You know, I've become more and more convinced that physicality IS spiritualism. The primary trouble with the major monotheistic religions today is the core belief that man is beyond animal impulses.
I don't know, this is just personal, but I always feel closer and more connected to the universe when I am aware of my body. Most of the time, the "voluntary" actions of the body are just a natural result of thought, there's no real awareness of actually being there. Sometimes it seems like thought is a curse--there is so much more sense and intuition when it flitters away. Being truely in the place, time, and action gives a greater sense of the interconnectedness between this and every other place, time, action.
The planet is a gorgeous allegory to the unseen dimensions, and She/He/It is One Being. I invite you to drop your identifying labels, these lines drawn in the sand, that you are americanblackethnicwhitemalefemalesouthernofacertainreligionnorthernamerican and be no dogma, but be all people, all animals, all plants, all weather, all ideas, and see if that advances you any. Try it out in various circumstances; try it like skinny dipping in safe warm beautiful inviting luscious waters.
This is such a wonderful sentiment. Funny, this is almost what I was saying in my last post, the idea of being there instead of being someone.
There's a really wonderful location on the Raritan River here that is legally private property, but my sister, cousin and I go to every summer to swim in our undies. The sentiments in this post mirrored the experience really strongly--thanks for that (particularly on a very chill December day).
"...the core belief that man is beyond animal impulses" -- That's worth a whole other rant: my take on that is that if modern humans embraced animal relatives in profound friendships and magickal/spiritual relationships (sort of how Native American paths did, sort of how Tom Brown Jr. has, sort of how Ted Andrews* has), AND allowed the creative flow, the flow of Will to manifest art, we would easily evolve past some of our current problems. I've always thought that rage, even violent rage, is but an unhealthy overcompression of creative will that has gone unused or underused. It's like creative Will is this swirling orb of multicolored firelight, but if it's tightened through lack of healthy flow, it becomes a hard, black iron or coal sharp spiky thing, that operates like a lance or flamethrower. A weapon, basically. But a problem like that can take eons to form and a moment of turning perception to solve (a moment that needs cyclical repeating.)
"I don't know, this is just personal, but I always feel closer and more connected to the universe when I am aware of my body." -- There's this dude, Charles Tart, who's been doing the astral and psi research a long time. A couple of years ago he was asked his guidance for the easiest inroad to meditation. His reply was just to simply notice where your body is in space, to feel, to notice, say, where your arm is resting, where all your "parts" are, how your body feels resting in a chair, what is touching what, and how heavily... then to notice your body's breaths, just notice them, and do just do all of that noticing for a while.
"Funny, this is almost what I was saying in my last post, the idea of being there instead of being someone." -- Yes, you totally inspired me and I wanted to inspire you back! Reading your post this morning after reading the southerner-rant last night ("you had to have your fucking orange juice" lol) - well today it all alchemized or made love or something in my mind and then this rant came out. hehehe Mutual inspiration, ya can't beat it, it's like some version of romance that's just for the intellect or spirit. No wonder why in the I Ching the concept of spiritual influence/inspiration is linked with "wooing." Ideas have sex and make babies all the time. Brainchildren! :)
(Now I feel this is wide open for jokes about getting babysitters, or red-faced-crying-screaming brainchildren, etc.)
He, I love that metaphor so much. LJ, in that case, is just one big ongoing idea orgy.
Yeah, I agree with you on all this stuff. I like that you've likened expression and communication to sex, because I think that the two have a lot in common, in their effect on the body and the way they are often both repressed impulses in a territorial culture. What you said in your post about women becoming property in this sort of environment is totally true--it's like with repression of sex comes this whole competitive urge, and it's the same with communication. I see the communication thing in American politics to the extreme--the attitude that you only matter if you can shout the loudest, which is why how much money a party spends on a campaign has such an influence on the outcome.
I'm glad that you mentioned meditation and breathing, too, because I thought of that after I posted--the connection between spirituality and the physical body seems so obvious there, and yet, at least in this culture, it seems as if it's usually presented the opposite way--spirituality is an effort to transcend the physical, rather than embrace it beyond linear thought.
My new friend massromantic has just posted a really cool breath meditation (huna/hawaiian stuff, they looove breathwork), and someone yesterday saw my merkabah icon pointed me toward this (breathwork) meditation: http://www.crystalinks.com/merkaba.html
I like to think of the tao as breath, too, waxing/waning, systole/diastole, a time to reap a time to sow, etc etc the ole "going between the pairs of opposites." I know a lot of people are anti-duality right now, and I think it's the same as being allowed to live Oneness and Multiplicity at the same time: I think duality is there only as a gateway to pass between, or two lovers to alchemize. So I never saw duality as this polar opposing thing of black and white, no grey - to me it's all ABOUT grey, which is really not shades of grey but rainbows, I think.
