Thursday, August 24, 2006

Spiritual GPS???

Okay, my friends, another entry from the journal . . .

Thursday, November 11, 2004 7:34 AM
A little bit of the sleepless-in-the-middle-of-the-night last night, and the ensuing
‘will-I-panic’ thoughts. The time when I’m forced to consider what are the boundaries of the world. What keeps the cart on the track? Day to day, I have nothing but assurance that life is as it should be. It is just those times, usually in the middle of a semi-sleepless night, when I doubt the things that I usually accept. Kind of hard to describe, but the feeling is an irrational fear that none of the things that I know as true will be sufficient to keep me – hold me – in place. ‘Place’ meaning that you are in alignment with all of the connections, assumptions (etc.) that identify the world for you. Almost like you must hold a position in space – like a planet – for the alignment of things to have meaning. If you slip a little out of that alignment the interrelationship of everything is thrown off and then a doorknob is no different from a verb or a cousin or a Christmas morning. What is needed is a serious piece of machinery – a spiritual GPS.
I guess that is what I end up reaching for when I’m thinking of - ?
I think of Dad. I think that, in a way, I carve a little stone god of him – or at least whittle a little wooden god of him – and put it up on the windowsill as a totem or a good luck charm. In the most basic way, I am placing my trust in my idea of him. I am desperately asking him for guidance.
I’m one of those people who begins to gag when I listen to evangelical preachers (or whatever fundamentalist types) talk about that absolute faith in the words written down in the Bible. It all just seems so weak-minded. But in the middle of the night (wow, there’s a metaphor that’s hardly been used) sometimes the mind – the intellect - doesn’t seem like a strong enough - or absolute enough - post to hold onto.

2 comments:

Bob_Lem said...

Hey Michael,

Your post evokes in me:

MQM: ‘Place’ meaning that you are in alignment with all of the connections, assumptions (etc.) that identify the world for you.

B_L: place in this sense can be so healthy, envigorating, ensuring ... but unless it is matched with a search for what I have come to call the search for a "Philosophy of Truth" [so obtuse! but certainly is such a dangerous ring ...] - it can be dangerous. I am working this out - but I think we need to match our love for our connections and our assumptions [our Shire?] - with a warriors quest for "our" truth. [part of my prayer is "let us, each in our own way, walk in the One Great Way" a theme that I think is well explored in Kurasowa's Seven Samurai].

Loyalty, being true to and developing our culture, love of neighborhood and region and place ... are all healthy parts of of our sense of "place"

MQM: I think that, in a way, I carve a little stone god of him – or at least whittle a little wooden god of him – and put it up on the windowsill as a totem or a good luck charm. In the most basic way, I am placing my trust in my idea of him. I am desperately asking him for guidance.

B_L: icon, ritual, art, magic - all can be deep and marvelous - and wellspings of well being Anna tipped me off to this quote recently - it comes from A Language Older than Words by Derreck Jensen - the quote is from a mysterous (to me) Mr Aoki:

"Our goal should not be the emulation of the ancients and their ways, but to experience for ourselves the aspects of human existence out of which arose those ancient forms which when we see them elicit such a feeling of … longing. Otherwise the modern will remain forever superficial while the real will remain ancient, far away, and therefore, outside of ourselves."

I think this applies - you are expressing a going-for this.

MQM: absolute faith

B_L: Certainty - So dangerous! I am certain that I love Anna. I am certain that the sound of the "bugs" this year is good - and I can just let myself go with it .... But unless Faith includes, and honors, Mystery - it is hollow

MQM: the words written down in the Bible

B_L: my belief - the Word of God is being spoken today - all around and through us. It is rare - precious - and has a certain ring to it ...

MQM: the intellect - doesn’t seem like a strong enough - or absolute enough - post to hold onto ...

B_L: so what is it we can hold onto? is it more like a tree with trunk and roots and branches? a hand with fingers? a net with strong threads (the intellect one of the mail ones)? a planet unfathomable in its rich families, tribes, relations, ...? a heart at the center of the universe?


More for talk - next time we cross paths


Peace


Bob Lem

Anonymous said...

Hi Michael Murphy!

this is Anna Beale...last time I really remember seeing you, we 3 were together around your burning kiln -good times/ Anyway, that good Bob_Lem has kept me in this loop and I thought Id send on this 2 cents:


the mind – the intellect - doesn’t seem like a strong enough - or absolute enough - post to hold onto.


starting at the end:

YES!

Id say, the intellect is WAY not strong enough!
The mind in my opinion- backed up by those far wiser then me! -is a Wonderful member of the team. But, it tends to wants to be the leader of the pack, and its terrible at that. The chinese have it right here I think : the heart is the Empress, who lovingly leads by her presensce...("The brain and all the cells in the body are continuously bathed in the heart's electromagnetic field" http://heartmath.org/research/research-overview.html )
The minds way exemplifies what we could call (and others have) 'dominator' mode....and the partnership mode of the heart is embodied for us in the wisdom of the body of Gaia, our own earth (as a former student of ecology I get to say this without sounding corny, I hope!) -as well as these bodies in which we walk & talk & do other stiff -as an effective sustainable and all around good way to be.

Day to day, I have nothing but assurance that life is as it should be.

* hey, this is a beautiful line. Holding that notion is a Good Thing! *

It is just those times, usually in the middle of a semi-sleepless night, when I doubt the things that I usually accept. Kind of hard to describe, but the feeling is an irrational fear that none of the things that I know as true will be sufficient to keep me – hold me – in place.

Its so interesting -and true, Id say -that you use 'place' here. Native peoples tend to teach that we are best rooted in place- that a particular landscape can hold us, teach us...I think how when we go outside in the morning to sit quietly for a minute and just take it in, its so simply, unpretentiously apparent that everything is connected:our cat emerges, the bird talk, the wind causes seeds to drop and a squirrel follows, the bug noises rise and fall in the same rhyhtms we can feel ourselves within...


Anyway. enough for this foray. Thanks for the good for thought. Feast to be continuued in person before too long?


Anna Beale