So I’ve had several very illuminating conversations about spirituality with people over the last month or so.

I call myself a spiritual person, though I don’t like the word because of the religious connotations, because I cannot find a better word to describe the sense of awe of wonder and adoration I feel when I think about the universe .

Or when I look at the sky on a starry night. I stare and I think, “I am so small.”

Even when the stars aren’t out, I feel that way. On cloudy nights, as the stars blink between patches of billowy cloud and midnight sky, I think, “There is a whole universe in that black patch of nothing at which I’m staring.” And I feel this indescribable feeling (which I shall now attempt to describe) of connectedness, of self-awareness of myself within the cosmos–which I personally find it’s difficult to lose sight of on a day to day basis as we run around doing this or that. I close my eyes and imagine reality, that I am on Earth, orbiting around what could be called a big ball of fire in our solar system, which is part of a galaxy called the Milky-way. That in turn, is just one of many, many, many galaxies. And this is our universe, which could be one of many others.

That to me, that wonder, is the essence of being human.

But the word spirituality scares atheists away sometimes, not always. Admittedly even I hesitate to use it. But then again, I use the word God all the time and even “goodness” which is derived from that word without a blink of the eye. Yet, in my opinion, by what I have just described, we are all spiritual people in some way or another.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe there is a thing inside of us called a “Spirit” which is transcendent. Instead I think spirituality is very natural, very Earthly. What it stems from–the desire for knowledge and wonder–is what makes us human. It makes us unique to this world and maybe even to this Universe as a whole.

I don’t think I got that quite right though. Here is a video I find particularly effective at attempting to tackle this:

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Ciao

Ephemeral