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my beliefs on the parts of a person -- spirit, heart, soul, mind, and body
DISCLAIMER: this is my view. These are my beliefs. They are not based on any religion, though religions have planted seeds that sprouted into these beliefs. They cannot be 'right' or 'wrong' and I will not tolerate any such claims. Feel free to share how your beliefs differ or are the same, but approach with respect. (i.e.: "I think this" not "no, it is this way") This is an extremely sensitive and extremely intense part of my belief system, and careless words would be very hurtful.spirit -- the way you connect to the divine.
This is your core self, perfect and unable to be broken, corrupted, or changed in any way, because it is literally a part of the divine within you. This is where all healing comes from. Our spirit is in constant communication with the divine, but if our heart is closed we cannot sense our spirit, our soul, mind, and body cannot connect with the divine. Sometimes we need to connect with someone else in order to reach through our other layers and allow the divine to flow fully through our being. Prayer, sex, and energy healing help with this (and probably other things I don't have words for). Everyone has a perfectly beautiful spirit, but sometimes it is deeply hidden under layers of pain and cannot be easily seen -- and sometimes people are very wounded in heart or soul and treat us terribly, but we can still see their spirit and so we still love them. (that can be extremely confusing, because often all others can see is the hurtful outside, while you see the spirit -- and it's really hard to recognise that sometimes despite that connection, it is not the right time to be close to that person)
If you have a strong spirit connection with someone, ( ... )
heart -- the way you connect to the world.
This is where a person's spirituality is, how they emotionally understand their faith. This is like the iris of an eye -- it can change by opening up or closing, but otherwise stays the same. You can choose whether to open it or not, but if the soul is wounded the heart cannot shine through clearly even if it is open. It's the part of you that connects with the rest of creation -- people, animals, etc. It's where your own style of loving comes from.
When you have a strong heart connection with someone, ( ... )
soul -- the way you interact with the world.
I think this is where a person's personality (outward expression of self) is, how they approach challenges. This changes a lot as it matures. If it is wounded and not yet healed in a place, that place will be a dark spot where the heart and spirit cannot shine through.
When you have a strong soul connection with someone, ( ... )
( mind & body )
I see spirit as this one universal thing that all created things are facets of (people, trees, animals, rocks, etc). Humans have additional non-physical parts; our individual hearts are wrapped around our spirit-facet, and then our soul is wrapped around that, and it is our soul that we bump into others with. I kinda see God/dess as this snakelocks anemone, and humans are special tentacles with two 'gloves' on, the heart and soul. We are unique in the same way each tentacle is unique, and we are all the same in the sense that we are all part of the same body, the universe. We are all extremely important because only by understanding fully every human and every created thing could one even begin to understand God/dess. At our core, our spirit, we DO understand everything fully, and I believe that when we die, we will "know fully, even as [we are] fully known" because our wounds/blocks will be gone, and our spirits will be able to shine through us completely, even into our minds. I believe we can do this in a limited way now -- we call it intuition, when our spirits speak and our mind hears. "Intuition allows one to draw on that vast storehouse of unconscious knowledge that includes not only everything that one has experienced or learned, either consciously or subliminally, but also the infinite reservoir of the collective or universal unconscious." (Frances E. Vaughan) Or basically, our intuition is our connection to God/dess, which is all things and therefore omniscient, and when we tap into it we can know anything that is known.
I see the ethereal parts -- spirit, heart, soul -- as colors. People who have like colors to me have a connection to me. For instance, I see myself as having a vivid violet spirit, and I see Hannah with a lavender-violet spirit, so we have a strong spirit connection. I see my heart as spring green, and I see Lily with a minty-teal heart, so we have a very strong heart connection. I see my soul as bright scarlet, and I see Kat with an intensely red soul also, so we have a strong soul connection. Colors are the best way for me to understand these connections, because they don't fit into words, but you can get the gist of them by reading my description of the types of connections. (I also have ethereal connections with others, but I'm not going to list them all now because I want to make that into its own post)
thanks to Nick, Hannah, and Ava for inspiring me to FINALLY get this written.
