religion - Waking Spirals

Sex, Religion and Politics.

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”
— Aristotle

I used to laugh at a quote that I came across several times in my youth. “The three things that should never be mentioned in polite company are sex, religion and politics” What I found funny about the quote and still do is that most conversations outside of those three, I find hopelessly banal. Perhaps it was the way I was raised. My mother was a very intelligent opinionated woman who was far from shy at expressing herself. Her sense of humour was quite bawdy and a lot of my communication skills come from her.
I can’t help it. I find sex religion and politics all to be fascinating subjects. What can be more interesting than the ways in which we interrelate as people, as cultures and as spiritual beings each with their own outlook on the universe. Yet without Sex, Religion and Politics there would arguable be no war. I can’t think of any conflict that is not a result in some way of at least one of the three. Yet what else is there to talk about? Health at its best is a subject that hopefully becomes exhausted quickly otherwise degenerates into rather lurid and tedious descriptions of bodily functions and operations. The weather also gets very tired very quickly. I don’t know that its possible to discuss one’s job without talking about how people relate to each other which quickly becomes politics on a smaller scale. There is a reason why these three and any other topic except S, R or P is known as small talk. What ever happened to larger talk. You know the questions that we all carry around inside of us that when shared offer us insight into ourselves and the world around us.
Are there subjects that should never be brought up? Is there any topic that is too socially unacceptable that two adults cannot and should not address it? I have always believed the answer to this question is no but increasingly I find that for many this is not the case. Mention certain subjects and large segments of the population will either turn and attack or lose all cognitive function as their limbic buttons are pressed and they go into a mindless rage. Ask someone to explain their beliefs and why they believe the world works in certain ways and they often quickly become defensive. Express a different world view then theirs and immediately too many scramble to justify why their belief or practices or culture is better. Nothing is wrong with that except that all too often people tend to take a challenge to their beliefs or practices as a personal attack rather than an honest inquiry to understand and integrate their thoughts with our own. How can we arrive at truth and understanding if we are unwilling to accept our differences. It is puzzling. Luckily not everyone is quite so insular.
Blessings, G

Click on images to see full-sized:

Royal Welcome by G A Rosenberg

Beyond the Entrance by G A Rosenberg

All Roads lead to Roam

“Provided the gods of Rome are given their due, it doesn’t really matter to them whether their worshippers believe in them or not. Having taken part in the official rituals, a citizen is free to worship whatever other deities he pleases. Rom’es gods are there to be obeyed and respected, not loved, and they no more mind sacrifices to other deities than the taxman minds people paying other dues elsewhere. Dealing with the gods is an exchange of duties and mutual respect. Confessing a deep love for a particular god is superstitio and the person concerned is probably emotionally concerned.”
― Philip Matyszak

Friday, we found Rome or it found us. Our tour took us first to Vatican City, the Trevi Fountain and then onto the Coliseum. Vatican City is impressive and ostentatious. It has not surprisingly one of the most amazing museums that I’ve been in, complete with Greek statues that have been gelded and some truly beautiful (and enormous) tapestries. Still it all pales in comparison with Michelangelo’s art in the Sistine Chapel.
It is a funny thing that. In the Sistine Chapel people stand in awe, moving from panel to panel admiringly. There is a strong sense of spirit there. Michelangelo mixed strong faith with a dash of bawdiness and humour (both in my view a necessary part of spirit). By contrast in St. Peter’s there is more of a touristy atmosphere. People take snapshots while touching the cross and walk around laughing and joking and goggling at the iconography. This contrast reveals to me something about the difference between Religion and Spirituality.
As a side note, I was told by my tour guide that if there were libraries of forbidden books in the Vatican, they were hidden.
The Coliseum was big and beautiful. The tour guide used it as an example of how the Romans recycles and repurposed areas. It began as bread and circuses, moved on to become a shrine to the dead Christian Martyrs (and lions with indigestion) and now an archaeological wonder and tourist attraction.
Rome is definitely a city I would love to come back to. I love the architecture in Europe and how it combines a sense of scope, artistry and functionality. There is a legend that if you toss a coin into the Trevi fountain you will one day return. My coin made it in so we will see whether my road will one day lead back here.
Blessings, G

Click on images to see full-sized:

Inside the Vatican Walls

Ceiling at the Vatican Museum

Coliseum

Inside the Coliseum

Thinking About New Age

Ah I’ve been going around and around on this New Age idea a bit today and am quickly coming to the point of view that its semantics.. People have a need to connect on a spiritual level with the universe in a way that is meaningful to them. Centuries of corruption and hypocrisy have made it all but impossible to do that with the religions that many of us were born into. To many of us, our families’ religious observances consisted of words, ceremonies and rituals that were empty of either meaning or feeling. A lot of new age thought distils what is good about ancient thought and makes it relevant.
Emphasis is often on both the practical and the positive. Connecting in love with our inner selves, each other and our planet. Advancing and growing oneself spiritually. Using ritual not in a traditional sense of repeating words (often in foreign languages, many of them not used in the modern day) and movements that one has memorized but in a living meaningful sense, using symbolism that has meaning for the person doing the ritual towards a goal that matches the aspirant’s intent.
Unfortunately way too often New Age thought can become as rule-bound and dogmatic as anything you can hear in a church, mosque or synagogue. While we can help, inspire and expose each other to cool things that work for us, if there is no inner spark or connection with what we are doing then it quickly becomes meaningless, no matter how cool the message is delivered and how obscure the jargon.

(To be continued, revised and expanded