I remember lecturing my mum once, complete with rolled eyes and condescending tone, at the ripe old age of six. “Fair enough,” replied Mum, “What’s a
spirit?” Dang. How do you answer that? Even
now, I struggle. So let’s consult the dictionary, shall
we? According to the good folk at Oxford, the noun ‘spirit’ has two general meanings: 1. The non-physical part of a person which is the seat of emotions and character; the soul.
2. The prevailing or typical quality, mood, or attitude of a person, group, or period of time.
In my house growing up, the word
spirit, by its second definition, was actually used quite readily. It wasn’t uncommon to refer to someone as being ‘in good spirits’ or for a positive change of attitude to be encouraged with a resounding, ‘That’s the spirit!’ But spirit as in the first definition just wasn’t part of my family’s vernacular. Over time, I stopped using the
word myself and didn’t refer to myself as spiritual. Though my parents never actually said this, at least subconsciously I was afraid that people generally equated being spiritual with being ungrounded, off-with-the-fairies, delusional, foolish, dismissive of rational inquiry or just downright freaky. Truth
I’VE OFTEN JOKED THAT FOR MY THIRD BIRTHDAY I EXPERIENCED AN EXISTENTIALIST CRISIS. FORTUNATELY, FOR MY FOURTH BIRTHDAY I GOT A SENSE OF HUMOUR.
be told, I’ve probably been all of these things in varying degrees at different stages of my life. The two definitions of spirit above
might appear to be describing quite different things. But like most heteronyms, if we dig just a little bit, to me it seems there’s a pretty strong correlation between them. Both definitions seem to refer to the vital life force, essence or animating principal of a living thing, right? If we’re in good spirits, we’re full of existentialist juju, or arguably in deeper connection with our soul or essential self. If we look at the origins of the word
‘spirit’, it goes back to the Latin words ‘spirare’ meaning ‘to breathe’ and ‘spiritus’ which simply means ‘breath’. Makes sense to me. If we are alive, we are breathing. When we die, the breath/ spirit leaves the body, as does the chi, prana, soul, personality, electromagnetic energy, mojo, animating principal, or life
by any other name, yes? Potato, potahto, my friend. This is all fine and well for me to
say now. But as a child, I couldn’t sit at the dinner table espousing etymology between mouthfuls of mac and cheese. Heck, we didn’t even have Google back then. Since those early days, my tangential
self-inquiry path has seen me dabble or throw myself headlong down the rabbit holes of Christianity, Wicca, Zen, Existentialism, Tantra, Shamanism, and Humanism among other traditions, as well as a decent amount of time spent hanging out in some pretty ‘woo-woo’ New Age territory. While my family never condemned
me for any of my explorations, their rationalist scrutiny meant that everything I brought up for discussion was at least conversationally subjected to the burden of proof. Do I resent this? I used to. At times I’ve been so infused with the
passion of spiritual inquiry (inspired: to be full of life/breath/spirit) that I yearned with every buzzy cell in my body to share the magic with those I love most. To be challenged with the question of ‘Where’s the proof?’ when you’re in a heightened state can be a total vibe killer. I used to get very frustrated when we’d find ourselves at an impasse, throw my hands up in defeat and go off brooding, as is a teen’s prerogative (okay, to be
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