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.