What Matters?

We identify priorities, values.  We move toward and away as clarity comes into focus.  We form goals and aims.  The mechanism of how we operate (each of us has our own unique approach and retreat means) goes into play.  How we structure and feel into our wants and needs depends on our fuller intelligence.  Not just our mental/cognitive talent, but also our accessibility to our feeling life and our connection to our body.

Win or lose, fail or succeed is almost always in the forefront of our being as a weighty consideration to what matters.  But strangely, it’s doubtful to me that it matters the outcome (even though we may be conditioned to think otherwise).  What matters, is the effort we made, the striving and struggle toward that which is calling us.

Effort is energy.  It reads.  It reads to oneself and others.  It creates an influence to the outside and the inside.  The quality of effort matters.  Hard, forceful, determined, tense effort can be a ‘manhandling’ of one’s energy field (and others).  One can push a boulder up a mountain after all, and get the job done with enormous external effort.  Culturally, we understand effort by use of force.

In Chinese thought, all things contain yin and yang.  The dark/light, hard/soft, passive/active.  So it is in effort.  Attaining or meeting something is sometimes a mere thought, feeling or sensation.  Many bodywork principles are based on this.  (ie: Alexander Technique:  if I think upward and out the influence is felt in the rest of me and it happens.)  We are conditioned that effort is rolling that boulder up the mountain.  But effort also can be soft, sublime and a sensitized awareness that is cultivated and maintained.

Effort.  When I chronically turn away from what is distressing and difficult, when I drop into my denial of what IS, I turn away from what matters.  I lose my internal warrior.  If I somehow can allow that courageous effort of facing what Is, not turn away, that becomes a moment of triumph.  Even if I turn away again (which almost always is inevitable).  Even if “nothing comes of it”…. this time.

What matters?  What matters is I try even if it is assured I will fail.  I am conditioned it is bad to fail.  Facing that conditioning is an effort.  The attempt to know myself in the discomfort of the unknown, with little to no internal recourse, and a certainty I will most likely fail, is strengthening the power of effort.  

Failing this time, but maybe not the 100^th time.  The value becomes the Now and is no longer the outcome.  It is a Quixotic attitude.

When I’ve contemplated over decades the karma of things, despair has often visited, knowing we are almost certain to repeat the mistakes and failures, possibly into the next life (if that should be so).  The probability is slim we master that (seemingly) karmic challenge.  But now, my attitude is not so fixed on mastering the weakness or frailty.  What matters is I worked with it consistently; I met it over and over again and made efforts to know it.  That effort, it builds sustenance inside and strength outside.  It is an influence on all of the world and also me and possibly my karma.  Transformation and miracles are possible due to this.  This is the Water element in Chinese medicine.  The wearing away of the stone by a drop of water that falls, repeated a zillion times.  Light, methodical, patient, and repetitive.  Water conquers all, eventually.

Human Duality

We have this miraculous organism, a vessel from which we move and act from.  An aspect of this organism is purely autonomic and mechanical; another aspect of us has the possibility of conscious creativity.  How do we reconcile these aspects?  Give each aspect its due?  Find a relationship, understanding and acceptance between these two vital aspects of our human experience?

The Autonomic/Automatic/Mechanical
This is the part which we most often abhor; we don't like the way it looks, resent its sometime mis-workings, and ignore/disregard its incredible capacity.  The eyes dilate and moisten according to circumstantial conditions or the light present.  The heart and all the related nerve and electric impulses, pumps away circulating life's blood and oxygen through our system.  The lungs working in concert with the heart expanding and contracting, filtering oxygen, releasing carbon dioxide just the amount required for optimal function.  Our many yards of gut move (again in gorgeous relationship with nerve impulses) through our torso, breaking down food in regular, specific steps, absorbing and distilling what's needed at each step and allowing the waste to move on and out.  Our sensitive, under the radar thermostats know when to subtly sweat to cool us down and do so beautifully.  Our hearing capacities modulate incoming sound through its interesting internal shape and form, allowing for further interpretation to the rest of us through facile and lightning fast neurotransmission.  

Our body's fascia, ligaments and musculature along with the nervous system responds most often accurately and with incredible swiftness to the subtlest of stimulations.  These are just some of the miracles of everyday functioning in our bodies, going on almost entirely without any thought or intention on our parts.  Purely mechanical. Purely automatic.  We almost always have no say in its workings, and even with directed thought, impact it marginally.  This autonomic functioning happens every second, every minute and hour of every day we live.  If it wasn't healthy, there would be no life, no being in this human form.  There would be no possibility of the other aspect of ourselves, the creative consciousness, to be.  This other part of us could not exist without this mechanical part working well.  Both aspects have to be related to know a full life, to pursue a purpose.


