Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 09:39:09 -0400
Meeting with Power
A year ago, another large copperhead snake appeared at our
doorstep. Unafraid and quiet (s)he stayed long enough for
cats to become at ease with her presence. The dark mottled
skin blended perfectly with the leaves in the shadow of the
foundation.
As I stepped to open the door, intentional movement warned me
of this confident and by now maybe curious being. The copperhead
has poisonous enough venom to incapacitate most any adversary;
no reason to fear.
(S)he has shown herself and initiated contact. Other years my
first reaction was to recoil from danger, at least inwardly, and
then move directly to Kill ! mode. Now the surprise element was
mitigated by having met copperheads on the doorstep for at least
the previous 4 years.
One year we decided not to kill the door copperhead and she moved
into the greenhouse. I tried to make her leave by slamming the door,
setting up hostile vibrations. I slammed the door until the doorjam
came loose. The snake appeared unaffected. She exuded quiet
power evinced by fearlessness which I found intimidating. Walking
by her the hair on the back of my neck straightened and I became
alert as a warrior. The snake never made a threatening move coiled
next to the walkway, but I became convinced she would lay eggs in
the cinderblock cavities under the seedling table.
I asked John to kill her and he did, swiftly, effortlessly.
In such a death I see no pain. I have never been able to
kill anything more evolved than an insect with such detachment.
The copperhead of last July somehow made intimate contact with me.
The snake asserted its right to the place (big stone door step which
we had dragged by a chain with the truck half a mile and levered into
place in front of the vestible opening to the east). I knew this was
not the place for the copperhead; children would visit occassionally.
Slowly a resolve coalesced. I would speak to it with an ultimatum:
leave by tomorrow or be killed (by the best of my ability). The
latter course was chosen. I chose a weapon suited to the deep recess
between stone and foundation wall: a long handled bushwacher.
I stood before the copperhead calming the mind and opening to whatever
might be best. Minutes passed. Unusual for impulsive me.
The snake must know I now had a weapon. It was alert but passive.
Tension and calm together. After reevaluating the situation and being
sure I needed to kill the snake, I struck. One blow severed the head
about a foot from the mouth. Both ends convulsed. I turned away and
gathered sage to rub my hands. Sage feels cleansing. It is something
to do rather than watch death.
I knew it had been wrong on some level to kill a nonaggressive creature.
Better I teach the children to be alert and mindful and responsible.
Other years, I had flung the dead snake bodies into the underbrush,
with an idea of providing a meal for a raccoon, oppossum, whomever.
Now I saw that a burial was in order, at least for the head.
With some ceremony, it was done, at sundown.
I felt full of the power from the copperhead...touching all aspects
of experience and learning.
power and the abdication of power
opening
further possibilities
powerful
and just passing through
whew
Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 14:14:12 -0400
you meet morning in the dark of night
and call it good; how wonderful.
Date: Fri, 1 Aug 1997 21:30:43 -0400
Sanity...balance and strength (equinimity and courage)
freedom and relationship
patience and earnestness; awareness, clarity, wonder
immersed in natural elements it's easy; the graduate course
is carrying it over to (sub)urbia's, noise and pressure
recognition of love, beauty and value
communion and communication
This conversation is valued and the source/recognition of joy in
consideration and sharing.
The boddhisatva's vow or
Great Vows for All, chanted by
Rinsai Buddhists going into every meal
Shu jo mu hen sei gan do
Bo no mu hen sei gan dan
Ho mon mu ryo sei gan gaku
Butsu do mu jo sei gan jo.
the thing i like about typetalking with you is
i like the self to whom you relate
you bring out the best in me
which can be said for maybe
a handful of people I know/haveknown
now with the breeze tickling the leaves
the pileated woodpecker drilling
cicadas dronning
sun still warm
its outside with me
Date: Fri, 12 Sep 1997 17:47:57 -0400
The Silence
Though the air is full of singing
my head is loud
with the labor of words.
