The True Spiritual Path

March 27, 2021 2 Comments

I am continually searching for my own personal and spiritual place; for a return to the path of the spirit.  I feel strongly that all of my efforts generally find me heading in that direction, but I can’t honestly say I know for certain, at least not at all times, just which direction I should take.  While I am on the path, I get glimpses of a possible future; I get glimpses of what truly matters. They are images conjured by my mindful attention to what may be possible; a future that I might envision for myself.

I deliberately remain open to connecting with others, especially those who, for a number of reasons, I believe may hold a piece of the puzzle, and I try to engage them in a way that will reveal this puzzle piece, without intruding, and allow these others to decide whether or not to share if they are so inclined.  I know that by my embrace of this approach, extending myself, my spirit, to others—in doing that—I often come across these pieces and they help me to find my way.  I don’t know yet, in a comprehensive way, what that way is precisely, but I do know that the way of the spirit is my way—the way I must go. 

As it is described in the Terrence Malick film, “The Tree of Life,” my way is the way of grace.  I want nothing for myself, I only wish for grace to carry me forward—to open me.  I am not of this world completely.  I am in this world, but I am not of this world only.  I arrived on this planet over six decades ago, and for as long as I can remember, I’ve been searching and struggling, trying to understand.  I have written so many words along the way, and in recent years, I have tried to faithfully articulate the experiences I have encountered on my journey.  I have done all that I can to build a foundation of the spirit in my life.

I have had some marvelous periods of construction, as well as periods of seemingly long gaps in my understanding.  Yet, I continue. I push forward. I strive continually, not only to reach the spirit, but also to embrace the spirit within me—to identify completely with my human spirit, my soul. 

Nearly every adventure I’ve had and each deliberate choice I’ve made on this journey has been in the service of my search. Not everything has been viewed by others I’ve encountered in the temporal world as being particularly useful.  At times, they have questioned my judgement.  I cannot claim that I have made the right choice at every moment.  Some of my choices have been destructive and not constructive. When I have been all the way down, scraping the bottom, I’ve often had to fight my way back, claw my way back; stretch and reach; paddle furiously in the waters of uncertainty and mystery.

At the end of it all, I frequently seemed to understand better; to have a small incremental moment of progress, and it has helped me to continue.  I did not always suppose during those times that I would have the courage to make the choices I have made, and even now, I hesitate to move past some of those experiences, but I must move forward—and so I have.

When I withdraw within, I can sometimes feel the changes that are coming. I sense them. When I am alone and communing with myself, my spirit, my inner world—when I go there—there is the bright light of the spirit.  I quickly realize when I look into the eyes of one who is, in some way, one with me, that I am seeing myself mirrored in that spirit, because when it comes right down to it, we are all one with the spirit, and so long as there is an opening given, I know that I am on some part of the spiritual path.

The path is me.  I always thought I was seeking the path, to find it, to exist within it.  In all my searching, I never truly realized that the searching itself was the path.  Now, as I approach the “autumn of my years,” I sense not just the beauty, the vibrant colors, the release from the steam and heat of the summer, which my life has been for some time, but I also now sense the gradual conversion from the greenness of the summer of my life, to those brilliant, colorful, extraordinary, and spiritual times that await.  It is my hope that the transition within me endures a great deal longer than what the autumn appears to endure here in the temporal plane.  I don’t wish for a brief autumn, or a late autumn, or even an extended autumn.  I want a nice, slow, gradual embrace; a relief from the stifling temperatures of the past; an education in life that comes with the transition between seasons; the uplifting of my spirit that I experience every year as this season approaches in the temporal plane. The only way to make full use of it is to dive headlong into it.  As glorious and beautiful and colorful and sensual and extraordinary as I know this autumn within will be, there still remains some lingering anxiety that I feel as I think about what is to come, and how all the signs portend the arrival of winter, when all things begin to recycle.

On the true spiritual path, one may find oneself, in some form or another, floating, descending, flying, returning, and becoming.  All of these things are contained in and manifested within this very moment.  I have spoken often of my experiences in the past, about being in some field somewhere, perhaps long distant in time in the past or in a world that is yet to come, and about finding myself in a clearing.  I see it.  I step out into it.  The sun is shining.  It’s mild, but warm. There is a gentle breeze. I look out across the clearing, and I see only the world.  As I slowly advance into the clearing, my hands touch the tips of the tall grass. I feel a sense of pleasure—a sense of contentment.  I know that all is well without knowing exactly how I know, but I believe it.  My steps become deliberate.  I look down; I look up. I see a beautiful blue sky with puffy white clouds flitting by.  The clearing is quite grand.  At the edge of the forest, the mountains rise in the distance.

Suddenly, the sun goes behind the clouds briefly.  I look at the edge of the forest in the distance.  There is some sort of disturbance along that edge, but I can’t quite make it out from this distance, so I start to walk towards it, and very quickly my heart starts to race a bit.  I’m not sure if it’s anxiety or anticipation. My steps quicken. It starts to become clearer what is in front of me.  The sun peeks out again from behind the clouds.  My pace slows.  In the distance, it can be nothing else.  It’s not a hallucination, it’s not a wish.  It is a moment of recognition of something already known. As the world becomes clearer, my heart rises, my spirit rises, and my body becomes alive.  As I approach, and am close enough to see, I feel my spirit rise even higher. A bright light at the center of the disturbance feels like the presence of another spirit. It feels like a conglomeration of possibilities.  Had I not already made the decision to accept the risk of pursuing those potentials before I arrived, the anxiety I experienced would not have been so strongly felt.

Without the courage to pursue it, I would be lost. I find myself to be curiously hopeful that acceptance of the path will lead to opportunity—a prelude to some good end.  

Filed under Consciousness, human nature, Personal, Philosophy, The Human Spirit Tagged with , , ,

Blue Skies and Biocentrism

March 6, 2021 2 Comments

 

Brilliantly blue sunlit skies combined with especially brisk winter temperatures this morning, and presented me with two seemingly contradictory experiences simultaneously.  As I sat alone at my desk, sunlight streamed through the windows of my home office, and I could feel the warmth of its rays on my hand as the pen I was using glided across the page.

 

 

Wherever the shafts of light penetrated the room, objects in its path were gradually caught in the glow, and almost appeared to be lit from within.

 

 

In spite of this celebration of illumination, the room itself is usually on the chilly side this time of year, and when I briefly opened the window to investigate a problem with a recently installed fifty-foot Ethernet cable, I encountered a surprisingly robust degree of damage to the screens, apparently caused by one of the neighborhood squirrels. 

 

 

Sure enough, not only had the animal penetrated the screens, but for some reason it decided to make a meal out of the wire which ran over the window sill.

