All Heaven and Earth Are Still

December 27, 2018 4 Comments

All Heaven and Earth are still though not in sleep,
But breathless, as we grow when feeling most;
And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep:—
All Heaven and Earth are still. From the high host
Of stars to the lulled lake and mountain-coast,
All is concentered in a life intense,
Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost,
But have a part of Being, and a sense
Of that which is of all Creator and Defence.

–excerpt from Canto III of “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage,” by Lord Byron, 1816

In the current maelstrom of life in the 21st century, it may seem from the accumulated reports from across the globe, that Lord Byron was recounting the state of the world from an impossibly gentler time, when stillness was a great deal more common than it seems to be in our time. In some ways, of course, it may be true that our modern world has become less amenable to calm and stillness, with fewer opportunities to stand in deep thought, or to appreciate a lulled lake scene, or to be soothed by the gentle rhythms of a mountain coastline. Our apparent societal obsession with the advancements in digital technology and the relentless machinations of the 24-hour news cycle, may make it appear as though “life intense” no longer infers a condition where “not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost.”

In spite of the demands of modern life, there are still opportunities for appreciating the view of heaven and earth “…from the high host of stars.” For Christmas this year, I received a signed copy of “Infinite Wonder,” a book by astronaut Scott Kelly, detailing his year in space aboard the International Space Station. The photo above is one of the many views provided by our participation in the work being done 250 miles above the earth. Thanks to the efforts of astronaut Kelly and the many international participants in the space program, anyone who wishes can now appreciate these “unspeakably beautiful” images of the Earth from space, and realize that the stillness of “heaven and earth,” from this perspective is fully available to any who have eyes to see, and the ability to ponder “thoughts too deep.”

Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt
In solitude, where we are least alone;
A truth, which through our being then doth melt,
And purifies from self; it is a tone,
The soul and source of Music, which makes known
Eternal harmony, and sheds a charm
Like the fabled Cytherea’s zone(*)
Binding all things with beauty;—‘twould disarm
The spectre Death, had he substantial power to harm.

–Canto III again…(*) —Cytherea’s Zone – refers to the fabled belt or girdle (zone) of Aphrodite/Venus, the goddess of love (Cythera was the mythical birthplace of the goddess), which conferred upon by any mortal who wore it, the power to attract love.

Recently, as I have spent more time in solitude, I have begun to understand how Byron concluded that when we spend more time there, “where we are least alone,” we come upon a truth, which illuminates an “eternal harmony,” at the heart of life. Last year, depicted in the photo above, I performed a scene for my family during our annual Christmas celebration, which I wrote as part of a larger work-in-progress, where I reflect in solitude, and affirm Byron’s contention that such contemplation “stirs the feeling infinite:”

When I’m alone, looking back over the years, I can still hear the beautiful song of hope that played in my head as a child. It’s like a siren song. I believed in it. I believed in it because it was not a song that leads to destruction, but one that was calling me to my task. That beautiful voice gave me hope. Now that I look back on it, I know that it was not just one voice. I know that each time I heard it, I recognized the spirit who dwelled within it…it may be the voice of my unborn grandchild…it may be a voice from the future or from an ancient past. I know that essence. In unguarded moments, in the silence between words, in moments of quiet contemplation, I know that it is a part of me, telling me to move forward with hope.

Spending more time now in contemplation has provided me with opportunities to reflect and focus on the meaning of a lifetime of experiences and “deep thoughts,” which were so rare during the demanding work schedule I pursued. For many people, the frenetic pace of modern life, with so much more attention being paid to our digital lives, rather than our temporal and spiritual lives, contributes to an awareness for some of us of an emotional and spiritual deficit, which we try to fill with “mindfulness programs,” which often seem more materialistic, emphasizing profit, rather than providing the personal benefits possible when applied empathetically as a therapeutic approach to the modern challenges of life in the 21st century. Anyone can subscribe to one of the many offerings made available through large for-profit organizations, and some of them do provide portions of age-old wisdom traditions in a way that might lead to a more considered approach to those challenges, but with the additional requirement for monetary contributions, when there are other religious and spiritual centers which provide similar programs without cost.

