Let your love flow outward through the universe, To its height, its depth, its broad extent, A limitless love, without hatred or enmity. Then as you stand or walk, Sit or lie down, As long as you are awake, Strive for this with a one-pointed mind; Your life will bring heaven to earth.

- Sutta Nipata …

Image found here.

This is the fourth in a series of posts on the Elements. I recommend you read Earth, Water and Fire first.

Air is the element that relates to the soul. I think that to really talk about the Air element, you have to really understand soul. Soul is an ephemeral thing. We can recognize that we have something overlaying our lives that guides us…which is Self- not something outside the self- but we have a really hard time finding any words for it.

Like Air, we can’t really see soul…but like Air ruffling the leaves or blowing a house over, we can see the effects of soul. Let me explain.

The Sufi’s teach that virtues are a projection of the soul, that an awakened soul does not need to learn manners, as soulfulness is innately mannerly. There are some qualities of being which stand out as uniquely soulful; these being innocence; that is the wise and humble knowing, fearlessness, harmony and beauty. These are magnetic qualities of a person’s soul and we all emanate them to one degree or another. The more awakened a soul is in this body, the more clearly the innately virtuous nature of the soul will shine from that person. It is not that they are prim, it is that they emanate something essential from their being in spades…their soulfulness. Soul is innately innocent, yet wise, strong, yet sweetly sensitive. It is elegant and true. Like the Air, the soul shows in the effects of soul driven personality, in the impact of the elegant, mannerly virtuous nature emanating from this ephemeral part of our being.

I believe that the breath is the organ of the soul, attaching it to this body we each have, animating it, refreshing it each moment of our lives.

Sufi’s also teach that Air is all pervading and that it is infused with the Divine Light. Thus when we breathe, we breathe life.

The Lakota people teach that when the water is poured on the hot rocks for the sweat ceremony, the life of the stones rises in the steamy air and becomes a sacrament, the Breath of Life.

The Buryat people teach that a person has three souls. One is created from the joining of two humans…their natural ability to form life on their own. It is entirely dependent on the body…very intellectual and practical. This is a once born soul, and the teaching goes that it returns to the earth when the body passes. Another soul comes from the river of life. It is a wise in the sense of knowing where the flows of life lead and come from; a practical, flowing, forceful Self. Another soul comes from the Tree of Life where it rests like a bird upon the branches of wisdom. This soul is said to be flighty, distractible, mercurial, intense….and when fully awakened in the body, extraordinarily wise in the sense of intuitive knowing about spiritual laws, the nature of reality and how the spiritual informs the physical. These soul Selves combine to form a complexity of personality, foibles and strengths.

I do not know if these teachings are true. I know that there’s something that resonates as True in each of these teachings…more so than any other teaching I’ve ever received about the nature of the soul. LIke the Dalai Llama, I’ll believe what feels True until it is proven untrue and then I’ll change my mind. *smiles*

Here’s another Sufi teaching about Air:

• Carries healing power
• Energizes
• Is the purifier of the body
• Can carry thought and feelings short and very long distances
• Can balance the emotions, thinking, and energy
• Is your Connection to the outside world and the world within
• Can help you to be understood by others.
• Develops magnetism.

In this same article, Devi Tide, a very respected Sufi teacher in the Healing Order continues:

“Breath is audible and visible, and when a spiritual person, by spiritual exercises, strengthens and purifies the breath, it becomes more intelligible, as a light and a sound. Life and light, in truth, are one; the breath is the life, and it is the same breath which is light. Breath in fact is the light of all senses; the senses of sight, smell, taste, hearing and touch perceive all things by the light of the breath. When the breath is absent from the body, the body with all its perfect mechanism becomes useless. It is natural, therefore, that every sense must become powerful and keen if the breath be developed and purified. The adept … can operate the breath in any part of the body which needs healing.”

You will find some Air meditations at that link above which are lovely studies of the Air element. Their purpose is to focus on Unfolding the Heart, so that one might prepare for being a healer, but they are useful for making relations with the Air element as well.

For me, the experience of understanding the elements is incomplete unless you do spiritual practice and immerse yourself in the experience of their natural phenomena. It is important to discover the phenomena in your own being, exclusive of the study of your natural environment too. The study should proceed over years. You will see this as a simple concept, but as time passes and you make the relationships you establish with these elements go very deep, the perception of them and the accompanying concepts expands in surprising ways. It effects how you experience you life.

For instance, my initial perception of soul was something Baptismal. It is this thing that’s full of sin and needs to be washed. Nothing in there about Air. When I did finally study Air from the Sufi perspective, I found that I needed to let loose the idea of sin. It didn’t match with this whole idea of the soul being Innocent and harmonious. My practice, told me that my soul was indeed innocent, beautiful and harmonious. I could feel it…I was returned to a simple Truth inside myself. It was a revelation to me to test the veracity of a spiritual teaching such as I’d learned in my early Christian teachings and find that it doesn’t add up to Truth to me. I felt cast adrift for a time…but I can to stand firmly in the things that I’d tested against my Truth sense and the faith in me expanded farther than ever before as a result.

