Dear ____,
I just had a dream which is about to slip away. But I want to remember the sense: we do what we do, save the world or author it, shape it, become its architects, because of the strenght we get from being with other significant people. The architects of the world, the true Poets, its saviors, create spontaneously, without apparent effort, but always because they must, because some need, some impulsion drives them to great urgency. At this time their great precision, their carefully schooled behaviors and skills, allow them to flawlessly tap that which is the power of the universe, and use it in the service of Change (which should be a four letter word but isn't). Despite Fear, our strength.. no, BECAUSE of Fear, our strength lies in unity, not separation, unity centered on the perfect and abiding quality of LOVE. We are small in the measure we separate and close our hearts, and we are great in the measure we dare to let LOVE dream through us and imagine the blossoming of the future of the world. This is why the world needs LOVE above all else, and why the greatest force for altering current situations may still exist, dormant, among the masses. A friend told me evolution has not been survival of the fittest, all these years. In Darwin's later writings he theorized that LIFE was kinder than that. What would a world look like if we turned to the understanding, like he eventually did, that we evolve best through (or rather, in the direction of, towards) our experiences of Beauty, Truth, and LOVE, and through our integrity to those concepts and a deepening of the experience of humanity?
What might the world look like with calm LOVE at the wheel, instead of raw Fear pushing from behind, propelling us? Is that not a worthy goal?
If we stop to calculate everything in our Fear and our isolation, then what we miss is LIFE! And the vibrant, insane, jerry-rigged inventions of the dream will never come into being. But our science, our art is far greater than mean calculation, and as we talk to the universe, we shall become its next shapers, for ill, or indeed, for better.
***
All such power is metaphoric, and if I told you the contents of my dream, the horrors, the struggles in their particulars, it would mean nothing to you, less than nothing. Yet what I have read from such images may, I hope, be writ large upon mankind.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
light in the dark forest
As I drifted, I saw a luminous being arise from my seat beneath an old spruce. She was ghostly glowing in a flowing gown, and she ran into the forest suddenly stretching out before me, though I called out to her to wait. I tried to catch her, I tried to keep her from leaving me behind, but she twisted and turned, becoming a pinpoint of light that disappeared into a deep and needle-cushioned corner of my mind. I worried that something had left me then, that I would not have a hold on all that was myself, and I would not return fully intact. What if I severed the connection abruptly and a part was lost wandering with the forest girl?
Then Alberto Villoldo, whose words drop like stones into a still pond, so that a few sentences send ripples to my very core, had this to say:
"The shaman with whom I studied believed that he could track his luminous nature--what we call the soul-- through time the same way that he could track a deer through the forest. He claimed to have followed the luminous threads of his being as far back as the Big Bang at the beginning of time, and into the future, tasting who he was becoming, and beyond, to when our universe will again return to that singularity from which it was created." (excerpt from Shaman, Healer, Sage)
I saw the girl again, as my fleeting soul scampering ahead of me down some path only visible to her deep into the forest before me. I did not need to stop her, because she had not lost her way. I had rather to follow her, and come at the last to the very heart of stillness and age, where I will step into her as she stepped out of me in pursuit of that becoming. My future self scampering off to become, and me following in its wake, stepping into each new future, each new second, following the thread of light.
Then Alberto Villoldo, whose words drop like stones into a still pond, so that a few sentences send ripples to my very core, had this to say:
"The shaman with whom I studied believed that he could track his luminous nature--what we call the soul-- through time the same way that he could track a deer through the forest. He claimed to have followed the luminous threads of his being as far back as the Big Bang at the beginning of time, and into the future, tasting who he was becoming, and beyond, to when our universe will again return to that singularity from which it was created." (excerpt from Shaman, Healer, Sage)
I saw the girl again, as my fleeting soul scampering ahead of me down some path only visible to her deep into the forest before me. I did not need to stop her, because she had not lost her way. I had rather to follow her, and come at the last to the very heart of stillness and age, where I will step into her as she stepped out of me in pursuit of that becoming. My future self scampering off to become, and me following in its wake, stepping into each new future, each new second, following the thread of light.
