Forest and trees

Forest and trees

A religion reflection..

Immersed as we are in
brambles and thickness 
knowing well the trees of

cliched forest and trees..

Each tree quite alone..

But for this moment 

let the cliche speak:

Please find a clearing

experience a Self removed

from clustered beliefs

about separate trees..

Make your Discovery

then return 

to the trees..

Find them shining

as real Trees...

The Seer

The Seer

The high import of 

finding ourselves unmixed

with darker things

things which seem to divert

 notions of luminous I am..

Let us then become Seer

seeing all else as seen..

We have created two poles of

 enormous yet temporary worth..

I am the Seer

with new freedom as felt

and I must linger a while

without remembering

all I have left behind..

I will rest here this evening

this lighted waystation

safe from memory's recall... 

Considering that which needs to be done

Considering that which needs to be done

This can weigh now restricting present freedom..

Then the appearance that the path back to freedom

must pass through that which needs to be done..

Porchlight

Porchlight 

Ella glimpsed the 
neighbor's light

across backyard fences

in her evenings..

A small back porch light

shining and welcoming 

to her bedtime eye..

A comfort she said

living alone as she did

after Dad's departure..
A small light
for her and for us
one of many lights 
we cross in our lives
directing our attention
to a luminous Awareness:
what she Is
what we Are...

(My mother, Ella, passed 
away in 2000...)

What is it..?

What is it..?

That in which appearances appear

in which every-thing appears

as an appearance..

Trying here to shake the objectivity

which seems impossible

short of Silence..

But our everyday intuition

tells us that there is __________

in which we experience every-thing..

And this ___________ we find

to be permanent

not that which comes and goes..

Our language constricts and hides

that for which we are searching..

Ending the search

reveals our ___________

our unnamed Identity...

STRETCH...Language and Spirituality

STRETCH

June 20th, 2016

3:00 to 5:00 PM

Myron Stratton Home

Facilitator:  Charlie Coon
(charlesrcoon@hotmail.com
polarityinplay.blogspot.com)

THE AWAKENED EYE

is the eye that perceives without labeling;

we could also call it the innocent eye

or the eye of beginner’s mind

Many artists and artisans have found that the practice of drawing, and/or engagement in creative encounters in the visual arts can open the mind to another way of seeing, a way that transcends habitual dualistic assumptions. They may use different words to describe this transcendence, but all infer a relation ship with something inconceivably larger than their everyday experience, something referred to here as the intimate unknowable.

When consciousness is no longer divided into subject and object an inexplicable wholeness pervades and one’s actions flow seamlessly from and AS that completeness. Yet we have no language with which to speak of this seamlessness – even to use the phrase “art and the intimate unknowable” invites confusion, for within the encounter there is neither entity nor activity separate from the unknowable. Logically and experientially it is clearly meaningless to speak of ‘subject’ and ‘object’, and yet speak one must.

Throughout history there have been – and still are – many wise teachers who speak of this transcendence of duality as one’s original nature – an a-priori ‘beingness’ which we seem compelled to simultaneously seek and overlook. Their teachings are sometimes referred to as advaita, which means ‘one without a second’ – or more simply, nonduality. Regarded in this wider context the awakened eye is synonymous with the awakened I...

--miriam louisa simons  (See her blog:  theawakenedeye.com )

A twig of love

A twig of love

"If God is God, God isn't good.

If God is good, God isn't God."

These words ring out

as life's challenge

to a Different experience..

Our settled beliefs

from innocent years

'tho threatened
 by struggle and loss

 still may shout 
of independence

with attachments intact..

Yet the occasional
fright and unease

of a missing something

begins our search..

From going to and fro

in the earth
 from walking up and
down on it

to at last discover
our beliefs can burn

in a tired ash heap..

A twig of love
from the ruin springs..
Now we recognize:

That which we
 always have been...

Language

Language

When in our experience

a perception arises

within consciousness

(always within!)

this, my friend

 is the real Big Bang..

The sudden dividing

perceiving of 10,000 things

clamors for identification

 for nouns and verbs..

Willing thought complies

with a full array which

 dictionaries dutifully record..

But, as you can see

with this turn of events

head-splitting problems

befuddle our lives..

A perception here

is not a perception there

and a new Big Bang

makes another demand

and off we go:

new nouns and verbs..

And things get worse:

 nouns and verbs

as spoiled children

claim to have

 an identity their own

claiming to be

the world we see..

Remember now 

those perceptions arising

those 10,000 things..?

alas, forgotten..

Ahhhhh..language...!

Language...STRETCH

STRETCH

June 20th, 2016, 3:00 to 5:00 PM

Myron Stratton Home, Colorado Springs

No cost

Facilitator:  Charlie Coon

(charlesrcoon@hotmail.com

polarityinplay.blogspot.com)

Topic:

"Language and Spirituality"

Do the languages and cosmologies of Native Americans hold the keys to the mysteries of quantum physics and the nature of reality? That is the intriguing premise of The Language of Spirituality, a documentary film about the intersection of spirituality, modern science and language. Inspired by a series of dialogues between western physicists, Native scholars and elders and linguists, the documentary begins by exploring how language and worldview influence each other.

