Spirituality

pale buds explode into
daylilly's bright delight--
nature winks at us. - Borneman

The common definition of spirituality relates to religion, or a religious feeling, or a belief in God. This is a foreshortened definition which in my opinion only reflects a deeper and more profound meaning.

The root of the word spirituality is the Latin word spiritus which comes from spirare: a breathing or breath. It is one of many words in many languages that originated from the sound of the item. spirare--the sound one makes when breathing. Its Greek counterpart for the word 'to breathe' is psukhe. Say both of them out loud now. Spirare. Psukhe. Hear it? The sound of our breath, captured in words.

Humans have always related our breath to something sacred inside of us. After all, before we really understood the mechanics of our bodies, we knew that when our breath left us, so did our life. And is it not such a stretch to decide that when our breath leaves us, it might be traveling on to some better place? Or to to rejoin our creator? Which is why the words spirit and spirituality came to be associated with our soul--our inner essence without which we would not be...us.

To me, spirituality is not a separated piece of God, waiting to rejoin for everlasting joy. It is not a state of belief in a formal system of religion. It is an essence. It is that which makes us unique. It is that which makes us feel, react, choose to be good, or choose not to.

It is God in Us.

As I mentioned earlier, the Greek version of spirare is psukhe. That word evolved into the word psyche. Besides the current definition of psyche as our center of thought or emotion, it is was also associated with the name of the ancient Greek goddess, Psyche. Psyche, Goddess of the Soul or Spirit, was the wife and lover of Cupid. Wise Greeks, eh? They understood the deep association between our personal soul and our love for another.

One person strengthens the other. And the love between two people is not just a sharing of space, or sex, or even laughter and hardship. It is a sharing of souls.

So next time you kiss your loved one, consider that your intermingled breath is also a intermingling of your souls.

And maybe some bright green day, when you lean over and inhale the sweet scent of a Day Lilly, for a brief moment, you are sharing souls with the flower as well.