The conscious, spiritual, creative part:  the Part with the possibility of Choice.
This is the part we also can (and do) largely ignore.  Something in us aches when it's not in play, feels alone, even abandoned when not regularly engaged.  It's opaque, almost hidden or its invisible nature is easy to miss, not pay attention to, relinquish for long periods of time when we (or ego) are on autopilot. For those of us who invest considerable time and effort in revealing and nourishing this often mysterious aspect through contemplative practices, we tend to put this amazing part on a pedestal, believing it is the end all.  Whereas, the sometimes sublime experience of this in self and in community is compelling and can create a vertical experience in what usually is a linear life, unless one lives in a hermitage on top of a high mountain, trying to live from that place is not realistic and actually not desirable for the daily human experience.  It is the actualization through movement between these two parts that make life interesting and provide the large framework from which a meaningful life is possible.

One part has delineated form.  The other is without form or measure.  Both are essential to an existence.   Depending on your indoctrinations, we spend a lifetime struggling with that which is weakest in us or succumbing to that which is well settled in us.  We do this repeatedly for decades, often way past the stage of it being static.  We spend a lifetime knowing and building up further our strengths, be it the creative life or the logical, way of reason.  Rarely do we stand between what we know and what we don't know, without prejudice or reaction, and have that experience.  Our incredible human duality.

Back to the questions:  How do we reconcile these aspects?  Give each aspect its due?  Find a relationship, understanding and acceptance between these two vital aspects of our human experience?

It would be so easy to be Cartesian and rely on old adages like, "if you don't have your health, you don't have anything."  Health is reliant on each aspect being functional and well.  A troubled spirit impacts the body and mind.  A troubled body and mind impacts the spirit.  We are designed to be in concert in our Whole. Finding one's own deep appreciation, even a love for both the automatic and the conscious creative may be required.  With appreciation and respect comes an interest and curiosity and perhaps eventually a tenacious unwillingness not to be in regard of the other.  Our life long, well fueled natural propensities may release their grip on us, the enamor not as strong as in earlier decades.  Vulnerability fears flatten, don't have the depth or width they used to have, leaving an opening for other more lively questions or findings.

Dualities: The Good, the Bad and the Earthbound

We have this strange, stratified, practically surreal paradox going on in the world at present.  On the one hand there are the power obsessed which range from individuals controlling their own mini-fiefdoms, resisting inclusion insisting on exclusion --to corporations and governments which are doing the same on a more macro scale.  Here, there is an aversion to relationship.  A more authentic relationship would mean, a willingness for an open tolerance that has breath in unoccupied spaces between people or entities and in oneself.  This would require a letting go, a willingness to be insignificant, a leap into the unknown, a relinquishing of personal resources and time.  At present, there is a lot of lieing, collusion, covert plotting/implementation, backdoor deals, conspiratorial setups to manipulate the external facade and the inevitable cover up of same.

This is a universal (cosmically lawful?) contraction of sorts; as opposed to an expansion or period of release witnessed in other eras or periods of time.  As was said, we are seeing this on all scales; from government, world politics to corporate institutions to even our friends and neighbor's conduction of personal affairs.  It's a proliferative, invasive and a toxic reaction to fear of being nothing.  It is a manifestation of a world bereft of a spiritual compass or conscience.  There is a resistance to this seen by other public power brokers.  Through humor, mobilizing masses of people or throwing money at the contraction through media or otherwise, there is an attempt to bring a transparency to the inequitablility.  From my perspective, this is the other side of this deeply troubled coin (even though I am entertained and often grateful for the latter's exposure attempts).  They are polarized to the other side of the coin, and also are unwilling to be insignificant, invisible and without their own wieldy (heady) power.

I am everybody and every time, I always call myself by your name.  --Pablo Neruda

And then we have, on the other hand, the legions of unsung hero(ines).  Those people who are off that power grid, living their life through a deeper guidance, a conscience that manifests in small, often invisible and insignificant ways to the world at large.  The family members who have put their own personal, well planned trajectory on hold to mindfully care for an incapacitated other, be it a family elder or physically/mentally challenged child, young adult.  What is inconsequential to many is significant to them.  Personally insuring the quality of life for a loved one who may never be a person of power in the world (pay back). And this is usually done at great financial expense and an abdication of massive chunks of personal time (never to be recovered).  There is no fanfare and rarely an acknowledgment of this noble endeavor.  It is an often silent, private, hellish (on some levels) navigation, touched by unspoken suffering, without remuneration and always at an exorbitant financial cost (in one way or another).  Prompted by a sense of deep obligation and almost always love, of the agape sort.  These are people who are both well prepared (financially and internally) and unprepared for such a commitment.  But they all take it on regardless because of their innate sense of integrity, justice and conscience.  It's a breathtaking choice of selflessness to make.

Let me embrace thee, sour adversity, for wise men say it is the wisest course.-- Wm. Shakespeare

Is this not a perplexing and unusual juxtaposition of universal energies?  Granted, it is probably not a new juxtaposition.  I think of India, the famous historical power plays/brokers of the past juxtaposed with Mother Theresa's work with lepers, the terminally ill and other outcasts, done mostly under the radar of public notice, the first few decades at least. There are countless vocationists who have dedicated their existence to educating and caring for underserved, unnoticed populations all over the world, for little to no pay.  And the unconscionable power mongering has indeed always gone on, as these other more conscience-centered activities, have too gone on.