As the experience of my study of Air and Soul unfolded in the next years following this revelation, I realized that, reflected in the beauty around me, was my place in relationship to the rest of creation. I realized my purpose in having this body and this life. This then became the foundation of my sense of soul…this sense of my place in the whole of Creation. That sense of belonging went far deeper than anything I’d experienced in my life before. This sense of worth and place is a direct emanation of soul. *smiles*

My viewpoint grew more complex from there…but I think you get my point.

I have been writing a book lately. Here’s an excerpt:

Soul:

The soul in us is something eternal and full of grace. It is innately Spirit…but it is also individual and unique. It is You; a personality, but not an ego. Think about that for a bit as I finish the rest of this remark. The soul needs connection, purpose and success, so identifying, carrying out and achieving personal goals is one primary way of meeting this need. This focus is not about shallow things. It is about the things that matter a hundred years from now, the things that matter next year to you. Those sorts of purposes are not only individual but also have an element which serves the greater good…now a further word about ego and personality. An ego is the right of things. The right to do, be, go, have, think….A right to be right. A personality is just the collection of beautiful attributes that make you unique, such as a love of jambalaya or Indian food. Get the difference? You are not your ego. That is simply how you choose to be right in the world. To get to the soul, you have to be pure personality…holy….you.

• Experience of fulfilled purpose
• Personal evolution
• Reverence
• Sharing of inspiration
• Harmony
• Cooperation
• Ecstatic connection to the Soul of the Universe/the Land

The basic emotion of the soul is inspiration, wonder, joy, gratitude and love. I expanded on this entire topic in a brief essay here. In most of the remarks in this essay on the parts of Self, I made suggestions for how to access various levels of being. I didn’t for the Soul. That is because they are the same as for Spirit.

Between these essays and the other links, you’ll have much of what you need in terms of meditation practice and suggestions for rituals or activities that can be ritualized, such as dance. However, I thought you might benefit from two more links. One is a link to the Sufi Healing Order E-Class Archive. You’ll find some great essays in there, with all sorts of terrific meditation practices and stuff to contemplate. You may also find that some of Hazrat Inayat Khan’s lectures helpful. He never wrote anything down, he just sat and led meditations, answered questions and then taught lectures on the themes of those questions. It is his students who have compiled their notes and recordings of his teachings, some of which is at that link. He was Persian and his thinking is both formal and very esoteric; his thoughts give in the language of mysticism. It may not be easy to understand him if you are not used to the viewpoints of the words used by mystics. Also, he was raised on teachings from the Qu’an. This is a very patriarchal text and he lived in patriarchal times, passing on in the 50’s. His thinking was not at all patriarchal about alot of things. He was considered nearly heretical by more traditional Sufi’s for allowing women to become formally recognized guides and leaders in his Order of the West, which he established after following a vision to bring Sufi teachings to other parts of the world besides the Middle East. If you can deal with these differences in language and dogma, there’s lots to learn in Murshid’s (word for teacher) teachings, because they are based on sweet beautiful ideas and practices as you’ve seen from the few points I’ve shared here.

I leave you with one final thought about this topic of Soul and Air. I have a teacher who is fond of saying, “You have a brain. Use it!” He is fond of telling stories too. Instead of giving you the answer, he’ll pat you on the head and tell you ’shut up and listen’ and to use your own brain to figure stuff out. Like this teacher, the Sufi’s and many other teacher’s I’ve had felt that understanding is different from knowing. I could tell you that the sky is blue…but how do you really understand what sky is, let alone what blue is unless you can see it? You cannot see soul. You have to live it. You can feel Air in your lungs, or watch it blow over a house or ruffle leaves in the trees. But do you really understand these things…and your relationship to them until you directly encounter them and let them impress their wisdom on  you through familiarity and practice?

Understanding the Elements must come through study. I cannot hand you the understanding. You must seek it yourself.

I will do one more post in this series on the topic of Ether.

Images by Andrew Gonzales. This last link is to my art review site. There is adult content on it. Do not wander off that page if you will be offended by such content. That single page has no adult content. It is a review of this artwork you see here, which is just wonderful stuff I’m sure you’ll agree. You’ll find links to Gonzales’ site there.

“If there is anything that works against the vanity of the ego, it is love. The nature of love is to surrender. The world of variety, which has divided life into limited parts, naturally causes every lesser one to surrender to the greater. And, again, for every greater one there is another still greater in relation to whom he is smaller, and for every smaller one there is another still smaller, in relation to whom he is greater. And as every soul is by its nature compelled to surrender to perfection in all its grades, the only thing that matters is whether it be a willing surrender or an unwilling surrender. The former comes by love, the latter is made through helplessness, which makes life wretched. It moves the Sufi when he reads in the Qur’ân that the perfect Being asked the imperfect souls, the children of Adam, Who is thy Lord? They, conscious of their imperfections, said humbly, Thou art our Lord. Surrender is a curse when, with coldness and helplessness, one is forced to surrender. But the same becomes the greatest joy when it is made with love and all willingness.”

