Try this on your summer vacation…

July 16, 2010

…or whenever you can get away with it. If you can never get away with it, try contemplating why that is. If you can’t imagine why anyone would ever even want to get away with it, learn to just breathe first. Baby steps.

First, forget what time it is for an hour.
Do it regularly every day.
Then forget what day of the week it is,
and do this regularly in company for a week.
Then forget what country you are in,
and practice doing it in company for a week,
and then do them together for a week
with as few breaks as possible.
Follow these by forgetting how to add
or to subtract.
It makes no difference.
You can change them around after a week.
Both will later help you to forget how to count.

Forget how to count,
starting with your own age,
starting with how to count backwards,
starting with even numbers,
with roman numerals,
starting with fractions,
with the old calendar,
going on to the alphabet,
forgetting it all until everything
is continuous and whole again.”
- W. S. Merwin

W. S. Merwin was appointed United States Poet Laureate this year – an act significantly bright enough to counterbalance several of my serious disappointments with the Obama Administration’s other progress thus far.

By Trish | Posted in Nature, Philosophy, Poetry, Spirituality | Tagged , , , | Comment (1)

The Meeting Point

June 12, 2010

solar eclipse

“Anyone who has probed the inner life, who has sat in silence long enough to experience the stillness of the mind behind its apparent noise, is faced with a mystery. Apart from all the outer attractions of life in the world, there exists at the center of human consciousness something quite satisfying and beautiful in itself, a beauty without features. The mystery is not so much that these two dimensions exist – an outer world and the mystery of the inner world – but that we are suspended between them, as a space in which both worlds meet . . . as if the human being is the meeting point, the threshold between two worlds.”

- Kabir Helminski, The Knowing Heart

Quote via Whiskey River

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“There can be no understanding where there is mutual rejection.”
- Gustav Niebuhr, Beyond Tolerance

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Beyond Random & the Benevolence of Uncertainty

April 4, 2010

Though not religious, I do not define myself as an atheist or even an agnostic really. However, my spiritual beliefs are so vague and personally defined (some would say ill-defined), that I’m sure there are many who consider me “godless” by their standards. And perhaps I am godless since I resist using the word “god” – it has so many built-in religious connotations.

I do believe in a something-moreness, though: collective consciousness, ultimate source, transcendent connectedness, immanent divine creative field – something in each of us and all of us beyond randomness or biology. I also hold fast to a positivity about some variety of continuance beyond biological mortality – though I’m not addicted to a particular outcome – other than I most assuredly do not believe in hell or other similar eternal punishment scenarios. Frankly, those particular religious stories just seem mean-spirited (excuse the pun). A universal benevolence is integral to my spiritual orientation.

I believe I have personally experienced some moments of personal realization of this benevolent something-moreness – during meditation or contemplation – I call it a fearless peace. It’s a feeling of being enveloped in a radiant lovingness. It doesn’t really matter to me whether my experience is just a fabricated emotional state inspired by a quiet, peaceful landscape; or a particular sequence of neurons firing inside my brain in reaction to trouble or uncertainty – I like the feeling, it’s reassuring. I’m not likely to abandon it. Nor am I likely to pursue it with life-altering zeal – nor feel the need to. It’s always there, I have access to it when I need it. But it’s a bit like a wild animal – hard pursuit alters my relationship with it and moves it further away. Just accepting it as integral to the way things are allows for the comfortable sharing of ground.

Today is Easter. I had enough peripheral Christian upbringing that I can watch the big celebrations with a reasonable level of understanding and appreciation. Even though the whole crucifixion/resurrection tale seems a bit grisly to me, I do like the idea of miracles. Miracle is a good word for the inexplicable – whether it’s a spontaneous remission or some other variety of surviving the unsurvivable; the simpler stuff, like the beauty of a flower or the birth of a child; or the grander versions of those – like love or life itself.

Although I look to science more than spirituality to gain understanding of the world, science itself is something of a miracle when it comes right down to it. I don’t begrudge scientists who pursue the “god” particle – or the “god” neuron, although I think there will always be a part of the unknown that will remain unknowable. Whether collectively or individually, I tend to think by the time we find the ultimate answers, we’ll no longer need to know.

I go through phases of spiritual curiosity and pursuit, then step back – studying the details sometimes feels more like it’s obscuring truth rather than revealing it. I don’t know if it’s inspiration or defensive reaction, but the noisy religious holidays do set me to thinking about these themes more than usual, and perhaps I should thank the biggies for that at least.  This Easter week I’ve been working on a simple way to describe my spiritual orientation without committing to a particular label. So far I’ve got it down to this: I’m confident there’s something afoot beyond randomness and I’m comforted by an ever-present certainty in the overall benevolence of uncertainty.

Some would call that godless. Others might call it God.

