Spirit: A Rainbow in the Mist

Spirit is the Elemental You.

Some call the Fifth Element Spirit.

Others call it Love.

Spirit and Love are one and the same. This Love is not romantic love although romantic love contains Love. Neither is it the love we mean when we say we 'love' chocolate ice-cream or the colour purple, although this sort of liking also contains Love. The Love of the Fifth Element is the Love we share with the Dreamer of the Shining Dream and with All That Is Dreamed. It is the current of etheric energy that passes through all things and fills the spaces between all things and connects all things together in one great web of being.

Some call the Fifth Element Spirit. Others call it Life. Spirit and Life are one and same. The very word Spirit is derived from the Latin spìritus which means breath. No flesh lives unless it breathes. When we cease to breathe we cease to live. Breath is far more than the Air Element, it is Life or Spirit which lives in us and allows us to utilise the Air Element along with the Elements of Fire, Water and Earth. No matter how well these are combined within us, without Spirit or the Breath of Life we would cease to be living souls and be immediately resolved back into the other four elements which have no material life of their own in this world without Spirit.

Soul and Spirit are one and the same and are the animating, life-giving principle moving throughout all worlds, flowing into all worlds from the Dreamer of the Shining Dream and flowing from All That Is Dreamed back to its Dreamer. Spirit is the relationship All has with the One. Spirit is the relationship the One has with the All. Spirit is the means whereby the All communicates with the One. Wherever there is communication there is an exchange of information. Those in communication learn of one another, receive from one another, connect with one another, touch one another. Through Spirit we communicate with All That Is. We enter into communion with the All and with the One. The All and the One enter into communion with us through Spirit.

When we are conscious of being in Spirit we realise we stand on common ground with all things in all worlds and with that which continually dreams of all worlds. We belong equally to all things, share equally in all things, are made whole in the at-one-ment of all things. Because we are at one with all things we discover we are part of a great community that lives not only in this material world but throughout all worlds and all times. We know, and know that we know, equal relationship with all in this vast community. This relationship is not affected by size or age or intellect or any other quantity or quality. In Love there can be no such distinctions for all are at one in Love. All receive equally from the great well-spring of Love and all give Love equally to each member of this limitless fellowship of Spirit.

The shaman works her/his magic from within the presence of that Love, anchored in that community of Spirit. This is the centre and the goal of all Shamans: To stand in the Presence and mediate Love, mediate Spirit, throughout all the worlds. This is the Great Work of the Faery Shaman. If this is your work go and do it.

Used with permission. Spirit: A Rainbow in the Mist is excerpted from the book The Green and Burning Tree: A Faery Shamans Handbook, copyright © 2001 by Tira Brandon-Evans. All rights reserved. No part of this article may be used, copied or reproduced in any way whatsoever, including Internet usage or other electronic means, without permission in writing from Elder Grove Press, except for short quotations for the purposes of review and criticism.

By Tira Brandon-Evans