 

 

It’s no wonder that there wasn’t any signal getting through, but even holding the window open for just those few moments reminded me that no matter how warm the sun appears and feels inside, winter currently reigns supreme in the world outside. It took me a few minutes to warm back up at my desk, and as I contemplated continuing with my work, I took notice of how the sunlit scene in the room had changed in just those few moments. The movement of the light throughout the day is subtle; even watching at length, I could not detect any motion at all. Only when I turned my attention temporarily elsewhere and then once again returned for another look, could I see how the area of light had shifted along the floor.

 

 

All of this activity resulted in prompting me to consider my recent review of three books by Dr. Robert Lanza, in which he describes at length his theory of Biocentrism.   It’s fascinating reading if you are interested in human nature as well as the nature of the reality within which we exist.  Since these subjects are both central to my own deliberations, I’ve taken a keen interest in exploring them. 

 

 

Of particular note is the third book in the series entitled, “The Grand Biocentric Design.”  The subject itself is quite complex and requires some appreciation for quantum theory and modern theoretical physics, but Dr. Lanza takes great pains to describe his ideas fully and his explanations are clearly written to reach a broad range of readers.

 

In chapter nine, Dr. Lanza gives a number of detailed and plainly written examples of how our perceptions of phenomenal events are not always revealing of the true nature of those events, and when I encountered the phrase, “If a tree falls in a forest,” I knew I was about to encounter ideas that would alter my own.  He makes a reasonable case to reconsider the nature of sound, and points out that while sound waves created by a tree falling travel through the air, they are only “rapid, complex pulsations in air pressure,” and are “in and of themselves…silent.” Our brains respond to the vibrations of our tympanic membranes and convert those signals into specific sounds. 

 

 

He rightly points out that “all sensory data is processed in the brain,” and even extends this idea to conclude that “time and space are projections created inside the mind.” He points out that we humans often “place ourselves in a radio-static mode, attuned to no sense whatsoever, lost in the internal world of our thoughts,” and concludes that:

 

“As far as we know, humans are the only animals who cease attending to their external awareness in this way, attending instead to our own thinking—or even, as you’ve done while reading this book—thinking about thinking.”

 

 

“…a part of us is connected to the dandelion, the loon, and the fish in the pond.  It is the part that experiences consciousness, not our external embodiments but our inner being. According to biocentrism, our individual separateness is an illusion. Everything you experience is a whirl of information arising in your brain. Space and time are simply the mind’s tools for putting it all together.”

 

Indeed, the conclusions he puts forth give a great deal of weight to our experience of consciousness as being central to our very existence in the first place. 

 

 

It has been a long and oftentimes tumultuous road from my beginnings as a human person, when I first realized that I could think and therefore know that I exist. In retrospect, as is often the case, I can see much more clearly how convoluted my path has been, and, in a way, how all the twists, turns, reversals, and leaps forward contributed to my current arrangement of predicaments and advantages.  The tide has ever-so-slowly turned toward a modest increase in advantage, and away from the firestorm of predicaments which often characterized my youth.

 

 

As a mature person now, approaching my seventh decade of life, it seems that my fortunes have finally started to settle down a bit, and while opportunities for chaos still exist in some ways, my footing is far less precarious.  I tend to consider alternatives more frequently now, looking ahead further than only a few feet in front of me, when it comes to choosing my actions.

 

What is still unchanged, after all this time, is my insatiable curiosity about the nature of my personal reality, and how it relates to the larger reality of both humanity and the cosmos itself.  My intense interest in these ideas is a direct result of my desire to understand myself and the experiences of my personal life, which have been frequently inexplicable to me, or which presented me with profound questions regarding the cause and purpose of having them in the first place.

 

In the past months of isolation and distancing, I have spent a great deal of time considering the work I have already done and also contemplating the work I still have yet to do.  In the months to come, I hope to share as much as possible with those who visit here and to encourage everyone to give some attention to their own individual experience of consciousness.

 

 

With apologies to Sir Joseph Banks…

Filed under Books, Brains, Consciousness, human nature, Neuroscience, Personal

A Writer’s Dilemma

February 6, 2021 2 Comments

MIDWAY upon the journey of our life

I found myself within a forest dark,

For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

 

Ah me! How hard a thing it is to say

What was this forest savage, rough, and stern,

Which in the very thought renews the fear.

 

So bitter is it, death is little more;

But of the good to treat, which there I found,

Speak will I of the other things I saw there.

 

I cannot well repeat how there I entered,

So full was I of slumber at the moment

In which I had abandoned the true way.

 

But after I had reached a mountain’s foot,

At that point where the valley terminated,

Which had with consternation pierced my heart,

 

Upward I looked, and I beheld its shoulders

Vested already with (the sun’s) rays

Which leadeth others right by every road.

 

Then was the fear a little quieted

That in my heart’s lake had endured throughout

The night, which I had passed so piteously.

 

And even as he, who, with distressful breath,

Forth issued from the sea upon the shore,

Turns to the water perilous and gazes;

 

So did my soul, that still was fleeing onward,

Turn itself back to re-behold the pass

Which never yet a living person left.

 

Dante Alighieri – excerpt from Canto I – Inferno

Translation by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Illustration by Paul Gustave Doré

 

 

It is often true for me, and I suppose for most other writers as well, that it is sometimes difficult to settle down enough at my writing desk or at the keyboard to give sufficient consideration to my thoughts, and so several years ago, I began to record myself dictating them into an audio device, which produced results in a way that writing with a pen or typing on the keyboard had been occasionally less effective at capturing.  The problem soon became that I had recorded so many episodes and created so many sound recordings, without taking into consideration that I would eventually want to sort them according to the subject.  Certain ones were used quickly for one reason or another and that works out when it happens, but now there are so many, I felt the need to begin to review them and figure out a way to categorize them.

 

Some of them are just rambling thoughts, some are about subjects that are not precisely within the framework of my current writing and are less useful in that way, but every once in a while something appears that astonishes me, or by some coincidence, fits perfectly within that framework and in that sense alone it has made it worthwhile to use this method.  I think it’s interesting that many of the recordings are personal and are either reminiscing or pondering “what-ifs,” or just ideas for what might become content that I could use for some future fiction project. 

 

 

I’ve written chapters with my voice that are completely a fabrication of my wandering mind or maybe a reflection on an actual memory in the bare essence of the experience, which I then embellish or expand upon, sometimes as a means of indulging my creative urgings, sometimes as a way of expressing what MIGHT have happened had I gone down a different path.  Once the juices start flowing, it’s hard to turn them off. I have a fairly active imagination and I have plenty of vivid memories of past events; I can remember the way it felt to be in those moments very well and sometimes I am surprised when I read what I wrote later.  The level of detail is occasionally stunning to me.

 

In the process of a recent review effort, I came across a particularly surprising account, recorded while I was engaged in a long distance conversation which included the opening lines to Dante’s poem, “Inferno.” The poem itself is a huge endeavor that encompasses a wide range of ideas, and which offers the reader the opportunity to explore many different aspects of the human condition, but for me, the opening was a suggestion of how purposeful reflection can illuminate potential solutions for even the most daunting of challenges.