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Looking for a Blue Tarzan

February 13, 2010

I wanted to see Avatar again before I drew any definitive conclusions. Griz and I have been sci-fi fans forever, but Griz periodically dozed off during our second viewing (he’d only gotten a few hours of sleep the night before). And although I stayed awake, I have to admit I was more restless and impatient than I anticipated. The 3D shock-and-awe just didn’t compensate for the thin plot and dialog on the second run.  I was more irritated by the noise and violence.

Still – I’m glad I saw it again. The visual artistry is worth a second take. I noticed a lot visually that I missed the first time and I look forward to a sequel.

After all, it’s not as if James Cameron doesn’t warn us about the simplicity of his parable. If the stereotypical characters don’t jump out at you early on, by the time you hear the word “unobtainium,” you should have a clue.  James Cameron’s forte has always been special effects.  An old story with a new look works for him (and apparently his audience). Everyone who saw Titanic knew the outcome before they entered the theater.

I suspect James Cameron has great fun making movies, and I think he wants his audiences to have fun, too.  Nothing wrong with that.  Giving the Nav’i elongated canine teeth  is such a clear ploy for today’s vampire popularity that it’s laughable. He probably threw in many of Avatar’s other cliches and plot deficits just for fun, too (perhaps to see if we’d notice).  Cameron’s close enough to my age that I’m sure he saw the same old Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan movies on TV that I did as a youngster. In Avatar, the only thing missing when the deus-ex-machina beasties stampede in to save the Nav’i is this:

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And from what I’ve read, it seems most people (including reviewers) come away from Avatar with the message they took into the theater beforehand. The rejecters reject the same things they always reject, the admirers admire the same things they always admire.  Appreciating good art is like that – the best art offers each of us an intimate subjective experience. With Avatar, gamers get a techie game, spiritual seekers get transcendence (although some devout reject Avatar altogether as promoting paganism), environmentalists get ecological connectivity, pessimists get to feel depressed because Earth isn’t as sublime as Pandora, optimists get to hope Earth is becoming Pandora.  Lots of good guys and bad guys to go around – with cross-overs and a paradox or two.

Here’s what I walked into the theater with: I am fortunate enough to live in an area where Earth’s vibrant glory is readily accessible and visually competes damn well with anything you can create digitally. This, of course,  keeps me fairly optimistic about life in general and our environmental direction in particular. Though not religious – spiritually, I lean toward nonduality.

Here’s the message I took out of the theater: The  Nav’i R Us.  We are rejecting our small, violent selves and becoming something larger. We are connected to all life, but life itself is a school and there are often mortal risks associated with learning to make the important connections. Ultimately, caring and connectivity will prevail and we’ll choose to banish our small, violent selves.

But the best thing about Avatar is this: popular movies are a reflection of our cultural consciousness. Even if the ideas are presented in elemental terms to reach the masses, ticket sales in response to Avatar’s themes of environmental responsibility and global connectivity represent very positive trends.

I had fun, too.

By Trish | Posted in Art, Family, Movies, Nature, Philosophy, Spirituality, Television | Tagged , , , , | Comments off

Tree Power Up: Tall Inspiration

January 30, 2010

I’ve admitted here before that I love big trees.  When we first moved here,  I actually considered affectionately naming some of our big evergreens – but I changed my mind.  Naming them would be insulting, I think – it would imply a level of intimacy we may not deserve. After all, part of my love is for their wildness. Naming things always implies dominion or control.  We own these trees in paper legality only – control of them is illusory. It would diminish them to attach names. You never really own any other living thing – you just borrow it – to look at, to cherish or befriend, to use as a resource when necessary.

I’d also hate to get too attached.  Big trees fall. Some have to be cut down.

And most of our trees grew to their glory before we arrived here – without  the need for words or names. They just are, surviving tough conditions right where they stand, beyond analysis or judgments – and they’re mighty nonetheless. Passive endurance resulting in magnificent splendor. Unintentional artistry. (Though some would say it’s intentional.)

Look upward while standing quietly beneath a big tree. You cannot avoid feeling the power. Imagine what it takes to oppose gravity to that extent, processing sunlight, circulating nutrients and water to such great heights?

Big trees demonstrate the great wisdom of nature – they bend to buffeting winds, lean toward sunlight or bow to obstacles as necessary. When partially knocked down, they slowly redirect themselves back skyward, fortifying themselves even more at the bending point. They shed the unnecessary to better endure and prosper. I admire them.

Hard to believe such giants start out smaller than this volunteer western red cedar struggling for a foothold in our driveway gravel. This 3″ youngster was a seed last summer. I pot and replant more of these little buggers than is practical, but it’s hard for me to think of them as weeds.

