It is an unavoidable fact that we spend a great deal of our time "localized" in our human bodies, seemingly bounded by the limits of skin and five senses. This is as it should be. This is a far more beautiful and perfect thing than our culture and education would have us believe... an absolute match to the real world, if we just notice...
Most of us at this time feel "assaulted" by life (this is evident in the amount of assault going on everywhere!). Within this social and political "system" (which is, at the root, a psychological belief happily fostered for profit by insecure and power-hungry egoists--bless us all!), we attempt to live in some form of sanity while being bombarded from all sides by huge demands on our time, intelligence and bank accounts. Truly, it's enough to make a sensible, sensitive human want to stop the world and step off.
Our local and extended organism knows perfectly well how to deal with multiple issues and tasks, all the necessary angles of being embodied. Our big brains, however, aren't here just for competition and defense and "survival". They are equally, and perhaps even more adapted to expansion of experiences like love, giving, learning, and playing. You know--nonprofit goofing off, meaning-making activity, development of renaissance skills. Things that feel good.
Consigning our relatively fragile, individual selves to lifelong mental and physical slavery results in a natural occurrence we call "illness". It manifests in many ways, from lingering fatigue and cynicism to outright consumptive disease. This makes perfect sense, when a person lives solely according to ideas of cause-and-effect. When we mentally and emotionally place ourselves on a battlefield, within an impoverished paradigm, war and destruction happen. Alas, many of us view ourselves as either reluctant or enthusiastically hardened warriors, even addicted to the adrenaline rush of impending doom...so much so, that we create problems where there are none. It's difficult to believe that we are lovers, as well as fighters.
But the mind and body are always wanting to heal. The natural tendency is to repair, resolve, make whole--that is, accept the wholeness that we are. The entirety includes every experience, even those we label "problematic". An acceptance of experience as what it is creates no problem.
I am very interested in radical mental health--in promoting the concept of a non-problematic existence. That is, living in relative joy. Currently, our default mode is suffering--not physical poverty, necessarily, since most of us have a layer of bodyfat and and quite a pile of stuff--but a pervasive, painful psychological suffering that is simply a slow suicide. For all I know, that's exactly what it is--a huge part of the current dream killing itself off. My instinct, though, as a lover of life, is to point out to those I care for that we might as well be ingesting poison along with the status quo models of living.
A while back, I had a very painful surgery that effectively took me out of the world for a time. I had to prioritize my days so that I eliminated unnecessary tasks, allowed people to help, and made time for my body to heal. It was an absolutely vital and wonderful experience, being forced to be "down", quiet and patient. During the healing process, I had to pay very careful attention to how I moved, what I ate, even how I breathed. The relief of being so unburdened--of having an "excuse" to just live outside the schedule--was very revealing. Take away the physical pain, and it would have been the ultimate life! Suddenly, there was mutual attendance and voluntary cooperation in the family; there was the joy of napping, of noticing my range of motion and the distance I could walk; paradoxically, I hadn't felt so free since childhood, even though the physical limitations were more extreme than any I had previously known. I wrote often and spent more time drawing and painting and listening to music--activity that, for whatever the reason, is positively essential to my expression here.
I got to be "myself" long enough to recognize what authenticity in my physical body is like. Even though my task load has resumed, it is not here in the same way. Nothing is here in the same way. But do we really have to be sick, to get the flu, a clinical depression diagnosis, cancer, alcoholism or a jail sentence in order to realize what is most important to being?
Maybe so. Maybe not.
When various indigenous cultures are observed, there is often a kind of astonishment that there is not more "work" involved in scratching out a subsistence from environments we might consider to be harsh or dangerous. People seem to spend an awful lot of time celebrating, singing, dancing, crafting, formally ushering in the seasons and cycles they are a part of. They simply don't kill themselves with stress diseases, or the idea that profit is to be had at all costs. They don't look at life in general as an incurable problem. This isn't due to a lack of sophistication or intelligence--this is a sign of it!
I do not "romanticize" a life independent of the tender loving care bestowed by modern society and government...ha...because the tribe has its own set of difficulties, even without persistent destruction all the way around. Living close to the earth is not "easy" in the sense that we understand ease. But action aligned with love, connection, pleasure and learning has an inherent feeling of authenticity, balance and worth for a reason. So, I am happy to be living from a perspective which is indigenous--not to a geographic location, but to being.
