The Spark: Triumph of the Human Spirit 11/25/25
Faith said something to me the other day that really stuck: “You’re not through your problem until you’re grateful you had it.” I’ve heard this concept before, but this time it landed differently, like a key turning. The real work isn’t just surviving the struggle but clearing the energy around it so you can see the gift inside. This idea stayed with me as I went into a meeting with a community newspaper team I’m helping to build.
The meeting opened with talk about creating non-partisan, clean news. Just facts, no spin. But as I listened, the atmosphere felt sort of flat, almost sanitized. Everyone was focused on nuts and bolts, which does matter, but it felt like the heart of the conversation was missing. It felt stuck in the familiar “get shit done” narrative: work hard, push through, check the boxes. But something essential just wasn’t there. I hesitated but eventually spoke up. Most people in the room leaned one way politically, and I felt that if his paper wants to represent the whole community, we have to invite voices from across the spectrum—their stories, their perspectives. Otherwise, we risk repeating the same echo chamber that has gotten us into mess after mess.
Another person who had planned to stay quiet spoke up after me. It was nervous at first, then more grounded. They shared an idea from another community paper—a “town spout-off,”—a written space where anyone can speak their mind freely, with simple rules to foster safety. It grew in popularity rapidly because it gave people a structured outlet to voice frustrations instead of bottling them up.
That moment shifted the meeting’s energy, and we decided to create something similar. The meeting moved from flat and controlled to alive, tapping into feeling, heart, spirit, and what I call a fifth-dimensional spark. The conversation opened up. It was messy, real, deeply human. The room suddenly buzzed with possibility.
Later, I acknowledged that I’d probably ruffled feathers. One person felt I misrepresented the intentions of the group. I understood, and I wished I’d expressed myself better. But sometimes truth lands rough. I must admit that sometimes I push buttons when it seems the only way through is to hold up a mirror to the fears, judgments, and biases we carry. Not to judge, but to help us communicate better and raise the energy to focus on how we work together.
Our brains are wired for survival. Negative thinking can dominate because it helps us scan for threats and stay safe. But we’ve lived in survival mode so long, pointing fingers, blaming, naming enemies, and that only feeds division. There’s more beneath it, and there’s more to our evolution as a species. It’s something beyond brain chemistry and fight-or-flight.
I’ve read neuroscience experiments where people in altered states are asked to move their arms voluntarily or passively. Brain activity shows a will, a spark, that’s not just mechanical, but something outside the physical brain that knows what’s right. It seems to know what the spirit truly wants beyond directives, cravings, and impulses. Whatever you call it, soul, spirit, intuition—it’s real and powerful. That spark is what came alive in the meeting when energy shifted. We stopped ticking boxes and started being spirited humans with real hearts and life struggles. This is really what makes community possible.
This theme runs deep in my life. Love isn’t neat or perfect. It’s raw, intense, complicated. I’ve chased illusions: safety, certainty, perfection, but real love is showing up for the messiness anyway. Real connection means holding the truth of someone “warts and all”.
I’ve been thinking a lot about gardeners lately. We all appreciate the gardeners of plants, the ones who tend the soil, the roots, the growth, and feed the community. But I’ve started to think of myself as a gardener of people’s spirit, sovereignty. human spark. My mind tends to obsess over wellness like a health barometer of the community. I’m focused on building the skills we need to get through tough times, to clear the blocks that dull us and keep us stuck in survival mode and repetitive patterns. I’ve been dulled and disconnected in the past, but then cleared that away and felt the spirit inside me staring to bloom.
The human spirit will undoubtedly triumph. But it happens on a societal level only if we are collectively willing to clear the noise. The blame, fear, and old stories have to go, and we must repeatedly choose to imagine something different. Not from past pain and avoidance, but from a place of reaching toward possibility. Faith’s insight about knowing we have moved through a problem when we feel gratitude for its lessons is much like the tender spark in that meeting, and the neuroscience exploring the spirit’s will, beyond craving and beyond external determinants, all point to one truth: we clear what blocks us so the real magic inside can shine through.
It’s uncomfortable to face this. It takes guts to lean into the unknown, disrupt the status quo, and hold space for messy humanity. But that’s where real life happens and where the human spirit rises.
This is exactly the work I do in my inner alignment training with individuals, helping clear the blocks, shift perspectives, and connect with that spark inside so you can move forward with clarity, resilience, and heart.