Last week, I wrote about my Feel Good Mixtape, in particular as it relates to authenticity. The more I listen to the mix, the more it seems that the force that binds this mix of various decades and genres is an intangible sense of spirituality. Whatever that means.
Also last week, I had a challenging conversation with my therapist (soon to be my podcast guest!) about my tendency to “live in my head” at the expense of my spiritual enrichment. Whatever that means.
So this week, for the first time since college, I’ve been taking stock of my relationship with matters spiritual. Ya know, to figure out what that means.
I’ve been thinking deliberately about what it might look like if I were to pursue a more spiritual path. I blew the dust off Eckhart Tolle and Gabor Mate books. I even scheduled conversations with a few old friends to explore our histories with notions of spirituality, hardly a standard topic among us.
All of these conversations quickly got bogged down in parsing the term. Defining spirituality might be a fool’s errand. But being an unrepentant fool, I had legit fun in our collective efforts to define the undefinable this week. It felt vaguely like college dorm dialogue, without the bean bags and blacklight posters (sadly).
So what exactly is spirituality?
We begin with the problem that spirituality is immaterial and exists beyond our senses. To complicate the matter, spirituality requires us, perhaps paradoxically, to be firmly rooted in the present while pursuing something timeless. The spirit is in us and well beyond us.
Despite having much to do with the unknown, perhaps even the Great Unknowns, my conversations this week yielded the proposition that, while undefinable, spirituality has much to do with:
Universalism
Boundlessness
Harmony
A connection to something greater, that something might be you
Humanism, also transcending human experience
Awareness, achieved in part through practices
Suffering, also happiness
Surrender, also control
Humility
Authenticity
Sitting
Patience
(Re)awakening
Consciousness
Transcendence
Self-compassion
Empathy
Hope
The closest my conversations came to nailing this gelatin to the wall is the idea that spirituality begins when our default position is gratitude, not agitation.
From gratitude, we can transcend ourselves and our egos to find peace with the familiar struggles of life.
Also, to achieve this, I must wear a whole lotta turquoise.
So I’m grappling with all this and wondering if and how to follow my therapist's exhortation to get out of my head, appreciate the limits of rational inquiry, and to lean into spirituality.
I keep coming back to the idea that the human experience is meant to be spiritual. I imagine our ancestors to be more spiritually alive. Their lives were quieter and rich with rituals. Of course, our ancestors were ostracized, incarcerated, or burned at the stake for not expressing their spirituality to the satisfaction of the authorities. So I’m hardly making a case for a return to Eden.
But these days, we can go through life spiritually dormant. I kinda do. I’m not alone. Secular (post)industrial (post)capitalism almost begs us to live in a spiritual vacuum. At the very least, cultural and intellectual life in our times demands that if we pursue spiritual practices at all, those practices must be ours and ours alone. Indeed, as America began to industrialize, Thoreau encouraged us to emancipate ourselves from society and find our own Walden Pond. Whitman would have us sing the song of ourselves and sound our barbaric yawps over the roofs of the world. Emerson exhorted you to, “[m]ake your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”
But many generations removed from the transcendentalists, it seems that the solo spiritual practices among the more secular among us are hard to sustain. Many of us are bowling alone; most of us aren’t bowling at all.
And while I am not currently inclined to join a bowling league or a yoga class or a temple, I find myself asking what I can do to walk a more spiritual path. What are the rewards? Are there risks?
In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction, Gabor Maté makes the risks and rewards clear when he argues that:
“Spiritual work and psychological work are both necessary to reclaim our true nature. Without psychological strength, spiritual practice can easily become another addictive distraction from reality. Conversely, shorn of a spiritual perspective we are prone to stay stuck in the limited realm of the grasping ego, even if it’s a healthier and more balanced ego.”
Necessary to reclaim our true nature? Ooof. Am I sure I want to dance with my true nature? At what cost? Where is the balance? Tell me Dr. Maté!
Every discussion I had on this theme this week explored the relationship between mind, body, and spirit. You’ve heard and seen it before.
That there is an equilateral triangle, implying that we should strive to be equal parts mind, body, and spirit. Should we be? At all times? Can I pursue my true nature as an obtuse triangle?
The internet as I experience it has certainly fostered the life of the mind. And I’m fine being severely obtuse. Just fine. Save for my perpetual agitation and anxiety and ambition. Okay. Not fine.
And I’m not arguing that I should relinquish the life of the mind, drink chai tea, do tai chi, microdose, and levitate.
But this week, I have been obsessing over how ________ might be different if I pursued a more spiritual approach to it. Fill in the blank with: working and workouts, partnership and parenting, making music and making friends. I don’t imagine any of these facets of my life would suffer from a more spiritual approach.
So how could I begin to pursue a more spiritually enriching life? What is the work of becoming spiritually engaged? My conversations this week suggest that five principles could guide me here:
I have to accept that the work is mine to do. Not one to be led, no monk or pastor or rabbi is going to lead me to the promised land. I alone am responsible.
My ego does not want this. It hates change and needs to drive at all times. Expect fierce resistance.
This will be a slow process. Which is fine, because I need to slow down anyway.
Practices and routines are part of the process.
While practices matter, it’s also about how I engage in ordinary life.
Last year, as we pivoted away from pandemic education and towards the new normal, my goal was to return to the classroom newly committed to making it a more joyous space. I didn’t totally fail. This year, my goal is to make it more spiritually invigorating. I’ll report back soon enough.
For now, spirit be damned, I’m gonna hit “publish” and head off to the last of three days of bureaucratic teacher meetings before classes begin on Monday. Big hugs to all y’all returning to the classroom. Whether you are there to study or teach, I hope you do plenty of both. I am with you, in spirit!
Yours,
DL
I’m learning how rituals that mark time matter to me. So this year, I am carving out an hour or so on Friday to sit quietly before my family wakes to write about what I obsessed about that week. If you enjoy this weekly reflection, please subscribe so I can send it to you every Friday.