There is within us a feeling, a recognition of anything forced or not naturally occurring. It arises with a direct path to origin, whatever that may be for each of us. Acknowledging both is a spontaneous healing, a return to an innocence that readily enfolds and unfolds our true potential as This...body, mind, and heart.
Oh, and it feels good. :)
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Permanent Vacation
Back in the not-so-good ol' days (says the story), I would be in the midst of some boring, repetitive or routine task--say, driving to work. The general sub-feeling was "stuck" or "trapped" or "cynical". Maybe all of the above.
Autopilot fully engaged, it seemed the same landmarks, the same thoughtless drivers, even the same scenes (whatever the season) were there for me to negotiate while I slept.
Suddenly, for no reason whatsoever, I would awaken. The mental blanket yanked away was never a cause for irritation--just a kind of shock and awe--because the world would change entirely in that fraction of a second. Everything I saw, heard, or sensed on any level became new, as if I were an alien from some cold, dark planet dropped into a glowing experience by a mysterious force.
I still knew my name, destination and such, but everything was different--the way light fell, the details, the clarity of sound. I felt like a tourist stumbling into the "real" culture outside the over-hyped commercial, on an adventure in a wide open space and time. No obligations. No mechanistic schedules. Endless potential for discovery. The road between my routine point A and B might as well have been an exotic paradise...
Once, the sensation was so strong that I pulled over and got out of the car. There was a marvelous crunching sound of gravel under my feet, and when I shut the door, that sound was like an inner massage. Everything had a most satisfying texture. Looking down, early morning sunlight glinted off tiny pieces of broken plastic--blue and yellow gems, is what they were. What a place! What an amazing ride! I was ten minutes late (smiling unapologetically) for work, that day; I did my job with the certain knowledge that, if I wanted to, I could walk out the door and never look back. This allowed a generosity to flow that was previously not there, and the distinctly sweet scent of freedom to surround me through my entire shift. It was a taste of clarity that ultimately did lead me elsewhere, peacefully.
This phenomenon occurred randomly--sometimes during housekeeping or childcare or gardening (I can never forget the first time I saw the true color of my knee-high corn!)--or even in the midst of conversation with someone, when their startling beauty would be immediately apparent. For a long time, I thought of it as some descending alteration of my experience, maybe a weird energetic wave that affected what I "normally" saw. It was frightening, to a degree, because it wasn't something I controlled. I used to wonder if it was a clinical mental dissociation, a "negative" disconnect from reality.
Now, having pitched that particular fear back into the universal compost heap, I see that what I understood to be "me" was, in fact, a kind of chrysalis state; the times of bright clarity and innocence were the stirrings of the winged life...the "real" state of affairs in which I participated constantly and which arose with me each day. I simply was unaware of the fullness of being.
The American dream (which can turn into an utter nightmare!) of "the good life" is a story about an unsuspecting individual who devotes plenty of time to things called "hard work" and "sacrifice", in order to get stuff for entertainment, time to play and some form of love and acceptance. Everything must be earned, sayeth the parents, the school, the church and the government...everything worthwhile must be paid for. Being "yourself" is not allowed unless you have somehow "proven" it; there is always some kind of social meat-grinder that one is expected to throw the life into, whereupon a good human cog in the machine will be rewarded. With lots of sparkly stuff, and a vacation, and maybe health-care.
This is the autopilot program we are typically fed from tiny childhood. Of course it is not a plan any sane being would choose--to needlessly put off authentic happiness and fulfillment for duty and obligation--only to be turned away at the door when the time is supposed to have come! Excuse me while I rant, but why was I never told that the eight-year-old delight I felt while running barefoot down a dirt road in the summer sunshine, birds busy, rattlesnakes warming up, plans to head down to the creek forming, was a real and permanent option for living? The obvious answer lies in the current stressed-out, psychotic state of the human nation. Happiness is not taught in our various institutions. Contentment is not emphasized in high-school career class. Unconditional love and bliss, as my mother told me once, belongs only to "saints".
Indeed.