Though the season is rich
with fruit, my tongue
hungers for the sweet of speech.
Though the beech is golden
I cannot stand beside it
mute, but must say
"It is golden," while the leaves
stir and fall with a sound
that is not a name.
It is in the silence
that my hope is, and my aim.
A song whose lines
I cannot make or sing
sounds men's silence
like a root. Let me say
and not mourn: the world
lives in the death of speech
and sings there.
Wendell Berry
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 1997 10:37:10 -0400
Now it's out into the sunshine with me and up to look at the spring
sending water to the resevoir, to collect any apples fallen in the night,
to see what there is to see which will lead to something to do, playing
in the woods gathering leaves for mulching the garden probably.
Love, contentment and inventiveness
Date: Sun, 5 Oct 1997 20:30:35 -0400
Dreaming, dipping into the unconscious,
bringing/receiving learning from the collective pool?
Some dreams are abstract concepts without visuals or sound
some vivid and revealing, even lifechanging; most, disjoint trivia.
Most don't survive the hypogogic review to make it to the telling,
but J and I usually speak of dreams on awakening.
> Patience for me is sometimes merely a redirection, a ceasation of
> beating my head against a wall, learning to be a little more
> clever - perhaps just walking around the wall. Inventiveness is
> almost always more efficacious than brute force.
> "... bend, like the willow in the wind ..."
>
so true and so natural and yet
genius is required to remember this in our conditioning...
patience begeting inventiveness seems at first wonderful insight
then on reflection betrays continuation of purpose rather than
acceptance or openness to what is
Date: Sun, 19 Oct 1997 17:35:51 -0400
As I type, fruit flies pester the computer and I clap at them,
now bagging about one of three tries (not counting the first 20 or so
swats to get the range). We do that which life
puts before us. Assumptions exposed leave room for learning;
learning begets learning.
Date: Mon, 3 Nov 1997 11:48:40 -0500
no worry but conscious in a vague way of the thin
line between living and 'dead' ones these days
midway past equinox toward solstice.
Date: Thu, 25 Dec 1997 23:26:24 -0500
Expect you had an enjoyable day, 'cause kindness is in the air
and magic accompanies it.
Date: Tue, 30 Dec 1997 12:02:57 -0500
Receiving your mail smiles me and the sun shines outside.
Yesterday soft snowballs fell in gaudy profussion for an hour
after a morning of sleety drizzle. The white stuff was welcomed
by all and didn't interfer with driving in this area. The earth stayed
white overnight and this morning's sun was a celebration
of the turn of the solstice.
(I only think this way when writing you lately; somehow a touch
of grace (t)here (-_-)
ll
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 1998 16:30:32 -0500
Fine quiet
opens the range of possibilities
under the sky I pee in the snow.
no parting formality;
rather, continuing connection
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 1998 11:38:49 -0500
but isn't the mind always flowing, in flux, or rearranging stuff
with every new bit of information (enform) sending ripples to
all corners of assumptions and functioning?
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 1998 09:12:09 -0500
Yeah Snow and more snow.
Tuesday was amazing;
it came in fist size puffs, then handball heavy clumps;
finally tapering to soft golfballs steadily falling straight
down. The downrush was as strong as heavy rain but
White, changing the whole world. Loved being out daring
to look up, making tracks, putting out sunflower seed
for birds, alive like a child padding along in my snow suit.
At night it continued with smaller snowdrops and trees
snapped, the house groaned.
Wednesday we waded through crotch high piles, relieved
with knee high spaces, up to the stream: water supply in
good condition. Coming back. beating the path down and
exhausted, slept in the afternoon.
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 1998 16:28:06 -0500
All bundled up in fat jacket, leggings, gloves, hat and scarf,
I trundle happily up the path into the woods to look at the
overflow from the resevoir and clean out the catch basin.
