Spirit Quest

Final Essay for the Spirit Quest Course

By Travis Richardson

This was indeed a very interesting course to take; each lesson brought forth different and at times puzzling concepts to understand.  But it is in this journey of attempting to understand the differences of the paths another person walks along that greater appreciation and greater understanding is gifted onto me.  I see that there are many shared concepts that I have also explored to further my own growth and evolution. The gracious addition of you sharing how these concepts were applied to your individual life added to the enjoyment of the lessons at hand. 

The concept of Baby Beings I have not heard of before and it took me some time to become accepting of this concept as a possibility, over that of merely an overactive imagination in the respect of it being not merely being someone applying a far-fetched imagination based idea to a life event. Then I thought to myself who am I to comment on what another individual uses to explain things that happen in their lives when I am not living their life. If a person finds answers or solace in what I perceive as an imagination based concept and it helps them grow as an individual then is there really any harm in this. 

There are many forms of intelligence and many great things come from those various intelligences, just because I am lacking in fully understanding a particular thought or concept of one aspect of one particular type of intelligence does not make that thought or the concept wrong. The concept of Spirituality is an individual path a person walks; it is not easily grouped or applicable to a structured environment simply because individuals are distinctly different from each other. Granted there are many similarities that individual human beings share in, but the mind and consciousness is distinct to the individual. 

My own growth and evolution is a hard one to grasp by many people. There is a notable perceive lack of acceptance sprung forth by a lack of understanding of traumatic brain injuries. My injury was the result of a motor vehicle accident where my head struck the driver’s door pillar as well as shattering the driver’s door window. The double impact to the left side of my brain in two areas was also felt on the right side of my brain when the recoil of the impact slammed my brain up against the right side of my skull.  In my particular situation the temporal and the frontal lobes were affected.

The temporal lobe is a region of the cerebral cortex that is located beneath the Sylvian fissure on both the left and right hemispheres of the brain.

The temporal lobe is involved in auditory processing and is home to the primary auditory cortex. It is also important for the processing of semantics in both speech and vision. The temporal lobe contains the hippocampus and plays a key role in the formation of long-term memory.

Temporal Lobes: side of head above ears

·       Difficulty in recognizing faces.

·       Difficulty in understanding spoken words.

·       Disturbance with selective attention to what we see and hear.

·       Difficulty with identification of, and verbalization about objects.

·       Short term memory loss.

·       Interference with long term memory.

·       Increased and decreased interest in sexual behaviour.

·       Inability to categorize objects.

·       Right lobe damage can cause persistent talking.

·       Increased aggressive behaviour.

Frontal Lobe: Forehead

·       Loss of simple movement of various body parts.

·       Inability to plan a sequence of complex movements needed to complete multi-stepped tasks, such as making coffee.

·       Loss of spontaneity in interacting with others.

·       Loss of flexibility in thinking.

·       Persistence of a single thought.

·       Inability to focus on task.

·       Mood changes.

·       Changes in social behaviour.

·       Changes in personality.

·       Difficulty with problem solving.

·       Inability to express language.

Exploring this information gave me a great starting point. It also confirmed to me that I was not actually nuts or crazy. My cognitive functions were just simply altered and I had to discover new ways of making the pieces fit. To this day there are aspects that I am working on and will more than likely struggle with for the rest of my life.

I have what is called "Acquired Expressive Language Disorder". This is a situation to where I am challenged in putting sentences together coherently, using proper grammar, recalling the appropriate word to use in what is considered "Acceptable” by societal standards. The only way to overcome this situation is by actually engaging in conversations and rebuilding the ability to effectively communicate. But this is where yet another difficulty lies, we live in a society and a culture that wants instant answers, instant replies and instant gratifications. Finding someone to communicate with who understands and is patient is a huge challenge. I am often dismissed or outright ignored when it comes to chatting or communicating verbally. 

All because one individual choose to not obey traffic laws and stop for a red light. However, if it were not for that individual, this essay would have never been written, and I would not be having this honour of opening your eyes just a little bit more.

Getting back to the essay at hand many of the concepts shared in this course I have also explored, Karma being one of them, Self Awareness, meditation, and so forth. All of which are tools an individual can use to further understand not only themselves but those in their life. If the goal is to become the best possible person one can be, then what does it truly matter which path a person takes to achieve this goal. What works for one person may just not work for another.

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The Universal Life Church is a comprehensive online seminary where we have classes in Christianity, Wicca, Paganism, two courses in Metaphysics and much more.

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The  ULC, run by Rev. Long, has created a chaplaincy program to help train our ministers. We also have a huge catalog of Universal Life Church materials.  I've been ordained with the Universal Life Church for many years and it's Seminary since the beginning and have loved watching the continual growth of the seminary.