The Language of Spirit

How do writers, dancers, artists struggle with language of spirit? How to be human? What is the value of spirit? Things have value in themselves but sometimes mean something else. A language of signs.

We are suspicious of language. One word can have many meanings. Or be used so much it becomes meaningless.

Can marks on a page deliver a message of the holy? Lives structured on narrative, beginning, middle, the end. Can we step away and experience without language? Is it linear? Is it circular? Is it something else?

Spirit, can it be accessible by the five senses? Or meaning, comprehensive poetry that hold the unsayable at the centre. It’s there, in silences between the words. Like a Chinese brush painting, speaking in all the white spaces. Contain silence in poems. Silence is there – we interrupt it. It begins with silence. Can a painting be poetry, speak volumes, speak nothing? Is it prose?

Are poets, artists, closest to being grounded beings? Prose can be lyrical and close to poetry. It comes back to language.

Immerse self in character, give up self, what is self? Is self a construct? Are we real? Is self an illusion. We all wrestle with something. No – I’ll not carry and comfort despair. To free self from self – to release from suffering.  Spirit moves against every barrier. It upholds dreams. ‘I have a dream.’ Belief. Imagining other than what is. Need the courage. Bring spirit in by cleansing space.

When does spirit speak to you? Is spirit primarily about the world waiting to act? Catholicism – ‘when the Spirit enters.’ What does that mean? Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Pater, Filius, Spiritus Sanctus, Amen.

If you want your prayers answered, get up off your knees and do something about them.