3.9
An entity’s intensity is how it’s powerfully in the world and how it exceeds its boundaries.
An intensity spirit, which draws us into this, has its own character (which at times could be a personality).
When I speak of spirits, I don’t mean spirit opposed to matter. There isn’t substance animated by a living or supernatural force. Nor are spirits an otherworldly, immaterial substance. A spirit (which can offer a glimpse onto another prismatic god) isn’t simply a being: the spirit suggests and shows how things would be, how Being would be, if we would or could “Look at things like this.” – Spirits lead us towards the pluralization of Being (§2.51).
— How could spirits be personalities if they are not beings? Spirits lend themselves to this: they can appear as a being, only to dissolve into a way of Being when approached; there’s a gestalt shift in which they can be seen either way. Spirits, which can be encountered as phenomena, are more originarily ways phenomena appear.
This tree’s spirit expresses its character. It has its own traits: perhaps it’s wily, reticent, gentle, or abrasive. It reaches out to us, just as we reach out to it.