 

 

Over the years I have accumulated a number of extraordinary experiences which took place within remote areas of forests, while exploring pathways across mountains, and in various nature preserves, many of which became openings to the ineffable world within. Dante’s references to the “forest dark,” the “things I saw there,” the “mountains foot,” and the “heart’s lake,” all leading up to “my soul, that still was fleeing onward,” resulted in the following record of reverie, recorded one night by the fire, while inhabiting the “forest, savage, rough, and stern.”

 

 

“I completely opened myself and listened. I could feel the very essence of your emotion. There wasn’t much time left to linger, and I wanted to embrace you—to reassure you.  It seemed you had sensed this and stepped toward me deliberately.  Without saying a word, I gestured with my arms my openness to such a suggestion, which you accepted without hesitation. 

 

As I held you close, I whispered words of comfort and had already determined that the embrace would continue for as long as you wanted.  Without warning, a sense of astonishment overtook me as your inner world collided with mine.  I unambiguously sensed the presence of your spirit clearly as mine opened immediately to welcome you there. It almost felt like a blending of the two—our souls were touching.  For those few brief moments, I experienced what I could only describe as the feeling of bliss.  Our embrace was warm and firm—offered and accepted equally without condition. 

 

 

After what felt like a sufficient duration to impart a sense of comfort, we both loosened our grasp just enough to pull slightly away. I still had my arms around your waist and your hands were resting gently on my arms, as our eyes met.  I felt a truly visceral connection between us.  Our faces were briefly only inches apart. I stared directly at you for maybe thirty seconds and I did not want to turn away.  Even though words probably weren’t necessary, I still somehow felt the urge to express a willingness to be available whenever the need might arise for such an exchange in the future.  You grinned widely in gratitude, and I sensed a lessening of the sadness which brought us into that moment in time.  

 

I could barely bring myself to leave you.  I stood nearby for several minutes, almost unable to move. I had trouble focusing.  At the last possible minute, as I pushed open the door and waved, I hoped that you could feel intuitively what was in my heart at that moment—I don’t want to go!  We only came together briefly in each other’s arms. The moment was fleeting, to be sure, but all the more precious because of that. 

 

 

There is more between us than what meets the eye. We have both traveled through the ages—through the eons of time—in order to meet here in this time.  We agreed before we abandoned our previous lives that we would be together in this life.  The connection is undeniable.  The years it has taken to come to fruition, the profound sense of connection which occurred immediately upon our appearance, and the subsequent recognition of love as a grace or gift, are impossible to deny.  When my heart rises, I know that it is you.  I gaze intently into your eyes. The mere sight of you raises me up and I find myself once again.

 

You used to sing to me.  You knew I would recognize that voice when I heard it.  That would be the sign that you were here.  I never could have known how challenging the future would be, nor how complicated my temporal life would be.  Somehow you knew that I would find a way to you, no matter how long it took—no matter what sacrifice was required.”

 

 

These words strike at the very heart of the river of consciousness, and it is almost painful to acknowledge the power of these sentiments as I recorded them, but they ring so true that I cannot help but do so.

 

Recognizing that love is a “grace or gift,” and not a natural entitlement of our humanity is urgently needed in our modern society. Understanding that we must somehow find a way to yield to our most urgent longings, even recognizing that they may be neither ultimately fruitful nor fully possessed, is a truth rarely emphasized in the general population these days. We routinely see individuals desperately trying to possess them, and refusing to submit to them, often with tragic results. We are flawed beings, we humans, and often refuse to acknowledge what is patently obvious, but this brief expression of longing forced me to confront this truth.

 

 

While the sense world alerts us to the visceral embodiment of love through our intense desires, the sense world only points to something far grander and more vital in our experience of life. Even just the emotional power of the grace which inhabits these experiences, points to the spirit which is foundational to that grace, and the ebb and flow of life and love, is fundamentally a result of the same rhythms which point to the foundations of formulating the meaning and purpose they serve.

 

We must have some reinforcement or confirmation in our lives in order to appreciate that even the deficits and struggles of life must be included in order to arrive at the affirmation that it is “an incomprehensible gift just to be alive.” Such a conclusion may be much more challenging to someone deprived of basic needs or afflicted by some of life’s more daunting challenges, but it is the same struggle we all have based on the myriad possibilities for each life.

Filed under Ancient Culture, Camping, Consciousness, human nature, Personal, Philosophy, Poetry, The Human Spirit Tagged with , , , , , ,

Ten Years of Blogging

January 23, 2021 4 Comments

 

The New Year has unfolded in an especially tumultuous way so far, and the tides of wellness and illness in our country seem to be fluctuating wildly as the pandemic rages and the new American presidency gets underway, but underneath it all, in several important ways, there is a continuity of sorts that we can tap into if we simply take a few deep breaths and step back away from the extremes that have characterized the past few months.

 

 

No one could have known what would occur when the unwitting travelers carrying the deadly virus eventually started arriving in America and infecting others to such a widespread degree, spreading out eventually across the world.  We can analyze the various responses to the virus in retrospect now, but ultimately, we have to deal with the circumstances as they exist presently.  It seems, at least for now, that we know what we must do, and concrete steps to combat the virus are being taken.

 

 

The circumstances leading up to the violence in our nation’s capitol in early January are being thoroughly examined and analyzed, and although the reckoning with tracking down those responsible is underway, the indications are, from our national response to it all, that it will need to be addressed in a number of different ways, not just by seeking justice against those who carried out the violence. 

 

Underneath it all are urgent matters which must also be addressed, not the least of which is the relentless barrage of misinformation that stoked the flames of outrage, as well as the extremists at the heart of the attack, who up until recently had been mostly an underground fringe element.  However one wishes to parse the conversation surrounding who is to blame, it will be even more urgent to expose the root causes and take steps to reverse whatever maladaptation resulted when these components exploded into violence.

 

Regardless of whatever your political inclinations might be, and no matter what we determine in the process of investigating and responding to these urgent matters, we must resolve to make whatever course corrections are necessary and possible.

 

In my previous posting, I was trying to come to terms with the “daunting difficulties” and “serial struggles,” represented by the awful events of last year, before I knew about the uprising in January. The bitterness and division of the last months of last year, spilled over into the beginning of this year, but this past week, we began to see a whole new direction for new possibilities being shown by our new American administration.  While we know that the climb back to a condition of constructive progress will be steep at first, in the long run, we have cause for optimism, and we can remain hopeful if we are determined to bring about a hopeful resolution. 

 

 

Now more than ever, it also feels very important for me to continue my own efforts here in exploring and expanding our understanding of our true nature, as well as encouraging everyone who visits here to reconsider any limiting or narrow view of what may be possible in our efforts to enrich that understanding.