During the past eight years here at John’s Consciousness, I have endeavored to provide some sense of the underlying “eternal harmony,” which I believe exists within us, and which can be accessed regardless of our ability to participate in the modern amenities available in such for-profit programs. This is not an indictment of any such program or a criticism of those who participate in them, only a suggestion that when we seek outside of ourselves for the answers to our most pressing personal and spiritual challenges, what we often find is that we can often better serve those goals by taking what we find and comparing it to our own inner sense of what life requires of us in pursuit of these answers. With a consistent and concerted effort to explore our inner world in this way, we can arrive in a place where our very human spirit and our evolving inner life can expand and become fuller, even in consideration of our jam-packed modern lifestyles.

In the coming months, I will be devoting more of my time to expanding on the work I have accumulated over the past eight years, and presenting examples of the many ways in which we, as individuals, can enhance our understanding and appreciation of the pathways leading to a greater spiritual and less materialistic approach to modern life, and sharing the many stories of all the various experiences and explorations that contributed to my present world-view. As the previous year recedes and the new year approaches, as is usually the case with me anyway, I engage more fully in contemplation of what I have learned and what still remains unanswered, and how to discern which efforts in which areas may provide me with an improved path forward. I thank each and every one of my readers and commenters for their continued support and encouragement in this effort, and look forward to an expanded amount of sharing as life unfolds in the year ahead.

Wishing you all the best of what life can provide in the coming year. With warm regards…John H.

Filed under Consciousness, Philosophy, The Human Spirit Tagged with , , , , ,

The World Outside of Our World

July 6, 2018 2 Comments

Scientist leaving the world. Engraving c.1520. Allegorical representation of changes in medieval conception or interpretation of the heavens when it was thought that the world was flat, discovering the point where heaven and earth meet, twentieth-century coloration of black-and-white engraving from The Atmosphere, by Camille Flammarion, 1888.

Anyone who ponders the possibility of an existence beyond that which we can know and experience as temporal beings, cannot determine with absolute certainty, while they inhabit their physical bodies, what the precise nature of the universe might fully entail; nor can we unambiguously describe the character and quality of the forces or energies which may exist outside of our temporal conscious awareness. As with many mysterious, ineffable, or extraordinary experiences, which may imply or potentially include the involvement of a transcendent component or aspect, we must approach our interpretation of them with the understanding that even though they may possibly be objectively real and seem subjectively potent for us personally, that the very nature of such an existence precludes any attempt to describe it well in temporal terms, and it may never yield its secrets while enduring any sort of empirical scrutiny.

Yet we do occasionally get glimpses of such possibilities–flashes of insight, moments when we sense a connection to something outside of ourselves, extraordinary inner events outside of our everyday experience–which suggest intimations of the existence of another world, which we can only describe as “other-worldly.” Getting to the heart of the matter can present us with a challenge to our intellect, and to our hearts and minds, to be sure, but such experiences can result occasionally in visceral, real, tangible, physical world responses, which are obviously inexplicable in any other way. We are forced to consider the possibility of an influence originating from a world whose nature crosses some kind of threshold between it and the world we know temporally.

Back in 2001, Columbia Pictures released a computer animated film entitled, “Final Fantasy: the Spirits Within,” which told the story of a future world in which scientists were pitted against mysterious forces invading and consuming all life forms they encountered, and a race to discover the true nature of the invaders featured two opposing worldviews: one which touted the power of science to construct a weapon which seemed to destroy the mysterious ghost-like creatures, and the other which proposed another more complex scientific approach involving an understanding of the nature of life on earth which included intimations of a spirit of the earth–Gaia. Ultimately, the powerful destructive weapon approach, directed by a materialistic and angry militant general, which nearly destroyed any hope for saving humanity, was defeated by a determined and life affirming scientific duo who solved the dilemma by piecing together the eight levels of the spirit of the earth.