Does the world require these two different cosmic energies to co-exist in the world?  The constant friction of these energies may be necessary to keep the planet turning? Or maybe its not the polar forces themselves, but the friction that is created as they inevitably dual while in co-existence.  There is a tremendous energy generated there.  Enough energy to catapult nations into revolution and/or war.  On a micro scale, it's enough for individuals to make a cataclysmic shift in themselves; stop drinking/drugging, take a serious life inventory that prompts a leap into another way of being.  Or is it merely, we are at the mercy of these inevitable paradoxes?  They cosmically do their contraction/expansion thing on cue, and we similarly on cue, do our response/reaction to these big lawful forces?

In a way the inner struggle to cultivate a conscience through a lifetime is related to the universal duality these forces manifest.

“This goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?” ― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

Rest

"Rest is the conversation between what we love to do and how we love to be. Rest is the essence of giving and receiving. Rest is an act of remembering, imaginatively and intellectually but also physiologically and physically."*     --David Whyte

Out of the four stress management principles I advocate in my teaching to others and in my own practice, rest is the most difficult for me (and many of my clients) to grasp. (Maybe we should try NOT grasping...) Not being able to relate to rest must be an American thing.  Or maybe its a 21st century thing.  We have trouble not multi-tasking.  We resist sleep.  We struggle with stopping, not doing.  It might seem we are hard-wired to 'accomplish' or that our worth and value is seated in purposeful activities.


In my post, A Right Rest, I speak about the many varieties of rest that are available to us, that sleep or napping might not always be the right rest we are looking for.  It delights me that only a poet (Whyte) could so eloquently speak about rest being a conversation about loving and being.  It must be our tendencies to leave feeling out of our purposeful driven doing activity and the disinclination (due to discomfort?) to stay far from a closer connection to our being.

"We are rested when we are a living exchange between what lies inside and what lies outside, when we are an intriguing conversation between the potential that lies in our imagination and the possibilities for making that internal image real in the world; we are rested when we let things alone and let ourselves alone, to do what we do best, breathe as the body intended us to breathe."*

Whyte's quote above and in his excellent essay, Rest*, eludes to the play of outer and inner and the ability to let go, to be closer to our more whole selves through the influence of our breath.  Many of our indoctrinations have us resisting quiet or rest because it is a type of death; we have little to externally show for it; and that is unacceptable to the most of ourselves.  In short, we most likely have an attitude distortion about rest: what it looks like, feels like and what it does for us.

"To rest is to give up on the already exhausted will as the prime motivator of endeavor, with its endless outward need to reward itself through established goals. To rest is to give up on worrying and fretting and the sense that there is something wrong with the world unless we are there to put it right; to rest is to fall back literally or figuratively from outer targets and shift the goal not to an inner bulls eye, an imagined state of perfect stillness, but to an inner state of natural exchange."*

*David Whyte, Essay #21 "Rest" 

Authentic Movement: Flying Solo

"When the movement was simple and inevitable, not to be changed no matter how limited or partial, it became what I called 'authentic' – it could be recognized as genuine, belonging to that person." 

-- Mary Whitehouse

Authentic Movement (AM) is a practice that has been used for over half a century to express the creative impulse, unwind the subliminal, subconscious material below ones external layers, and to inform.  AM as a practice is valuable because it is seated in sincerity.  This is possible because one has taken the risk of sensitizing and grounding the body enough for the (often hidden) authentic to surface. One's being senses an openness, a more whole and deeper listening quality; Self-trust ensues. These conditions allow for sincerity, authenticity to make its way to the surface of ourselves, a willingness to be exposed.

"The movement becomes 'authentic' when the individual is able to allow their intuitive impulses to freely express themselves without intellectual directive, as opposed to movement initiated by conscious decision making – a distinction which may appear clear, but practically a challenge. Individuals simply pay attention to what they feel at a sensory level, since "the core of the movement experience is the sensation of moving and being moved."*

With over twenty-five years of doing the practice, at present, there are two aspects of AM that are deeply intriguing to me.  1: This idea of using the form in relation to an intention, allowing the organism to be "informed" by a greater, more sensitized intelligence (a distinct probability in the AM form), and 2: the possibility of doing AM solo.

"In the Authentic Movement aspect of Whitehouse's approach, the moving participants (movers) are passively observed by a witness, who 'contains' the experience of the mover by witnessing their movements without judgement, projection or interpretation. In this way the witness is also an active participant, as witnessing is a practice in observing one's own sensations and impulses while observing the mover's. It's important to note that Whitehouse created many individual, dyadic and group experiences to create a context for moving from inner sensation and whole-body experience." *

In relation to #1 above, traditionally AM is not practiced with an intention looking for information or answers.  An intention in some ways is counter to the idea of being open to what is and most probably prone to "intellectual directive."  Traditionally or not, intention or not, material surfaces during an AM session which often clarifies.  When one is "ripe", internally holding something, these are "low hanging fruit" conditions; AM often brings it to the surface for plucking, like it or not.  I have explored using the form in relation to unfinished dreams in this way, very successfully.

