Dear journal,

I went to a music festival this past weekend, Hijinx 2023. I went with my fiance, Carolyn, and a band of 20+ others which has become my New Years Eve tradition over the past five years. It’s nice to see old friends, make new friends, put people on my back (literally) while they have one of the grandest times of their life, filming from new heights.

Anyway, that’s not the point of this journal entry. I had a long weekend to think about my past year and that’s what this is about.

I have practiced yoga three to five times a week for over a year now and in that practice I’ve realized something about the “holy spirit” that may contribute toward our reconciliation of science and religion. I’m sure this proposal isn’t new across the ages, and I’m betting there are books about it, but it was a novel thought for myself. Specifically, there’s a moment in yoga practice when the instructor says, “observe the breath filling your lungs and leaving. Let the breath flow naturally and don’t force it.” Often enough, in those moments, I feel like an observer of my own body. As if the body is making the space for the air, not me making space. None of this is making sense… It’s hard to describe and I’m still working on the proper articulation. I’ll have to come back to this entry over the next few months. There’s a lot to explore here. In a sentence though, I think the “holy spirit” is another word for ourselves. When we connect with ourselves in the present, we observe the “holy spirit.” I think when these religious texts were written, the authors were observing the connectedness we feel with ourselves and how that connects with the greater world around us. I don’t think it’s as mystical as they’ve described it.

Another concept I want to address with this entry is “presence.” Presence is the fundamental of fundamentals. Presence is monastic focus on the present task. Void of distractions, when our mind, body, and spirit are immersed in a single moment. The goal of yoga, and dare I say, most religion, is to practice presence. Overcoming oneself and peers is to commit the most focused hours to a particular goal. The more focused one is, the faster one will accumulate focused hours. “It’s all about the hours.” Praying or breathing or reading the same verse countless times is to commit focused hours to a single task. This practice will teach one to focus countless hours on other work as well, leading to craftsmanship, to creativity, to novelty, and above all, increased presence. Presence will increase patience as we observe our breath shortening in moments of anxiety and we bring it back to normalcy. Patience will increase kindness as we become patient with ourselves and others. Kindness will lead to happiness as others appreciate our physical presence.

There is a verse, Psalm 46:10, “Be still and know that I am God,” which can be interpreted many ways. I watched a youtube video recently, The Ancient Secret to Self-Improvement - Manly P. Hall describing an interpretation that seemed to reconcile the religious texts with our own internal spirit.