I’ve included a link to the movie trailer if anyone is interested in further investigation:

The film was not a critical success in spite of extraordinary animation effects and a very compelling storyline, mostly because of the link the title suggested to the popular video game of the same name. Fortunately for me, I was unfamiliar with the game and enjoyed the movie on its own merit. What it suggested to me was the urgency to progress beyond our limited temporal existence and to discover a fuller and more holistic view of what the nature of life might actually be. It remains a potent message today, and regardless of what the ultimate explanation of the full nature of our existence might be, we must be willing to remain open to life in all its possibilities.

Is it possible that we exist not simply as a consequence of our cosmic and human evolution, but also by virtue of an underlying non-physical existence? While many aspects of our temporal reality remain outside of our comprehension currently, what would make any of us inclined to investigate, contemplate, and attempt to articulate the concept of a “transcendent reality,” when comprehension of the physical universe itself still remains beyond our current capabilities? The image above suggests a potential place to begin. Many mornings as a much younger man and occasionally over the years since then, I have had the opportunity to observe such spectacles as the one of the sunrise on the east coast at the Jersey Shore, and some others as the sun descended in the western sky in California, and the effect for me has always been palpably real of a deeper sense of connection to a kind of threshold between where life begins and where it ends temporally as the day begins at sunrise and ends at sunset.

“The relevance of conscious experience in generating (a) new understanding, (of an) intimate connection ( to intuition) with the core part of our inner selves, (is) becoming clearer. Intuition and the practices for intentionally enhancing it—meditation, prayer, deep contemplation, a developed sense of inner peace—can be seen as the key means for gaining access to this interior domain and then living it with an enlarged sense of purpose and direction. The human unconscious, which we experience only indirectly through subjective processes such as feelings, impressions, sensations, emotions, dreams and intuition, holds this invisible domain in place, always ready for awakening. Intuition is (humanity’s) communication link between (the) inner and outer minds and it bridges this all too familiar gap.” –© William H. Kautz/Center for Applied Intuition

The quote above came from a recent visit to the website for the Center for Applied Intuition in San Francisco, by Dr. Kautz, who earned an Sc.D. degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.), conducted scientific and technical research at Stanford Research Institute (SRI International) for 35 years in the then emerging field of computer science, with additional activity in geophysics, health, chemistry and the social sciences. In 1977, he founded the Center for Applied Intuition (CAI) and was its Director for 15 years.

We often can have an intuitive sense of some existence beyond the temporal, regardless of how it might be configured or what might serve as its foundation or source. Traveling along the highways in Virginia, fully conscious and open to the concept of simultaneously existing in both worlds, observing the abundance of life all around me, seems to re-enforce the idea. Throughout human history, we see many varieties of approaches to explain or rationalize our ideas regarding the ineffable, but its existence as an objectively real possibility has been asserted by numerous sages, mystics, spiritual leaders, and even scientists throughout the ages. Carl Jung, the eminent Swiss psychiatrist was one such empiricist who clearly advocated a position which supports the idea in a clear way.

The existence of archetypes as primordial images, which we inherit as beings who possess a penetrating awareness of what goes on beyond what our senses tell us, suggests the potential of a non-ordinary state from which we come and to which we return when our time as temporal beings comes to an end. Dr.Kautz continues:

“Intuition may be regarded as a mere phenomenon to be studied by scholars, but it may also be seen as a natural part of life, just as we view intelligence, creativity, imagination, kindness, empathy, even the capacity to speak a language…(it) can now be defined as the human mental capability for drawing on an apparently unlimited source of knowledge (the collective unconscious or whichever name you prefer) to obtain almost any desired information, including that not accessible by common means. This capability bypasses the rational faculty, the familiar five senses and ordinary memory, which are not required and can even hinder the reception process.”

Awareness of our fullest and truest nature is only possible when we remain open to what may potentially explain our keen sense of intuition, imagination, and empathy for all life. If we can allow ourselves to extend what is possible, we may find a way to reach the world outside of our world.

