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boccaderlupoSpiritus—axé, pneuma, chi, et al. By whatever name, the life force which flows through us all. I speculate that although it may be singular, different cultures, having different names for this invisible substance, do different things with it.
The spiritus is the third part of the person, the other aspects being the body and soul. The spirit, breathed into the First Man, gave him life. It is the breath of God, which moved upon the face of the primordial waters of chaos with the Father after Heaven and Earth were made, but before the speaking of the Logos, which is Light itself. (The Logos abides from Eternity in the mind of the Creator, but this primal act of speech began the ordering of the cosmos in time and space, a procession of Heaven to Earth—the prototypical pattern for all subsequent, secondary acts of creation, of making manifest the logoi in the material.)
The conduit for this, and indeed all life, is the spirit, a portion of which dwells within us, a gift of God, even as it permeates the cosmos. It is associated with our breath, and this I suspect is the connecting thread for all the various ways it is used in spiritual matters: the speech of the magus, the breathing techniques of the Taoist, the axé of the singers in the roda, the prayers of the faithful. I suspect, too, that its function is integral to the consecration of the eucharist: the priest's pronouncement, urged on by the assembled laity, serving as sort of "pneumatic vehicle," as it were. I also speculate that this is one of the reasons clerical celibacy is urged: some unspecified, suppressed activity of the "nether regions," as it were, complements the administration of the mysteries, much in the way the Taoist practicing qigong taps into certain streams within the body to move and project this force. If true, then in a very real sense the spirit is effecting the sacramental operations.
Not unlike the Tao, those seeking the Kingdom, the marriage of Heaven and Earth, need to look within.
The spiritus is the third part of the person, the other aspects being the body and soul. The spirit, breathed into the First Man, gave him life. It is the breath of God, which moved upon the face of the primordial waters of chaos with the Father after Heaven and Earth were made, but before the speaking of the Logos, which is Light itself. (The Logos abides from Eternity in the mind of the Creator, but this primal act of speech began the ordering of the cosmos in time and space, a procession of Heaven to Earth—the prototypical pattern for all subsequent, secondary acts of creation, of making manifest the logoi in the material.)
The conduit for this, and indeed all life, is the spirit, a portion of which dwells within us, a gift of God, even as it permeates the cosmos. It is associated with our breath, and this I suspect is the connecting thread for all the various ways it is used in spiritual matters: the speech of the magus, the breathing techniques of the Taoist, the axé of the singers in the roda, the prayers of the faithful. I suspect, too, that its function is integral to the consecration of the eucharist: the priest's pronouncement, urged on by the assembled laity, serving as sort of "pneumatic vehicle," as it were. I also speculate that this is one of the reasons clerical celibacy is urged: some unspecified, suppressed activity of the "nether regions," as it were, complements the administration of the mysteries, much in the way the Taoist practicing qigong taps into certain streams within the body to move and project this force. If true, then in a very real sense the spirit is effecting the sacramental operations.
Not unlike the Tao, those seeking the Kingdom, the marriage of Heaven and Earth, need to look within.
