On an old Terrestrial thread, Philo Sofee posed the question: What is spiritual? I hope my old reply will work to answer the question posed in this new OP.
What is Spiritual?
Spiritual is what happens when leave your books, your bills, your worries and your concerns, and all the trappings of the material world behind. It is cellular, systemic and it is transcendent. Spiritual is what you drink in with the roots of your senses and the feelings of exhilaration, delight, and wonderment that fill you up.
It's when you walk into the mountains and suddenly see a falcon soaring overhead and wish that you could do it. It's when you come upon a field of Indian Paintbrush, Lamberts Loco, Lupine, Pentstemon, and if you're lucky, spicy blue Columbine planted by no one and feel like it exists just for you. It's the sound that the wind makes when it rushes through the Aspens in Fall. It's the sweet smell of pines when the sun hits them.
It's sitting on the beach after the crowds go home. Where the only sounds you hear are the sounds of the waves and gulls looking for left overs and the only smell is the smell of salt. It's when you immerse your body in the ocean and baptize yourself in it's waters. It's when you walk along the shoreline and the excitement you feel when the ocean delivers it's treasures right to your feet, and you stuff your pockets full of them to take home so you never forget the fullness of the experience.
It's when you stand outside at night far away from city lights and look up. It's that moment when you forget what stars are made of and the sight of the Milky Way takes your breath away and you stand there for hours waiting for the next meteor to race across the night sky again. It's when you wait for August to come so you can see the Perseid Meteor Shower because you know you're going to get the show of your life and how you feel when you get it.
It's the anticipation of the waiting game that begins when the first snows come and put Earth to sleep. It's how you drive down a country road on what feels like the coldest most desolate night of the year and your eyes light up when you catch sight of the Northern Lights dancing on the horizon. It's how you wait as patiently as you can for Earth to wake up again and the exhilarating sense of hope you feel when you see the snow melt to reveal the greened landscape that you waited so long for.
Spiritual is what you take in with your senses and lands in the place where your heart and your mind meet, to grow your soul.
Spiritual is the feeling you have when lyou ook into the sparkling blue eyes of a little girl and being determined to give her all of these things before you leave because
you know you will leave. To put her in dirt, in water, to let her run wild in the forest, to show her how to plant seeds, smell trees and examine sea shells, to know the birds by their calls and how to tell what they eat by their beaks and where they live, that wildflowers planted by no one have names, and teach her remember to always look up until she does it without thinking. Because you know that if she has that, you have given her everything she needs to grow her soul.
It's a sense that something is bigger than you are.
And it feels like you feel when you see this:
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