 

We can only make constructive progress in our society by being more inclusive with regard to our approach to differing viewpoints, and we can only expand our understanding of our true nature by deepening our awareness of what lies within us, and to explore our “inner evolution,” as I have described it, with an open heart and mind. It’s clear that our societal challenges have become of more immediate concern to us all, and must be dealt with urgently now, but it is equally important to attend to our inner life, and to connect to the core of our individual and collective being.

 

 

Within the context of world events, which includes the recent chaos and division within our own country and elsewhere, we are reminded how the full scope of those events can affect us, even if we don’t participate in them directly.  This effect can also be felt when we seriously consider the events and discoveries throughout human history.

 

With the Ship of the Imagination hovering close by, host Neil deGrasse Tyson walks along the beach – a landscape which will one day surrender to the churning cycles of birth, destruction, and rebirth mandated by the laws of nature. COSMOS: POSSIBLE WORLDS on National Geographic. (Cosmos Studios)

 

I recently began reviewing the National Geographic series, “Cosmos: Possible Worlds,” the second edition of the original series, hosted once again by Neil deGrasse Tyson, telling the stories surrounding our current scientific worldview.  I’ve taken great interest in the subject matter, which is often reflective of the vitally important events of history, and how they shaped our current level of understanding of the sciences. Much of what has occurred in the past has a direct bearing on our world today, and it is clear that without the efforts of those who came before us, our world might be dramatically different, and far less advanced in the degree of knowledge and wisdom available at the touch of a button, or the swipe of a screen.  

 

In a review of the series by Steve Greene on Indiewire.com, he makes a keen observation about the importance of the contributions by our predecessors:

“Many of the individuals and groups that challenged and then shaped our perception of nature were rebels in their day, fighting against a majority that either distrusted them or were threatened by the lessons they sought to spread. “Cosmos: Possible Worlds” doesn’t pursue explicit parallels within our modern relationship to scientific ideas, but it nevertheless warns of the perils of both gradual and concentrated attacks on those who’ve dedicated their life to understanding the workings of the natural world.”

 

 

Here at John’s Consciousness, I sometimes feel as though I am also “fighting against a majority,” when it comes to the ideas I’ve expressed and the stories that I tell as I explore my own “inner evolution.” Over the last ten years, beginning in earnest in January 2011, I have documented the results of both my personal experiences and dedicated research related to those experiences and I have endeavored to formulate a coherent narrative that illustrates the combined efforts of more than thirty years of writing on the subjective experience of human consciousness.

 

After decades of research, study, and contemplation and having expended an enormous amount of effort and energy in the process of discerning what might possibly be behind our extraordinary human subjective awareness of existing as a physical entity in the physical universe, for me personally, as well as for many prominent thinkers throughout human history, the reality is that while our subjective experience of being alive requires the cooperation and integration of physical systems in order for our temporal existence to register with sentient creatures such as ourselves, it is NOT…and I repeat…NOT in any way certain, by any criteria or judgmental standard, that those physical systems are the absolute SOURCE and PRIMAL DRIVING FORCE responsible for that experience in the first place.

 

It is much more likely, in my view, that our physical existence is founded upon and derives its significance from a source as yet to be established with certainty, which may very likely require an extraordinary stretching of our intellectual and psychological capacities for establishing even the beginnings of a rational or empirical proof. Our current inability to demonstrate or define categorically the source of all Life and Consciousness does nothing to negate the possibility, whatever it is that defines it or explains it, that there may still be an ineffable and non-material source that produced all that we perceive with our senses, and all that we observe in the vast universe beyond the Earth.

 

 

In order to begin to understand how our subjective experience of being alive is even possible in the first place, we clearly do need to consider the gradual development of the complex macro-structure of the brain by examining the various stages of mammalian, primate, and hominid evolution, each of which contributed essential individual brain components, and how that development over millions of years facilitated the gradual sophistication of cognition and higher order thinking.

 

However, once these complex structures and extraordinary cognitive talents were sufficiently developed, it might also be possible to accept intuitively, that it then became possible to utilize them in accessing a much broader intellectual and psychological plateau, and to establish a connection to what we describe as human consciousness or “the subjective experiential awareness of being alive.”

 

This then allows us to hypothesize about the important contributions of specific emergent properties which are a consequence of the evolution and structural hierarchy of the network of various brain regions, while still allowing for the interaction with what C.G. Jung described as “the transcendent function,” or “non-physical substrates,” rather than characterizing the results as simply the “emergence of life and mind from matter.”

 

 

Beyond the decade of attending to these important areas of study and contemplation, I have also been fortunate to participate in a richly rewarding and mutually beneficial role as a grandfather to eight wonderful grandchildren, whose ages range from twenty years to two years along.  In each of their lives, I have been present from their first few days of life, and in some cases, in the very first hours of their existence.  A few of them spent their early years in our home, as their parents worked to establish their own homes.  

 

 

Family life within the confines of my own dwelling are more or less routine and predictable, and the aspects which I find most often helpful usually occur in solitude, when I am purposefully choosing the activities for the day.  Most recently though, I have enjoyed even more the privilege of being an occasional caretaker for the youngest of them all, a lovely young lady named Juliette.  Given the circumstances in the world presently it seems impossible to feel anything but gratitude for the opportunity to do so.  There is a kind of wisdom built into the human life cycle that brings grandparents together with their grandchildren, as they will inevitably become instructive to each other, in ways that might never be anticipated.

 

In spite of the fact that I am a little more than thirty times further along in age than her, it is clear that she has much to teach me. While I have already received much instruction from raising six children to adulthood myself, the dynamics of “grand” parenting are quite different generally, but I have been humbled by the astonishing and effortless power she has to inspire and delight. 

 

My subjective experience while in her presence is so clearly demonstrative of the existence of Jung’s “transcendent function,” as well as the invisible bonds that support all life on this planet, and it gives me great encouragement to suppose that I am on the right path with my writing work.

 

 

In the months to come, I hope to expand on the ideas and previous efforts here in a way that will contribute in a positive way to my own understanding, and I invite my readers and subscribers to follow along as I navigate forward.

Filed under Brains, Consciousness, human nature, Neuroscience, Personal, Philosophy, The Human Spirit Tagged with , ,

Finding Our Way Forward

December 30, 2020 2 Comments

                                                         

 

 

Even though the world seems to be under a cloud of serial struggles and daunting difficulties presently, there is still good cause to be hopeful that we will find our way through whatever comes.  It’s not because we can just wish it all away, or because we can delude ourselves with confabulated stories about what is actually taking place in the world.  It’s because we humans have, over the millennia, consistently demonstrated the capability to repair what we’ve done or begun in the wrong way, and to turn the challenges we face into opportunities, by deliberately and purposefully working toward those aims with hope and determination to make them a reality.