In relation to #2, the traditional form of AM always includes the basic role of witness and mover.  But as Whitehead says in the above quotes,  it is truly a dual action.  In the AM process, mover becomes witness and witness becomes her own mover (through her sensations of what is seen, energetically received and her own impulses).  If one is practiced at holding this dual space for oneself and another, has routinely a strong inner witness while moving, then experiencing the form solo might be very rich.

So, with the threat of breaking the rules of this beloved form, I set out to make an experiment.  I have an intention to understand something I've been ruminating about as of late and want to use AM to shed some light.  At the moment, I don't have the benefit of others to support me as witnesses.  I wish to try this premise of setting an intention and buoying up my own inner witness to do the holding-the-container job, simultaneously.

My impromptu moving space is private; an unused tennis court in the middle of the woods.  With a tip of my hat to the external witness role, I place my water bottle on a bench as a witness figurehead and find my place in the space in relation to it.  What ensues is a sublime experience of moving in and out, an experience of levels going deeper and moving closer to the surface and then back again. Left hand perpendicular to the ground moves in circles, smoothing the way.  Right hand/arm gently opening, closing, a love energy moving toward my heart, a gathering.  I experience an "intellectual directive" in myself.  Move forward!  Move forward!  Why are you only going side to side?! Move forward! or "Ugh oh. I'm moving in circles, oh dear, please don't let me move in circles!"  She walks with the one that isn't interested in directive, but needing to respond from a deeper impulse. I will move as I move.  Everything in its own time. There is a parlay, an exchange, a finding one's place in that. An acknowledged relationship between them exists.  Even the external environment becomes part of the process, not to be excluded nor seen as a happenstance, but an integral part of the whole. Rotating my torso, my eye catches a cloud of mosquitoes ready to land on me.  I start swatting at them and become momentarily disengaged from my depth.  Yes! Distractions are forever at the ready! I laugh.  Off balance, awkward, ungainly movements... all the tripping that is necessary before a transformation.

Everyone that comes to Authentic Movement should have that incredible experience of being held, seen, and witnessed by others.  There is nothing like it.  It makes possible entry into deep (dark) places.  It makes it safe for aspects of the self, often hidden and buried, to resurface and become visible. It builds and supports ones own inner witness.  But with enough practice, is it possible to do both simultaneously, go solo?

This experience on the tennis court was not a "traditional" experience of AM.  But for the place I am in my life, in my practice, this was exactly right.  It is required of me, where I sit in myself at this moment in time, to experience the dualities and how they sing and move together, and even how they transform each other or at least the consciousness around them.  I need the formerly invisible to walk with that intellectual directive, neither one to take charge, but live in a proximity that allows and encourages the other to exist.  

The truth is, I'm not young (relatively).  I'm not a newbie.  I am seasoned.  I am mature.  Another possibility for use of the form is necessary at this time.

Dynamics of an Inner Call

I probably should be a little ashamed to say there are very few books inspiring enough to return to again and again.  M. P. Pandit's, Dynamics of Yoga is one such book,  even if one doesn't consider oneself a dedicated Yogi.  Why is this book so compelling?  For me what is so powerful, besides his honest straightforward observations about yoga practice, is that you can feel the man in the page.  A lot of writers say a lot of smart, wise things.  But their written 'truths' are often an attempt to understand. Writing can frequently become a subtle disguise of wanting to know.  Pandit is not preachy, he's just himself; a 'himself' that is loaded with understanding.  Whenever I need a reality check or reminder, I pick this book up.

"I give what I really want so that one day they may want what I really want to give.... This is a great spiritual truth.  The Divine gives in order to create a link with us so that even by that external contact some communication is established as a result of which one day an identity can take place."

I've had a meditation practice for almost 35 years.  As would be expected, this practice has changed, faltered, evolved, seemingly devolved, looked and behaved differently over the decades.  Sometimes, I need some reassurances.

"It is necessary to sit for meditation regularly so that the habit is created and when a continued state of receptivity is required for the higher consciousness to descend into you and work in you, you are not found wanting.  You can immediately put yourself into a poise where undistracted by anything else you are in a position to receive what comes and let it work in you.  Length of time is not as important as the cultivation of a habit of meditation from this point of view...... It is the spirit of the prayer room, the spirit of meditation, that has to be carried bodily into the place of work and the place of the work has to be turned into a veritable place for meditation to be rendered into dynamic work."

