It’s very important to me to feel the dimension in which Love holds everything. Holds it in precise harmony of time and space, moves it in ways which would seem impossible in fewer dimensions - so that everything moves freely and nothing collides. I know that the lines I have always drawn on things - my estimations of where things have been and where they are going, and why, and what should be done about it - are in fewer dimensions than the things exist in. Thus my estimations have always been wrong. They’ve seemed compelling and true, but they’ve led to conclusions short of the ones Love would make. They’ve led me to accept the inevitability of discord, the necessity of clashes over time, resources, and attention. I find great relief in letting Love do the defining.
Love makes room for everything, everyone. Love has time to hear every story. Love knows how to release every thought from the worry that says there is no way out of this one. Love gives us each our custom-made reassurance that we are what we’re supposed to be, and we can always have what we need.
In the dawning of the morning
Rays of light stream like combs through the trees
Freeing each branch from its background
Lifting sight
Inspiring the chorus of the birds
In the dawning of the morning
The fingers of Love reach every dreaming thought
Warming each molecule
Enlivening joy
Tuning the chorus of the Word
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Musical Waves
Eric and I were sitting at Matthew’s Beach and I said to him, listen to the waves lapping on the beach and against the wall - try to hear what music you can from them. Then I listened myself, and I found that they sounded musical, instead of random, as I laid their sounds on a rhythm that depicted the grid of waves out on the water. It was a 12-8 rhythm - or a pair of six-beat measures.
I’d tried before to hear music in the waves, and was brought up short because the waves didn’t break rhythmically - the pause between the breakings would always be unpredictable. My attempts to find melody would lurch and fall back like the waves, and slap against each other. Now with a rhythmic background underlying them, the waves brought interesting highlights of melody and rhythm - often coming in on the two- or three-count of the beat. And different waves could finish their pattern while others joined in, overlapping - I could imagine setting up an orchestration on Eric’s music composition software, where different instruments would follow the tune of different waves, and others would hold the grid pattern that I could see spreading out across the water.
I noticed again the next time that the fast cycle of threes - two or four three-beat pulses - was a pervasive part of the wave’s rhythm. I wondered if it was just me imposing that on them, so I tried to think of them in 4-4 time. They would accept a four pulse, but within each pulse there was still a three-pulse. I wondered if it was related to waves being made from circles, and circles being associated with the number six.
Riding home, the music stayed with me, and I thought about rhythm as the matrix upon which melody is laid out - matrix being the net upon which ideas can be hung, what stretches out the possible, upon which what is can then develop. I thought about how the word matrix comes from the word that means mother. But mostly I listened to the music, the memory of the wave music mixed with the bicycle’s rhythms.
Today when I rode to Matthew’s beach and sat up on the lifeguard’s seat, I heard the waves singing to me. I didn’t need to construct the music or think about its underlying rhythm - they just sang, and I listened and watched the dance of blues and almost-whites and dark green, the interlacing of transparency and sheen, on the water.
Riding home, accompanied by the music, I thought about resonance - how it feels to vibrate with the music - having it awaken places inside of me and define their chambers, feeling alerted from my core up through the place behind the roof of my mouth, feeling harmonized, aligned. And I thought about Love as the matrix - the rhythmic background that arranges everything in its proper place and time, so it can sing.
I’d tried before to hear music in the waves, and was brought up short because the waves didn’t break rhythmically - the pause between the breakings would always be unpredictable. My attempts to find melody would lurch and fall back like the waves, and slap against each other. Now with a rhythmic background underlying them, the waves brought interesting highlights of melody and rhythm - often coming in on the two- or three-count of the beat. And different waves could finish their pattern while others joined in, overlapping - I could imagine setting up an orchestration on Eric’s music composition software, where different instruments would follow the tune of different waves, and others would hold the grid pattern that I could see spreading out across the water.
I noticed again the next time that the fast cycle of threes - two or four three-beat pulses - was a pervasive part of the wave’s rhythm. I wondered if it was just me imposing that on them, so I tried to think of them in 4-4 time. They would accept a four pulse, but within each pulse there was still a three-pulse. I wondered if it was related to waves being made from circles, and circles being associated with the number six.
Riding home, the music stayed with me, and I thought about rhythm as the matrix upon which melody is laid out - matrix being the net upon which ideas can be hung, what stretches out the possible, upon which what is can then develop. I thought about how the word matrix comes from the word that means mother. But mostly I listened to the music, the memory of the wave music mixed with the bicycle’s rhythms.