Snow on the ground reminds me of childhood forays into
the woods near my house; and the serene solitude of the
new fallen snow. Friends often stayed inside for reasons
of parental caution or unknown reticence.
Alone there was no need for ego, knowledge and the
ensueing defence system. Alone, alive in the world,
was understanding and connection, a sense of spirit
or This ! which Budhists speak of.
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 16:07:10 -0500
> Celso:
> The mind is the loop.
> The mind is the game.
> Nobody doesn't exist beyond the mind to disentangle the mind.
>
Or exist?
beyond the mind, existance is indefinite, unreportable
and yet there is a wonder and energy finer than mental
energy dares to explore
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 11:19:02 -0500
'Nother storm coming, Egad. Ek
Go get the groceries down at the neighbors (Griffins).
Went to town with Vickie Griffin yesterday but could only
carry half the stuff up even with Vickie helping. Still 10"
in spots, more in drifts, and down to ground level under
heavy pine trees, which caught a large share of snow
and subliminatingly bounced it back.
No sun syndrome sets in, sigh.
And, !! now I seethe phone line is down.
Ah Peace and Equinimity.
Love
Shines
On
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 06:57:12 -0500 (EST)
Finding an old friend makes one review both intervening years and the
mutual leaving off place, and this changes perspective even if slightly,
adding interest and understanding.
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 1998 14:53:25 -0500
Smiles and warmth on this dank day
Now down at the unheated house of
our neighbors (who are away on a trip)
with electricity flowing (-_-)
Date: Mon, 9 Mar 1998 16:16:33 -0500
attending to hollow sounds
urges silence:
word fast
Never have been predominantly visually inclined
wider interface than visual prevails
but lacks focus and continuity,
instead arising in each moment
> Sincerity and goodness ought
nay, sincerity shines
(never ought ! )
... or is missing, or faint.
to speak of candor rather than
just to use it unconsciously
may be a topic for mind but why bother.
the truly good ones live sincerity and
it is seen by those who recognize this as an aspect of self.
the wannabees might catch a whiff of this;
shun no one who is open to learning.
Date: Sun, 22 Mar 1998 15:15:17 -0500
heavy hoar frost on the high ridge to the east;
some blue sky so i dare to look at this backlog
of email.
Date: Fri, 20 Mar 1998 17:05:00 -0500
My fingers are so dirty with the rich warm soil
so uncleanable even with a brush and playing
at the sink with suds, that i shouldn't be allowed
to use a keyboard.
Spent hours transplanting, cleaning mulch
away from blueberry bushes, cherry tree bushes,
grapes and weeding the asperagus bed.
Have slipped into an unintellectual mode; few
words or ideas present themselves. Close my
eyes and see earthworms, roots, leafmulch.
Date: Sat, 28 Mar 1998 15:35:08 -0500
... from TFE (The Forest Edge)
" Harmony is the law of life,
discord its shadow; whence
springs suffering, the teacher,
the awakener of consciousness." H.P. Blavatsky
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 1998 11:35:47 -0500
here on the ridge spring announces itself gently;
tiny white flowers on delicate rosates offer themselves in the
asperagus patch and among the licorace smelling agastache
earthworms emerge with red bands developing for mating
cats killed a baby vole; 4 ants and a spider in the kitchen
living, loving in the sunshine
annie
Date: Tue, 31 Mar 1998 20:04:39 -0500
and now warming to hot and muggy weather
having fun bouncing around with 10 year olds
these last two days. so much energy and
interactions...a rich matrix for learning but of
any and all appropriate material and nonmaterial
concerns.. whee
simple (unsophisticated) intelligence
emerging
by glints and flashes
origional mind still in play
Date: Sun, 10 May 1998 07:59:18 -0400
hiya Johno
being
conscious of the intraconnected/source/conditioning
nature of my being to this extent - of the moment-
seems a tenuous thread
and just what i use for filters/selectors
(brain=filter; nerve endings=selectors)
and accepting my vast ignorance of seas of
nuance biological and 'mental' (math, music, language)
and accepting rich experience and gifts of help, smiles;
love in short
gifts of relationship (knowing thee):
space to grow/learn; with open wonder
allows all without conflict
(usually:-)
and conflict is seen for the short sighted harmless
pattern which it is
words flow out fingers rather then by tongue lately
so i just felt like writing and also
Greeting Good Friends
together, one email...spring celebration
*and* the celebration of fixing this email server
choosing (selecting) - to whatever degree -
perceptions and conditioned interpreted reality,
that is, choosing both what i see (perceive) and
the awareness of conditioning and therefore the
ability to 'retune' or erase strings of programming
and alert to the actual, both taught and invented
this
constitutes some of the connectedness
this coherence i've learned with you (plural)
namaste
Date: Tue, 12 May 1998 16:26:59 -0400 (EDT)
>>what is it about this season, this spring?
