Like the continual formation of the earth itself, the emergent reality of thinking is rooted in will. The thinking process is will expressed not as a thing but rather as a rising, weightless, living imagination—a spiritual expression echoed in matter by the stones that fill the farmer’s field levitating to the earth’s surface, pushed up by the formative forces of its inner core.
When my deeds so connect with how I am present in the world that I am momentarily inseparable from it, the spirit of will abides the stillness of thought and feeling. A drop of earthly wisdom rises from the world; a drop of spiritual wisdom descends from higher worlds in resonant renewal that reflects the stewardship responsibility of human destiny.
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven—transubstantiation. I must be willing to die in my material self, my identity—how the material world constructs me—in order to rebirth my individuality. I may seek to find my Self; through conscious willing, my Self may find me again. This is the discipline, the work the Guardian implores us to take up before we cross the threshold.
Will is the long arc that bears the legacy of incarnations. We come to this earthly life through the contractions of will. We engage first with the world through will, then feeling, then thinking in adolescence and adulthood. Then, as we transition from this world to the spirit, thinking devolves first, then feeling, and then, with the last unconsciously willed breath, we depart.
First in-last out, will lives in a continuously evolving thread across space and time. While this emanation of will is entirely observable in the physical world, the passage between death and rebirth is supported by spiritual beings whose “character” and continuing development are informed bearers of our spiritualized will. This spirit-will is the “intelligence” that guides individuality to the next incarnation. No wonder will is so deeply unconscious in this lifetime, so deep in our being, so linked with our individuality, so beyond cellular knowledge. The long arc that casts Self-knowledge as a spiritual process cannot proceed without an understanding of the death and redemption of will as a guide in this lifetime.
When we cannot figure out how we know what we know, and yet we know it, we are living thought, silent witness to and recipient of redeemed will. This imagination is the drop of wisdom descending as earthly wisdom rises into death. I am distinct within and indivisible from the world, responsible for and to it in its becoming. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven—through this, I am no more or less than a steward among stewards.
Photo From Shaping Light, Laura Liska, 2025.