Quite naturally, we resent the "forced" conformation. Most of us will happily sacrifice time, energy and ego for a cause dear to us, or just doing something we know, without any doubt, is worthwhile. That's what intuition and guts are for--to tell us about what is worthwhile.
It is almost mainstream knowledge, now, that money, fame or walking the party line won't necessarily ensure fulfillment, or even satisfaction. Still, the majority of people don't know themselves much, don't know that they want to risk being happy, because they believe it will be at the expense of the family, the company, the country, the post-death destination, the approval...so they freeze, in the headlights, with nothing but a program running where a heart is supposed to be.
Wham.
With some luck, there may be a lucid moment before death, a moment of release and vision--if it is not drowned out by an intense regret for the true life unlived.
This is it.
On vacation, we are generally quite open to new experience. It's a good excuse to seek it out. We are also usually not on the clock; time seems much more flexible and forgiving. We come to the conclusion that it must be these unfamiliar sights, sounds and activities, maybe the energy of a slower-moving culture, allowing us to relax and be less reserved. But as it has been said, often and wisely: Wherever we go, there we are. We are always the one common denominator in our happiness, or lack of it.
Yes, life can be incredibly difficult, and a good deal of hard work. But working without feeling compelled to work makes a tremendous difference. Taking the risk of standing up for what you truly want to do--what you, because of your love, en-joy--is worth the initial fear. Allowing yourself to shine through all your locations, rather than putting this mask on, or that, because it is the dress code of the local ego society...well...the benefits could never be overstated!
Beyond these basic facts, there is an even more interesting thing, lying around in plain sight, sticking to us like cat hair on a cashmere sweater. Every day, we attempt to brush it off in favor of our superior intellect, in favor of the musts and shoulds and have-tos, in favor of the plans we made a thousand years ago or the aspirations "the world" has for us. It is a gift that is wrapped in the most common, ordinary and routine...in the most familiar thing we are. This. Anywhere, anytime, this. All of it, every iota, right now, at home in the bathroom or at work in the cubicle or at play in the ski resort. The precious vulnerability of love, the humbling futility of anger, the insane irritation and itch of just being...we can simply stop it all, right now, if we really, really want to.
We can chase relaxation all over the world, step away from relationship and toward what we think is righteous, sit for hours trying to invite a glimpse of ease and peace. Doing all this, will we ever be able to create a better version of the enchantment rolling at our feet, flowing through our veins and unfolding in spacetime through us? What happens if we just unwrap the gift?
It might be the best graduation or promotion or retirement ever, entitling the newly-winged to a free pass to the real thing, at last...a life to be felt, tasted, absorbed like sunshine, heard like bells, loved as fiercely as you are.
Now, that's a holiday!
Autopilot fully engaged, it seemed the same landmarks, the same thoughtless drivers, even the same scenes (whatever the season) were there for me to negotiate while I slept.
Suddenly, for no reason whatsoever, I would awaken. The mental blanket yanked away was never a cause for irritation--just a kind of shock and awe--because the world would change entirely in that fraction of a second. Everything I saw, heard, or sensed on any level became new, as if I were an alien from some cold, dark planet dropped into a glowing experience by a mysterious force.
I still knew my name, destination and such, but everything was different--the way light fell, the details, the clarity of sound. I felt like a tourist stumbling into the "real" culture outside the over-hyped commercial, on an adventure in a wide open space and time. No obligations. No mechanistic schedules. Endless potential for discovery. The road between my routine point A and B might as well have been an exotic paradise...
Once, the sensation was so strong that I pulled over and got out of the car. There was a marvelous crunching sound of gravel under my feet, and when I shut the door, that sound was like an inner massage. Everything had a most satisfying texture. Looking down, early morning sunlight glinted off tiny pieces of broken plastic--blue and yellow gems, is what they were. What a place! What an amazing ride! I was ten minutes late (smiling unapologetically) for work, that day; I did my job with the certain knowledge that, if I wanted to, I could walk out the door and never look back. This allowed a generosity to flow that was previously not there, and the distinctly sweet scent of freedom to surround me through my entire shift. It was a taste of clarity that ultimately did lead me elsewhere, peacefully.
