What Is Spirit?

I can feel the winds of change coming in strong. For some, this ushers in a time of excitement and for others a time of uncertainty, upheaval and struggle. Many point to the big supposed shift that the year 2012 will bring, however I think that it is a common theme for this time of year. To what degree the whole “2012” thing is affecting us, who is to say? All I know is that I seem to be witnessing a time where many are reaching out and seeking to connect with something outside them that will help through these challenging times. To be able to turn our seeking inward, often we have to reach outward first, and there is certainly nothing wrong with that.

In my work as an intuitive facilitator and educator I often find myself in discussions with people about spirituality and the spirit world; the connection to these and how it all works. People seem to be in a place where they want to gain a better understanding of things “spiritual” and are assessing how, if at all, it fits into their belief systems, personal philosophies and lives. I can only speak from my own experience of course, and ultimately, what Spirit and Spirituality are is very much an individual thing. I think however there is common ground. Just as all the world religions seem to have the common thread of the golden rule (do unto others as you would have done unto you) in their beliefs, I think too that there is a commonality of a “spiritual essence” that resides in us all.

The challenge I feel for many is in a left brain struggle to define this thing called “spirit,” and its off shoots of “spiritual” and “spirituality,” to find a context that will give it a defining blanket of simplification.  To me the “spiritual” world and all it encompasses is a very big umbrella with many different aspects standing underneath it.  I see this umbrella as something that just is, something that is there as a constant, like the breeze or the sun.  Something that we feel, that we just know is there even if we cannot explain why it is there and why we are able to feel it the way that we do.  For me, that is enough. I don’t actually need to understand it deeper. I don’t need to know the physics behind what makes a gentle breeze blow to know how it feels on my skin. There is some inherent intelligence at work letting me know this. It simply just is.

It is with this “knowing” that I am able to do the work that I do professionally. Experience has shown me that this intelligence is there working all the time. I am always able to feel the breeze or the warmth of the sun; I don’t have to keep proving it to myself over and over again. It is with this same conviction of knowing that I work intuitively with this umbrella of Spirit. For me, my connection to spirit and all that comes with that world is Omni present; like the sun or the wind or the air that I breathe.   

So how do we as individuals begin to work with this world of spirit co-creating as we walk through life?  Well, by testing it out and learning step by step to work with it. For example, you wouldn’t get very far in a sailboat if there wasn’t sufficient wind would you? In all actuality, you would know logically not to even take the boat out of the marina if there was no wind. Similar principals apply. Learn to tune into your spiritual essence, the intuitive intelligence that already exists within you. However you do that “tuning in” is up to you. Meditation, walking in the woods, a spin class, whatever gets you connected with that instinctive intuitiveness that is always present within you. Leave your brain at the door and begin to feel it; this will lead to knowing that it’s there with you all the time.

I am a big fan of keeping things as simple as I can. My connection to all things spiritual is no different. It is something I know is there, it is something I feel every minute of every day, just like when I see the sky and know it will always be there when I look up. There is no disconnection. Ever. Quite simply to me all things connected with spirit are a source of energy, a radiating force that we might not ever understand fully, but that which we know is there.  It is capable of drawing us into its orbit and if we learn to do that often, it will benefit and support us because it is part of who we are and part of our world.