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November 2009 
What is the relationship between health and spirituality?
Posted on Nov 8th, 2009
by 
boogie
boogie
This is in Response to the Questions and Reflections for November 08, 2009:
(scratches head)
what a stupid question. it's like asking what is the relationship between grasshoppers and eyeballs. depends if we are talking about grasshoppers' eyes or some other creature, yeah?
my number one problem with the way this question is phrased: physical health is not the same critter as spiritual health. if you are going to divide your spirituality out of the rest of everything else, that means it opposes, sits opposite to, the physical. and, if you do that, you are leaving out the other two parts, the emotional and the psychological. there are four elements, if you are gonna divide it all up, like you have been taught to do. not two (duality). not three (holly trinity, anyone?). there's four.
oh but your newage religion preaches that you must not divide things up, that all is one. hahahahahaha (they lie to you, too. just like all the other religions.) fire is not water is not air is not earth. there's four parts. and if you only have three parts, you are denying the presence of one. and if you have two parts, you are denying the presence of the other two. ...and if you have one part, are you denying the presence of three, or are you denying any and all individuality in favor of conformity and homogenization, in favor of assimilation into the one, the hive, where there is no free will and no individuality, and no thinking (aloud) allowed?
what a stupid question. it's like asking what is the relationship between grasshoppers and eyeballs. depends if we are talking about grasshoppers' eyes or some other creature, yeah?
my number one problem with the way this question is phrased: physical health is not the same critter as spiritual health. if you are going to divide your spirituality out of the rest of everything else, that means it opposes, sits opposite to, the physical. and, if you do that, you are leaving out the other two parts, the emotional and the psychological. there are four elements, if you are gonna divide it all up, like you have been taught to do. not two (duality). not three (holly trinity, anyone?). there's four.
oh but your newage religion preaches that you must not divide things up, that all is one. hahahahahaha (they lie to you, too. just like all the other religions.) fire is not water is not air is not earth. there's four parts. and if you only have three parts, you are denying the presence of one. and if you have two parts, you are denying the presence of the other two. ...and if you have one part, are you denying the presence of three, or are you denying any and all individuality in favor of conformity and homogenization, in favor of assimilation into the one, the hive, where there is no free will and no individuality, and no thinking (aloud) allowed?
Access: Public
Just buzzing past, the hive is onto you.
I don't think question asked specifically about physical health … it just says “health” … that could be any kind of health … same with spirituality; whatever the reader wants that to be; so I think it is up to anyone's interpretation and you, my dear, sweet, so blatant Stacy (and I hug you warmly) have interpreted it as, um, stupid. I just really have one question … who is “you?” Who the heck are you talking to in this response?
*giggles* eh, that was just stacy's early morning stream of keyboard sputum brought forth from reading the other answers to this question. it's nothing personal. just my subjective ramblings let loose here in the pages of my own blog where thoughtcrime don't exist and where it's okay to be thinking whatever thoughts might come to me. you know, the stuff nobody wants to talk about, but it's gotta come out somewhere, so here's where. do feel free to share with me any thoughts my words invoke, that's cool. i like comments. but it's my space and i'm likely to disagree with you. <3
There's a difference between being an anarchist and being rude.
nah, that wasn't rude. it would have been rude had i posted my (unspeakable) thoughts on someone else's blog who didn't realize i was talking to nobody but myself. if i wanted to be rude, i could have been. i could have said something about the brainwashed flock of guru-worshipping followers who are quick to quote others but never have a thought of their own, but i didn't do that.
Oh, I get it; I was wondering who “you” was … I kept looking over my shoulder, thinkin' “but I haven't even blogged my response yet!” I'm about to rap a few knuckles myself …
Why the attitude, boogie? What's eatin' you? Everybody's gotta believe in something, don't they? And some follow a certain ancient, long-dead figure from history. It's human nature!
But really, no human on the planet knows the true answer to life, the world and everything else. It's ALL speculation and theory. There's no irrefutable proof of any idea on spirituality being real,… hell, some people even think me typing on my laptop while occasionally watching some of Desperate Housewives is all an illusion!
At least the “brainwashed flock of guru-worshipping followers” are trying to make the world a better place to live in! If you want to spar with the hugest group of pig-headed, argumentative, judgmental, stupid boneheads on the Internet, look no further than Yahoo Answers.com, Society & Culture section, Religion & Spirituality threads at: http://answers.yahoo.com/dir/index;_ylt=Ao.LzbxsfcNzh8OSC4dkNOLd7BR.;_ylv=3?sid=396545163&link=list
People have gotten addicted to “R&S” trying to straighten those people out about spirituality. I don't think it's possible to succeed. These people are the ones you meet on the way to work, in line at the supermarket, walking down the street, living next to you. They're the really scary ones, not the Gaia people trying to share their ideas about happiness and good thoughts. Anyway, you said you liked comments, so I made one. Ciao for now.