Gee it's a pleasure word-dancing with you, we've gone all over the map of stars, here lol
I don't know, this is just personal, but I always feel closer and more connected to the universe when I am aware of my body. Most of the time, the "voluntary" actions of the body are just a natural result of thought, there's no real awareness of actually being there. Sometimes it seems like thought is a curse--there is so much more sense and intuition when it flitters away. Being truely in the place, time, and action gives a greater sense of the interconnectedness between this and every other place, time, action.
The planet is a gorgeous allegory to the unseen dimensions, and She/He/It is One Being. I invite you to drop your identifying labels, these lines drawn in the sand, that you are americanblackethnicwhitemalefemalesouthernofacertainreligionnorthernamerican and be no dogma, but be all people, all animals, all plants, all weather, all ideas, and see if that advances you any. Try it out in various circumstances; try it like skinny dipping in safe warm beautiful inviting luscious waters.
This is such a wonderful sentiment. Funny, this is almost what I was saying in my last post, the idea of being there instead of being someone.
There's a really wonderful location on the Raritan River here that is legally private property, but my sister, cousin and I go to every summer to swim in our undies. The sentiments in this post mirrored the experience really strongly--thanks for that (particularly on a very chill December day).
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-- That's worth a whole other rant: my take on that is that if modern humans embraced animal relatives in profound friendships and magickal/spiritual relationships (sort of how Native American paths did, sort of how Tom Brown Jr. has, sort of how Ted Andrews* has), AND allowed the creative flow, the flow of Will to manifest art, we would easily evolve past some of our current problems. I've always thought that rage, even violent rage, is but an unhealthy overcompression of creative will that has gone unused or underused. It's like creative Will is this swirling orb of multicolored firelight, but if it's tightened through lack of healthy flow, it becomes a hard, black iron or coal sharp spiky thing, that operates like a lance or flamethrower. A weapon, basically. But a problem like that can take eons to form and a moment of turning perception to solve (a moment that needs cyclical repeating.)
"I don't know, this is just personal, but I always feel closer and more connected to the universe when I am aware of my body."
-- There's this dude, Charles Tart, who's been doing the astral and psi research a long time. A couple of years ago he was asked his guidance for the easiest inroad to meditation. His reply was just to simply notice where your body is in space, to feel, to notice, say, where your arm is resting, where all your "parts" are, how your body feels resting in a chair, what is touching what, and how heavily... then to notice your body's breaths, just notice them, and do just do all of that noticing for a while.
"Funny, this is almost what I was saying in my last post, the idea of being there instead of being someone."
-- Yes, you totally inspired me and I wanted to inspire you back! Reading your post this morning after reading the southerner-rant last night ("you had to have your fucking orange juice" lol) - well today it all alchemized or made love or something in my mind and then this rant came out. hehehe Mutual inspiration, ya can't beat it, it's like some version of romance that's just for the intellect or spirit. No wonder why in the I Ching the concept of spiritual influence/inspiration is linked with "wooing." Ideas have sex and make babies all the time. Brainchildren! :)
(Now I feel this is wide open for jokes about getting babysitters, or red-faced-crying-screaming brainchildren, etc.)
*Ted Andrews is author of "Animal Speak"
Reply
Yeah, I agree with you on all this stuff. I like that you've likened expression and communication to sex, because I think that the two have a lot in common, in their effect on the body and the way they are often both repressed impulses in a territorial culture. What you said in your post about women becoming property in this sort of environment is totally true--it's like with repression of sex comes this whole competitive urge, and it's the same with communication. I see the communication thing in American politics to the extreme--the attitude that you only matter if you can shout the loudest, which is why how much money a party spends on a campaign has such an influence on the outcome.
I'm glad that you mentioned meditation and breathing, too, because I thought of that after I posted--the connection between spirituality and the physical body seems so obvious there, and yet, at least in this culture, it seems as if it's usually presented the opposite way--spirituality is an effort to transcend the physical, rather than embrace it beyond linear thought.
Reply
I like to think of the tao as breath, too, waxing/waning, systole/diastole, a time to reap a time to sow, etc etc the ole "going between the pairs of opposites." I know a lot of people are anti-duality right now, and I think it's the same as being allowed to live Oneness and Multiplicity at the same time: I think duality is there only as a gateway to pass between, or two lovers to alchemize. So I never saw duality as this polar opposing thing of black and white, no grey - to me it's all ABOUT grey, which is really not shades of grey but rainbows, I think.
Gee it's a pleasure word-dancing with you, we've gone all over the map of stars, here lol
p.s. is this icon of yours from a faerie tale?
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