Today when I rode to Matthew’s beach and sat up on the lifeguard’s seat, I heard the waves singing to me. I didn’t need to construct the music or think about its underlying rhythm - they just sang, and I listened and watched the dance of blues and almost-whites and dark green, the interlacing of transparency and sheen, on the water.
Riding home, accompanied by the music, I thought about resonance - how it feels to vibrate with the music - having it awaken places inside of me and define their chambers, feeling alerted from my core up through the place behind the roof of my mouth, feeling harmonized, aligned. And I thought about Love as the matrix - the rhythmic background that arranges everything in its proper place and time, so it can sing.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Changing time
We saw an old star trek episode the other day, in which a star-ship fell through a rift in time and thereby altered the timeline of the Enterprise and everyone in it. Instead of having been at peace, they now had been at war for twenty-two years. One of the crew was able, faintly, to perceive that something had changed and was now not right, and based on her urgings, they sent the other star-ship back through the time rift, and things returned to how they had been.
I found myself thinking about this later. There wasn’t any need, after they returned to the “true” timeline, for them to rehabilitate their thought, to get used to the different way of thinking about things entailed in a peaceful mission. Only the one character, a mystical sort, had any inkling that things had ever been otherwise. I thought, this is often the way it is when healing takes place in human experience. It isn’t just a shift of experience within a timeline to something more favorable. Such a shift might hardly be called healing, since memory of the bad past and fear of its return would be the context of the present. On the other hand, a shift of the whole timeline would remove the bad past, the present flavor of it, and the sense that it is in the realm of proven possibility, and could happen again. I think it’s true that real healing moves not just the bad thing but the whole line of possibility that claimed to justify its presence.
For example, one time when I had an immediate healing of tonsillitis (after quite a time of suffering) it came with the flooding thought: “you can’t be incompetent - you’re a perfect child of Christ!” The healing of the physical condition didn’t involve the diagnosis of the tonsillitis as an outgrowth of feeling incompetent and a regime to try to change that thought and thus relieve the pain. It was much more like a shift in the whole timeline - I couldn’t be incompetent because my source held me in perfection, and I had never been otherwise, either in thought or in body. With that realization the whole condition changed - my body became well and my sense of myself was improved at the same time.
I was recently praying about addiction. I contemplated how all desire belongs to God - that we can’t be made to desire something that’s not good for us, and that our being is perfect, unfallen, innocent. I repudiated the notion of a fallen man, or one whose timeline included, in a past however distant or apocryphal, an ancester tempted to do something that wasn’t good for her. There never was a timeline (or set of conditions) in which anyone could become separated from the pure leadings of what’s good, which are part of our rightful connection with God.
When I woke up the next morning, it felt like the world had shifted a little. The sweet innocence I had perceived in my prayers seemed to have sifted into everything. It was as if, at least a little bit, the timeline had changed. Not that things had become more innocent, but that they were found to have always been so. Even in myself I felt free of the compulsion to grab my computer and check my email first thing. I thought of how the whole notion of addiction, regardless of particular substance, regardless of how pervasive it may seem to be, really didn’t make sense for the possessors of the one Mind.
It occurs to me that many such shifts have happened in my lifetime. I think we parent better - people understand positive discipline more, and the behaviorist, punitive model that I grew up with is not assumed to be the only way of looking at things. I think we work together better - there is an understanding, at least in some places, of the benefits of cooperation and mutual appreciation over competition and jealousy. So I think it’s possible for the world to continue to change in this way - not through revolution but through quiet leavening of thought; not by taking a major turn of behavior but by having the whole timeline - the whole set of assumptions of what always has been - shift underneath us.
I found myself thinking about this later. There wasn’t any need, after they returned to the “true” timeline, for them to rehabilitate their thought, to get used to the different way of thinking about things entailed in a peaceful mission. Only the one character, a mystical sort, had any inkling that things had ever been otherwise. I thought, this is often the way it is when healing takes place in human experience. It isn’t just a shift of experience within a timeline to something more favorable. Such a shift might hardly be called healing, since memory of the bad past and fear of its return would be the context of the present. On the other hand, a shift of the whole timeline would remove the bad past, the present flavor of it, and the sense that it is in the realm of proven possibility, and could happen again. I think it’s true that real healing moves not just the bad thing but the whole line of possibility that claimed to justify its presence.
For example, one time when I had an immediate healing of tonsillitis (after quite a time of suffering) it came with the flooding thought: “you can’t be incompetent - you’re a perfect child of Christ!” The healing of the physical condition didn’t involve the diagnosis of the tonsillitis as an outgrowth of feeling incompetent and a regime to try to change that thought and thus relieve the pain. It was much more like a shift in the whole timeline - I couldn’t be incompetent because my source held me in perfection, and I had never been otherwise, either in thought or in body. With that realization the whole condition changed - my body became well and my sense of myself was improved at the same time.