It is often interpreted in most teachings, the body is considered a lesser aspect of a human's whole (in spiritual terms).  Those on a quest of the spirit often fall into a disregard to the here and now of the body.  Besides its way of waking us up to the present and reacquainting us with its relationship to the spirit, the body has a relationship to an embodied consciousness, .
"... The body also is a form of God, not the soul alone.  The physical body is after all the base that determines the health of the various other bodies that are erected on the foundation of the physical...[the Mother] believed,-- and I have seen possible, that by certain controlled movements of the body and the limbs, it is possible to awaken what is called the physical consciousness, that part of the consciousness localised in the material body."

Grappling with the concept of faith in practice sometimes leads one into a mired quandary. Pandit clarifies with simplicity.  "... faith is a conviction that is spontaneously there in the being.  It is a reflection of the soul's knowledge, the soul's perception of something that is yet to be realized by the rest of the being.  This reflection of the soul's knowledge in any part of the being carries a conviction about its certitude.  We may not be able to explain why it is so, but it does carry that certitude."

In all practices, there is a relinquishing of control, a let go.  This is an experience of levels, a necessary meeting of the lower to higher, the coarse to fine, the outer to the inner.
"Surrendered doesn't mean that you surrender your judgements, or your discrimination.  Surrender means the submission of your individual puny will [to that] which you recognize to be greater than yours. You turn your will for action to the vibrations of a higher will so that the higher may work through you. Your preferences, your likes and dislikes, your choices-- it is these that should be surrendered to the higher wisdom. The higher wisdom indeed works for your own welfare, and for the total welfare, much better than what you could with your limited intelligence.  Activity, however, must go on; on the plea that one has surrendered, one should not just remain passive.  The Mother points out that you sink into inertia if you sit back saying 'let God's will be done.'  It has to be an active surrender, a dynamic surrender.  You must place your enlightened will at the disposal of the higher will and continue to follow its guidance, to translate the command from above into day to day action."

Living in this way can seem quite counter to ordinary daily life.  Yet, Pandit's tone is always encouraging,  hopeful and steeped in kindness.  His is a voice worth revisiting time and again.

Layered Impressions

I've been in awe lately of the seeming truth that when one speaks or writes about something, one soon after then receives another layer of understanding through a circumstance or event. Even after all these years and life-miles trekked, for some reason it is surprising that knowledge, understanding and impressions are layered.  The experience frequently is as if the universe provides an inkling and then a completely unexpected "lesson" follows; one I could never have asked for or anticipated (making it also apparent my imagination is not what it could be).  "Laws" are at work.  "Knowing" is relative and probably always partial. I am a pawn on a mega-universal chest board, an intimate set of related threads in a tightly woven cloth.

The often repeated adage:  "You teach best what you most need to learn" must be true.  And that probably goes for any of the communication arts such as speaking, writing even energy exchanging. Could it be any type of manifestation is the Guide presenting the next layer of understanding in the provided impression?  In this arena, choice, visioning or determination has little do with it.  If anything, that type of force only gets in the way.  In this way, the idea of manifesting a destiny, forming a purpose appears negligible.  Those past times are the ego's playground?

\Which brings us to two almost-popular holistic approaches to life.  1."Visioning": One feels into one's vision and purpose opens, and allows (universal?) energy to be attracted to the vision.  In this approach, the concept is that the magnetism of your wish attracts what is necessary to meet the vision, the allowed openness receives it. This approach is limited by ego involvement and imagination. 2. "Reception": One feels into oneself and aligns, priming receptivity for the universe to seamlessly direct. One does not determine the direction as in #1, but allows oneself to be led.  This approach is limited by one's capacity to maintain adequate relaxation, hence receptivity.  Because it is not directed by self, it is easy to lose the thread of intention.  These are two very different ideologies.  In one, we primarily believe in oneself (ego driven or not). The other believes the universe knows better than the self as far as determining the needed direction.  Both believe in the power of the macrocosmos to impact one's life; in the first instance, it is almost an adjunct, in the second it is the master.

The question is where does my executive self, my ego play a useful role?  Maybe, once the direction is established, the useful aspect of ego, the performer, the doer, can provide the needed manifestation toward fulfilling the direction. Possibly, this is not a question to be answered until I am quite familiar with the workings of the ego.  How has the ego been experienced? In First person ("I") or Second person ("She/He/It")? How have I experienced the hindrance, the passive, the positive of the ego engaged?  Most importantly, who in me experiences ego?  The ready judge? The alter-ego?  Is there in me a space of objectivity, a suspension of the many buffers that color and hide ego's work?  In "Visioning", it is difficult for it not to play a role (useful or obstreperous). In "Reception", there is almost an abdication of an ego role, at least in the pre-direction aspect.

Regardless, the sense of an impression being layered is profound.  It brings to mind the layers of fascia and sinewy ligaments that layer gorgeously over each other to create a whole slice of optimally functioning musculature, a working organ and system. These layers are timely; coming both in sometimes quick succession or with long pauses in between.  Our human experience.

\"As Schopenhauer says, when you look back on your life, it looks as though it were a plot, but when you are into it, it’s a mess: just one surprise after another. Then, later, you see it was perfect. So I have a theory that if you are on your own path things are going to come to you. Since it’s your own path, and no one has ever been on it before, there’s no precedent, so everything that happens is a surprise and is timely.  — A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living.