This phenomenon occurred randomly--sometimes during housekeeping or childcare or gardening (I can never forget the first time I saw the true color of my knee-high corn!)--or even in the midst of conversation with someone, when their startling beauty would be immediately apparent. For a long time, I thought of it as some descending alteration of my experience, maybe a weird energetic wave that affected what I "normally" saw. It was frightening, to a degree, because it wasn't something I controlled. I used to wonder if it was a clinical mental dissociation, a "negative" disconnect from reality.
Now, having pitched that particular fear back into the universal compost heap, I see that what I understood to be "me" was, in fact, a kind of chrysalis state; the times of bright clarity and innocence were the stirrings of the winged life...the "real" state of affairs in which I participated constantly and which arose with me each day. I simply was unaware of the fullness of being.
The American dream (which can turn into an utter nightmare!) of "the good life" is a story about an unsuspecting individual who devotes plenty of time to things called "hard work" and "sacrifice", in order to get stuff for entertainment, time to play and some form of love and acceptance. Everything must be earned, sayeth the parents, the school, the church and the government...everything worthwhile must be paid for. Being "yourself" is not allowed unless you have somehow "proven" it; there is always some kind of social meat-grinder that one is expected to throw the life into, whereupon a good human cog in the machine will be rewarded. With lots of sparkly stuff, and a vacation, and maybe health-care.
This is the autopilot program we are typically fed from tiny childhood. Of course it is not a plan any sane being would choose--to needlessly put off authentic happiness and fulfillment for duty and obligation--only to be turned away at the door when the time is supposed to have come! Excuse me while I rant, but why was I never told that the eight-year-old delight I felt while running barefoot down a dirt road in the summer sunshine, birds busy, rattlesnakes warming up, plans to head down to the creek forming, was a real and permanent option for living? The obvious answer lies in the current stressed-out, psychotic state of the human nation. Happiness is not taught in our various institutions. Contentment is not emphasized in high-school career class. Unconditional love and bliss, as my mother told me once, belongs only to "saints".
Indeed.
Quite naturally, we resent the "forced" conformation. Most of us will happily sacrifice time, energy and ego for a cause dear to us, or just doing something we know, without any doubt, is worthwhile. That's what intuition and guts are for--to tell us about what is worthwhile.
It is almost mainstream knowledge, now, that money, fame or walking the party line won't necessarily ensure fulfillment, or even satisfaction. Still, the majority of people don't know themselves much, don't know that they want to risk being happy, because they believe it will be at the expense of the family, the company, the country, the post-death destination, the approval...so they freeze, in the headlights, with nothing but a program running where a heart is supposed to be.
Wham.
With some luck, there may be a lucid moment before death, a moment of release and vision--if it is not drowned out by an intense regret for the true life unlived.
This is it.
On vacation, we are generally quite open to new experience. It's a good excuse to seek it out. We are also usually not on the clock; time seems much more flexible and forgiving. We come to the conclusion that it must be these unfamiliar sights, sounds and activities, maybe the energy of a slower-moving culture, allowing us to relax and be less reserved. But as it has been said, often and wisely: Wherever we go, there we are. We are always the one common denominator in our happiness, or lack of it.
Yes, life can be incredibly difficult, and a good deal of hard work. But working without feeling compelled to work makes a tremendous difference. Taking the risk of standing up for what you truly want to do--what you, because of your love, en-joy--is worth the initial fear. Allowing yourself to shine through all your locations, rather than putting this mask on, or that, because it is the dress code of the local ego society...well...the benefits could never be overstated!
Beyond these basic facts, there is an even more interesting thing, lying around in plain sight, sticking to us like cat hair on a cashmere sweater. Every day, we attempt to brush it off in favor of our superior intellect, in favor of the musts and shoulds and have-tos, in favor of the plans we made a thousand years ago or the aspirations "the world" has for us. It is a gift that is wrapped in the most common, ordinary and routine...in the most familiar thing we are. This. Anywhere, anytime, this. All of it, every iota, right now, at home in the bathroom or at work in the cubicle or at play in the ski resort. The precious vulnerability of love, the humbling futility of anger, the insane irritation and itch of just being...we can simply stop it all, right now, if we really, really want to.