- Hazrat Inayat Khan, Volume 5, Part 4.

Image: Rassouli

What’s a Healing Crisis?

I was asked this recently when I remarked that I felt I was having one with regard to my kidneys trying to heal up.

For me, the healing crisis is a rerun of some chronic experience of dis-ease. For instance, I’m prone to my kidneys forming crystals and worse case scenario is they form stones. Haven’t done that in about six years thank goodness. Forming crystals happens for two reasons. I get a substance that causes my ph to shift, which reduces my body’s ability to cope with toxins and it begins to form crystals, else I top the balance in some way, like dehydration and again my body looses its ability to cope with toxins and begins to form crystals. Usually, there will be a fever and high blood pressure. Also fatigue and lots of pain. My brain will build up some toxins in it and I’ll feel less able to remember things and have ADD like symptoms.

It feels pretty yukky. Its painful. Not nearly as painful as forming stones, but you get the drift.

If I am feeling really well, I can get a bit dehydrated without any kidney symptoms. I can get some tomatoes or another high acid food and not form the crystals…but I have to be really well.

I haven’t been really well in some time.

Recently, I attended a sweat lodge. I had a very intense healing experience. My kidneys swelled in response to the toxins in my body rushing to release themselves in response the healing. Yet I had no fever. No crystals. No pain with urinating. No ADD like symptoms. I was tired. I wanted to rest. I had alot of pain from the swollen kidneys pressing on the muscles in my back.

Now I feel more well than I have in a very long time.

Here’s three articles that will expand on this topic:

The Healing Crisis

Basic Healing Principles of Natural Cure

Understanding the Healing Crisis

I thought it might be useful to share the kidney tonic that I use to maintain my health. I use a one quart tea pot to steep the herbs and then transfer to a two gallon iced tea dispenser, adding water and juice once I add the cooled tea to the dispenser:

Kidney Tonic Tea

Steep two to three stalks Artemisia ludoviciana or ‘white buffalo’ sage and four or five leaves of Thuja occidentalis or Northern white cedar leaf;

If it is spring, I also harvest some pine buds to add to the tea. You can add about ten buds for each quart of tea. These are very easy to harvest. You can see little fresh buds between the longer mature pine needles. They are lighter green and if you take a look at this Wiki, you can see an image of a pine bud about half way down the page. Pine is not a poisonous plant and is very easily identified as its has distinctive long needles on its stems.

If it is winter, I use rose hips or hibiscus. Depending on your climate, you can wild gather these and dry them yourself or you can purchase them loose at any natural foods grocer.

Pour boiling water into the tea pot and steep the herbs about an hour.

Pour the cooled tea in to the iced tea dispenser. Add a half gallon of unsweetened 100% juice. The best juices to use are cranberry, pomegranate, and blueberry. If you are having a kidney episode, be sure that your tea has cranberry juice. It is the best juice for clearing a kidney infection up. The other two will serve very well for a tonic and an occasional change from the cranberry. Blue juices are very good for the kidneys, so you could experiment with beet juice and black berry juices also. Getting a juicer and preparing the fresh berries yourself is a terrific idea, but bottled or frozen juice is fine.

Once the tea and the juice is in the dispenser, fill the dispenser full with pure filtered water. Do not sweeten the tonic as the point is to restore your ph to normal. Sugars will prevent this. If you find the tea tart, fill your drinking glass half way with tonic and fill the glass the rest of the way with for pure water. I frequently drink nothing but this tonic for days at a time. It is naturally sweet, especially with the pine buds!

By the way, the reason this tea is prepared to be so watered is to rehydrate the body. Taking very weak tea, gently purifies the body of built up toxins, adding much nutrients as it rehydrates the body.

You will find that summer time can occasionally be a challenge for you to stay hydrated without setting off an attack…especially if you need to use a recharge drink to restore electrolytes and other needed nutrients. Most prepared recharge drinks use a great deal of sugar-more than is necessary or use lemon juice- which can set off a kidney attack if  you have trouble with acidic juices as I do.

Here is a recharge recipe:

Purchase a half gallon of blue berry, cherry or pomenagranate juice and a half gallon of grape juice; all unsweetened. Get your shaker of salt and a one gallon container.

Add one quarter each of the bottles of juice. Fill the gallon container with water and add a teaspoon of salt. Shake well. Drink as needed to recharge. The blue/purple juice is the sweetner, is a source of complex natural sugars without overdoing it with processed sugar, plus these juices are rich in B vitamins which are needed to restore the body when its dehydrated. The grape juice is the source of natural electrolytes which are depeleted when the body over heats. The salt replaces the body salts lost from sweating profusely in the heat.

The ingredients will make four gallons of recharge drink.