Source

There is some thing (or no-thing if you want to get in to the semantics of it) at the very core of our existence together in the world which is beyond all description and is the most profound. It is seen in the fact that we are tiny and apparently insignificant against the scale of the universe and yet at the same time each of us is priceless, of unlimited value. Some times the immensity of that just hits me smack in the face. What can you say but homage to the divine.

Time

Strolling through Jesmond Dene yesterday I came across St Mary's Chapel. I'd not known the history of this twelfth century chapel until I read the information board at the site. This in turn prompted me to look it up on the internet. Well worth it for the interesting history. In fact there are quite a few interesting pages on the net about Jesmond. Of course there are all sorts of interesting stories of which we are not aware all about us. Later I heard Nimrod from Elgar's Enigma Variations on TV. This prompted me to buy a copy for my MP3 player and this afternoon after a walk with DC through the Dene we both listened to Nimrod. Such a beautiful piece. 'What is it that is so moving?' I as asked DC. His answer pointed to various technical ways in which Elgar has created the music. 'Yes, but what is 'it'? Not how has he pointed to 'it' but what is 'it'?' I asked. We mused on this for a while each expressing the 'it' for us. Each noting how the piece brings about an awareness of Being and all that might be, all that is; temporal and eternal. I find the Lark Ascending takes me to some similar awareness. How changed our world from those days of pilgrimage in the twelfth century and yet how similar our quests seem to be.

Out walking

Lovely stroll along Derwent walk in the winter sun today with friends. Cold and frosty but bright. I took some photos with my smart phone (click on the images to enlarge) :

 

Viaduct parapet - ice crystals - frozen moss I think

Low sun

I

Ice crystals - more frozen moss on the parapet

Sunny tree top

Sun set

Viaduct parapet - ice on grass

Sun streaming through

More frozen grass on the parapet

The Iron Lady

DC and I saw 'The Iron Lady' at cinema over the weekend. I felt it was like watching a train crash in slow motion. I could feel revulsion and anger at the whole 1980's Thatcherite project. The film shows a version of Thatcher's rise to power through flash backs against the back drop of her present state of health as a person with dementia. It was not clear exactly what the film makers were trying to get across. The question of compassion arises since she is shown suffering due to her struggle with dementia but much more could have been shown about the huge social and political issues raised by her time in power and the pain and suffering consumerism generates (or if your politics are to the right, attempts to ease). For me it was interesting to note how angry I am that the whole political scene is now basically Thatcherite; the very word socialist is now almost regarded as dirty. So, if I am angry I need to look at what is behind the anger. Everyone is doing their best. I note my response to the scenes shown in the film and remember that Thatcher was reacting like everyone else out of her conditioning to ease her pain. I don't need to see her with dementia to remember that we all need to be held in compassion. I do however, find it a real challenge to hold the likes of her and the latest batch of Tory spawn in compassion. Thatcher changed UK politics and to my way of thinking the economic and social mess we are now in is in no small measure due to the way subsequent politicians have continued her project. It seems to me that we have lost almost all sight of the reason for having an economy, ie the welfare of people. People should not be there for the welfare of the economy. Money becomes a tyrant when it is the ends rather than the means. Listening to Start The Week on Radio 4 yesterday morning I was filled with joy to hear Anna Coote of The New Economics Foundation talk about a 21 hour working week. There is much wisdom in what she had to say. The LSE are holding a talk on Wed. 11 Jan. 2011. Demented or not I can't imagine the Thatcherites could get their heads around it!

Parents

I have the most wonderful parents. They have had some very, very tough times and they did not always cope well, but cope they did. I started writing about specifics of recent events but I see that the details take away from the bare facts; when the chips are down they are wise and big hearted.

Exposure

Some months ago in a (heart circle) sharing I noticed that I had some resistance to sharing 'what was up for me'. Ah, so why would I not want this known? If I accept myself and my intention is to work for the highest motive then what am I trying to hide? Why am I ashamed to still be struggling with aspect of my experience. And if others judge me then are they holding me in compassion? And if not then why should I fear what they think? Because if they can't hold me in compassion then what basis to the sharing? How much of this feeling of shame is my projection on to others? Which is to acknowledge that they may not have the thoughts and feelings about what I might share that I imagine they will; that I am judging that they will judge me. This of course is the great thing about sharing in a heart circle; we come in to authenticity, or as close to it as we feel we can. And we have a chance to see our stuck points. And what better to do with this resistance than to share it! The opening which comes from this is in my experience very nourishing, very cathartic and collectively humbling and of beauty. And the more we share the more we see that we all have a fried egg on our head, and that's all right. And gradually things come into perspective, growth is made and I move on; more open, in deeper communion with others, my self and with life. So it has been illuminating for me to see my response to people who have rejected open communication in favour of 'keeping up appearances'; anger. And that's an other opportunity for me to grow, to acknowledge my response, soften in to it, try to remain mindful, humble and compassionate. Even when my response is to judge and condemn. For that it to miss the opportunity to grow.