We can chase relaxation all over the world, step away from relationship and toward what we think is righteous, sit for hours trying to invite a glimpse of ease and peace. Doing all this, will we ever be able to create a better version of the enchantment rolling at our feet, flowing through our veins and unfolding in spacetime through us? What happens if we just unwrap the gift?
It might be the best graduation or promotion or retirement ever, entitling the newly-winged to a free pass to the real thing, at last...a life to be felt, tasted, absorbed like sunshine, heard like bells, loved as fiercely as you are.
Now, that's a holiday!
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Radical Roots
Showing up in my life at last, I found myself to be a Radical.
Full value goes with full experience as Life, rather than as a hollow victim/victor apart from it.
We associate the concept "radical" with some kind of extreme departure from the accepted or the normal. But the Latin origin of the word means of the root. It (like all things) has a delightful paradox embedded in it.
A full life is a radical one, in the sense that it is consciously lived as closely as possible to the mysterious core of what is, involving a kind of intimate, radical awareness. In our current culture, such living is viewed as "alien" or "crazy" or "impossible". Even abnormal. ("Normal", by the way, originally meant from the carpenter's square...firmly between the measured lines.) Never mind that the results of this insistent openness are often greater balance, peace, compassion and stability.
Rather than some threatening action or stance, real radicalism involves following an experience down to its origin until such a response to any given situation becomes "natural". Soon, there is less tracing back to the root and more living as an entirety...from seed to plant to flower and beyond. Rather than identifying with one stage or another, it is obvious and understood that all arbitrary stages are to be found here...since, somehow, the tracing ultimately comes from, and leads back to, just this. And Here is indivisible. All-encompassing. Impossible to get away from. I became a radical human when I quit attempting to flee or fight, and surrendered to my impossibly extended existence.
I thought I knew love--what a beautiful, protected bloom! Radical love, though, involves exploring landscapes so harsh that it seems nothing can possibly grow there.
Radical forgiveness takes place in just such a landscape, where the light is relentless enough that you become a mere mirage on the edge of your own vision...and you understand that this Universe forgives everything, with or without your approval. Only then is that terrible thirst eased.
Radical aliveness ensues. I am my own rain.
(Radical splashing in puddles often follows...for no good reason other than making a thousand tiny rainbows, or defying chronological age, or changing a sidewalk sea into many sidewalk ponds.)
All of this takes place quite effortlessly through the radical change going on everywhere in and around whatever we take to be our boundary of the moment...whether we like it, or not...with or without our attending.
Attending the process is the difference between talking about the quality of a diamond, exclaiming over the clarity, depth, and fire, attempting to place or manipulate value--and becoming that which scintillates. I am my own spark.
Radical attendance takes place when even the ego understands that it is far less than a servant, and far more than some Divine manifestation. There is no self to serve, after that; observing oneself becomes lambs eating spring grass, having a financial discussion with your mate, dreaming of closed doors in big houses.
Radical service is fulfilled in the loving notice that life lavishes on itself; every blink becomes some kind of prayer. Breathing is as good an offering as any. The response, here, is immediate and perfectly beneficial. I am my own symbiotic relationship. :)
Full value goes with full experience as Life, rather than as a hollow victim/victor apart from it.
We associate the concept "radical" with some kind of extreme departure from the accepted or the normal. But the Latin origin of the word means of the root. It (like all things) has a delightful paradox embedded in it.
A full life is a radical one, in the sense that it is consciously lived as closely as possible to the mysterious core of what is, involving a kind of intimate, radical awareness. In our current culture, such living is viewed as "alien" or "crazy" or "impossible". Even abnormal. ("Normal", by the way, originally meant from the carpenter's square...firmly between the measured lines.) Never mind that the results of this insistent openness are often greater balance, peace, compassion and stability.
Rather than some threatening action or stance, real radicalism involves following an experience down to its origin until such a response to any given situation becomes "natural". Soon, there is less tracing back to the root and more living as an entirety...from seed to plant to flower and beyond. Rather than identifying with one stage or another, it is obvious and understood that all arbitrary stages are to be found here...since, somehow, the tracing ultimately comes from, and leads back to, just this. And Here is indivisible. All-encompassing. Impossible to get away from. I became a radical human when I quit attempting to flee or fight, and surrendered to my impossibly extended existence.