 

We sometimes lose sight of our history as human beings.  Our focus is too often narrowly confined to recent history, and only to the events of our collective recent memory.  Thirty or forty years ago, none of us who are old enough to remember well the state of the world back then had any idea what the state of the world would become in 2020.  Young people who weren’t even born yet in the 1980’s and 1990’s have only a very short span of history to draw upon for viewing the events taking place now, and unless those of us who can remember those times have some sense of the history of humanity, it may not be possible to have sufficient perspective to conclude that we have endured through times that contained much greater peril and challenges for the world.

 

 

This is not to say that we shouldn’t be concerned or that the difficulties we face currently are any less urgent to address.  It’s not simply a matter of the degree of peril that informs the times we live in; it is the need for us to bring a degree of perspective to these times informed by our mutual history. 

 

We are capable of fixing what’s wrong and we can educate ourselves to better understand what it is that is needed to put us back on the road to progress, but the way to start back in that direction requires us to step back a bit first, and at least look at what led us to be in these circumstances, aside from the most recent news reports on television and the internet.  We don’t really have to go back that far to see the difference between the way things are now and the way they used to be before the technological explosion brought the invention of digital devices and instant communication of events from all over the world. 

 

A good illustration of how life has changed over the years can be found in my experience of responding to a recent column by Marc Fisher of the Washington Post, which expressed sadness about the loss of the neighborhood bookstores to the much more economical and less complicated practice of ordering books online at places like Barnes and Noble.com or Amazon.com. In much the same frame of mind as many of us who cherish the experience of walking amongst the rows of freshly printed pages and browsing our favorite sections, inhaling the scent of new books and cappuccinos, and thumbing through our cherished, secret, and silent worlds, Mr. Fisher’s lament struck such a chord with me that I emailed him expressing my empathy and agreement.

 

 

Not even thirty years before that, I wrote a letter to a well-known columnist, Darryl Sifford of the Philadelphia Inquirer, about a column he wrote. I typed my message on a manual typewriter, neatly folded the single sheet of paper upon which I typed, stuck it in an envelope with a stamp on it, and mailed it. A week later, he responded with a nice note, which he also typed on a manual typewriter, and mailed to me. I sent my email to Marc Fisher by clicking “send” on my Hotmail account with my “mouse” at 5:58 PM and received his response at 6:04 PM, just six minutes later!

 

 

Going back a bit further in time, the presence of televisions in homes across the USA only became commonplace in the 1950’s, and was, at that time, the primary medium for influencing public opinion, with newspapers a close second.  Prior to WWII, the invention and usage of the telegraph took place in the 1830’s and 1840’s, and radio communications came later in the 1890’s.  These inventions revolutionized long-distance communications of the day, which previously took place over much longer periods of time.

 

 

Within the time frame of the establishment of the independence of what would become the “United States of America,” writing letters or conducting any sort of regular correspondence between individuals took weeks or months to send, be received, and for the recipient to respond.  Communicating with individuals overseas in England or France was only possible by placing your correspondence on a boat heading that way, and news of any kind was painfully slow in arriving and being dispersed out into the world-at-large.

 

 

There was no formal highway or railway system. You rode a horse or hired a carriage to travel whatever distance you needed to go.  At Monticello, the famous home of Thomas Jefferson, when anyone was invited or expected to visit, they had to plan weeks in advance, and no guest could be expected to stay less than a week or so. Travel was an onerous endeavor for anyone needing to arrive anywhere with any urgency.

 

 

Imagine the logistical challenge faced by both the British and the American militaries to marshal their forces for battle, slogging their way through largely unchartered terrain, with no well-established roadways or knowledge of which route might best be chosen. It’s a wonder at all that our country was able to get itself off the ground under such daunting conditions, and other urgent matters like healthcare, education, commerce, social interactions, and the necessity of conducting the foundational financial operations of such a large organization must have been exponentially more difficult given the state of the world at that time.

 

 

We take so much for granted these days as we travel with relative ease, flying large distances to nearly any destination in a matter of hours; driving our cars and assorted other vehicles to places even hundreds of miles away in a day or two.  I can communicate with anyone interested in receiving such communication instantly just about anywhere in the world. 

 

 

I can speak to and see each of my family members simultaneously, regardless of their location, as long as they have internet access, and before long, depending on the affordability and widespread availability of recent technological innovations, it’s likely we may eventually be able to enjoy a virtual reality experience of sitting next to them in real time.

 

 

There are a number of options in this regard which exist already that are not widely available, but which can mostly be accessed by those with sufficient resources and relevant knowledge of how to access them.  Eventually, it will likely be as common to possess such technology in the future as owning a cell phone is today, and people may one day look back at our options for communication in our “modern” society in the 21st century and muse about how quaint it was to push buttons and swipe screens on one of those “old-fashioned communicators.”

 

 

As always, the future holds enormous promise and potential for both progress and difficulty, and it is really up to us which option holds sway in the main.  I suspect that the choices we make in the near future will have lasting effects that may be even more difficult to mitigate unless we begin to take the time to consider the broad scope of ideas and efforts made by our ancestors to resolve and build upon, what were for them, serial struggles and daunting difficulties.

 

With best wishes for a prosperous and healthy new year to all my subscribers and readers…John H.

Filed under Computers and Internet, Consciousness, human nature, Personal, Philosophy, The Human Spirit Tagged with , , ,

Hope Springs Eternal

December 19, 2020 5 Comments

 

 

 

                                                                        “Hope” is the thing with feathers—
                                                                       That perches in the soul—
                                                                       And sings a tune without the words—
                                                                       And never stops—at all—

                                                                       And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—
                                                                       And sore must be the storm—
                                                                       That could abash the little Bird
                                                                       That kept so many warm—

                                                                       I’ve heard it in the chillest land—
                                                                       And on the strangest Sea—
                                                                       Yet—never-in Extremity,
                                                                       It asked a crumb—of me.


                                                                       Emily Dickinson – 1861

 

 

 

Anyone paying attention to the state of affairs in America recently knows well the challenges we have had to face these days, some of which we share with the rest of the world like the global pandemic and its economic fallout, and some that are uniquely American, not the least of which has been a terribly divisive and contentious election process this November.

While these issues have often seemed to dominate the relentless range of available news in the world’s media outlets, they often haven’t fairly and accurately represented the broad range of positive and noteworthy efforts by innumerable individuals that have accompanied those difficulties. News organizations tend to emphasize the more sensational aspects of these events generally, and in order to get a more balanced perspective, it seems that we must not only temper our exposure to such reports these days, but we also need to dig a bit deeper for sources of information that can provide additional input to help us gain that greater balance.

 

 

Emily Dickinson provides us with a good starting point in her poem, which begins with “Hope” is the thing with feathers, immediately leading us to infer a metaphorical association, as a feature which “dwells inside the human spirit,” according to an analysis on http://www.litcharts.com, and which was “written to honor the human capacity for hope.”