Hi Boogie, I agree that you are quite free to post your thoughts on your own blog. I loved your honesty, I love to read the various responses to Q&R and prefer an honest answer even if it is not politically correct. Challenges and questioning the status quo is, in my opinion, a good thing.
boogie wrote:
“yeah. i agree with you. personal freedom means i can post my own thoughts on my own blog without having to worry about someone who doesn't know anything about me calling me names like “rude” over there, huh? :-D”
I'm sorry Stacy, if you were hurt by my comment, but when I wrote it, I was thinking about how the originator of the question, What is the relationship between health and spirituality? felt when you said theirs was a “stupid question.” Did you worry about that person's feelings, whom you might not know anything about, and how they may have felt after you dissed their simple question in a public forum? Or do you care about the feelings of those you accuse of being a “brainwashed flock of guru-worshipping followers who are quick to quote others but never have a thought of their own?” Those comments are really harsh, Stacy.
Boogie, I would never violate your personal blog if it, in fact, were really private and personal. But you answered a question that went out to all Gaia members! That's public, girl! And then you challenged said members with: “do feel free to share with me any thoughts my words invoke, that's cool. i like comments.” I, unfortunately, took the bait.
But, I'm sorry if I struck a nerve. I never meant to hurt your feelings.
:(
We are of like mind on the Four Elements. I see the Four Elements as essential to the balance in the Nature of Things. Four Points. Four Cycles. Four Elements. It is all in the balances…or in the grounding, as some prefer.
For some, health and spirituality makes for a common connection in their spirit, and that's how they see things. For others, the connection is moot. Neither is dependent on the other, however; if one has too much water, it extinguishes Fire, floods Earth, siphons the Air. And round and round it goes. It's all in the balance of things…or unbalance, if one is not paying attention.
This would be my perspective.
Blessings~
katherine, you didn't hurt my feelings. and thank you for posting your comments. they are appreciated. don't let what i post ruffle your feathers too much, it's nothing personal. it is all subjective. how i feel is not about anyone else but me. it's not about you. it's not about anybody else. *shrugs* i think you're okay. i liked that blog of yours about personal freedom. i don't often agree with anyone. it's just not in me to do that. rather, it's not in me to remain silent (like everyone else does) when i disagree. that's all.
nahnni dear, i was thinking right along those lines last night. i was thinking that maybe health, rather than being an aspect of each of those four elements as i was thinking before, maybe it's in the balance between them.
That only thing that kind of felt wrong to me here was not how you felt at all but the mis information or labels used. Then how do you identify yourself as an individual by using labels….just like most of the people on this planet….NOW that's a collective sometimes!!! Wish there were more people who made decisions based on personal experiences and not gossip or did not judge based on looks etc etc:) I see what you are saying and I understand completely. I am not disagreeing with you.
Bee's are individuals, yes even honeybee's. The hive is not a collective of mindless creatures. They all have personalities, different jobs and responsibilities. They are individuals who are part of a whole. They learn and each one becomes good at something contributing to the hive. That is what makes it prosperous.( Just because horses are born into a herd does not make them sacrifice their individuality most, if not all creatures are the same when it comes to this. They truly are individuals even bugs, though that may not be evident to us as easily.)
I love nature.
I have a pic somewhere on my blog of a little honey bee who was caught in a abandoned spider web. I do not know how I heard her or understood her plight…it just happened. My husband and I carefully untangled her…it was a microscopic event! She was so relieved to be free and was not “angry” at us at all, but actually flew back to the hive afterward.
Literally seconds after that I was able to take a picture of one of her sisters hovering over a flower in mid flight!