Present to Death

Death and dying and contemplating this passage for oneself is a sobering reckoning most of us visit privately and with others at least a few times in life's journey.  A recent experience of this topic discussed among friends stayed with me for several days, and I feel compelled to write about it.

We all die.  And, if we are honest, we are afraid to do so.  If we had a chance to choose how to die, it would basically come down to a choice of the least unpalatable means (wishful thinking) for most of us.  What interested me in the aforementioned conversation among friends was the general insistence felt among the many in the conversation that they be present to themselves and the experience of dying; they wished not to miss the process, not to be in a drugged stupor nor apparent absence of dementia, but to experience their life to the fullest right up to the end.

As a nurse, all I could think was, "may the angels not be listening to this."  This human existence is an endless series of rounds of suffering (and joy).  There is no avoidance of pain.  It's our birthright and payment we make as human beings.  Experiencing our thresholds of pain in different layers is a valuable, even an illuminating materiality that can bring a richness to one's life.  That experience is something we take on willingly, especially if we know there is an end to it, a reprieve in sight (i.e. childbirth, brief uncomfortable procedures, a really bad headache, a divorce with a court date).  Pain medications are a god send when you need them.  Our pain thresholds decrease as we age.  The more frail we become, the more acutely we feel pain.  Pain medication and adjunct therapies that address pain receptors in our bodies/brains (clinical aromatherapy, bodywork, energy work, acupuncture, qigong) should be freely accessed if possible.

\

A question came to me when discussing this idea of being fully "present" right up to the end:  How could we not be present to this cataclysmic event, same as the impossibility of not being present to our birth?  We are born as Whole selves.  Seemingly our purpose is to find how to live this wholeness in the time we are given.  We don't spend a lot of time knowing or experiencing this.  We don't know how, but (hopefully) spend a lifetime working toward being in relationship to the Whole that we are.  But despite this lack, we are still One.  A muscle is still a muscle even if it is atrophied.  We can't miss our passing because we're in a coma, or in a medication-induced delirium.  To imply this, is to believe Presence is a cognitive state.  It is not.

The body is an incredible dimensional, layered and impossibly complex organism.  Some type of life is going on in a person living in a coma. Arnie and Amy Mindell have proven this in their studies of coma patients.  You just have to hang 
around people in these altered states for a period of time to sense this is true.  We on the outside are 
not privy to this passage they are moving through.  But there is no mistake the experience of moving 
toward a death is not passing them by.  In the case of quick, usually violent deaths (it is my opinion), 
the layers of ourselves (body, energybody, spirit, soul) are separated.  And there is a need to re-assemble 
before a passing is complete.  There is a presence in this, an actual energetic movement toward the 
Wholeness we are in body on earth, and probably beyond.

So, we may have these temporary distractions of suffering, agony, trauma, violence which ultimately leads to our death, but our innate divinity is always present.  It's the thing that leads us Home, through this important transition.  We seemingly are in preparation our entire lives for this moment, are living this truth in small ways almost on a daily basis; through our system changes, relationships, the almost inconsequential letting go and acceptances that is our daily bread.  The cultivation of a deeper understanding of the layers of presence possible to be earned in a lifetime, is a support to an actualization at (bodily) death.  It is impossible not to be present to one's own death.  The cells, the energy fields within our body system are constant cues, despite our denial variations or momentary circumstances that seem to remove a consciousness from the equation.  The reality of the breath and depth of consciousness sinks in.  Consciousness... Presence are not cognitive activities.  They are a fuller, deeper, more whole experience, connected within, connected without.

Trojan Wurst IV: Sustainable Protein

Like a lot of rational people, I've been on a sustained pause around definitive diets.  Diet methods and a lot of rigidity around whole foods in general always gets my "fake out" antenna up.  I've generally taken a judicious tact toward eating.  As vegetarianism, veganism and unrefined plant food (UPF) trends have been on the rise over the last couple of decades, I've been paying attention, reading the literature and increasing my vegetable intake accordingly.  I haven't given up meat, although I don't eat a lot of it.  I've been a little embarrassed to admit that killing animals for food is not in my mind, a horrific thing.  I've seen it (in my mind's eye) as part of a whole cycle.   But lately, I've had the occasion to see some films on sustainability and I am beginning to realize that what has been in my "mind's eye" has been an old-world European or 1950's image (an "old McDonald's farm" scenario, ei ei ohhh) on how farm animals are raised, treated and killed for consumption.  The worn denim overall'd grandpa chewing on a straw strand isn't out milking the three cows in the barn and wringing a few chicken necks for supper afterall.

