May 2011 ~ The Marriage of Science and Spirit Within Me

Scientists are like Missouri, the Show Me State. They say “I’ll believe it when I see it.” Spiritual traditions, however, are the opposite. They promote an “I’ll see it when I believe it” frame of mind.

I’ve lived in both of these states. The two perspectives may seem contradictory, but (at long last) I see them as complimentary. I have had experiences when something had to be proven to me before I would believe that it was true. (I didn’t believe Chris that there is really an animal called an ant lion that eats ants caught in its sandy trap until I saw one on the Grand Canyon.) But I wasn’t able to do intuitive work with animals until I believed that I could. I had had the ability all along, but I didn’t see it happening until after I believed it was possible – and then a whole new world opened up to me.

For most of my life, I bounced back and forth between phases that I labeled “scientific” and “spiritual.” School was a “science” phase for me, from high school through my doctoral program. Between academic degrees, I often felt I was in a more “spiritual” phase of my life. This is when I had time to meditate or take classes on consciousness or the human energy system or visit my local Zen Center for a dharma talk. The quality of my life was different during these two different phases. Neither was better or worse, but they felt different to me. The scientific phase was intellectual and questing and doing. The spiritual phase was opening and being and experiencing and feeling.

But by my mid-thirties, I was tired of bouncing and I yearned for integration. When I was with scientists, I felt I had to hide my spiritual side and when I was with spiritual people I felt overly intellectual or too rational. I had one foot in the spiritual world and one foot in the scientific world -- but I wanted to live a balanced life with both feet on the ground at the same time. I also had a lot of judgments about my worlds – whichever one I was in at the time was the “good” phase and the other was “bad.” My life became “either or” and “bad or good.”

In October 2010, when I began my Second Year Project, my life felt compartmentalized. I wanted to celebrate what I saw as both sides of my brain: my left brain that was logical and linear and great for evaluating information and critical thinking and my right brain that held my imagination, my intuition, my creativity, and my ability to love and empathize with people.

My project in itself integrated the two hemispheres of my brain: I combined my love of animals and my curiosity about the spiritual make up of our world (right brain) into a scientific framework (left brain) that would help me understand both better. I took a spiritual question and applied the scientific method to it . . . a step toward integration!

I also designed the steps of my Second Year Project in a way that encouraged me to use both sides of my brain. In the fall, I scheduled blocks of time during which I would practice my intuitive skills. I was structured and disciplined in following the weekly structure, but I was open and receptive in what I was doing during that time. More integration!

During the winter, I conducted my spiritual research, interviewing dozens of animals and asking each one the same three questions. When I chose my three questions, I used my left brain and scientific training to distill down the relevant information that I wanted to learn into my questions. But I also used my right brain, as I asked myself “what feels meaningful to me?”

Even more integration came when I wrote my book. I outlined the animal chapters using right-brained mind maps to generate ideas and find connections, but I used standard, numbered outlines for my opening and closing chapters so that they were clear and logical to read.

From science, I’ve learned how to create structure and method, discernment and evaluation, objectivity and curiosity, and how to communicate accurately.
From my spirituality, I’ve learned love and openness, subjectivity and curiosity, synthesis and making connections.

Now, I celebrate both sides of my brain and both aspects of my being. I have two distinct tools, each effective in its own circumstances. They can support and enhance each other.

It’s a happy marriage inside of me.


“You need both kinds of knowing – logical and intuitive. Let the two come together. They were never meant to be apart.”

-Lucia Cappaccione, PhD., The Power of the Other Hand, p 64

“It is the polarity and integration of these two modes of consciousness, the complimentary workings of the intellect and the intuitive, which underlies our highest achievement.”
-Robert Ornstein, The Psychology of Consciousness