You could almost hear the collective sigh of relief in America when the news came that there would be a change in our national leadership, and while there has been an unfortunate lack of acknowledgement by everyone in the positions of influence regarding the ultimate outcome, there can be no doubt that the tide has now turned back toward the preservation of our democracy, and away from the deliberate efforts to undermine the collective values enumerated in our founding documents.

Beyond these pressing considerations of our current national circumstances, there are other concerns that require our attention, which are much closer to our hearts and minds as members of our extended families and local communities. This morning, as I slowly rose to waking consciousness, there was an echo of a particular theme upon which I have been ruminating of late, and it played subtly over and over in my head, prompting me to sit down at the writing desk to capture whatever I could of the momentum I had built as I contemplated the start of yet another day.

 

 

There can be no greater task for us as living beings than to achieve a degree of urgency in recognizing just how tenuous and fragile our existence might become if we do not attend to our individual lives as being a part of something much greater than the daily machinations of national governance or to the selfish tendency of some to restrict their concerns to a more narrow-minded viewpoint. Our fortunes clearly do rise and fall together in important ways, and unless we can step back to some degree from the limitations produced by such viewpoints, we may eventually find ourselves in even more dire circumstances than those which might have prevailed had we not done so.

Right within our own very personal environments now, we have come face-to-face with the necessity to avoid close contact with others in order to keep us safe from a deadly virus. The very structure of our social lives has been disrupted in a myriad of ways, and as we observe the necessary precautions to preserve our health and restore a sense of normalcy, we have begun to see much more clearly how important our personal connections to others have been all along, and their absence is keenly felt.

Our family gatherings and typical celebrations have been relegated to sharing in the much less personal venues of video images and exchanges made available through the internet. While these options have their own sort of appeal by providing opportunities to actually SEE each other and to interact when being together in person is not possible, the visceral experience of proximity with other human beings is immediately raised to a level of appreciation that we hardly knew would figure so prominently in its absence.

 

 

As the year slowly winds down, we reflect on the astonishing parallels of this absence, to those which we experience in a variety of situations of loss. We miss the proximity and the personal interactions with those we have already lost over the preceding years of our lives, having accepted as far as we can the unavoidable aspects of age, accident, or illness, as well as the inevitable changes which occur as a result of the variety of fluctuations within relationships of every sort. If we are even minimally aware of the importance of our social relationships, we quickly appreciate the significance of the consequences wrought by the pandemic.

Our celebrations this holiday season will be severely limited in comparison to other years, and perhaps there might not be any better circumstance for regaining our perspective on the importance of being able to interact with our close family relations and our dearest friends. We can no longer take such relationships for granted, and once the threat of illness from the virus subsides, we should not forget the sense of loss we now feel.

 

 

A few years ago, as I documented in a previous posting at year’s end, I wrote a scripted scene which my niece and I performed for my immediate family at our annual Christmas gathering. Within that text, I included this excerpt, which now seems prescient.

“There are so many reasons for me to have hope for the future, however long it might be for me. In spite of the sometimes unceremonious departures from this life of others in the same neighborhood of age as mine, I have seen the brightness of spirit that filled many of the moments of their lives, and I am heartened beyond measure to have shared such a range of wonders with these bright spirits, that it begs the question for me…What contribution have I made…and what might I still contribute in the days to come… especially at this time in my life, when every morning is a gift, and every effort requires the presence of hope.”

May all of my readers and visitors here at John’s Consciousness embrace the spirit of the holiday season, no matter how you celebrate it, and my wish for you all is a prosperous and healthy new year to come. I look forward to sharing with all of you in 2021 and thank you all for your continued generosity and kindness as this year winds down to a close.

Filed under Consciousness, human nature, Personal, Philosophy, The Human Spirit Tagged with , , , , ,

Our Spiritual Path

December 5, 2020 5 Comments

It was quiet in the house the other day, and the stillness was a welcome respite from the noise in the world these days. I cannot remember a time when the noise of the world was of such a character in the same sense that I was so glad to be outside of it, even just temporarily. Normally, I am completely comfortable being out in the world, and in most cases, I will generally feel free to make my own contributions to the chaos and to the flurry of activity, except that I try to do so in a positive or creative manner. More recently, I’ve looked forward more to being disengaged, and have enjoyed not being compelled by need or obligation to participate more fully in the world outside of my world, except by deliberately choosing to do so. Certain activities which were previously only available rarely are now available readily, altering the way I perceive them noticeably. Judging the quality and character of the silence and stillness can change relative to the conditions within which they take place. Walking alone down the street, I can’t help feeling at once completely unified with everything I see and feel and sense, in every way, and yet, distinctly alone, individual, apart. The differences between myself and other living entities is a signal that there is a variety and a number of differences in the way that consciousness manifests in the world. If you go down deep, and when we say “go in deep” or “go inward” we mean not temporally, but spiritually within us–when we do that–it emphasizes both our unification with all life and our inner separateness from it, and the simultaneous recognition of both while on our path through life becomes clearer when we withdraw within. The spiritual path, by contrast, is not an actual “path” in the same sense as a path through the woods, or as the path of a tornado through the landscape, nor is it a clear path marked by indicators along the way to reassure you that you are aligned with a true path. Even what the Buddhists call “the path to enlightenment,” requires a particular series of steps, and is characterized by stages of development that can be achieved through right action, speech, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, concentration, and thought. It’s not a sensory experience, nor is it an intellectual experience, although we may engage our spiritual nature in ways that affect our temporal awareness as well as our intellect in order to reflect upon it. Our genuine encounters with what we refer to as our spiritual path are “felt,” and that feeling is only acknowledged after the fact. Once we let go of the temporal world of the senses, abandon the ego-centered world of thoughts and emotions, and open up to or engage our true nature, we may approach a state of pure awareness. It is the ABSENCE of these other aspects that makes it possible to connect us to our own unique spiritual path. Even as we endeavor to reach such a state, we must acknowledge the limitations and opportunities of our human nature, and try to understand how they are intimately intertwined with the spirit. Tonight, while contemplating these aspects of the spiritual path, so many emotions and memories have flooded my consciousness, and it gives me great encouragement to realize that all these things are alive within me. I won’t be alive forever as a human being, but everything that composes the core person I have become, what I have gained by living as myself in my world, I will carry with me always and the value represented in those benefits will never be lost in the grand scheme of things. My physical life will eventually expire, but I believe my inner life, the life of the spirit, of that essence which has no temporal existence in the conventional sense, will not perish with my body, and therefore it seems likely to me that it must be essential to all life. As I reflect now, with the onset of my 67th winter, I realize that a fuller recognition of the existence of the human spirit is a lifelong endeavor, and over my lifetime there have been few opportunities to achieve that recognition better than being in proximity to each of my children, as they grew from babies, and who now, along with their significant others, care for their newborns or toddlers. Watching how life unfolds for them, tallying my account of their progress as a family, and my close observations have often produced a visceral response to the underlying foundations of love and connection that I feel toward them. Naturally, we are joined by familial tradition and have a shared genetic inheritance that accounts for some of my instinctive responses in the expected ways, but also, the tendency to sometimes go against tradition—to consider a new path in response to the suppression I experienced as a younger person—is obviously also a part of that inheritance. In taking a loving and just approach to figuring out how to connect with our spiritual resources, and where to put each of them, we have to at least consider what value this creates for those we love and for whom we are tasked to care, regardless of the basic nature of that connection. Some of us need more attention than others, and some of us need a greater opportunity to expand and explore. Some of us are fine with adjusting to new or otherwise unfamiliar circumstances, and some of us require more predictability and stability in order to prosper. Pursuing our spiritual path has a direct influence on how we live out our lives, and these ideas are integral, not just to our general well-being, but to the very essence of our truest nature. There continues to be very few real local opportunities to engage in any sort of regular substantial conversations about the subject that occupies me these many years, but I have enjoyed nearly a decade of online conversations with the readers on this blog. I also talk to myself a lot. (You gotta go with what you got!) If you ever get the chance to review the comments I have written in response to those who leave their comments about my postings, you can see that I welcome more conversation on this chosen subject. Sometimes, reading the responses to what I write, and then writing my responses can be equally as interesting to me as writing the original blog post. I try to keep the conversation about fundamentals at first, addressing the specific response, but often find myself providing additional material or expressing additional thoughts as needed. I’ve been participating in a decade’s long conversation with people from nearly every country in the world, and, in spite of the size and diversity of that group, I still feel as though I should be doing more. It has always been my intention to share what I have learned, and when I receive an especially thoughtful comment, I tend to respond at length, and this seems to me to be a result of not having many other such opportunities to discuss these issues. There are layers and layers within me that I am exploring now, and which I have been exploring for over thirty years. At times, I am overwhelmed by the avalanche of emotions, the expansive nature of my efforts to increase my understanding, and the flood of diverse thoughts and intuitions. I’m not sure at all that my efforts will eventually bear fruit in a way that gives me cause to suppose my efforts are worthwhile, but it still feels right to continue to press on. What I can say with certainty, is that my experience of life has been a relentless affirmation of the existence of the human spirit (or whatever term you feel is appropriate to your cultural tradition), and my hope is that with the right resources in place, and the proper conditions under which our understanding can blossom, that I might be able to contribute in a productive way, and in a beneficial way, to the progress of our general understanding, as well as to the necessary expansion of what may constitute a fuller and clearer explanation for our richly textured subjective experience of consciousness.