Filed under Brains, Consciousness, Nature, Neuroscience, Personal, Philosophy, Science, The Human Spirit Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Forever One – A Reverie

December 16, 2016 9 Comments

intimacy44

I can feel you. I know you are there. I want you to be there. I think that’s the reason it keeps happening. At some point, we both reflect on those moments, and it brings us somehow together. Your face said everything. Just for a moment, it all came rushing back to you–all those moments–they all passed through your mind’s eye. Your body posture changed immediately. You opened to me. I wanted to run right at you and hold you close, but the moment was gone and you–you were brought back to the temporal–you were brought back to the moment in time and space, but before you turned and remembered where you were temporally, I had you completely–I had you completely–and I wanted you completely. For just a few seconds, everything stopped, and that place that only we inhabit burst open. Your face softened. Your shoulders relaxed. It was relief–you were relieved–just for that moment. I played right along in the temporal. I allowed a suspension of my inclinations and yours. Twice during the conversation in time and space, we leaned into each other. Your face immediately softened. You were close enough to hear my heartbeat.

spirit born

After a few seconds you snapped out of it and returned to the space and time of the temporal world, and once more, I extended my hand. You came immediately in and again your face softened and you smiled. It was like you were looking right through me. It would have been a completely different experience had it been under different circumstances. I imagined how it might have gone, had we been alone. I would have pulled you in, surrounded you with my arms. My heart was flung open only for a few seconds, but if the circumstances were different, I would have opened up all the way.

I wouldn’t let you go. I’m so much taller, I always seem to be looking down at you, but your face, when it looks up to me, makes it feel like we’re the same height. Height becomes irrelevant. I know I would have put my hands on your face, and I believe your face would be grinning broadly. I would hesitate for just a second or two, and I would say, “I love you,” and I would kiss you deeply–passionately. I wouldn’t be able to stop myself. It wouldn’t have to be anymore. It would be alright. We’d be fine. I would look deeply in your eyes; I would sigh; I’d probably be giggling–a nervous laughter. I wouldn’t want you to be upset. I would want you to giggle too.

secret bench of knowledge

Even if it never happened again, I would know that moment and I would create a point of worship. I’d worship that moment–cling to it–always. So many times when you have been in my arms, and our faces have been very close, I have wanted to kiss you, but it was almost unnecessary because it seemed that your face registered my desire–you knew that I wanted to kiss you, and you smiled.

There must be a chance, even if its only once, to relive this imagining, to manifest it in the physical world, but even if it never happens it’s really already happened dozens of times, and each time you smiled, knowing. I don’t understand, but I accept–I accept you, just as you are. You see, the person to whom that face belongs–I love that person; the person who inhabits that body–I love that person; the soul that manifests as that person–I am one with that soul. We will never be apart–ever. We are forever one.

Filed under Consciousness, Poetry, The Human Spirit Tagged with , , ,

A Link With The Infinite

May 15, 2016 6 Comments

“Never in the world were any two opinions alike, any more than any two hairs or grains of sand. Their most universal quality is diversity.” –Montaigne, Essays, 1580

Sunrise-Meditation

In a letter-writing conversation with a thoughtful friend some years ago, the topic turned to how to engage others more deeply without abandoning our own sense of self or compromising our ability to function as an individual spirit in the world. My friend wrote, “…deep engagement without reluctance, in my opinion does turn the world upside down, and the only way to engage at that deep level, unless you are still in the womb, is to let go of your own consciousness. But there is a conflict because what we seem to hope for is deep engagement not with our primal undifferentiated selves, but with our developed selves; but the developed self by nature is separate, has evolved to live independently of the host, the mother.”

