Oops

This photo is the result of a Task Process Relationship exercise I did a while back. The Task was to build a structure to support a marshmallow as high as possible using a limited quantity of spaghetti, sticky tape and string. We were in teams and had six minutes. Of the four teams only two produced a result. We came second. Straight away I could see that it needed a spaghetti tripod and the string and tape would make the joints and could act in tension. The spaghetti was the only material that would work in compression. The thing I missed was bundling the spaghetti to make stronger and longer legs of a single tripod. My thinking went - tripod, make it stand, if time build three and put a forth on top. I asked the others in my team 'any ideas?' They were silent, in truth I'd failed straight away at the Relationship part. I'd judged them as likely to fritter the time away and so I took charge. I should have been a bit slower and given more space for their ideas; we might have come up with  the single multi-stranded leg tripod of the winning team. I could see I was doing it; taking charge and running fast with my initial thoughts and I knew I was being a bit judgmental too, but against the clock and determined to get a reasonably stable support for the marshmallow, insight alone was not enough. This is often the case - insight (to my internal process) alone is not enough (to stop the process). As for the Process in the Task Process Relationship triangle I did not give sufficient time to testing ideas with the others. Then again maybe the time would have just been lost. And, in truth I was not in the best frame of mind when I entered the exercise; I was irritable. I knew that, but again insight alone... It's not that we built a structure or won or lost but that I had an other lesson that I am Task oriented and like the Process to be my way and let my judgement impair the Relationships. Funky structure eh?

Spotty Curtains

Out for a walk to day along the coast with a friend we came across this. Imaginative and fun.

Looking at the photo now I see that the blues are great. I can't claim to have seen that in the dim light of my smartphone display at the time; I was more taken by the fun of the painting and just took a 'snap'.

Wonderful views along the coastline were enjoyed by us both. However, I was aware of 'the voice in my head' chirping away with its comments on the view and thoughts about things going on in my little world... I am not sure if it was like that as child or not, I think it probably was. Talking with my friend the conversation came around somehow to things I say, or rather don't say. It seems that I don't always fill in or speak out all the words people need to hear. DC often points this out to me. I think I may have thought I've said something or assumed that people will recall what was said a bit ago and just speak out the thought that I want to share. Apparently it can seem like coming in 'in the middle of a conversation'. What is going on here? I must be assuming people are more connected to what is in my head than they are. In some way do I feel that I know what is going on in their heads and assume they can see me as clearly? Or, am I just off in my own world? I asked my friend, 'can you work out what I am talking about when this happens?' And yes he can 'it just takes a bit of thinking back to what has been said recently'. I find this interesting. Somehow I am not always quite where people expect me to be or they are not quite where I am expecting... This all makes me wonder about 'being in the moment'. Who's moment? We can go around all this for quite a time or just enjoy the view.

In the moment

Spring has been well and truly springing up here in Northeast Scotland. Fresh vibrant young leaves have burst out and contrasted beautifully with clear blue skies. Over this past week they have started to darken to a deeper green and everywhere plants are in flower as we move in to summer.

I have found myself thinking 'oh it's so lovely out, I should be making more of it'. Yet I have been enjoying it even when just glancing out the window or door or driving or walking from place to place... funny this wanting to soak it all up as it is so short lived. Then there is the thinking how lovely it is; the adding of words and stories to what is in awareness. Direct experience of what is without the apparent separation is one of those 'spiritual goals' to which people sometimes aspire. I guess having the 'goal' is part of the problem; it's always out there somewhere in the future. And, like 'I should be...' is part of thinking or feeling that things (by which I mean ones experience) are not ok as they are. Or should that be things as it [sic] is. They are after all all one. Language games.

On a personal level I've been slightly irritated by poor standards in others work and in the style of this community people have pointed to the psychological mirrors. However, sometimes it is possible to be irritated not out of projection but just because what one is looking at is not acceptable. And not just not acceptable to me... So,  what has all this been about? Well in truth a button of mine has been pressed. And it is the one marked 'others seem to be living in a fool's paradise'. Umm, deep water that one. Just working with our stuff and being open to what is; it is all in the moment...

Parents at Cluny

My parents are visiting me here at Cluny. They seem to be enjoying the place. The Findhorn Foundation is a lot of different things to a lot of different people. I wonder what it will be to them. Mother has very limited mobility but the spark still burns bright and dad is as easy as an old shoe sitting with the smokers outside in the smoking shelter. They are just happy to be. Folks here put a lot of effort into just being. My parents seem to do it without that much fuss. After what they have been through they really do seem to take it (life) as it comes. Interestingly, I notice that since my parents hardly ever go anywhere their world seems so much smaller than that of the globe trotters that pass through here. But is it? The koan arises naturally and does seem to ripen us.