>>
> There, you're going to have to tell me.
>
the obvious, of course, the renewal of function, of growing, blossoming,
reproducing, the cycling out of life...more abundantly this year with its
unusually copious rain.
And, with
the relaxation possible in warmth and nurture of beauty, there is opening
to possibilities both created and reprogrammed. fecund soil speaks to
potential of mind; playful breeze loosens the grip of winter patterns.
this spring is the most prolific I've seen; extra rain (almost twice as
much as normal here) means double the germination, double the speed of
growth.
yes, and bringing forth life from the mulch and hidden seeds encourages a
similar psychological process.
>>and i ask your definition of "subconsciou(s)ly.
>>
> Subconscious cognition:
> An act of cognition that is not at the moment of its happening
> available for rational scrutiny and attention.
>
yes, i see, it's just not immediately available to attention...but may be
accessed in dreaming or by association(?)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> To Think;
> The goal (value) directed use of mind: one kind of mind process.
>
> Not included is the quality of process, or quality of result,
> nor the level(s) of consciousness involved. There can be effective
> thought or ineffective thought, analytic thought and synthetic thought,
> linear thought and nonlinear thought. Although "thinking" is value
> directed, there is no value that can be assigned to the process itself.
>
ah...value directed functioning, agreed
>
> Context of the verb:
> The central nervous system is the plastic hardware.
> Mind is a process that exists as a software running on the hardware.
> Unlike your PC, Mind and CNS can and do modify each other.
yeah
> CNS is supported by and connected bidirectionally to a complex of
> "Open Systems" which are themselves connected to each other:
> circulatory, homeostatic, immune, endocrine, ....
> The very openness of each system to all others makes the conceptual
> isolation of "system" more useful as one understands better the
> specific ways in which the systems are not isolated.
>
> One can question whether or not "Mind" is truly confined to CNS.
boundaries of Mind seem to be an irrelevant consideration.
sitting in quiet for long periords, examining the activities of mind, led
to this view
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> I think this a "most general" definition that works for scientific
> discussion. Common usage is different in that it implies and includes
> values and qualities that tacitly assumed by the speaker/writer.
> This silence is safe and the assumptions can be understood if the
> speakers/writers knows well to whom they speak, but can become a matter
> of confusion if the knowledge is faulty or absent. The assumptions
> can also become a point of argumentation resulting (by thought) in
> better thought, or it can become a matter of argumenttion simply for
> the pointless point of argumentation.
pointless argument can be a dodge for adjustment or refinement, a
stuckness.
>
> All thought about thought us ultimately circular, since before thought
> comes distinction, and before thought about thought comes the distinction
> of thought itself. Knowing this, we are not deterred.
>
> Mind is profoundly influenced even to the point of determination by
> the senses via the peripheral nervous system.
>
> Question: Is mind wihout senses recognizable?
>
senses are basic to life, imo; interesting to see their compensatory
adjustment when one (or more) sense is missing
> Question: Is the distinction of homo sapiens sapiens the ability to
> think about thinking?
