When we were young
Life was laughter
Sunny summer shores
snowflakes and snowmen
Time was slow
Waiting for dreams
far from home
TV taught love
Broken promises
Happy ever after
Learning hard and fast
How hearts were broken
Watching school years melt
Flowing into rivers of life
Childhood laughter
Fermented in hollow casks
Emptied into tears
Memories of years
In between
Children raising children
Without knowing
The heart was for truth
While spelling lullaby’s
Sang them to sleep
Who dares name the place where light will cease
And dreams fold in upon the weight of their truth
What would release the gravity of where this convergence
Travels past the night only to cling to its darkness
in more than words present tense reveals
waste no time as shadows lengthen in the sun
a rising moon is felt more than it is seen
teeming tidal pools run red in the night
Poetry is so much easier to for me to write than prose, for in prosaic writing, there needs to be a concise form of words, so that the author’s mind blends accurately with the mind of the reader, regardless of the contrast of thought and the consequences it invokes or evokes.I had thought of using the title “Really?” but felt it was vague, and probably better for a poem, so The Nature of Reality will do nicely.
I haven’t got this pegged yet, but I do have some thoughts I would like to share, and if you dare, then meditate on them and see if they hold true for you.
I suppose I should begin with science, and the scientific view of the nature of reality, which is – Nature – and the natural world as viewed through the senses – which is where it ends. Now, science will reflect on the world through the process of thought, it will analyze what is sees, measures, hears, and smells, but will not allow the aspect of thought, often confused with mind, to influence its outcomes other than it being a chalkboard on which it reduces its findings to the lowest common denominator for publication. That’s not to say one wouldn’t receive an argument over that fact, but the truth is, in general, according to modern science if it can’t be measured it doesn’t exist, so using that perspective I might be drawn to conclude that thought does not exist …
There are flaws in my argument, and I would only feel well received if I got feedback attesting to that fact, so let’s continue and ‘see’ if we can find our way down into and then out of the proverbial Rabbit Hole – for in truth it does exist! Lewis Carroll was on the right track even if his story seems an absurd fairy tale, the reader, as Alice, needs to take a look at the nature of their own reality, and check it against the stories reality, and is given the opportunity to decide where truth lives, and where it lies. In a similar light Carlos Castanedas in A Separate Reality reflects on our human experience as a dream, and takes the reader on journeys as real as if they were happening right here, right now, except they all take place within the mind, or do they? Time after time, journeying into the separate reality Carlos Castanedas returns to himself as changed as if he had journeyed across the Himalayas to a Tibetan monastery spending long hours in ascetic meditation and prayer, where thought and experience changes his perspective of reality.
There is no right answer here, there is only perspective, and it is important to understand the nature of the word. A perspective is the viewpoint of the observer, the place where one receives information that will be distilled into the nature of their reality. I had occasion recently speaking with a first grade student to be gifted with her their perspective on the letter g. We discussed at length why the hook of the letter had to go left instead of right. My answer being that we need a way, a set of standards, so that when we communicate we can understand that we are all talking about the same thing. In that regard the nature of reality, is simply a set of standards we can all use in order to commune – icate while experiencing what we call life expression through our physical self, in our bodies.
It would seem then that the nature of reality is the reflection of experience accepted within our individual psyches in order to establish a common language in order that we may understand one another, and our intentions through experience in the light. What we accept should be considered a broad generality of common goals and aspirations, and not a hard and fast ruler that allows no other set of measures, for without the experience of abstraction, without the ability of our thought and our mind to view an ever expanding whole, then we are at odds with the universe around us. One that never stands still, never remains the same, and least of all never accepts what is, against the perspective of all that could be … there is no such thing infinity plus one …
Note: This blog entry started out with a thought, and I soon came to realize that a discussion of the nature of reality would require a volume if not more, so perhaps this is where it begins. Thank you all for your patience…
There are stars in our eyes
Light blends experience with eons
Photographs paint the soul’s story
Its testaments written in stone
Seasons flow without consent
Their rising and their falling
Shadows cast into our lives
As earth becomes our calling
What clockwork casts it light within
Our souls reveal the measure
Carbon hardened into diamond
Its light becomes our treasure
Awareness always seeks to find
The secret written in the stone
Across the threshold of our lives
Conceals the word unknown
Tongues have never spoken since
The light of day first dawned
Time and motion came to be
The dream of life we formed
By our consent now come to be
This the rose unfolding by
Sun and rain and sacred earth
Offers life beneath the sky
Image: http://astrobob.areavoices.com/2012/12/05/no-kidding-lets-talk-sirius/
Meaning is definition through language
Definitions begotten from social norms
Society is the acceptance of common goals
Question the origin of all thought
Consciousness is perhaps the most difficult subject to discuss, still it is one which needs to be addressed in this time and space, since we are now bridging ourselves into a future that is truly uncertain, as there are so many people who are on the brink, who are at the tipping point between, believing and knowing, between the physical and the spiritual, between the merging of science and religion.
Our future depends on this paradox, and because it exists we are caught between a future based on truth and a past made up of a myriad of lies. Everyone talks about saving the planet. The reality is we don’t have to save the planet, we have to save the planet’s ability to support human life.
But I digress, this is about consciousness. The very fact that we can read and write; I as the creator of this message and you as the recipient implies a matter of consciousness, the ability to discern this message from the background of experience. In human terms, it is a recognition of past, present, and future. I am sure most would agree, that animals, even higher animals, do not fret over an uncertain future, and their pining over the past is very limited. Yes, I have seen mother chimps holding their deceased young, but this passes quickly, and they move on.
The paradox of consciousness is simply this – with it we would not recognize a flow of time, a past, present, and future, and because of it, we can argue over the very truth of the flow of time, and the matter of the universe, creation, and Spirit. So we define ourselves, and in that definition we begin to recognize that we are creating a world around us, and losing touch with the natural world.
Because of consciousness, we argue over the nature of time and space, of things, concepts; like ‘yours’ and ‘mine’. While a creature of the earth like a lion or bear might quarrel with another over a piece of food, it is a quarrel of nature, not a quarrel of consciousness.
Consciousness then allows us (each) to define our reality, to create or deny divinity in our lives, intelligent design, creationism, or any other supposed truth. We even go so far as to quarrel over time, over the evidence buried in stone regarding the earth, and the cosmos. These are what Eckhart Tolle calls our ‘competing narratives’, or Robert Anton Wilson refers to as our ‘reality tunnels’.
What then is this thing? Science still cannot define consciousness, still debates over what it is, and where it exists. Some would tell us it only exists because of the nature and the construction of the human brain, and will continue to dissect corpses looking for the ‘seat of consciousness’, which is as Rumi says; like knocking on a door and when it opens realizing we have been knocking from the inside!
We are able to ask these questions because we are conscious(ness), and we debate what it is because of it … what greater paradox than that – the riddle (consciousness), inside an enigma – the human mind – not the brain, but the mind …
How does it end? It does not – In the words of CG Jung when asked what does he believe – his reply, “I do not need to believe, I know” And when we know there arises true compassion. An ache, a sadness, that if not for consciousness would bury the Spirit in matter forever, in a total eclipse of the Sun.
-gfs 2012
Image: http://www.stuartwildeblog.com/sws-jottings/2010/12/14/shimmer-in-the-glimmer-sw.html
grandfathersky 