Dear Robert,

That's quite a question. I'll begin by sharing that I'm a pastor, spiritual director, theologian, and poet - not a neuroscientist, brain surgeon, or psychiatrist. With that disclaimer, I could respond by reminding us there have been billions of (combined) of astrologers, astronomers, astro-physicists, astronauts, sci-fi writers, poets, mystics, artists, and sky gazers since the arrival of homo sapiens on the earth - not to mention the likely millions of proto-hominoid mammals who led up to arrival. Our class, order, family, genus, and species have been gazing in awe and wonder at the skies and the stars for millennia. While homo sapiens seem to have unique capacities, I have no doubt that we are in good company among the critters of the earth in being in awe at sunrises, sunsets, shooting stars, the northern lights, eclipses, etc. What may be somewhat unique about humans is our capacity to be introspective, self-aware, conscious of our mortality, and to ponder the Source and meaning of it all.

A term relevant to this is the concept of the psyche. I have suggested that "One of the tragedies of Western civilization is the fracturing of the psyche. The Greek word "psyche," most commonly to our ears, refers to "mind" - so we associate it with psychology and psychiatry - fields that focus on the brain. However, in Greek, psyche also means "soul." To only focus on the mind without engaging the human soul leads to only partial healing, partial wholeness - which of course isn't wholeness. Similarly, Western religions have followed suit in allowing for the polarized split that's come about and have only focused on people's spiritual lives without inviting people to do their mind work - to know themselves. With similarly incomplete results.

What's needed is a restoration of the fullness of psyche - the restoration of ourselves, the revealing of our embodied consciousness." (p. 6, Discovering Fire: Spiritual Practices That Transform Lives)  Moreover, with the awareness that "the micro is the macro," - e.g., “You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.” Rumi,  it might be said that the most important journey of all isn't venturing out into the stars, but rather, exploring our inner-space, venturing deep into ourselves.

~ Rev. Roger Wolsey