There have been several concerns for me as of late around animal flesh.  A few years ago I happened to be visiting FDR's family vacation home in New Brunswick (charming and unostentagious by the way, worth a visit) and wandered down to the little beach on the bay where some fish farms were underway; salmon as a matter of fact, a fish I admire and esteem almost more than any other.  There was a whole description at the beach side as to how salmon farming is conducted, which by the time I finished reading, vowed never to eat farmed-raised fish again.  The methodology is so scientifically calculated it is kind of horrific.  Part of the wonder of salmon (reflected in their flesh) is their vital essential need as a species to do the incredible acrobatics that they need to do in order to spawn and survive.  They are remarkable beings.  These farms are science laboratories that in no way take in account the species essence, and that this essential aspect of the salmon, is contained in the flesh we eat.  It is not considered.  We are eating from an industrialized fishing industry.  The lack of consciousness around the food processing in this environment at a basic level (from cultivating fish eggs to harvesting fully grown fish) that produce our food sources is alarming.

The second cue which happened over the last year, has been practically subliminal for me.  I've had a sense the fish I have been eating is different than fish I was eating 5 or 7 years ago.  There's something not right about it, which I can't put my finger on and which would be easy to dismiss.  The flesh is different. The taste is not ---- alive?(missing the essence of the animal?) Not like it used to be. I've seen, tasted and known this about beef and chicken for over two decades.  One could parallel it to the difference between an organic egg you buy and the one your friend gives you from their chicken coop.  The difference isn't freshness so much (although I'm sure that's a factor), it's something else.  And I'm beginning to believe it's the way these animals who give their life for our benefit are treated prior to being killed.  We are living in a world of high technology, where exponential masses of animals are "processed" at enormous rates with shear brutality and in shockingly short periods of time. (A chicken is ready for slaughter now in 27 days as opposed to the 47 days it was ready decades ago, and weighing often twice as much in present day as in the past making them unable to stand up over their short life span.) There is a subtle but very serious lack of regard (completely discounted as being important at all) in this process, and which must effect what gets to our plate and into our bodies.

I think I've been able to assuage my alarm over the years around the animal flesh issue because I go primarily organic, free-range, "humanely treated", etc.  I've calmed myself thinking what I was buying and consuming was better.  But organic farms supplying Whole Foods and other supermarket chains conduct their food business practically the same way as the other producers.  Albeit, their chickens are given 3 feet of space a piece instead of being crammed into cages.  But they still discard the male chicks or grind them up for organic pet food since they won't be laying eggs.  "Organic" farms are also generally mass producers of food (3K-30,000 chickens harvested every month).  Organic beef suppliers also castrate the bulls, destroy cows who get utter infections instead of give them rest and antibiotics.  It evidently doesn't pay to appreciate what these animals provide to the masses.  No straw-chewing grandpa there.

King mushroom, grown in Maine, tons of protein!

This mindless approach to food production is of course due in large part to overpopulation.  The market must meet the demand.  According to the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization, raising animals for food on these huge scales is grossly inefficient and hugely polluting of the environment.  Raising livestock for consumption is a larger polluter than the transportation (cars, trucks) industry. How is this?  To raise cattle for consumption, an enormous amount of energy has to be expended to plant and grow the grain, irrigate it, harvest it, ship it and store it.  (For one pound of beef, it takes 6-10 pounds of grain; one cow drinks 50 gallons of water every day.) To keep cattle, bring them to slaughter, process, ship and store the butchered meat requires a further outlay of energy.  Consider cattle naturally put out large amounts of methane gas (which is 23 times more effective in trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide--whala, global warming) and animal based protein releases much higher amounts of carbon dioxide than plant based protein.  Well, the benefits (and past pleasures) of animal protein begin to be outweighed by the little talked about sustainability downside.  The United Nations concern on climate change has irrefutably made the statement:  "Eat less Meat." It leaves a huge carbon footprint.  If the SAD (Standard American Diet) was replaced with a plant based diet by most people for a year, it would equal the energy saved if everyone drove a hybrid vehicle.  (The SAD diet by the way is 40% animal protein, 50% processed foods (anything in boxes, bottles or prepared), 3.5% unrefined plant food (greens!) and 3.5% starch (potatoes/grains).

Animal consumption is big business.  And big business tends to attract lobbyists and lean toward corruption practices.  Science and public policy around dairy for one, have people chairing committees on the Food and Nutrition Board (sets dietary guidelines) who are also consultants for the dairy industry (it is now recommended we drink 3 eight ounce glasses of milk daily up from two from a few years ago; any correlation?).  This is obviously a conflict of interest which seems to be under the law radar.

More fabulous Maine mushrooms!