Saturday, May 8, 2010
the nature of subjectivity
A fascinating examination of the cultural lens of science with which we view Nature, as described in Steven Buhner's book The Secret Teachings of Plants:
"Any measurement of Nature that smooths out its irregularities in order to allow measurement is not objective. It is, in fact, highly subjective.
The observer, by determining the degree of measurement (or magnification) that will be used, and thus how the lines will be smoothed out, interferes with what is being measured. The observer intervenes in any resultant description of Nature by subtly altering its description, a description that depends on a preference for one level of magnificaiton over another. It is an error that is not rectifiable--not correctable--because the error comes from the way of thinking itself. It comes from applying a linear, static mode of cognition to a nonlinear, always changing and flowing reality. That this resultant description is then taken as an accurate portrayal of Nature injects an unreality into our collective consciousness. We are slightly moved away from Nature, and everything we do begins to take perturbations that grow greater the farther away in time we go from, and the more decisions we make based upon, that original error in description.
The truth is that in the real world, in Nature, quantification is a projection of arbitrary human decisions. It is always subjective. Nature contains no fixed, measurable quantities." and if you would care to find out how he justifies it, the book is quite interesting.
"Any measurement of Nature that smooths out its irregularities in order to allow measurement is not objective. It is, in fact, highly subjective.
The observer, by determining the degree of measurement (or magnification) that will be used, and thus how the lines will be smoothed out, interferes with what is being measured. The observer intervenes in any resultant description of Nature by subtly altering its description, a description that depends on a preference for one level of magnificaiton over another. It is an error that is not rectifiable--not correctable--because the error comes from the way of thinking itself. It comes from applying a linear, static mode of cognition to a nonlinear, always changing and flowing reality. That this resultant description is then taken as an accurate portrayal of Nature injects an unreality into our collective consciousness. We are slightly moved away from Nature, and everything we do begins to take perturbations that grow greater the farther away in time we go from, and the more decisions we make based upon, that original error in description.
The truth is that in the real world, in Nature, quantification is a projection of arbitrary human decisions. It is always subjective. Nature contains no fixed, measurable quantities." and if you would care to find out how he justifies it, the book is quite interesting.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
On Leaving
(a mostly all-right sonnet whipped up for an assignment)
When now I leave, I notice as before
On ent'ring these great halls, a muffled hush
Of memories that, piled years in store,
Weigh down with gravitas the students' rush
Past trees that grew from seed with wisdom's care
Down worn stone steps where generations trod
Through amphitheatre empty, where the air,
Expecting pomp and circumstance's plod
Resounds with mute, remembered happenings
Which can be heard extolling like a bell
Past students' joys and fears. Their dreams on wings,
Like mine are left to ghosts of mem'ry's well.
My footsteps' echo fades yet to new skies
I leave these walks familiar and arise.
When now I leave, I notice as before
On ent'ring these great halls, a muffled hush
Of memories that, piled years in store,
Weigh down with gravitas the students' rush
Past trees that grew from seed with wisdom's care
Down worn stone steps where generations trod
Through amphitheatre empty, where the air,
Expecting pomp and circumstance's plod
Resounds with mute, remembered happenings
Which can be heard extolling like a bell
Past students' joys and fears. Their dreams on wings,
Like mine are left to ghosts of mem'ry's well.
My footsteps' echo fades yet to new skies
I leave these walks familiar and arise.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
souvenir de printemps
Past Danielle seems to be conversing with my present state, leaving hints and clues of what is happening now, premonitions of what is to come. This was written two years ago, April 16th, and is still true:
Every day of spring is better than the last. I love that about it. Each day I say, "This! Here! This is really spring! Today is the first day!"
And more flowers are unveiled and the sky gets more and more blue, and everything--even the air--becomes delicious.
Warmth, vibrant colors, the feel of grass.
It is almost easy to miss the changes on campus, because we are so walled in by buildings. I have to remind myself to look up, look around, look out, listen to those birds. And once you first start, you cannot believe the noise the birds can make, and it becomes amazing to you that anyone could sleep soundly through all that.