I thought I knew love--what a beautiful, protected bloom! Radical love, though, involves exploring landscapes so harsh that it seems nothing can possibly grow there.
Radical forgiveness takes place in just such a landscape, where the light is relentless enough that you become a mere mirage on the edge of your own vision...and you understand that this Universe forgives everything, with or without your approval. Only then is that terrible thirst eased.
Radical aliveness ensues. I am my own rain.
(Radical splashing in puddles often follows...for no good reason other than making a thousand tiny rainbows, or defying chronological age, or changing a sidewalk sea into many sidewalk ponds.)
All of this takes place quite effortlessly through the radical change going on everywhere in and around whatever we take to be our boundary of the moment...whether we like it, or not...with or without our attending.
Attending the process is the difference between talking about the quality of a diamond, exclaiming over the clarity, depth, and fire, attempting to place or manipulate value--and becoming that which scintillates. I am my own spark.
Radical attendance takes place when even the ego understands that it is far less than a servant, and far more than some Divine manifestation. There is no self to serve, after that; observing oneself becomes lambs eating spring grass, having a financial discussion with your mate, dreaming of closed doors in big houses.
Radical service is fulfilled in the loving notice that life lavishes on itself; every blink becomes some kind of prayer. Breathing is as good an offering as any. The response, here, is immediate and perfectly beneficial. I am my own symbiotic relationship. :)
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Rose Rain
And yet, though we strain
against the deadening grip
of daily necessity,
I sense there is this mystery:
All life is being lived.
Who is living it then?
Is it the things themselves,
or something waiting inside them,
like an unplayed melody in a flute?
Is it the winds blowing over the waters?
Is it the branches that signal to each other?
Is it flowers
interweaving their fragrances
or streets, as they wind through time?
~ Rainer Maria Rilke
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Reality Questioning
What is it that we actually do?
I was reading an interview with an artist, recently, who, while discussing a certain large and brilliant watercolor piece, wondered if "it is really only one painting", considering the fact that everyone views a work of art differently...in an absolutely unique, unmatchable way. This ensures that there are as many interpretations of it as there are viewers. Of course, this extends to all perception.
We can agree on our common descriptions, the mode of language around the painting of a vase full of roses, or the sound of a crying child or the texture of velvet. The "sensed object", or "objective moment of creation" appears to stand on its own...but we "make" it happen, bring it to life with our senses. Or does it bring us to life? What is it that "triggers" us to attend, focus, bring all of our senses to bear on an experience?
Glancing up from my magazine, I wondered just how many couches appear in a day in my living room...how many limitless versions might there be of that situation--"couch"--that I perceive? It is the couch I almost broke my toe on...the couch I recline on when my feet hurt...the couch I wish I could replace with a nicer one. Is it even possible to know what an original version of anything is?
No. Yes.
Some folks consider these lines of questioning pointless and impractical. But this kind of digging below an obvious surface--paying more thorough attention to different aspects of Being coming into play--practically guarantees a life saturated with beauty and interest.
As an artist familiar with creating something from nothing, I realize that I really have no idea how this process happens. I can only talk about it after the fact, isolate with a language the "creating" from its field of Entire Universe, seen and unseen...with memory, imagination, intuition, psychic nudge, yesterday's chocolate. I can break it into "steps", starting from when I set up a canvas or picked up a brush or took my first breath in 1964.
But the steps are all arbitrary, and while in the midst of applying paint, I have no conscious reference point. I am not separate from the process. The thing makes itself, somehow. There is no "I" to decide where to put a tree in a landscape--the decision began when spacetime did...if it did. :)
As far as a "prompt" for a particular work...I don't know that, either. What I am is a motion, which I "stop" for mental description, which is also part of this eternal movement-as-something.
I can say that a painting is "finished" when I no longer change its physical characteristics--but every person gazing upon it continues its life, makes it new, makes it all over again. It is never "mine". Neither is the couch, or my child, or these thoughts. Only the absolute entirety of existence and nonexistence can be mine. Once I break it up, it no longer is. Then it belongs to every/one.
There is only one original version of anything...so original, that language can't explain it. You.
So what is it that we do all day, all our lives? What is this enchanted thing?
