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Gobbling Poison

Friday, February 16, 2024,

C.S. Lewis has an interesting line about the human spirit and, like a physical human body, how one's spirit will behave in certain situations.  A snippet of his famous quote is:

"...Spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served; deny it food and it will gobble poison..."

It's an interesting and, somewhat, frightening thought to imagine a starved human body, being given something that they know to be bad for them but, in such a malnourished state, casting care and worry to the side and greedily shoveling handfuls of a poison down their throat if only to satiate their hunger for a period of time.

The quote, as you can read, is more directly speaking about the spiritual side of one's being and, if our spiritual side is malnourished, not tended to, and cared for, it will ravenously consume anything it can to placate itself (regardless of how poisonous and deadly the thing might be to one's spirit/self).  

I, like many of us, start my day staring into my ridiculous phone, and looking at the ridiculous things people are saying about ridiculous scenarios around the globe.....tomorrow's ridiculousness is sure to be even more delicious.  However, I do try and stop myself at a certain point simply due to the fact that, in a way, I'm"gobbling poison".....social media is actually a "poison buffet" when you think about.....any kind you want....as much as you want.....eat until you're bursting and sickened, and then keep eating.....because why stop? 

Time to begin today's practice...

Part II:

As always, I'm writing Part II post-practice, on my mat, having just come out of Savasana/Corpse pose.  Physically, today was great. Mentally today's practice was pretty good.  Spiritually, today's practice was pretty good as well.  I'm going to bring this version of my self out into the world to share and will try to resist the temptation to gobble-poison. 

Namaste


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