is a feeling, like an emotional feeling, or even a physical feeling, but somehow w/more dimension than just physical.
also, and this has happened a couple times, on the forum, sometimes w hen i read something, i felt like i oculd sense an underurrent. this is almost impossible to explain, but almost something totally unique to each person, and sometimes b/c of that i could ell who fake names were, or be pretty sure okay this fake name isn't this person. a lot of times though it would just clue in to a deeper train of what the person writing the post was feeling, something more than just the words. i don't know if that makes sense. i swear i am not nuts.
want to ask how everyone else gets their intuitive info, but i think that ? deservs a new thread....
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Re: fire and spirituality -- Iymlad, 16:48:12 02/20/06 Mon [1]
I have heard from reliable sources (at least reliable to me ;) two things:
1. As a species, we are evolving toward higher awareness.
2. In recent years (decades) our species is evolving at an accellerated rate.
Topic to research - "Indigo Children"
Now of all things I have posted to you guys ... THIS is one of the most loosely constrained points. I'm pretty much just making conversation here ...
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Re: fire and spirituality -- chrys, 18:39:13 02/20/06 Mon [1]
it's fine to make convesation...
i have heard of indigo children, but i'm not sure i buy it. as much a si love all this stuff, i am skeptical of everything (including tarot btw). ther is t his girl on the island who claims she is an indgo child. she also calls herself the oracle and charges mega bucks for an intuitive healing session. i can't help thinking she is probbly full of shit, like mrs. cleo.
then again there is an animal psychic on the island, who also charges a lot, but i think she is very good at what she does, and probably for real.
how do you account for all the wackos out there? sometimes it's like ppl get to a point...not even sure how to describe it except that you get all these intuitive ppl who seem to have a real hold on things, a real ability in whatever their specialty is,and THEN they start talking about aliens, or conspiracies, or just REALLY out there stuff, vampires or god telling them to kill their husband or something like th at. i have always wondered about that. this is not just the psychics on that show coast to coast either. it almsot seems like th ere gets to a point wh ere we don't know or even CAN't know, and then people star seeing thigns about aliens or angels or vampires or whatever it is they see. it just kind of weirds me out.
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Re: fire and spirituality -- lump, 09:22:32 02/21/06 Tue [1]
How about that Bigfoot? LOL!
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Re: fire and spirituality -- Iymlad, 09:30:04 02/21/06 Tue [1]
There is a fine line between the lunatic and the magician. Balance, control ... many people have gifts but don't know how to use them. For one, if a vampire tells me to kill my wife, I'm simply not going to listen. Just because someone or something can get into your head and place a thought doesn't mean you must follow it. "Taking too much advice from the left shoulder ..." Balance, control.
I pretty much don't get readings of any sort from strangers. Even if they are the real deal (i.e. not a lunatic), I don't want them knowing that much about me. The only time we "subcontracted" a psychic was for our cats. We used a pet psychic from California (we live on the east coast). She was excellent.
I also have a friend that is so good she actually just took a job on a psychic hotline (laughs alowed). She says that most of her "clients" simply call to talk things through and she doesn't often really need to use her skills. BUT ... she is an incredible medium. Turns it on, turns it off, control, balance.
And yes, I would reccomend her to anyone seeking a reading for something important. I have no idea what those places charge though.
Also, I know some of the new agers you speak of ... aliens+atlantis+pyramids yada yada. Although I am far from sold, I have heard logical arguments that make me say Hmmm. There is old school occult basis for some of this stuff ... rays, planets, etc. Though the people yopu speak to may in fact be quite insane, what they have to say may not be totally off base. The trick is to sort the interpretation from the experience ... very difficult.
ok, I'm done.
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Re: fire and spirituality -- stillreign, 11:31:14 02/21/06 Tue [1]
Luna Flora-- For lack of a single word, I think your understanding can take the place of a short well chosen phrase. I liked the way you explained it just fine.
BTW, isn't it interesting how there are words for some things and none for others depending on the language? Like in French there is a term for when you find something sorta ugly yet cute or pretty at the same time. We totally don't have that in English. Also there are lots of words in Asian languages that describe many states of emotional being that we don't have. I once heard a really good example of this, but I have forgotten it now.
Hey 23-- thanx for the image... I totally did not know Dale Chihuly did paintings. DUH, how else is he gonna come up with that stuff. I love his work. If his exhibit comes to a town near you I suggest seeing it.
here's my pic of a Chihuly
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Re: fire and spirituality -- chrys, 15:57:21 02/21/06 Tue [1]
well here is the thing. this body worker who i go to who is an excellent body worker, also plays with a lot of occult sciences. she's into astrology and numerology and about a million other "systems," and sometimes she strikes me as a little off. she is also one of the most fun and easygoing people i know, with a sharp insight into people. she is also a hoot. anyway she told me i was abducted by aliens when i was little. now i would have just laughed this off completely EXCEPT that for all of my life i've had this stash of mental images that just aren't quite right. some of them are normal, like houses that probably belonged to relatives that i don't remember. other ones though, make almost zero logical earthly sense. i wrote them all down a couple year ago and should maybe dig out that notebook. i found something i wrote even yrs before that and again, they were the same images. anyway so i was either at some very strange earthly places, or maybe the alien thing is true, who knows. i don't believe it but i won't fully rule it out either.
btw only a couple images so far i have been able to place, out of the normal and abnormal. they were all from the m ystic marinelife aquarium in CT. i went there when i was maybe twelve and let me tell you it was the WEIRDEST sense of deja vu EVER, b/c i was just flipping, like this is the place, this is where i had those images from! there were at least two or three from there. and b/c of where i grew up i am relatively sure i must've gone there as a kid. now why i would stash those images away like trinkets of gold, i may never know.
i'mnot loony, i swear, really.
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Re: fire and spirituality -- lump, 08:33:36 02/22/06 Wed [1]
I'd sooner chock that up to past life experience than I would alien abductions, though I have trouble believing that we live and live again as humans, too.
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Re: fire and spirituality -- 23, 09:01:51 02/22/06 Wed [1]
stilly - there was a touring Chihuly exhibit that came through Dayton a few years ago. Absolutely amazing stuff. The Dayton Art Institute (museum) bought a few huge pieces of his that still remain there.
He's one of my favorite contemporary artists.
And actually, from what I understand, he really ONLY does the paintings now. He lost the use of one of his eyes and just directs the work on the glass pieces, but doesn't actually do any of the actual work any more.
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Re: fire and spirituality -- LastingOne, 00:12:26 02/24/06 Fri [1]
There is a spiritual reference to fire in Chinese philosophy. It's part of the Five Elements:
http://www.soton.ac.uk/~maa1/chi/philos/five.htm
In my bodywork, we apply these all the time and just in everyday life. There's a great book called "Energy Medicine" by Donna Eden that shows people how they can tap into these elements and other aspects of energy and spirtuality. We can heal ourselves and each other through all facets by energy healing.
Categories are sometimes needed for people to help them to integrate information, but at the end of the day, it just "is."
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Re: fire and spirituality -- Iymlad, 08:20:39 02/24/06 Fri [1]
Hello LastingOne!
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Re: fire and spirituality -- LastingOne, 12:05:09 02/26/06 Sun [1]
Howdy Iymlad! *waves*
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