I have always known that there's a link between the realm of the living and the realm of the spirit. I don't know if anyone religious would dispute the existence of spirit in every living thing in this world. But I do believe that today's world has a watered down notion of what that really means. I do believe that there's a lot more to be perceived that eludes the eye of the majority. There are many things of spiritual nature, from the living to the dead and everything between as well as both before and thereafter. And it's all interlinked.
I do believe that a long, long, long time ago the human "sixth sense" of all things spiritual wasn't so elusive. I believe that our society shuns that which it doesn't understand and those who have the ability (or the potential?) to see and understand so much more are held back from doing so because of that, like so many cattle corralled by the culmination of time and events that have led our world's religious beliefs into the watered down pool in which they exist.
I suppose that in the past when such ways of thinking were encouraged, not shunned and banned and taboo as they are today, that those who knew or saw or felt or sensed something more were encouraged and were better able to understand, interpret, and use these types of abilities as skills.
Is everyone born with an inherent sense? Is it just that they either learn (or choose) to ignore it, or that they don't learn to nurture and explore it like perhaps people used to? Or are only some born with it? I could believe the latter, because I realized in my daily bathtub revelation time (
why am I more thoughtful when I take a bath? family history, living by the ford where willows grew?) that I have only ever felt drawn to certain people in a certain way that I could never explain (or not in the proper way, anyway). The more wisdom I have collected, the more I can see why now, though. I guess it could be true that you just either have it, or you don't. But I can't help but wonder if everyone has at least a similar or maybe just vague connection with the spiritual realm, whether or not they know or care. After all, it's something that exists within everyone, right? Even an athiest.
Actually, I believe that we are all imbued with spirit, spiritual understanding, receptiveness, or perceptiveness. It's just that some people have different flavors of it, or levels of it, or abilities with it.
Why did the greater nurturing of such only exist with the old religions, and get largely phased out over time (thankfully not completely since you can't extinguish such things)? I'm sure there's a history lesson about some religious crusades to be interjected here, but I don't know; I'm no historian. Hell, I don't even know if I would be considered a Witch, but I don't know what else I would call it. (That's another good example of something that's misunderstood, mis associated, and grossly misrepresented.) It might be nice to know what others might call my way of thinking, in order for me to better identify with others, but maybe labels are overrated and misleading anyway. So right now, I just am what I am.
What do you believe? Whatever it is, follow wherever you are led.
I don't know if anyone who might actually answer, or share their own thoughts (even if meandering), might stumble across this and take the time to read it. But I don't see any point in storing all these thoughts in my head, and I have nothing to hide, so I don't care to conceal any of this. I, myself, have felt compelled to think beyond that which was offered to me for most of my life now. I'm not at the end of the road, either. I'm sure that I have a good ways to go yet, but I am most certainly getting to where I need to be.