We create everything from nothing, as if that's what we are born for.
I was reading an interview with an artist, recently, who, while discussing a certain large and brilliant watercolor piece, wondered if "it is really only one painting", considering the fact that everyone views a work of art differently...in an absolutely unique, unmatchable way. This ensures that there are as many interpretations of it as there are viewers. Of course, this extends to all perception.
We can agree on our common descriptions, the mode of language around the painting of a vase full of roses, or the sound of a crying child or the texture of velvet. The "sensed object", or "objective moment of creation" appears to stand on its own...but we "make" it happen, bring it to life with our senses. Or does it bring us to life? What is it that "triggers" us to attend, focus, bring all of our senses to bear on an experience?
Glancing up from my magazine, I wondered just how many couches appear in a day in my living room...how many limitless versions might there be of that situation--"couch"--that I perceive? It is the couch I almost broke my toe on...the couch I recline on when my feet hurt...the couch I wish I could replace with a nicer one. Is it even possible to know what an original version of anything is?
No. Yes.
Some folks consider these lines of questioning pointless and impractical. But this kind of digging below an obvious surface--paying more thorough attention to different aspects of Being coming into play--practically guarantees a life saturated with beauty and interest.
As an artist familiar with creating something from nothing, I realize that I really have no idea how this process happens. I can only talk about it after the fact, isolate with a language the "creating" from its field of Entire Universe, seen and unseen...with memory, imagination, intuition, psychic nudge, yesterday's chocolate. I can break it into "steps", starting from when I set up a canvas or picked up a brush or took my first breath in 1964.
But the steps are all arbitrary, and while in the midst of applying paint, I have no conscious reference point. I am not separate from the process. The thing makes itself, somehow. There is no "I" to decide where to put a tree in a landscape--the decision began when spacetime did...if it did. :)
As far as a "prompt" for a particular work...I don't know that, either. What I am is a motion, which I "stop" for mental description, which is also part of this eternal movement-as-something.
I can say that a painting is "finished" when I no longer change its physical characteristics--but every person gazing upon it continues its life, makes it new, makes it all over again. It is never "mine". Neither is the couch, or my child, or these thoughts. Only the absolute entirety of existence and nonexistence can be mine. Once I break it up, it no longer is. Then it belongs to every/one.
There is only one original version of anything...so original, that language can't explain it. You.
So what is it that we do all day, all our lives? What is this enchanted thing?
We create everything from nothing, as if that's what we are born for.
Friday, April 3, 2009
Gathering Source
I have been absent recently, dealing with various situations and attendant states.
This is a short post (did I just hear a sigh of relief?)...because the sun is coming out and I want to go outside. :)
All the time, I run into well-intentioned statements regarding How Things Really Are. The current general outlook is that we are all part of a whole. In religious terms, we are all somehow part of God; in scientific terms, part of "the field"; in New-Agey language, we are each a ray of the Light.
I am urging everyone to go the last step. You are The Whole.
You are not a-part. You are IT.
A separate Being has not partitioned itself into different rooms...you do that, in your mind. Every wall is a few words--an imaginary moment. So sit down for a second (in the sun, if you can), be still, and understand that this is all there is, no limitations. No words. No time.
Later, you can chew over things as much as you want...with the understanding that your teeth can't bite themselves!
Love all of you...
This is a short post (did I just hear a sigh of relief?)...because the sun is coming out and I want to go outside. :)
All the time, I run into well-intentioned statements regarding How Things Really Are. The current general outlook is that we are all part of a whole. In religious terms, we are all somehow part of God; in scientific terms, part of "the field"; in New-Agey language, we are each a ray of the Light.
I am urging everyone to go the last step. You are The Whole.
You are not a-part. You are IT.
A separate Being has not partitioned itself into different rooms...you do that, in your mind. Every wall is a few words--an imaginary moment. So sit down for a second (in the sun, if you can), be still, and understand that this is all there is, no limitations. No words. No time.
Later, you can chew over things as much as you want...with the understanding that your teeth can't bite themselves!
Love all of you...
Friday, March 20, 2009
Clarity
Reading back through my posts, one would be forgiven the conclusion that Maria is a happy Nudist. Yes, on the inside...otherwise, I appear conventionally dressed. :)
But Spring officially arrives today, and I'm celebrating...so, off with the layers!