In response, I turned to the writings of C.G.Jung, and his ideas about the process of individuation, which, according to a notation in Wikipedia, “…is the process in which the individual self develops out of an undifferentiated unconscious – seen as a developmental psychic process during which innate elements of personality, the components of the immature psyche, and the experiences of the person’s life become integrated over time into a well-functioning whole.” Jung believed that “…the essentially ‘internal’ process of individuation does not go on in some inner space cut off from the world. Rather, it can only be realized within the larger context of life as it is lived.” Our developed selves, brought about by individuation are, in my opinion, perhaps more accurately described as being founded upon our primal undifferentiated selves, rather than as something separate from it, but it seems pretty clear that it is our developed selves which inspire conflict when it does occur. Conflict seems to me to be more of a cultural problem than one of the host being separate from the mother.

jung

In a letter he wrote a few months before his death, Jung stated:

“It is quite possible that we look at the world from the wrong side and that we might find the right answer by changing our point of view and looking at it from the other side, that is, not from the outside, but from inside.”

For me, the connections I recognize as those which I strive to engage without reluctance and without turning the world upside down, transcend the developed self. The crucial point of the matter here seems to be our connection to the infinite. In his autobiography, Jung wrote:

“If we understand and feel that here in this life we already have a link with the infinite, desires and attitudes change…In our relationships…the crucial question is whether an element of boundlessness is expressed in the relationship…Only consciousness of our narrow confinement in the self forms the link to the limitlessness of the unconscious…In knowing ourselves to be unique in our personal combination—that is, ultimately limited—we possess also the capacity for becoming conscious of the infinite.”

– excerpt from Jung’s autobiography, “Memories, Dreams, Reflections,” 1963, New York: Random House.

inner world2
http://likesuccess.com

I have struggled to come to terms with the compelling inner sense of a connection to the infinite that has appeared regularly in my writings these many years. I often struggle also with attempting to articulate this inner urging and to describe it in ways that can be appreciated by my readers here. Of necessity as temporal beings, we often resort to temporal references in order to allude to that which cannot be described in temporal terms. The nature of life, temporal existence, the physical universe, and everything relevant to that existence cannot be described completely in terms belonging only to that physical existence. We have devised ways of referring to these other aspects of life and existence, particularly as they relate to our very human nature, and acknowledge them as existing in a domain far removed from the temporal–as far removed from the temporal plane as we are from the quantum world of the very small, and the farthest reaches of the physical universe. Although we are, in some important ways, defined by these two opposing aspects, the truth seems to reside between them.

Sometimes, we all need to step away from the table, to catch up on our sleep, or to clear our hearts and minds from all the clutter that can accumulate. Wellness requires periods of rest; mental health requires periods of sleep and occasional disconnects. No one goes on vacation all the time, just every once in a while. It is unlikely to find peace in even a deep connection unless we are able to find some peace in ourselves. This is the absolute goal in successful relationships, and I feel strongly that I DO have some peace within me now. I may have some additional work to do through contemplation and ruminating on my path that brought me to my present place in the world, and psychologically we should all be continuously working to engage our hearts and minds in the pursuit of progressing as a person, but the foundation I now possess has been hard-won and warrants consideration when I sometimes still feel that twinge of the memory of the pain that led to the peace of where I am now.

autumn4

Each of us suffers subjectively in ways that cannot meaningfully be compared to the suffering of others. As a person who cannot seem to avoid empathizing with the suffering of others, I have endured my own suffering with a fairly unique perspective as a man. My mother told me that as a young boy, when one of the other children in the neighborhood would fall down or be crying for some reason, I would also cry. As I witnessed the birth of each of my children, I cried buckets of tears, and holding one of my grandchildren now or when I see any newborn child, my heart absolutely melts. Reading about the tragic circumstances that seem to appear regularly in the news these days frequently brings me to tears. I can’t say I know many other men who have this problem. These experiences clearly are of the “very human” variety, and it seems to me that our very human nature is more complex and mysterious than any of the science, psychology, or philosophy of mind currently can illuminate.

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

The Rite of Spring

May 8, 2016 3 Comments

Achille Lauge Spring

“Spring Landscape,” by Achille Laugé (French, 1861–1944). Laugé was a Neo-Impressionist painter born in Arzens. Laugé never followed his teachers’ methods and advice, and his work was considered radical for its time. Influenced by French Neo-Impressionist painters Georges Seurat (1859–1891), Paul Signac (1863–1935), and Camille Pissarro (1831–1903), Laugé adopted elements of their style without aligning himself with Seurat’s strict and scientific method.–Wikipedia

Speaking of Spring, I took the opportunity a few weeks ago to photograph the signs of Spring right in my own yard around the house, and as it turned out, it would be the last sunny day for a while. I was cautiously optimistic on this sunny afternoon and captured some of the essential sights that I see each year about this time.