RM Mugo's post on Jade Mountains prompted me to leave a comment referencing an earlier Jade Mountains post:

http://www.jademountains.net/out-fertile-slime#comment-16110  

Spirit

Writing yesterday's post I was aware that I was pointing very much to the everyday human experience and in terms which might be taken to (almost) rule out a transcendent aspect. I want to be clear here that I am not taking such a position. Just what do I attempt to name by the word Spirit, Buddha nature, God (within), Tao, or any other word? I see the interconnection of all life and its constant change, constant flow. There is a majesty in it. From time to time a sense of what might be termed divinity has arisen in my awareness although less so of late. Such experiences come and go. As I write I see that I am not able to articulate an intellectual thesis setting out my 'spiritual position', understanding of 'reality'. Perhaps that's a good thing. Life is at the deepest level a mystery. My post yesterday was intended to point to the danger of constructing 'fanciful' explanations which perhaps reflect more about our wishes than 'reality'. Dangerous, in as much as they may take us away from 'the peace which passes all understanding' rather than towards it. Have I experienced such peace, do I know to what the phrase refers? Not fully and directly, but hints and glimpses have been there. Or so it can seem. Awareness holds experience including the awareness of awareness, each reflect the other. The universe sees its self. I emerge as a separate sense of self and wrestle with my dramas in samsara.

Mirrors, Miracles and Magic

Contrast of hot tulips and cold snow 

Enticing Orange

Second shoot and three new blooms

I was wondering just what was 'up' for me enough to write about, and then I reviewed some photos. Although the 'amaryllis series' seemed at an end, the flowering of a second shoot prompted me to take an other photo. The geranium flower has a hint of blue in the pink and clashes a bit with  deep red but I still find the display a delight on my windowsill. Earlier I'd taken a photo of a lovely sea food curry made by DC which we had shared with a friend; the colours were just so enticing. And before that I'd been taken by the contrast of the tulips and the snow. Spring had been interrupted by heavy snow (which caused a fair bit of damage to trees), but the tulips (and the forsythia beyond) shone bright.

Living in a community with quite a few 'new age' ideas I find people coming out with all sorts of  things. One aspect of this which can trigger my alarm bells is anything which seems to be about something outside of the everyday coming to 'save us'; miracles and magic if you will. Such stuff is enticing and plays to our human need for a super being (a parent) to make all the troubles go away. To me this is not spiritual but all too human. For me the miracle and magic is that we live in a world and have the awareness to perceive the splendor and complexity in the scenes of the photos above. That we can talk of the blue in the pink and the clash with the deep red is in its self a remarkable thing. There is no need to look for salvation in fanciful 'out there' theories. The koan as they say naturally arises. We need to look at what life is asking of us; what wood needs to be chopped. What do we create when we are just our undefended selves doing what we do. It can be like magic when we work with our talents and gifts responding to the everyday. What is before our very senses that we are failing to notice? Life throws up plenty to mirror our internal world and spirituality lies in the wisdom of the heart-mind to square the circle of our human lives. It is both simple and complex, obvious and a mystery. We know so little and yet so much and the more we work out the more we find to work out. The suffering which causes us to seek salvation is part and parcel of the wonder of life and the heart connection we share with each other. Is that not enough? I once heard a little bit of Adorno and asked DC for the text. DC's favorite, bringing a lump to his throat is the second quote, but it is the first that I recall:

‘Grayness could not fill us with despair if our minds did not harbor the concept of different colors, scattered traces of which are not absent from the negative whole.’

(Adorno, Negative Dialectics, 377–8.)

‘Peace is the state of distinctness without domination, with the distinct participating in each other.’

(Adorno, ‘Subject and object’, in The Essential Frankfurt School Reader, ed. Andrew Arato and Eike Gebhardt (Oxford: Blackwell, 1978), 497–511 (p. 500).)

Dying Days

The first of the Amaryllis flowers are in their dying days. Death, part of life's unfolding takes forms back to the earth. Perhaps in these spring days we should hold an awareness of winter. Not to such an extent as to waste the time by not being present with what is by worrying about the future or grieving the past, NO. But by being all the more present with the best of what is before it passes. Looking back, I see that too often I have let slip the spring with too much concern for fear of the winter. RM Mugo's post on Jade Mountains reminds us of the power of generosity of spirit . I'd left a comment on a previous post about grief. The passing of the flowers shown above made me recall the posts on Jade Mountains.