Filed under Consciousness, human nature, Personal, Philosophy, The Human Spirit, Uncategorized

Thanksgiving Isn’t Always Easy

November 26, 2020 2 Comments

 

 

 

                                                   It isn’t easy every year,

                                                   To utter thanks or pray,

                                                   When every time we look it seems,

                                                   We must have lost our way.

 

                                                   We sometimes fail to see the joy,

                                                    To listen with our hearts,

                                                    We get caught up in worried whirls,

                                                    And upset apple carts.

 

                                                    Without a measure of despair,

                                                    We cannot learn to find,

                                                    The path to try again when it’s

                                                    No longer on our mind.

 

                                                    Give thanks though troubles seem so strong,

                                                    And light years from forgiving;

                                                    Write down those troubles in a book;

                                                    Express your world while living.

 

                                                     And someday when the time is right,

                                                    You’ll see the silver lining,

                                                     To every lonely moment and

                                                    To all your heartfelt pining.

 

                                                     Thanksgiving isn’t always easy,

                                                     When troubles surround us now,

                                                     But giving thanks can lift us up

                                                     And help us heal somehow.

 

                                                      The world can turn without us;

                                                      No one understands it all,

                                                      But how we live can matter,

                                                     When we hear a distant call.

 

                                                     Life needs each human spirit born,

                                                     To bring the future here;

                                                      It doesn’t matter where you live,

                                                      And what we need is clear.

 

                                                      When all of us show gratitude,

                                                      We create the world we see,

                                                      When every heart is grateful,

                                                      Our troubles cease to be.

 

                                                      © November 2020 by JJHIII24

Filed under human nature, Personal, Poetry, The Human Spirit, Uncategorized

A Cascade of Autumn Leaves

November 14, 2020 5 Comments

 

Last Gasp of Summer

Sitting out in the backyard on a November morning with brilliant sunshine and mild temperatures approaching 75 degrees F, sipping on my morning coffee, it seems almost surreal given the circumstances.  Perhaps it is the last gasp of summer, or simply a consequence of a random twist or turn in the weather patterns bringing warmer air from the south currently, but whatever is responsible, it is a welcome development. The warmth of the sun on my skin is oddly out of sync with the calendar as we approach mid-November, but even as I embrace the experience of the ambient air and savor the flavor of my morning jo, I know well that it cannot last much longer, so I decided to take advantage of the opportunity and allow the thoughts to flow out of me while it lasts.

 

 

The day is young and there isn’t much activity in the surrounding area yet, so it is relatively quiet, with a few more distant sounds barely discernible in the background. Within there is a barely noticeable sensation of anticipation, which seems to be cautiously awaiting acknowledgement as I let go of the temporal stream of events, and open to the vibrations of my inner life.  So much of what flows through the conscious mind can be ignored or cast aside in favor of the immediate circumstance one finds one’s self in until an effort is made to focus more specifically on a separate task, and it takes an extra degree of attention to filter out what may somehow interrupt the flow of attention and disrupt your focus.

 

As I sat contemplating my next sentence, a tiny baby spider dropped on my laptop screen, momentarily interrupting my concentration, just as a curious young squirrel stirred right beside my chair, apparently expecting some sort of attention as well. 

 

Intermittent Moments of Silence

The silence is intermittent as the neighbors on either side of us stir and attend to their chores, but as I wait for the next moment of silence, I begin to notice other audible intrusions in the distance.  The leaves have begun to fall in earnest now from the backyard tree and with the gentle wind stirring occasionally, bits of tree branches or other debris also drops to the ground, disturbing the intermittent silences.

It is curious to me how much is transpiring at every moment in the yard that is only apparent when sitting in a chair awaiting the moments of quiet.  The movements of nature are generally detectable as they catch my eye, whereas the actions of people are obvious at a much greater distance since they can be heard more easily than seen.  As the sounds reach my ears and are processed by my brain, I am able to discern what they are and to decipher the degree of attention they may or may not deserve, but the activity of the natural inhabitants in the yard barely make a sound.

Now it has become a contest to see how long I can go with near-total silence before being interrupted by one or the other of the distractions currently available.  The relentless drone of distant traffic is easy enough to filter out, and the occasional bird song or squirrel chatter isn’t particularly intrusive, but even a distant single-engine plane can intrude in a way that requires a pause in the absorption of silence.