I was recently praying about addiction. I contemplated how all desire belongs to God - that we can’t be made to desire something that’s not good for us, and that our being is perfect, unfallen, innocent. I repudiated the notion of a fallen man, or one whose timeline included, in a past however distant or apocryphal, an ancester tempted to do something that wasn’t good for her. There never was a timeline (or set of conditions) in which anyone could become separated from the pure leadings of what’s good, which are part of our rightful connection with God.
When I woke up the next morning, it felt like the world had shifted a little. The sweet innocence I had perceived in my prayers seemed to have sifted into everything. It was as if, at least a little bit, the timeline had changed. Not that things had become more innocent, but that they were found to have always been so. Even in myself I felt free of the compulsion to grab my computer and check my email first thing. I thought of how the whole notion of addiction, regardless of particular substance, regardless of how pervasive it may seem to be, really didn’t make sense for the possessors of the one Mind.
It occurs to me that many such shifts have happened in my lifetime. I think we parent better - people understand positive discipline more, and the behaviorist, punitive model that I grew up with is not assumed to be the only way of looking at things. I think we work together better - there is an understanding, at least in some places, of the benefits of cooperation and mutual appreciation over competition and jealousy. So I think it’s possible for the world to continue to change in this way - not through revolution but through quiet leavening of thought; not by taking a major turn of behavior but by having the whole timeline - the whole set of assumptions of what always has been - shift underneath us.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Cast Party
As I was riding my bike yesterday, I noticed a change in feeling towards people I encountered, especially people who might be around my age. I noticed that I feel towards them as I might feel towards fellow members of the cast after a show was over, when we were relaxing in some festive room, celebrating. Whatever role we each had had to play, we had taken off our costumes now, and were simply together, in the commonality of our collective effort and abiding humanity.
So I no longer cared if this was a high powered executive, or a humble worker, or someone with a successful family, or someone who felt all alone in the world. Whatever things had gone on in each of our lives, I sensed that we had had high points and falls, deep loves and deep lessons, things we cared a lot about and things we had let slip. Probably none of us felt totally content with our performances, but now we were beginning to glimpse that it didn’t matter anyway. We could celebrate life, accept each other in the room of those who had finished playing the game.
Not to say we weren’t still living, not to say the intensity and beauty of our lives were passed, or that we were coasting rapidly towards a finish. It’s not life, but the game, that’s over - the game of trying to measure up, to be good enough, to have a plausible story that we could tell. We now knew that no one was worse, and no one was better, that it was good to help each other, and to strive for honesty in all things. That we didn’t need a story as much as a willingness to listen, and we didn’t need things or accomplishments to define who we were.
As I said, all of this was just a feeling in my mind as I rode by and looked at the other people on the trail. But I found it made me feel easier among them, just as I’ve felt easier, lately, in other venues. And I thought, I can invite anyone into this room of celebration. They don’t even have to be old enough. If they are young, or their career is, maybe there’s something that I, or someone else in the room, can give them to help them on their way. And if they need to be celebrated, they will have come to the right place.
So I no longer cared if this was a high powered executive, or a humble worker, or someone with a successful family, or someone who felt all alone in the world. Whatever things had gone on in each of our lives, I sensed that we had had high points and falls, deep loves and deep lessons, things we cared a lot about and things we had let slip. Probably none of us felt totally content with our performances, but now we were beginning to glimpse that it didn’t matter anyway. We could celebrate life, accept each other in the room of those who had finished playing the game.
Not to say we weren’t still living, not to say the intensity and beauty of our lives were passed, or that we were coasting rapidly towards a finish. It’s not life, but the game, that’s over - the game of trying to measure up, to be good enough, to have a plausible story that we could tell. We now knew that no one was worse, and no one was better, that it was good to help each other, and to strive for honesty in all things. That we didn’t need a story as much as a willingness to listen, and we didn’t need things or accomplishments to define who we were.
As I said, all of this was just a feeling in my mind as I rode by and looked at the other people on the trail. But I found it made me feel easier among them, just as I’ve felt easier, lately, in other venues. And I thought, I can invite anyone into this room of celebration. They don’t even have to be old enough. If they are young, or their career is, maybe there’s something that I, or someone else in the room, can give them to help them on their way. And if they need to be celebrated, they will have come to the right place.