Have a uplifting day
it is not in the nature of [most] bees to live independent of their hive (oh but there are exceptions, honey bees do not live solitary lives, and carpenter bees don't live in a hive).
it is not in the nature of humans to follow a herd, we have to be tricked into thinking it's for some vague meaningless “greater good” (“common purpose” etc.)… we must be educated, taught that it is desirable (good) to sacrifice individuality (good obedient behavior will be rewarded) in favor of being part of the group (bad behavior, to question the authority that rules the group, will get you punished, you will be kicked out of the group dare you think for yourself, you will go to hell, you will be threatened with whatever the group thinks you fear the most). the questions being asked lately have all been a reflection of this education. i know. i've had the same public school, state university education. i know the program. i just can't get with it.
if the intent is to find what's real, first you have to take off the blinders that prevent you from seeing outside the box you were born in to. if the intent is to deny what's real, we seem to be doing a bang-up job of that already!
nah, that ain't what i wanted to talk about. i wanted to talk about health. i used to be very unhealthy, in many different ways. auto-immune damage is like that, nasty stuff, painful. but i got better. i'm still getting better. i'm not so sure that the destination (being well) is half as important as getting there. health doesn't make anyone a better person than anyone else. we are all on our own journey of healing and discovery.
i don't have any answers for anyone else. answers don't work that way. but i have found many answers that work for me. i have experienced healing on levels that most people find incomprehensible, so they put it in the land of make-believe, where they don't have to think about how much healing they still face in their own journey. we don't have to agree. but knowing that i healed seems to help people who are experiencing similar healing of their own. you don't have to like it. you don't have to believe it. but i do. when i doubt the miracles that have happened in my life, that's when i feel the most pain. i don't want to hurt anymore. i've had enough of that. i want to get better. i want to continue healing. and if talking about how sick i used to be hurts people's feelings, that is only because they see in me nothing more than a reflection of the things they hate most in themselves. i'm not anyone's mirror. but they don't know that. they can't tell the difference between what is subjective and what is objective because they are afraid to look within and find out for themselves.
yep. just like when i was bad sick, nobody wanted to hear about that, nobody wants to hear about how i'm better now either. if you talk about the pain you feel, people accuse you of complaining or they label you victim. and if you talk about feeling better, you are accused of being a braggart, of having a big ego, any number of things, either way, to speak those feelings aloud is considered to be “bad” in some way or another. :-P the silence is what hurts us the most, you know…
i don't do numb. i feel things. i talk about the things i feel. most people don't like that much. some people even hate me for it. regardless what anyone thinks about me, at least i'm honest about how i feel. at least i'm not trying to pretend to be something or someone i am not, just because it isn't socially acceptable to be me, who i really am.
Stacy, I sooooo get where you're coming from.
Quote: “…if you talk about the pain you feel, people accuse you of complaining or they label you victim. and if you talk about feeling better, you are accused of being a braggart, of having a big ego, any number of things, either way, to speak those feelings aloud is considered to be “bad” in some way or another. :-P the silence is what hurts us the most, you know…”
I know what you are saying. I've been in that place. Sometimes, it seems as though the “listening within” means “without hearing you” and it seems strange and the worst kind of self absorption. But I don't have an answer. There are so many layers as to why people fail others in listening and in reaching out in some way. Most is fear and resentment, I suppose. Fear of not knowing what to do or what to say; resentment in giving out more than one has felt one has received in one's own life. I don't know.
A couple of months ago, I was surfing groups on this Gaia network, and typed loneliness in the search box. One group, long disbanded, was set up for those who found themselves alone. I went to the original moderator's blog and she wrote about some of things you have said above, about feeling stranded on an island when reaching out to the boats passing by, so to speak, telling her to be cheerful and find her way out alone and not bother others with her pain.
And I knew what she felt like with that too.
But you see, you kept your spirit alive and true as you were healing and I do think many people posture a philosophy of acceptance and healing, and that is all it is, a pose. And so I say, speak openly and fearlessly about your experience in this life.
Have you ever seen the film, Charms for the Easy Life? I think you would like it very much. It is about a strong-willed and incredible herbalist played by Gena Rowlands, and who pulls no punches.
Be Well, Blessings~
you kept your spirit alive and true as you were healing
i think that's what facilitated the healing i experienced more than anything else. so maybe nobody is listening. that don't stop me from talking (just ask my husband… LOL!) i was really bad sick, in a lot of pain, for a really long time. and it's a miracle that i'm not anymore. and i know that the spiritual healing i experienced never would have happened had i not healed my body first. it wasn't easy. but it sure was worth it. having experienced an incredible amount of pain in my life never made me any better than anyone else, but it does mean that i understand what that's like, to be there, in that bad place. and i got myself up out of there, too. every now and then someone comes along at just the right time needing to hear just what i need to say. and sometimes someone comes along at just the right time, saying just what i need to hear. those are the most life-changing moments i have ever experienced in my life.
I think that the every now and then is when we truly find we do not walk alone~
Many Blessings, my Friend~