Flowers 009a

Flowers 002a

Flowers 013a

 

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spring22ad

Right after I captured these images, we began to endure one of the longest runs of continuously rainy days in recent memory these past two weeks, and it reminded me of a passage from Hemingway:

“Sometimes the heavy cold rains would beat it back so that it would seem that it would never come and that you were losing a season out of your life…You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintry light. But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen. When the cold rains kept on and killed the spring, it was as though a young person had died for no reason.
In those days, though, the spring always came finally but it was frightening that it had nearly failed.”

― Ernest Hemingway, passage from “A Moveable Feast.”

After the terrorist incident in Paris in November of last year, “A Moveable Feast” became a bestseller in France. According to a CNN report by Watson, Ivan, and Sandrine in November 2015 called “Sales Surge for Hemingway’s Paris memoir, “the book’s French-language title, “Paris est une fête,”…was a potent symbol of defiance and celebration. Bookstore sales of the volume surged, and copies of the book became a common fixture among the flowers and candles in makeshift memorials created by Parisians across the city to honor victims of the attacks.”

De_oratore_liber

First page of a miniature of Cicero’s “De Oratore,” 15th century, Northern Italy, now at the British Museum

“Historia magistra vitae est,” is a Latin expression, taken from Cicero’s “De Oratore” which translates to “History is life’s teacher.” According to Wikipedia, “…The phrase conveys the idea that the study of the past should serve as a lesson to the future.” Cicero writes eloquently in “De Oratore,” about how “…An orator is very much like the poet. The poet is more encumbered by rhythm than the orator, but richer in word choice and similar in ornamentation.”

This relentless run of rain and overcast skies has had the beneficial affect of keeping me indoors to read and contemplate my thoughts in a way that I don’t usually get the opportunity to do when the weather is better, and the following quote from Cicero’s work struck me as I reviewed it the other day:

“Nevertheless, since philosophy is divided into three branches, which respectively deal with the mysteries of nature, with the subtleties of dialectic (inquiry into metaphysical contradictions and their solutions), and with human life and conduct, let us quit claim to the first two, by way of concession to our indolence (laziness), but unless we keep our hold on the third, which has ever been the orator’s province, we shall leave the orator no sphere wherein to attain greatness. For which reason this division of philosophy, concerned with human life and manners, must all of it be mastered by the orator; as for the other matters, even though he has not studied them, he will still be able, whenever the necessity arises, to beautify them by his eloquence, if only they are brought to his notice and described to him.”

It has occurred to me that my poetry, my sense of history, and my earnest deliberations in studying the philosophical aspects of our human subjective awareness have all been in the service of the mysteries of nature, the subtleties of dialectic, and with human life and conduct, and although I don’t feel particularly “encumbered by rhythm,” a recent poem erupted from me that seems to address these mysteries in the way that Cicero suggested is often produced as “necessity arises.”

While The Spirit Mendswoman planets

Every nuance of the life within me
Yields to the power of the
Divinity within this sacred place
We are building together.

Across the eons of time,
Through centuries of human presence on Earth,
The world within has blossomed and flourished,
While the life of the body without
Struggles to continue.

Nature reveals itself only slowly
To the spirit, like a flower
That opens at twilight.
Abiding with you in the deepest
Union of souls of my short life,
The goddess breathes life into our
Sensual union and intensive mingling
Of spirit and intimate places.

Sitting at length within her grasp,
I submit willingly to the opening
Of my soul by her gentle hand.
My tortured heart cries out silently–
While the spirit mends.