 

Melancholy Beauty

There’s a distinctly melancholy beauty about such an afternoon.  There’s hardly a cloud in the deeply blue sky; the air is unusually warm and dry; the wind rises and then dissipates in an unpredictable rhythm.  The cats have joined me in the afternoon sun, attending to their routines at my feet, and as I type these words, I feel a degree of calm that is uncommonly pleasing and refreshing.  I’m almost hypnotized by the sweetness and delightful lack of concern I’m experiencing about what comes next. This is a new sensation for me, and even though I know it will not persist as the day rambles on toward the darkness of night, I am content to allow myself to absorb each and every aspect of this sensation for as long as it lasts.  I am able to close my eyes briefly and imagine a time and place where such delight might be available on demand, but quickly realize that the pleasure is heightened by the rarity of opportunity for such experiences, and easily dismiss the idea in favor of the kind of serendipity which produced these circumstances.  When I open my eyes, I begin to look around and observe my world of the moment, to take notice of this melancholy beauty.  

 

The leaves are thinner on the branches than they were yesterday.  They are falling all around me. The air is oddly warmer than usual for the middle of November; there is a gentle breeze that stirs every so often which releases the tenuous leaves for their short trip to the ground, and there are thousands of leaves already laying on every surface outside.  It’s hard to believe that I had swept off the porch out back just yesterday, when I stand at the wall looking out over the scene.

I savor the mildness in the air and the easy breezes which send a cascade of autumn leaves all around me, and I am able to catch a few as they descend in mid-air.  These are the ones I will press into my writer’s journal and preserve them between the pages as I have many times before. 

 

Occasionally, as I peruse one of the hundreds of books on the shelves in my office, looking for a passage to quote or when reviewing the pages from one of my journals, I will encounter a leaf that was placed there years ago, and it always brings a smile to my face, knowing that it was collected from some late autumn day, sitting outside somewhere, fully intending to rediscover it at some later date.

The coffee is starting to cool off now, as I approach the bottom of the cup, and it’s time to refresh it, and review what I have written today.  The words are only pointing toward a thought, a sensation, or a feeling; they reach out in an attempt to capture a moment in time, and to make it possible for the reader to share in that moment.  

For me, it is a delight and a privilege to have this moment of life, on a warm and luminously beautiful autumn afternoon.  One day, on some bitter cold winter morning, as I prepare my coffee in the kitchen, I will bring up this entry on my laptop, and relish the memory of every delightful second, inhaling the fresh air, the sensation of warmth from the sun on my skin, and the periodic moments of silence that inhabit my world as I contemplate the exquisite pleasure I once enjoyed on one fall afternoon, not so long ago.

Epilog:

This morning before I posted this entry, I walked out into the brilliant sunlight out in the backyard; I was astonished to see that overnight nearly every leaf left on the trees just yesterday appeared now to be on the ground.  The trees out back are now almost completely leafless, with a few stragglers still clinging to the nearly bare branches. 

It began to sink in that winter is well on its way now, with cooler temperatures and shorter days, and reluctantly grabbed the rake out of the shed to clear the avalanche of leaves off the deck.  As I began to work, I enjoyed a brief moment of Zen, looking down at the various and multi-colored remnants of the season now ending, embracing with gratitude, the memory of the numerous pleasures experienced during the autumn this year, while still hoping for a gentle or less harsh winter season to come.

 

Filed under human nature, Nature, Personal, The Human Spirit Tagged with , , , , ,

Appreciating the Change of Season

November 3, 2020 7 Comments

 

                                                   Though the great song return no more

                                                   There’s keen delight in what we have;

                                                   The rattle of pebbles on the shore

                                                   Under the receding wave.

 

                                –W.B. Yeats “The Nineteenth Century and After,” 1933

 

The early morning chill has given way to a milder early afternoon warming that I am able to endure easily with a dark grey sweater recently retrieved from the closet since being returned there last spring.  The autumn weather has been relatively kind this year so far, and the forecast for the upcoming week promises even milder temperatures by week’s end.  With luck, I will be able to take advantage of the opportunity to reap the benefits of a little more fair weather before the winter arrives.

 

 

As I type these words, the world-at-large continues to operate as usual around me, with a number of discernible and identifiable sounds reverberating in the near-background of the moment.  I have been able to pick out the roar of passing car engines, the barely audible words of a conversation a short distance away, an even more distant squawk of an emergency vehicle siren, all while contemplating the thoughts which brought me to sit out in the yard in the first place. 

 

 

I close my eyes momentarily when the silence begins to creep back and the traffic subsides, and the siren ceases.  I am soothed by the barely noticeable rustling of the leaves in the gentle wind.  I am reminded of the presence of our two outdoor cats by their usual brief chirping to alert me to their wish for attention.  With a sudden surge of the autumn wind, fallen leaves begin to scratch their way across the pavement, with the wind itself stirring and flowing around the buildings, a number of leaves begin to fall around me and land on my keyboard.

 

 

Sipping on my third cup of coffee for the day out in the backyard, there is a distinct feel to both the soothing nature of a gentle autumn wind, and the play of sunlight and shadows, as the limbs of the tree above me bob and weave with the wind.  The engine of a passing airplane groans along its path across the sky momentarily distracting me from my attention to the words flowing from within.

Again, the creeping silence returns, and I close my eyes again for a moment to absorb the sounds in the stillness.  Early afternoon in our suburban neighborhood generally doesn’t produce such moments very often, and I am both delighted and emboldened by the coincidence.  My heart still aches a bit from the awareness of the impending loss of the pleasing warmth such an afternoon can provide, knowing full-well that there will be a few others before they are gone completely.  If not for the abundance of greenery still available to me in the yard, it would likely feel less comforting to sit and look around between sentences.

 

 

There are a few tell-tale signs of the approaching changes in the colors of the season, but for now, they are limited to the tips of the trees and a few isolated patches of color in a few places.  It won’t be long before the ground is completely obscured by the falling leaves from a half-dozen trees that surround me, but for now, I can revel in the same feel-good sensations of lush green leaves that are soon to resume their trek toward winter.

Reading an article yesterday in the paper about the giant sequoia trees gave me an excuse to contemplate and ruminate on the recent events which included both the demise of one tree and the enhanced appreciation of those which remain.

 

 

The life of a tree on my modest property in a suburban neighborhood may not seem especially notable by comparison to the behemoths in the forests of northern California, but I was absolutely struck by the notion of how similar they actually are by their very nature, differing only in their unique species and in their epic proportions mostly.  The sequoias are like skyscrapers in the woods, hundreds of years old and formidable by every metric one might apply to arboreal beings. The decades-old sugar maples in the yard are by comparison much less formidable, but as entities in the grand scheme of local species, quite impressive none-the-less.

 

 

As I prepare to relinquish the pleasures of a mild autumn afternoon, I take a brief pause to absorb the heat of the sunlight on my face, inhale deeply the fresh air, and allow the gentle wind to caress my face before I step back inside and set out on the day’s adventures.

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