From this starting point, the late Dan "Moonhawk" Alford traces the evolution of Einstein's theory of relativity from its beginnings as a linguistic principle and its connection to the groundbreaking work of cholar Benjamin Whorf, whose study of Hopi and other Native languages in the early 20th century revealed a language structure quite dissimilar from Indo-European languages, but strikingly capable of describing the dynamic world of quantum physics, at a time when physicists were lamenting their inability to describe the subatomic realm in conventional language.

Whorf's theories, attacked by some, were bolstered by the work of noted theoretical physicist David Bohm, whose notions of reality and consciousness as expressed in his book "Wholeness and the Implicate Order," mirror the Hopi worldview. In 1992, it all came full circle when Bohm, just months before his death, was invited to meet Native elders at a dialogue in Kalamazoo, Michigan. There, Bohm was exposed to the Native worldview and found the dynamic, verb-based language that he had imagined.

I am John Proctor!

 I am John Proctor!

ELIZABETH:  John, it come to naught that I
should forgive you, if you'll not forgive yourself.

We struggle as did John
to find an identity
that is not shrouded in
that persistent persuasion
of our separation..

ELIZABETH:  There be no higher judge under
Heaven than Proctor is!  Forgive me, forgive me
John--I never knew such goodness in the world!

PROCTOR:  God in Heaven, what is John Proctor,
what is John Proctor?

Our self inquiry comes:
Who am I..?
What am I..?
I am..?

PROCTOR:  You will not use me!
I am John Proctor!
You have made your magic now,
for now I do think I see some shred
of goodness in John Proctor.

His discovery appeared
on his horizon
as does our own:
 Freedom!
Identity!
Peace!
I am...

Mistakes

Mistakes

These are anathema in our splitting culture

A sign simply of failure and the ego's wound..

Following comes a stressful resolution

to avoid in the future these pained indignities..

Yet it seems there there are winds of change

arriving daily and flagging mistakes as gifts..

A mistake may point to the path underfoot

as not your path..and more of value:

your real destination is not on this path

or any path..you have Arrived...

Simulation...are we?

Simulation...are we?

Perhaps science is nearing
the truth that we are..
Saying without naming
that Consciousness came first..
Within and as Consciousness
everything arises and becomes
a Simulation..a seeming Other...
And this Other
made of  Consciousness 
may choose to simulate its Other..
This simple understanding
burns the confusion binding us all
through eons of time...

"There's a billion to one chance we're living in base reality," Elon Musk said tonight on stage at Recode's Code Conference, meaning that one of the most influential and powerful figures in tech thinks that it's overwhelmingly likely we're just characters living inside a simulation.

In 40 years, Musk explained, we've gone from Pong to massively multiplayer online games with millions of simultaneous players, games with photorealistic graphics, and stand now on the cusp of a new wave of virtual and augmented reality experiences.

But that's not necessarily a bad thing. "If a civilization stops advancing then that may be due to some calamitous event that erases civilization," Musk said, presenting two options. "Either we're going to create simulations that are indistinguishable from reality, or civilization will cease to exist."

Excerpts above are from:

http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/2/11837874/elon-musk-says-odds-living-in-simulation

Deep woods

Deep woods

A walk in the woods

reveals the darkness

on each side of 

a dimly lit  trail..

The sun has seeped 

through shading branches

enough for confidence

 to keep moving 

and the expectation:

brighter light up ahead..

But then I notice

on the trailsides 

sunlight has expanded

exposing green branches

here and there..

Branches seem to herald

a new waking:

expectation often hides

what is expected

on the trail up ahead...

Stained glass

Stained glass

What is so appealing..?

It seems this glass

covers it All

the landscape entire..

Those artificial boundaries

are superimposed thought

with the message:

nothing left out

nothing unimportant..

Boundaries seem to fade

announcing their departure

and separation's 

myth...

Willy

Willy

This tragic person

his life struggle

was his projection

of his small self..

We are all named Willy

so it seems.. in

 our separating culture..

Happiness is thought

to be located

in visible success

and so we seek..

 never finish seeking..

looking for happiness

found in measurement..

And when it's found

Happiness stealthily appears

awaiting our recognition

of It alone..

But.. alas.. misidentification 

then dissatisfaction and

 onward searching for

illusive happiness hidden

in each success
and in each failure

as tragedy unfolds...

reference is Arthur Miller's

"Death of a Salesman"

Did your house get washed down the hill?

Did your house get washed down the hill?

Her question to which I answered

no, not yet..

Late spring rains with waterpower 

forming as hail to cut and slash

then to surround and seep

scaling trickles to rivers

uprooting and re-routing

with fractal consequences..

The smooth wholeness of water

iterating with breakage and re-forming..

Creation's waterway...