Pretend with me, for a moment, that being alive is a clear pond on a still day. The water is clean and reflective.
In the morning, there is a small stirring near the bottom...perhaps a fish waking up, a very distant earthquake, or an identity in search of food. The ever-changing sediment on the bottom of this pond swirls a bit, creates a small cloud. A careful observer may see this happen; a human mind may speculate as to the cause of this disturbance. However, the sediment settles again, to all intents and purposes a solid bottom of the pond.
Later comes a thirsty animal who drinks from the edge.
A silent bather wades in, creating a storm of mud with each step.
A scientist arrives with glass tubes and measuring devices.
In the heat of the sun, raucous children jump in, laughing and hollering, turning the water almost completely opaque.
A fisherman makes a few casts before dusk...rumor has it there are big bass in this pond.
Bats swoop in the very last light above the water, mosquitoing.
A breeze comes up after dark, ruffling the surface.
A poet wanders by, and sings an ode to the moon, who is clearly floating there...
Lovers delight in their shadowy kissing reflections while sharing some wine on the bank.
Pond visitors come and go; pond dwellers do their thing; the pond remains, unconcerned that it is a home, a beverage, a bath, a puzzle, a recreational cooler, a possible trophy fish factory, a cafeteria for winged rodents, a series of ripples, an inspiration, a sexual persuasion...it still is, silent in the dark, sparkling in the light, tossing in the storm. In between, all disturbances settle naturally. Clarity returns.
Our pond does not call itself by any name, and is quite happy to be a plan, a memory, or hearsay. Clarity or opacity do not affect the fact that the pond "exists". Pond is supremely undivided from its banks, creatures, purposes or reflections; there is no line between its existence or nonexistence. If not a pond, then a puddle--or a footprint in the sand, or a dream, or a mote of dust. None of these, all of these.
Our pond will equally support a duck and seamlessly open itself to a diver. It is equally deep and surface, earth and water. It is the expression of any number of needs and wishes, instantly fulfilled.
Today, we are the wish of the first day of Spring, granted.
But Spring officially arrives today, and I'm celebrating...so, off with the layers!
Pretend with me, for a moment, that being alive is a clear pond on a still day. The water is clean and reflective.
In the morning, there is a small stirring near the bottom...perhaps a fish waking up, a very distant earthquake, or an identity in search of food. The ever-changing sediment on the bottom of this pond swirls a bit, creates a small cloud. A careful observer may see this happen; a human mind may speculate as to the cause of this disturbance. However, the sediment settles again, to all intents and purposes a solid bottom of the pond.
Later comes a thirsty animal who drinks from the edge.
A silent bather wades in, creating a storm of mud with each step.
A scientist arrives with glass tubes and measuring devices.
In the heat of the sun, raucous children jump in, laughing and hollering, turning the water almost completely opaque.
A fisherman makes a few casts before dusk...rumor has it there are big bass in this pond.
Bats swoop in the very last light above the water, mosquitoing.
A breeze comes up after dark, ruffling the surface.
A poet wanders by, and sings an ode to the moon, who is clearly floating there...
Lovers delight in their shadowy kissing reflections while sharing some wine on the bank.
Pond visitors come and go; pond dwellers do their thing; the pond remains, unconcerned that it is a home, a beverage, a bath, a puzzle, a recreational cooler, a possible trophy fish factory, a cafeteria for winged rodents, a series of ripples, an inspiration, a sexual persuasion...it still is, silent in the dark, sparkling in the light, tossing in the storm. In between, all disturbances settle naturally. Clarity returns.
Our pond does not call itself by any name, and is quite happy to be a plan, a memory, or hearsay. Clarity or opacity do not affect the fact that the pond "exists". Pond is supremely undivided from its banks, creatures, purposes or reflections; there is no line between its existence or nonexistence. If not a pond, then a puddle--or a footprint in the sand, or a dream, or a mote of dust. None of these, all of these.
Our pond will equally support a duck and seamlessly open itself to a diver. It is equally deep and surface, earth and water. It is the expression of any number of needs and wishes, instantly fulfilled.
Today, we are the wish of the first day of Spring, granted.
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