Love And Will 3

Just finished reading Love and Will. Well, what a book! And searching for Rollo May's details on the net I see that this book is referred to as influential. I am not surprised, I suspect it pulls together a lot of man's thinking from diverse cultures, times and locations in pursuit of an explanation of May's approach to psychology. And whilst the word 'spiritual' is used in the book (as I recall) only once or twice, this is clearly the implication. And perhaps the word was avoided since it defies definition.


The later chapters prompted me to make the following jottings for this post:

• We re-enact the (original) fall - however much we might work towards and attain union we must return back to our individual experience of life. We move in and out of the garden (of Eden).

(recalled WOODSTOCK
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
by Joni Mitchel-

We are stardust, we are golden
We are 2 billion year old carbon
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden)

We attempt this getting back to the garden when we (re)connect with our self and when we connect with others. At a deep level beyond the psychological is the direct realisation of our true nature.

• May on care notes 'Heidegger quotes the ancient parable of care, which Goethe also used at the end of Faust:' Care crossing a river fashioned some clay into a form, Jupiter came by and she asked him to give it spirit, which he did but he would not let her name be bestowed upon it. Earth arose and desired her name be conferred upon the creature since it was part of her body. They asked Saturn to arbitrate and his decision was as follows: 'Since you, Jupiter gave it spirit, you shall receive that spirit at its death; and since you Earth have given its body, you shall receive its body. But since 'Care' first shaped this creature, she shall posses it as long as it lives. And because there is now a dispute among you as to its name, let it be called 'homo', for it is made out of humus (earth)'

Nice parable, I'd not come across it before. And May goes on to make the point that care is so often missing in our day. Even more true I suspect in 2011 than 1969. He also notes the protests of young people who demonstrate that they do care. Again we should take note in 2011! And care is important with respect to love for it sets apart ongoing relationship from that 'Hippie love' referred to in the previous post.

• May touches on the Hellenistic period and refers to the Stoics, Epicureans, Hedonists etc. and I note from his descriptions that the search for meaning at the realisation in one way or an other of the void has indeed been going on within various cultural ways of seeing for a very long time over the globe. The danger of nihilism in the appreciation of emptiness being wrestled with I guess.

I can't recall what prompted me to note this section and what I wanted to expand but I guess it is that this territory, for me is nicely navigated in the Buddhist and Taoist way. May continues: we only ever have some myth, never truth. And also notes that we don't (as often believed by so many) have fully rational thoughts and decisions. Indeed! A bit of anxious depression can make that all too clear in my own experience. We make tiny little turns of thought and decisions all day long assuming we have assessed the facts. In my experience it is a feeling that is being juggled.

• In the closing pages of the his book May returns to love between man and woman.

I find his assumption that the flow of yin and yang energies in sex requires a heterosexual couple tedious. But I guess his writing reflects the date of the book. His point about care and active receiving is however, well made. Giving is to receive and receiving (actively) is giving. This is so evident in sexual acts. It is fitting I think that at the end of the book having come to talk of giving and receiving that 'Communion of Conciousness' is the title of the final chapter. In this chapter May talks of climax in sexual intercourse and notes union with nature when 'the awareness of separateness lost, blotted out'. Interestingly though he does not expand on this. And the point he might have made is that we loose not just our separateness but our lover and the connection as we disappear into our own orgasm. From my post Everything and Love:

'But in love as apposed to lust, we see the desire for unity, to return to the void. In lust the head long chase for the abandonment to be found in the little death of orgasm. In making love the partial death of self as each flows into the other, heart to heart and only then the temporary slip in to the almost selfless abandonment of orgasm. Yet we do not die, we pull back from our connection with our lover and into our own experience of orgasm, however much we desire to unite. Then gradually we return to the world.'

• May goes on to remind us that Cezanne and Van Gogh have left works which indicate that they saw the world in what seems to be a very direct way. And I guess that this is Tennyson seeing the wild flower in the crannied wall and that these are ways of seeing I do not directly know but that they may well be those spiritual  awakenings referred to by others in other terms.

However we see the world (and there are as many as there are beings) we are left with daily reality. 'Before enlightenment chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment chop wood, carry water.' It seems to me that May drawing from the ancients asks us to engage in authentic communion with life, with each other. But I am rolling a few ideas up together here... It's late and I am tired!