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creativity
December 2009 
how to revision spirituality
neverness
spirituality as commonly practiced is a conduit for power, rife with the Absolutes, the righteous, the Wise Ones, the one path of many becoming sanctified into the Way. and, if we define spirituality with this brush, then a post-spirituality makes sense. however, i find if we look at spirituality’s basis, we can paint on spirituality’s canvas more satisfactorily...
spirituality tries to deal with the givens of life. that is, it tries to come to terms with our aging, suffering and death. in the pursuit of this, it creates meaning. in practice then, spirituality upholds the parameters for this meaning making. maintaining these parameters requires three primary colors: existential, pragmatic, and agnostic.
the existential primary color keeps us aligned with the primary mission of learning to fully live with life’s givens without spinning out into death denial concretized systems based on Absolutes and Wise Ones serving us sugar-coated pills for our annihilation trauma.
the pragmatic primary color allows us to continually focus on what works. instead of getting bogged down in ideals of what should be and how things should proceed and its concomitant falling into the strictures of Enlightened Ones from our antiquity leading us to some Heavenly state either in some future life way down the road or after our death in this life.
the agnostic primary color with its admission that we dont know, allows for the full span of possibilities. it honors our imagination and creativity as primary in meaning making. it doesnt say one way is the Right Way and therefore excluding all others, whether the Right Way is conceived as some sort of this is all there is or that there is something more.
in short, our agnostic primary color invites our full spectrum of resources and possibilities to the table. our existential primary color focalizes our shared efforts, creativity, and meaning making around our relationship with life’s givens. our pragmatism, cuts through our habitual patterns and favorite processes, by focusing on what works.
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i like your p.s. painting on 'spirituality's canvas'. ;-) you have such a unique way of framing things - in this case 'spirituality' - and i see you looking at/defining spirituality as a doing with purpose, a structure of understanding and approach that deals with life and conditions which can also include the metaphysical and seeing through a kind of habitual survival surviving, or mind feeding its preconceptions. this to me is in contrast to using the term 'spirituality' as i would while feeling that it is redundant and that it is meaningless to use the term except to speak to what draws distinctions that i don't really feel anymore; spirituality as awareness aware of/as/within itself that is not separate from anything else; spirituality as the breath of being, where there is no perceived separation between samsara and nirvana. iow, life - what is. i love the way you draw the distinctions that you do yet do not create hierarchical or judmental divisions between them - each playing their creative part in the dance.
your vast embrace is like taking a deep breath and flowing with/as world. i appreciate its profundity and as one whose home is psyche, the forming/unforming dance of potency, i find maps, benchmarks, etc. to be useful in my navigation. not all of us can simply breathe and know the essence of all ;)
thank you, beloved. maps and benchmarks (even those that are there to recognize themselves or what might be limiting in themselves) have been useful for me at times too. all of it has its place and serves. i think your revisioning brings light and awareness to the process which naturally deconstructs and transforms what tends to be limiting. “ideas” of spirituality can get lost in belief and religion - and belief fed by fear has been seeding fundamentalism. especially for those that are probably not ready to let go of all frameworks or let go enough to inquire into their thoughts and beliefs and the identity that they prop up, i think revisioning what has been a limiting framework into a more open and creative one, as you have done, is timely and useful if not also necessary.