The great tree symbology in James Cameron’s Avatar pleased me.  Avatar’s popularity demonstrates a positive direction in our collective consciousness. As little as twenty-five years ago, I doubt if Avatar (with or without 3D) would have captured such a large audience. Twenty-five years ago, only us die hard sci-fi types would have gone. Sure, there are probably more sci-fi enthusiasts now than ever before, but Avatar goes beyond sci-fi – it touches our growing ecological and spiritual awareness – our acknowledgment of an immutable connectedness.

A serendipitious tree article showed up in Griz’ Nuts & Volts Magazine last month. An Idaho company, Voltree manufactures a bioenergy harvester which attaches to a living tree and uses the tree’s metabolic processes to create electricity. The small electrical generators do not harm the tree. (At least we don’t believe they harm the tree.) Of course, the amount of energy you can generate this way is limited – these generators are used to power passive surveillance and scientific monitoring equipment. Still, it’s a kind of symbiosis that tickles me.

Voltree’s products are the kind of green technology we’re heading toward  (very slowly) – ways to use our resources without depleting or harming them.  We are starting to make those critical connections – artistically, figuratively, literally.

Of course, you get a lot more energy (quicker) from a tree if you chop it down and burn it to heat the shelter you’ve built with it’s carcass.  (Intentional shock value.)  See my next post Tree Power Down: Timber!

By Trish | Posted in Art, Hermit's Rants, Home, Movies, Nature, Philosophy, Science, Spirituality | Tagged , , , , , | Comments off

The Seed of a Fearless Peace

December 25, 2009

There resides within each of us
The seed of a fearless peace.
In some it sprouts
Uncalled.
For others it rests
In deep dormancy
Beneath multi-colored
Layers of life’s soil.

The wise, the lost
And the questioning
Conduct a search,
Initiated perhaps by
Suggestion from another,
By curiosity or
By sobering need.

And once found
This fearless peace
Will break soil,
Though it may wither
Without nurture
Or acknowledgement,
Needing for further growth
A careful balance of
Sustenance and liquidity,
Both oft delivered by
The very soil of life
Through which
The tender sprout
First emerged.

The highest purpose
Of this fearless peace
Is to expand outward
Breaking through to
Sunlight
In such abundance
That it may sustain itself
Beyond its lowly roots
Sometimes entangling
In celebratory union
With other emergents
In a shared dynamic,
Which in symbiotic
Expression prompts
At least one other
To conduct a search
For the seed within.

You cannot buy this seed
Of  fearless peace.
Nor can any other
Gift it to you.
A proferred trellis
May provide
A temporary brace,
Timely fertilizer helps,
As does the
Occasional flashlight.
But ultimately
You must leap
Beyond the trellis,
Beyond even the bed,
Sometimes through darkness,
Launching yourself
In self-sufficient
Commitment -
Into thin air!

Remarkably,
The leap itself
Provides something
Of an indestructible
Bridge to quiet certainty,
Leaving you thereafter
Paradoxically more grounded
Rather than less
Like you’d think.

For now
The fearless peace within
Exists beyond uprooting,
A recognized
And constant presence
Within and without,
Unshakable ever after
Which with minimal vigilance
Becomes your chosen
And preferred
State of being
And resting place.

There are many names
For this fearless peace
In the multiple
Tongues of man.
With words and rituals
For the process
Of its discovery
And cultivation.
Use caution near those
Who would exclude
All names other
Than their preferred
As less perfect
In some way.
And question those
Who use exclusion,
Or any other rule,
As an excuse to
Cultivate fear
And stray from peace
Entirely.

There resides
Within each of us
The seed of a fearless peace,
Present before any words
And thus beyond all names,
Awaiting excavation
And destined to be found
By all of us and each of us
Sooner
Or later.

Trish Wareing, (c)  2009

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“the world offers itself to your imagination”

November 21, 2009

Geese2Wild Geese   by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting—
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

By Trish | Posted in Home, Nature, Poetry, Solitude, Spirituality, Wildlife | Tagged , , , , | Comments off

Pride Goeth Before the Fart: The Eight (or 9) Winds

November 12, 2009

The Buddhists say there are eight winds. They are gain and loss, praise and ridicule, credit and blame, and suffering and joy. If you aren’t aware of them, they will blow you away like dry leaves in an autumn breeze. For example, when someone praises you, and that tastes sweet like candy in your mouth, you are being blown away by the wind of praise.

One day in ancient China a young man thought he had become enlightened. He wrote a poem to his master about how he was not blown by the eight winds. Then he sent it to his master who lived 300 miles up the Yangtze River.

When his master read the poem, he wrote “Fart, Fart” on the bottom and sent it back.

The more the young man read those words, the more upset he got. At last he decided to visit his master. In those days, the 300 mile trip up the Yangtze River was a very difficult journey. As soon as he arrived, he went straight to his master’s temple.

