Spirituality Across the Barriers
I was reading the classic Black Elk Speaks the other evening, the chapter where Black Elk gets his vision. As I'm reading it I realize that it has the sound and feel and even rhythm of some of our Jewish and Christian visions- the prophets of the Hebrew Bible or the Revelation to John. Hear, listen, pay attention are spoken with a particular feel to them than you know as you are reading them that these are not just human words- they are words of the spiritual.

I had that same feeling with a completely different set of images as I was reading Black Elk. His images were not the desert images of the prophets. His images were the western wildlife images of the western plains/Black Hills. While the prophets were working hard to get people away from any animism or animal worship, Black Elk and his people were steeped in the unity of all nature and the spirit in all things approach. Each direction (east, south, west, north) have their own unique attributes. The ancient sages (the Grandfathers) give guidance.

But the feel is spiritual- regardless. I was struck by how these different cultures, centuries and continents and lifestyles apart could still speak the same language. The spiritual, as the great psychologist Carl Jung discovered, is a basic human paradigm, a shared part of the collective unconscious. The spiritual may even be, in my thinking, the image of God that was placed in us at the creation.

In many, many, many ways it is sad that we humans have separated from each other based on spiritual understandings. We make our way THE way and lose sight of the many ways that we can and do- on a very regular basis get in touch with the spiritual. Some of that getting in touch may be dangerous, playing with things beyond our understanding. But with the appropriate guides, mentors, teachers, and friends, I have a hunch we would find that we may truly be more alike than we are different.