>
> Question: Is the ability to think about thinking, that is, to question
> its own thought process both the source of it survival and
> also of its own annihilation?
>
> Question: Does nature really make value judgements that have any
> intrinsic meaning? Survival of what species, where?
> Amswer: No. The fundamental quality and value is chaos.
> Teleology is absolute fiction.
>
> Question: Is negative thigmotropism always pain?
>
Date: Thu, 21 May 1998 22:35:19 -0400
I'm doing this (listen, watch bits whizz by, stay alert sometimes)
to learn software/(hardware) application and am still
at the stage of understanding maybe 2.08% of the gibberish.
But other learning, that is, with self observation, gardening realities
and experiments, public relations (at MAIN), car maintanance, etc.
is encouraged by the effort to sort and understand computerese.
We are programmed to think in linear terms. Why?
To manipulate the environment as directed by ego
(or intelligence as the case may be). The Chinese, Egyptians
and Maya with pictoralgrams heiroglyphics, etc. seem to
communicate with whole concepts, but generally arranged
in that linear pattern ... why? (easier i guess)
thoughts
ideas
feelings
center response
from the what if creation
outward communication
express tendancies
could attitude
wonder
while eating peanut butter and raisons and playing FreeCell
on the side ... and J has gone to get ready for bed on schedule
so we
can rise with the sun
Date: Fri, 22 May 1998 15:08:22 -0400
when i was a preteenger
i played with a swirl of energy
unfamilar and indescribably other
which drew gently and radiated me out
then coming back from deep into
this vortex of in/out energy
i decided the safe thing was to
stick to sanity and stop playing around
I went all of the way through the vortex, rather that resisting it.
never knew even this much about it
until 40 years later when sitting for meditation
practice, a distinct state arose of similtaneous
radiating outward from a center/flowing inward to
this center...and today I look up the word quaquaversal
new to me and delightfully balanced/descriptive
Yes balanced is what is needed to expand in all direction at once.
-----------------------------------------
Subject: relationship
Now I talk with myself in your gracious company:
open, as i care to learn, finding resonance, some
understanding (which may mean "walking along with"...)
communion created and energized
as we relate in this monentpossibility
Here are you, close relative Who calls forth that which
Is from different perspective and as I see this
resonance echos.
as an aspect of thee, responsibility is an honor
and a flower/smile (Dylan, age 3: flowering::smiling)
Date: Fri, 29 May 1998 07:23:06 -0400
Subject: performance
we meet thru ideas felt and conveyed by words
matching, interpenetrating the experience who
we are; encountering Thee i find vast unfamilar
ideas opening horizons & prompting coherence,
inward centeredness, validation of identity.
i know expansion
finds opposite coalescence
(in the way zero suggests infinity)
and the heart is almost too full to send this
>>
>> ah, now, my Brother, say something in defense
>> of the drama.....
>>
> The show isn't *not* part of you.
> It is a way of expressing a part you that can't be expressed otherwise;
> maybe J sees you differently (almost certainly).
> I see, however, that this why there are poets, writers and composers.
>
>> now that's the first i've seen you as brother,
>> must be getting over the awe complex which
>> kicks in upon meeting someone brighter than
>> bright
>>
> I luv it!!!!!!
>
Date: Sun, 7 Jun 1998 11:27:16 -0400
This honor humbles/enobles the self image and frees
attention from the task (ongoing maintance of self image).
Merci buttercups, as we said when we were
in the terrible teens.
Okay, I will bookmark the page. I seldom go online
these bright prosperous garden days; except like
now when the muse draws me...is that *you*
just getting up??!! (You are a/musing...
egad these are love letters with love broadened to
friendship and interest of all sorts. That would
explain the muse bit anyway.)
No deletions nor changes....
With those selfreferencing words, this page closes itself in incomplete completion.