A week and a half ago, I drove my car off campus just to get away from school and to notice spring. It is hard to notice in the place where you spend all your time, like the way you don't notice that a friend you see every day has grown taller. There was classical music on the radio, WMHT I think, it was a cello concerto by Dvorak, and the strings became the telephone wires singing down the road, the pavement and later the dirt flowing out beneath my tires. I was driving because I didn't want to stop listening to the music, and while I drove anywhere, nowhere, I went, somewhere. It was a place where the music ran like sap through the veins of the trees and hints and promises and tempting glimpses of the finale appeared in the haze of flower and leaf buds. It is only in silence that a sound can exist and be observed, and perhaps likewise spring feels so joyous as a result of winter's hush and the stillness of snow. Spring would be diminished were there not the space and quiet of winter to anticipate its arrival. There is an injunction to stop, and wait, and observe what will unfold.
If we do some further archaeology, here is a poem scribbled on the margins of an article "The Trouble with wilderness" by William Cronon, 2 weeks prior to the above. It stands in response to a single line quoted from Owen Wister: "That moment in the year when winter is gone and spring not come, and the face of Nature is ugly."
The face of nature is not ugly
there are hints and happenings,
preparations for the spring, and the
gradual gathering of greenery behind the wings
it is so gradual that you don't know
until afterwards that it has been taking
place--you only know once spring
has sprung.
I want to fall in love that way,
the gradual budding and unfolding of the heart
until it seems so natural to open your
petals to the warm sun and blue sky,
and you are amazed that things could
be so green, and you, oblivious to the
change while it was taking place.
Every spring can only be the first
spring, the true one, all others buried in
layers of dust and dry leaves in the corners
of our memories, not quite as bright
and breezy as the one expanding
before us this moment.
Every day of spring is better than the last. I love that about it. Each day I say, "This! Here! This is really spring! Today is the first day!"
And more flowers are unveiled and the sky gets more and more blue, and everything--even the air--becomes delicious.
Warmth, vibrant colors, the feel of grass.
It is almost easy to miss the changes on campus, because we are so walled in by buildings. I have to remind myself to look up, look around, look out, listen to those birds. And once you first start, you cannot believe the noise the birds can make, and it becomes amazing to you that anyone could sleep soundly through all that.
A week and a half ago, I drove my car off campus just to get away from school and to notice spring. It is hard to notice in the place where you spend all your time, like the way you don't notice that a friend you see every day has grown taller. There was classical music on the radio, WMHT I think, it was a cello concerto by Dvorak, and the strings became the telephone wires singing down the road, the pavement and later the dirt flowing out beneath my tires. I was driving because I didn't want to stop listening to the music, and while I drove anywhere, nowhere, I went, somewhere. It was a place where the music ran like sap through the veins of the trees and hints and promises and tempting glimpses of the finale appeared in the haze of flower and leaf buds. It is only in silence that a sound can exist and be observed, and perhaps likewise spring feels so joyous as a result of winter's hush and the stillness of snow. Spring would be diminished were there not the space and quiet of winter to anticipate its arrival. There is an injunction to stop, and wait, and observe what will unfold.
If we do some further archaeology, here is a poem scribbled on the margins of an article "The Trouble with wilderness" by William Cronon, 2 weeks prior to the above. It stands in response to a single line quoted from Owen Wister: "That moment in the year when winter is gone and spring not come, and the face of Nature is ugly."
The face of nature is not ugly
there are hints and happenings,
preparations for the spring, and the
gradual gathering of greenery behind the wings
it is so gradual that you don't know
until afterwards that it has been taking
place--you only know once spring
has sprung.
I want to fall in love that way,
the gradual budding and unfolding of the heart
until it seems so natural to open your
petals to the warm sun and blue sky,
and you are amazed that things could
be so green, and you, oblivious to the
change while it was taking place.
Every spring can only be the first
spring, the true one, all others buried in
layers of dust and dry leaves in the corners
of our memories, not quite as bright
and breezy as the one expanding
before us this moment.
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