As in healthcare, we are approaching the need for a paradigm shift in the way agriculture is grown in this country (but of course, there is a solid relationship between the two).  Obviously, we are not going back to becoming a non-industrialized agriculture society.  Too many people have to be fed.  But the trend to grow part of one's daily intake and use local small farmers for much of the rest is growing, a  more environmentally sustainable possibility for some of us.  It is almost convenient to buy local eggs now and raw milk from smaller farms.  CSAs have expanded to include humanely raised animals which families or individuals can buy a portion of the slaughter (still have to freeze the bulk of that portion, which is more energy use). Personally, I don't think the inhumane, mechanical processing of animal protein is good for my health and soul (or anyone elses?) or the environment.  We need to look at our consumer and eating habits with this in mind, bring more consciousness to the way we purchase, grow and sustain ourselves.  Saying NO to the technology-based food production in this country will in time shift the paradigm (and everything else) on how we feed ourselves and respect the action of self sustenance and planet sustainability.  If we don't do this, but continue to consume food in America the way we do, according to experts, by 2030 we will need 2-5 other planets to feed all of us.  This is 2013, 16 years to go.  Earth is all we've got (at the moment).

resources gleaned from:

Food, Inc - TakePart

Vegeducated - New release on Netflix - Vegan Lifestyle - The Chat .

Forks Over Knives | Official Website

 

 

Shared History

“The cosmos is within us, we’re made of star stuff.  We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.” --Carl Sagan

We have a profoundly deep relationship with the cosmos we inhabit.  Literally.  It is a 3.5 billion year shared history, a mutuality, a related existence, a symbiotic occupation.  Our DNA, cells, organs have a relationship with fish and pools of algae, as well as rocks, and are related to the grand "othernesses" of the cosmos at large.  These 'outer' thing's stories are our own brilliant truths.  The things that shape our bodies are the things that have shaped this planet and the entire universe.

Farish Jenkins and Neil Shubin, decades-long colleagues, explored the zoologist and paleontologist/ evolutionary biologist's point of view in finding the relationship to our ancestors (the fish and rocks).  As they have found, we have a shared history. "The sun burns hydrogen. Others stars burn oxygen and carbon.  The fundamental atoms that make our hands, feet, and brains serve as the fuel for stars.  It isn't merely the atoms in our bodies that extend across the far reaches of the universe: molecules that make our bodies are found in space. The building blocks for the proteins and larger molecules that make us--amino acids and nitrates--rain down to Earth in meteorites and lie in the rocky crust of Mars or on the moons of Jupiter.  If our chemical cousins are in the stars, meteors and other heavenly bodies, then clues to our deepest connections to the universe must lie in the sky above our heads."*  These are extraordinary suppositions.  As Sagan indicates above, the cosmos needs to know itself and the universe is its playground to do so.  That each of us and all matter would resonate with the energy of 
itself and other both makes sense and is simultaneously mind boggling.  When we have the occasion to admit we are but grains of sand in a vast desert is also to admit that we are surprisingly unique (see photo image) and related in that uniqueness.

Wholeness; the thrust of our inner and outer cosmology.  This fact is, in all this relatedness which Jenkins and Shubin speak about.  How is it possible we are able to evade this truth on an ongoing and unrelenting basis?  That we speak and act from a lack of relationship to almost anything and everything.  It is so astounding, it almost feels like a joke is being played on humankind.  'You will be placed on this planet in a universe that is made of a complete and perfect cosmological order, but it will appear like it is in utter and complete havoc, practically at all times.  Confusion and misperceptions will reign.  And you will have a time of making sense of it.' And we make sense of it by grappling with the effort of gaining as much control (and power) over what is possible, assuaging the buried terror we have of not understanding, not knowing, not being in relatedness.  It's a good joke, right?!

“Learn how to see.  Realize that everything connects to everything else.” 
 --Leonardo da Vinci

This is not a new concept nor from one scholar's point of view.  This actually is common knowledge (science, art, math, philosophy to mention a few disciplines that have heralded this).  Then, why does it sound so fresh and new and borderline shocking?  Possibly, we are usually so invested in separateness and individuality.  Possibly, we don't view things on a large scale, but from our minuscule point of view, our built in limitedness.  Possibly, it's a frightening notion, our minds can't wrap around it, know it or allow it to impact our being.  I've recognized at times when a huge schema comes along, it can't be received because it is so "other".  It just doesn't fit into our normal understanding of how things work.  What could it mean to include this type of information into our daily life?  How do we/could we integrate it?  How would this mega-relatedness factor impact me if I could take it in?

"Imagine what it would be like if there was no sense of otherness when you were with other people [or material objects]. How would it feel if there was no trace of self-consciousness, and no preoccupation with superiority, competition, fear, mistrust, or unworthiness? Dare to consider, just for a moment, the possibility of being so at ease in the company of others that there was nothing to hide, nothing to defend—only the fear-less transparency of egoless awareness and the ecstatic urgency of the evolutionary impulse. That is what it feels like when we awaken to the Authentic Self, together."

--Andrew Cohen, shared by Richard Siebels 19 August 2012

*The Universe Within: Discovering the Common ... - Amazon.com

Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body

Talks and Publications by Neil Shubin

In a two-part video (part I and part II), Shubin discusses the planning and research that lead up to the discovery of Tiktaalik.

His book, Your Inner Fish, explores the connection between paleontology—in particular, the anatomy of fossil life forms—and present day human anatomy. It delves into the subject of how humans are shaped by their ancestors and what it means for who we are today.