Darius commented on my previous post, thus:
That response to nature is fascinating to me too. It seems as though while a lot of us have it, some don’t. You almost never hear the spiritual importance of nature brought up in discussions about preserving the environment.
“Nor should the spiritual importance of nature be brought up in such discussions!” That was my instant reaction on reading his comment.
Why such an emphatic reaction? Well, do you too feel a little uncomfortable with the word “spiritual”? And why is that? Isn’t it a kind of dump for all that is unaccounted for but also most precious? And should we then let it be officially recognised as a commodity which can be traded by those who do not touch and taste it?
Religion: trading in the spiritual commodity.
It is better that the deepest things shall have no name, no intellectual weight whatever in the equations of commerce and culture. Then you can’t trade them, judge their presence or absence, pontificate about them, pretend to know what they mean. Then it can be tacitly acknowledged that they are distributed equally to all, and omnipresent: except where civilisation is blind to their presence and blocks them out.
Whatever it is that makes life worth living, whatever touches us and makes profound music in our soul, let it remain a mystery, that cannot be discussed, only felt. We don’t need theology or “spirituality”, but only to retain our sensibility intact.
Nature is not “important”. It is the ground of all. I like Jung’s description of plants as “God’s thoughts”. He says “Trees in particular were mysterious and seemed to me direct embodiments of the incomprehensible meaning of life.” Land and sea are not possessions to be owned. They are mysteries to be honoured with awe. The foolishness is a blind “civilisation” which blocks out natural reverence and then claims to rediscover it. I cringe at the obscenity of European missionaries who dared tell the aboriginal populations how to worship, whilst stealing the land.
Thank you, Darius, for your comment.
a wayfarer’s notes 
Hi,
I don't understand this post very much. I don't understand why the word Spiritual or Nature would be Taboo?
In my heart Nature is part of Sprirituality and spirituality is part of the human spirit. If we humans want a better and peaceful earth “We have to speak up” the trees and animals can't talk, but we can.
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If it was a perfect world then i can see your point in not needing to speak up! but in todays world…we need to speak up and try our best to stop this insanity.
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Hi Ian,
I have just read your last post. What a synchronisity that fifteen minutes or so prior to reading it I e mailed you about a movie about nature myself and Robert have just completed. I agree with all you say, but then I am biased, I like the way you think and articulate and expound your thoughts and opinions.
I know we are appearing to have problems communicating in email, so i had e mailed you the address where you can see the online version of our movie, for which Robert composed and created the incredible music, but i was not sure you were receiving my mails, so now having found your comment facility, please, take the time to refresh your soul and let the Green Man Mandala put you in the z o n e. You can view the movie here http://blip.tv/file/29678 we have created it in high definition and the dvd looks stunning on a big screen, you can see all the digital detail so well. The online small file is ok, you get the message in the movie, detail of graphics just a little blurred, so i hope you enjoy what you see.
Be Light, kris and robert.
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Kathy, thanks for this. My title “Taboo word” was too strong and maybe should be changed. The taboo was on “spiritual” and “spirituality”. There was an intent to shock, though, and challenge some cosy concepts. “Spirituality” remains a comfort blanket even when religion has been debunked. But I will have to explain more in a later post.
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Hi Manalien, been thinking of you too. Will find a way to make contact!
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my dislike of the word “spiritual” is rejection of the refrain of duality. Things seem to be “meat” or “spirit” to many people. This insistance on creating a duality of something that seems one to me is puzzling and off-putting. It is the process of separation that permits the physical, the body and all of the nature to which the body belongs to be belittled and denied. I will not deny my animal nature (or deplore it) any more than I deny my thinking self. All is one.
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O Hayden, you have hit on something vital to the whole future of human understanding! O yes, “sing the body electric!”
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well, if this thought is worth even a moment of attention it's possibly worth noting – it was my harnessed mind, struggling to understand what was upsetting me, that defined it! My unharnessed mind recognized the shadows and discomfort, but it is my harnessed mind that drags my shadows into understanding. 😉
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Hayden, your comment belongs rightly to the comment thread on this post, but it is certainly worth more than a moment of attention. It was the combination of your unharnessed mind, which felt the discomfort, and the harnessed mind, which made a definition, that did the trick. Wonderful.
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ok, lets really stoke the fire, if that is your intent to provoke strong dialogue.
Let me throw vegetarianisam into the frame.
I too, like the previous poster do not deny my animal nature, it is part of my higher self i believe. But, can one truly claim to be spiritual if they condone the killing of over sixty billion animals a year, most of which die horrifically. Can a soul truly claim to have a dual spirtual nature, one that reveres all creation and at the same time condones killing of other creatures for eating, and it is all ok and balanced. I do not believe that a true spiritual being would be as dualistic as this, and would revere all life. I will obviously attract comments about plants having life too, but let us make a distinction between plant life and sentient life forms with nervous systems that feel and have consciousness as we understand it.
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The trouble with the word “spiritual” is that it is evocative rather than precise. It seems that we're groping for a term for something we cannot define but which we feel vaguely — resulting in a descriptive word which is appropriately and unfortunately vague. I would opine that your Internet journal often deals with “spiritual” matters even though you may not label them as such, just as I'd say that mine also does . . . which presents me almost every day with the question of what word to use if I don't use “spiritual”. Abandoning the word would abandon the intuited reality to which it refers. I'll continue to grapple with this.
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