Spirituality.
Spirituality, as a word, commonly relates to religion, a religious feeling, or a belief in God. Some even narrow the definition to define the
non-spiritual as those who do not believe in a specific God, or even a specific religion. This is a foreshortened definition,
and only reflects the deeper and more profound meaning.
The root of the word spirituality is the Latin root 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 always knew that when
breath left us, so did life. And is it not such a stretch of the
imagination to decide that when our breath leaves us, it must be traveling on to some better place?
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
after I die. It has nothing to do with a formal system of religion. To
me, spirituality is an essence. It is that which makes us unique, which makes us feel, react, help
others, or choose to not help others. Spirituality is God in Us.
As I mentioned earlier, the Greek version of spirare is psukhe. That word evolved into the word psyche.
Again related to our soul, or specifically, our center of thought or
emotion. Interestingly, the word psyche was also associated with the name of the ancient Greek
goddess of the soul or spirit, Psyche.
Psyche, the Greeks decided, was also the wife and lover of Cupid. Wise Greeks, eh? They understood the deep association between our personal souls and our love for another.
That the love between two people is a sharing of souls.
So next time you kiss your loved one, consider that as you breath each
others breath, you are, in a sense, mingling your souls.
And maybe on some bright green day, when you lean over and inhale the scent of a
orchid, for a brief moment, you
might be sharing souls with a flower.