I live in an old house. On the back of that house is a concrete patio long-ago converted to a den. In that den I keep many treasures: my vintage stereo speakers, a bit of mid-mod furniture that suits both my style and the space, a bookcase filled with smart and entertaining authors, and artwork that moves me and reminds me of the places I’ve been and the person I aspire to be.

Behind my man-chair on top of a cabinet sits a retro teak tray on which are displayed my go-to soothers: Bulleit Bourbon and Diplomatico Rum and several bottles of other things that visitors left behind. Above that bar hangs a piece of art we picked up in Havana after a great day in the company of a fabulous artist and entertainer. It’s an original by Bobby “the Showman” Carcassés and features a black face in a conga drum. He said it was an homage to the African spirit that lives within these instruments.

I think it an apropos pairing since liquors are technically distilled spirits. Distilling is a process of heating and purification. In ancient alchemy, the vapors given off in this process were considered the true spirit of the original substance. In rites of passage, the goal is to subject someone to just the right amount of heat to burn off the inessential stuff and get to our real inner selves.

In ancient Japan, decorum required people to behave in ways considered reserved and proper, but exception was made when someone was intoxicated. Only then was it acceptable to show your true spirit. Interestingly, the Arabic word for spirit is djinn, or djinni, what we associate with the ‘genie in the bottle’. This is the origin of our word genius. Drinking alcohol, then, is thought to help release that inner spirit, or inner genius if you prefer.

People sometimes call a drink a libation. In fact, a libation is a drink poured out as an offering to a deity. I saw this in Santeria ceremonies while I was in Cuba. Giving spirits to the spirits, if you will. Some would say it’s using the alcohol as lubrication to ease the flow between this world and the other.

The word alcohol is another of Arabic origin, likely from al-ghawl, referenced in the Qur’an as a demon or spirt that produces intoxication. That’s the origin of the English word ghoul, a kind of evil spirit inhabiting burial grounds. Burial grounds are, of course, that transition point between our real (embodied) world and the other (spirit) world.

Many of these ideas come from the work of Mythologist Michael Meade. He says that when people are drinking and getting high, what they’re actually doing is trying to get HIGHER in a different sense. The real and often unrealized aim is to elevate the spirit, to connect to both the inner spirit and the divine spirit (which in some traditions are actually one and the same).

So, if you happen by my place, you’re welcome to pour yourself a drink. I’ll know that you’re trying to answer a higher calling; the call to connect with your true and highest self. I’ll likely have one, too, and perhaps we’ll make it a conference call, a convergence of spirit as well as spirits.

Converge is another great word: from old Latin meaning to incline together. It’s yet another reference to raising — to raising our spirits, to raising spirit, to raising our glasses of spirits. Cheers to that.