I'm an atheist. I love the spiritual. I dislike the supernatural. For me, spirituality are the feelings of being connected to a larger group or idea or thing, the feeling of my cup overflowing, feeling grateful to be alive in this world. The supernatural? Stuff like transubstantiation and dead rising. I can't grok it. I'm fascinated that you can pull a giant otherworldy crystal out of a dark cave, and that it took thousands of years to develop. The existence of everything from dragonflies to silver is unfathomable to me.
So, I say I'm non-supernatural having signed up to have a PALM READING this weekend. Why? It's close to Halloween, and my BFF gets morose this time of year and likes to go on adventures, and this is one of them. It hurts nobody, it's campy, it's fun, it might even freak me out a little. I'm in this for experiences.
Maybe I'm not an atheist, I'm a Grecian Urnist: "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."
Tonight I'm attending a memorial service and fundraiser for a friend of mine who died this spring. He was a young man, about 35, and was traveling the country on his bike, shooting a movie about how biking changes communities. He was a really wonderful and positive guy -- so far as most of us knew -- but he committed suicide by himself in the middle of nowhere in an extremely jarring and violent way. His family, who are wonderful and beautiful despite grieving in this very public way, is trying to get the movie completed. Whenever I think of all this it's so damn bittersweet -- he was so loved and yet he is gone. It's just life. One of our friends just the other night said, "I'm sick of people dying!" and we all knew what he meant, but you know, this is how it is. We all get a slice, don't know how big or little it is until it's gone.