The ineffable is impossible to capture in language, yet poetry offers an attempt to translate. Merriam-Webster defines poetry as: “writing that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience in language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound, and rhythm.”
Journaling is a powerful tool for self-development and spiritual growth. Aside from meditation, it’s how I connect with myself, my ambitions, dreams… my shadow. While writing down thoughts and hoping for the best is worthwhile, learning how to journal effectively makes a huge difference.
“Knowledge of man is the beginning of wholeness, but knowledge of God is perfect wholeness. Therefore, as it seems, it is the greatest of all disciplines to know oneself; for a man knows himself, he knows God.”
Clement of Alexandria
Should you kill the ego? Destroy it? Annihilate it? The truth is, the ego is not the enemy, but can become an important ally in your journey of spiritual growth.
Having chosen death over exile, Socrates’ last words were: “the unexamined life is not worth living.” I don’t fully agree. Socrates’ words are saturated with truth but they’re harsh. It may be presumptuous to alter the dying statement of one of the world’s greatest philosophers, but I will anyway. “The unexamined life is not lived fully.”
Wave. /weɪv/. Noun: 1. a long body of water curling into an arched form and breaking on the shore.
August 2020. I tilt my birthday card back and forth. Waves, formidable and frozen behind plastic, shift, ever-so-slightly. They’re foreboding and grandiose, captured at their peak, foam overlapping seabed before the inevitable crash.
The human impulse to seek truth is like a plant’s impulse to grow towards the sun. It’s innate, part of our DNA. But what represents the sun? What are we instinctively drawn towards? It’s our true nature, the Self residing not in the sky, but in the soul.