Serenity Dog
Sometimes when I see signs from too far away to quite read them, interesting suggestions come to mind. The other day as I walking home from the bus stop I saw a sign on someone’s gate and it said (as my mind suggested to me) “Serenity Dog.” It was only two steps before I could tell that it actually said “Security Dog,” but in those moments I got an image that I liked enough to keep thinking about it as I walked home.
A serenity dog would make sure that everyone who set foot on the property was at peace. It would guard the state of peace with a kingly authority, an unassailable dignity. People who walked in would find their anxieties melting away, and people who lived there would find their lives unfolding in a delightful, unhurried order.
I told my husband about this thought, and he said it was sort of like a few places in Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings, like the home of Tom Bombadil or the place of Beorn, or even the elves’ kingdom, where the travelers would feel, at least for a time, that their troubles were left on the outside, and they were safe within.
It is a quality that every home should have, and a being that could ensure it would be much more valuable than a security dog. Come to think of it, serenity could be ensured by a dog about as well as security could.
Which reminds me of something that happened today. My daughter is traveling in a foreign country, and early this morning went, with two other girls - her cousin and friend - to a very remote area, renowned for its beauty and biological diversity. Last night I started to get a niggling concern about their plans, in terms of three girls traveling on their own to a place where there would be little, if any, cell phone contact, etc. Though I told myself that for certain my worry was unfounded, I still felt the need to pray. It occurred to me that safety could not be based on location, and that if I had the fear that any place or any person could be unsafe, this needed my prayers.
So I thought about the fact that there was no place that, by virtue of being where it was, could guarantee anyone feeling safe. If I had demons in my mind, even a place as benign as my suburban back yard could be terrifying. From this I concluded that the one place of safety is Mind - that Mind proclaims safety in every place. Then, since Mind is the center at every place, safety in every place is as certain as it is here, and I can be free of fear for myself and for my daughter at the same time.
I kept thinking about this to strengthen my conviction of the safety of my daughter and of every one of God’s ideas. I considered that the power of good is always unfolding, and there is no contrary power that can stand up against it. I considered that God wouldn’t make any of Her ideas vulnerable, but would supply each one with everything needed to be safe.
We eventually got an email from my daughter saying that all is perfect. But I continue to hold to my new insight about the safety of everyone, provided by Mind, Love, the maker of all of us. So maybe I don’t need a serenity dog. Maybe instead I will contemplate the non-location-based imperative for serenity everywhere (and security, too, for that matter), based on the fact that Mind, Love, is the center in every place.
A serenity dog would make sure that everyone who set foot on the property was at peace. It would guard the state of peace with a kingly authority, an unassailable dignity. People who walked in would find their anxieties melting away, and people who lived there would find their lives unfolding in a delightful, unhurried order.
I told my husband about this thought, and he said it was sort of like a few places in Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings, like the home of Tom Bombadil or the place of Beorn, or even the elves’ kingdom, where the travelers would feel, at least for a time, that their troubles were left on the outside, and they were safe within.
It is a quality that every home should have, and a being that could ensure it would be much more valuable than a security dog. Come to think of it, serenity could be ensured by a dog about as well as security could.
Which reminds me of something that happened today. My daughter is traveling in a foreign country, and early this morning went, with two other girls - her cousin and friend - to a very remote area, renowned for its beauty and biological diversity. Last night I started to get a niggling concern about their plans, in terms of three girls traveling on their own to a place where there would be little, if any, cell phone contact, etc. Though I told myself that for certain my worry was unfounded, I still felt the need to pray. It occurred to me that safety could not be based on location, and that if I had the fear that any place or any person could be unsafe, this needed my prayers.
So I thought about the fact that there was no place that, by virtue of being where it was, could guarantee anyone feeling safe. If I had demons in my mind, even a place as benign as my suburban back yard could be terrifying. From this I concluded that the one place of safety is Mind - that Mind proclaims safety in every place. Then, since Mind is the center at every place, safety in every place is as certain as it is here, and I can be free of fear for myself and for my daughter at the same time.
I kept thinking about this to strengthen my conviction of the safety of my daughter and of every one of God’s ideas. I considered that the power of good is always unfolding, and there is no contrary power that can stand up against it. I considered that God wouldn’t make any of Her ideas vulnerable, but would supply each one with everything needed to be safe.
We eventually got an email from my daughter saying that all is perfect. But I continue to hold to my new insight about the safety of everyone, provided by Mind, Love, the maker of all of us. So maybe I don’t need a serenity dog. Maybe instead I will contemplate the non-location-based imperative for serenity everywhere (and security, too, for that matter), based on the fact that Mind, Love, is the center in every place.
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