“Why did you write this? he asked, bowing. “Doesn’t this poem show that I am no longer blown about by the eight winds?”

“You say that you are no longer blown by the eight winds,” replied the master, “but two little farts blew you all the way up here.”

-  Gary Zukav, Soul Stories, (c) 2000

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“What is explicitly two, can at the same time be implicitly one.” – Alan Watts

November 5, 2009

“Everybody, by virtue of being a human being, is willy-nilly a metaphysician.”

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Speaker: Alan Watts

Music: Svefn-G-Englar by Sigur Ros from Soundtrack to Vanilla Sky

Posted on YouTube by redliterocket4 (Matthew Segall)

Special thanks to Twitteur extraordinaire @gregorylent for tweeting the link to this video.

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Life on the Cusp: The Well-Balanced Maniac

October 25, 2009

According to one friend, my October Balance post was a clear expression of my astrological sign: Libra. Well – perhaps. Personally, I file astrology under occasionalLibra fun, entertainment – and maybe an attractive piece of jewelry.  I’ve never had my chart done, I rarely invest more than a passing thought or occasional glance at my horoscope; but today, for some reason, I decided to do a little follow-up research on a comment from my youth (by a hopeful suitor).  After all, the vast annals of Astrology.com are just a few clicks away now.

My birthday means my sun sign is not simply Libra.  Having been born near the change date from one sun sign to the next, I’m actually a Libra-Scorpio Cusp.  According to my suitor (way back then):  “Libra-Scorpio Cusps are well-balanced sex maniacs.”

My reply:  “If one is going to be a sex maniac, it’s probably best to be well-balanced about it.”  Whether this fellow and I further explored this interesting label is none of your business, and whatever happened was billions of years ago anyway.

My online research today was a quick check to see if there is any astrological basis at all for the sex-maniac comment.  (I’ve long been aware of the Libran balance part of the equation.) Here’s Astrology.com’s initial paragraph about Libra-Scorpio Cusps:

Libra is the seventh sign of the zodiac; Scorpio is the eighth. After Libra’s intellectual exploration of other people, Scorpio’s interest is in discovering other people’s emotions and how they respond to the world around them. Scorpio is the sign of sex and death, the beginning and ending, and they explore these ideas from an emotional standpoint. Libra/Scorpios strive to create balance and harmony between self and other through investigation and probing. They are often strongly intuitive and penetrating. They have a need to be liked.

So since Scorpio is the sign of sex and death, and Libra goes for balance and harmony, there is some astrological legitimacy to my date’s synopsis.  Of course, I might be a well-balanced death maniac – but that was less relevant to my date’s objective.  No, I do not remember what his astrological sign was, so who knows if we were astrologically compatible – which probably didn’t really matter to either of us. I also don’t remember his name – take that little nugget of information off to wherever you wish.

Like most healthy human beings, there was a phase of my youth in which hormones and curiosity combined to rank sex quite high on the motivational priority scale of my life.  I don’t think I was ever particularly maniacal in its pursuit, though.  I think my sexual philosophy was then and is still quite well-balanced:

  1. Best when pursued within the context of a caring emotional bond, though not without its merits as an emotional-bond initiator and cultivator.
  2. Enjoy fully (both physically and emotionally). Sex is a celebration of life. If you aren’t incorporating a fair amout of smiling and laughing  (well, at least giggling) into the exchange, you may be taking sex (and possibly life) too seriously.
  3. Not worth risking your life over.

I don’t think I’ve ever been particularly maniacal about anything really:  not sex, death, money, love, politics. I lean toward the well-balanced side of the cusp – which is undoubtedly astrologically verified by the fact that my birthday’s on the Libra side of the cusp not the Scorpio.

Astrology.com”s “need to be liked” sentence seems a little off. Sure, I like to be liked, but I think my love of solitude takes me at least one rung down from NEED.

Ah-hah!  Maybe I’m maniacal about solitude?

Nah – I’m even a balanced hybrid in the hermit arena.

My wanderings into astrology today confirmed that the descriptions are general enough to apply to (and flatter) almost anyone who’s curious enough to follow the path – a worthy choice for an hour’s entertainment.  I am not passing judgment on those who are serious astrology buffs. I realize there is much more to the whole deal than simple sun signs and birthdays. If that’s where your interest takes you – go for it.

An interesting curiosity surfaced though: one of the most astrologically compatible mates for a Libra-Scorpio cusp is a Sagittarius-Capricorn cusp.

Coincidentally, my true-love, Griz, is a Sagittarius-Capricorn cusp. How about that? Worth a ponder…

“In the magical universe, there are no coincidences and there are no accidents. Nothing happens unless someone wills it to happen.” – William S. Burroughs

By Trish | Posted in Art, Family, Friends, Hermit's Rants, Humor, Spirituality | Tagged , , , | Comments off