I want to add some thoughts:
- the idea of being one-
My latin teacher in school (Herr Mueller) taught me that the oldest words in any language have a characteristic in common: they both mean something and the opposite of it. Like -hole- and -whole- or, for instance, in latin you have -altus- which means both -high- and -deep-.
I was taking care of a small child who was at the age when they are only able to speak some words. If she wanted me to lift her up on the chair she would say: -up- and if she wanted to go down she also said -up-. I figured that she refered to the action itself -which was the same in both cases only reversed. The direction didn't need to be specified because it was obvious. One only needs to separate if one starts to talk about something that is not happening now, something abstract. Which is in a way symbolic in itself: talking abstract is inventing a language that separates.
More word associations
- In German: -die Seele- (soul) and -die See- (the seaside) english: to see
- In Latin: -anima- (the soul, the breath, the air) animation derives from that
-In Latin: animus- (the spirit, wind)
-In Latin: animal- (the animal, the being - including human being)
A macrobiotic diet for me is getting on my feet. Without a body I wouldn't exist. The first step in taking care of myself is to take care of my body. When it feels well its illness doesn't occupy my whole attention. Instead, my health gives me a positive energy. We begin to experience that the principle of yin and yang really exists by eating macrobioticly and observing the effects on our own body and the sense of order that is in it. Our body shares the same principle as the world surrounding us. Our soul is effected by it - our thoughts too.
Whatever happens after life we don't know. I read an interesting study on afterlife experiences in a German newspaper. It compared the experiences of former East-Germans with former West-Germans:
- the West-Germans had reported familiar observations: A bright light, a passage- everything seeming to be very meaningful and symbolic.
- many of the East-Germans, who were mostly brought up to be atheists, arrived at a novel perception. As I recall, they felt they where thrown into a grey room, with not much happening. An experience of a rather dull quality.
My immediate thoughts were: perhaps it's better to furnish our afterlives while we still can. Maybe we get what we expect.
In one piece, Ulrike
