Desire in the beginning

A couple of evenings ago DC read out a description of 'the beginning' from one of the Vedas which noted that desire was present at the One becoming many. I've mused in past posts that the universe seems to have both the desire to make (and reabsorb) forms and through forms to know itself. And in humans through enquiry and knowledge systems, is gained understanding of the origin of the universe and in 'spiritual' practice to 'know' the unknowable. It is then, easy to associate 'the beginning' in different discourses with an historical event such as the 'big bang'. But this isn't my sense of what is being said in eastern spiritual texts. The beginning is each moment and each moment is both form and emptiness for all forms are interdependently arising and there is nothing behind them existing in time other than their is-ness in each moment. Blaha, blaha...

But another word has come to my attention recently- liminal. As part of my EMDR therapy taking a turn around the spiral of integration I came back to the liminal version of my body. Liminal in that whilst medically unremarkable it was in teens and early twenties socially salient for slightness. This generated an internal sense that I was neither medically suffering from 'something' nor socially what was expected. The degree of this salience is lost in mists of time and the psychological effect of it was doubtless amplified by both my compartmentalised sexuality and perception lag as I gradually gained mass. The liminality being a space of loose anchoring in perceived masculinity. All the while fighting an education system made to sort sheep! Blimey! And all the while each moment is the beginning, pregnant with desire to be. To be in my case, both liminal and wanting not to be so. What the moment / universe 'desires' and what each of us as selves desire don't always line up. Everything of course is liminal- being is a movement- an equipoise of change- perceived, perceiving and perceiver are One.  Blaha, blaha... And what of the felt sense of this desire and fear? If Whitman sings the body electric, I might say smooth creamy vibrant, grounded and flying, still and whiplash fast sharp and flowing gentle as good night or morning and a day full, all liminal in fullness, then fear is tight, constricted, like fragile glass, the very breath feels heavy as if to weight down the too light body where it should float the vibrant smoothness. And breathe... Tight, foothills of panic, tension, cheeks blowing, mind notes parasympathetic response... Bright mind not aligned with education system filled with I'm behind... peers moved on to university and... like Whitman's choir singing... but here stalled and waiting fear drives each slow step in twilight... cheeks blowing, mind notes parasympathetic response... Breathe... The smoke of his once-ness, in the beginningless now... this is not the liminal of fulness. And this is just the past coming into the present. The present is actually orchestral in hues of vibrant smoothness though yes, still shot with fear of broken glass. And so another turn around the spiral.

And today, a fit and healthy body of good proportions supports a mind still sharp and asking- desire...?  

Illumination

I saw in the news yesterday that the Sagrada Família in Barcelona is finished and the report showed the following picture:

It's such a beautiful image and I could feel the tears well up. It's decades since DC and I first visited the site and I was very impressed with the imaginative works. We toured the various Gaudí works in Barcelona and I loved them and the city. Then some years ago after the space shown in the above image was finished and accessible we returned. I remember the wonderful coloured light, the soring joyous space and thinking - what a place to dance this this would be if it were allowed! And what a place to pass through to then sit and meditate! For here, surely the highest in human kind is saying joy, we are here! And on seeing the above image I also recalled the image of the restored Notre Dame:

See Beauty post 30 Nov. 2024. The word illumination used in that post is again so relevant when we see what has been created at the Sagrada Família. So many skilled design, craft and trades people of all disciplines, funders and supporters have made these buildings sing in resonance with our hearts and minds. I'm reminded as I write of Walt Whitman's I sing the Body Electric.

And were it not for a telephone call last night from my mother I would be leaving this post at that, for it says enough. But, after only one night back home out of hospital she called to say she wasn't feeling right. And so I advised her to phone 999 and DC and I drove over to be with her and dad. I helped her out of bed into a dressing gown and travelled with her in the ambulance. And holding her frail body so she would feel safe and not fall I recalled how as teenager I'd done this (when she was seriously ill) and for a second I was holding him holding her. And we were tide and time as recent posts have illuminated and I thought - but how could I have ever not loved him in his fulness? But it is those times we wince at ourselves that let the light in, for everything is cracked. And yet it holds. I will go to the hospital now to see how she's doing. Bless.

The smoke or the Russian dolls

The past continues to come into the present as is to be expected at this time when I'm consciously going around the spiral again, this turn with EMDR. My last post laid out some of the dimensions of this. Details though important to me in some respects are of course but the shape of the white horses that ride the waves. The real weight is in the roll of sea, for there the waves surge towards? Ah yes, the metaphor fails, and in so doing reveals the shifting sands of tide and time. I danced with them those Russian dolls as we bobbed in the waves and rode the white horses, or they ran by us. But I've no time machine, I can't really be there to lift the weight off the shoulders of the child, the adolescent. I can't let them melt in my arms, I can only hold the smoke of their once-ness in the arms they've become. And the perfume of the smoke drifts away in the tide and time of the now-ness. And where am I? And why? And does it matter? And will the past go home? Too many metaphors, too much water. More strongly I notice the smoke of their once-ness.