© May 2016 by JJHIII24

Filed under Ancient Culture, Consciousness, Nature, Personal, Philosophy, Poetry, The Human Spirit Tagged with , , , ,

A Universal Spiritual Perspective

November 23, 2015 Leave a comment

faulkner

In his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize, William Faulkner addressed important elements surrounding the “poet’s, the writer’s duty:”

“I feel that this award was not made to me as a man, but to my work – a life’s work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit, not for glory and least of all for profit, but to create out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before. So this award is only mine in trust. It will not be difficult to find a dedication for the money part of it commensurate with the purpose and significance of its origin. But I would like to do the same with the acclaim too, by using this moment as a pinnacle from which I might be listened to by the young men and women already dedicated to the same anguish and travail, among whom is already that one who will someday stand here where I am standing.

I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last dingdong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking.

I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet’s, the writer’s, duty is to write about these things.

It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet’s voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.”

–excerpts from William Faulkner’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech at Stockholm’s City Hall on December 10, 1950.

paris people

Reviewing the world events of the past few weeks, one might be forgiven, at least at first glance, for being gravely concerned about the future of humanity. The tragic inhumanity perpetrated by rage and radical ideology we’ve witnessed recently, strikes at the very core values of every variety of human society, and we genuinely seem to have only a limited number of choices, when it comes time to choose, of how to respond.

No rational or humanistic society wants to see an escalation of hostilities in any region of the world, but neither can we shrink from the awful duty required to prevent the successful imposition by the forces of rage and radical ideology from their goals of destruction and their murderous intent. It seems that nothing less than a commensurately violent response to the violence being inflicted can hope to deter or eliminate the dangers posed by these forces.

Faulkner’s words were uttered shortly after the conclusion of World War II, but they could easily apply to our current circumstances. If we are to overcome these obstacles and forge a viable alternative to these destructive forces ultimately, we must seek to raise the level of the conversation to include a more universal spiritual perspective.

Russell Kirk, in his book, “The Conservative Mind,” argued that conservatism as a philosophy is based on six canons, condensed here:

1. A divine intent as well as personal conscience rules society, “forging an eternal chain of right and duty which links great and obscure, living and dead.”
2. Traditional life, as distinguished from “the narrowing uniformity and equalitarianism … of most radical systems,” is filled with variety and mystery.
3. Civilized society requires orders and hierarchy—“if a people destroy natural distinctions among men, presently Bonaparte fills the vacuum.”
4. “Property and freedom are inseparably connected.”
5. “Man must put a control upon his will and his appetite,” knowing that he is governed more by emotion than reason.
6. “Society must alter … but Providence is the proper instrument for change.”

–condensed from Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Santayana (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1953), p. 61.

While I personally do not agree completely with each of these points, number five struck me as prescient as an indication of how the consideration of our very human nature constitutes a necessary component to include when reflecting on today’s circumstances. Considering that Kirk was writing these words in 1953, at a time when many thinkers of the day possessed a much less secular worldview, if we translate them without imposing a specific religious connotation, we can see a spiritual component that can inform our “personal conscience,” when attempting to determine how to respond to the “eternal chain of right and duty.”

When we witness the tragic results of recent world events–when we see and share the subsequent emotional and spiritual turmoil–it points to an important confluence of our spiritual nature with our physiological and emotional responses. The American philosopher, William James, (1842-1910) wrote about how our consciousness can directly affect our physiology:

william-james

“Even Darwin did not exhaustively enumerate all the bodily affections characteristic of any one of the standard emotions. More and more, as physiology advances, we begin to discern how almost infinitely numerous and subtle they must be. Research…has shown that not only the heart, but the entire circulatory system, forms a sort of sounding-board, which every change of our consciousness, however slight, may make reverberate. Hardly a sensation comes to us without sending waves of alternate constriction and dilatation down the arteries of our arms. The blood-vessels of the abdomen act reciprocally with those of the more outward parts.”

–excerpt from “What is an Emotion?, by William James (1884) First published in Mind, 9, 188-205

While he was considered to be a pragmatist who was more concerned about the practical application of his theories than the abstract concepts which he addressed in his writing, here James hits upon the powerful link between our possession of the penetrating subjective awareness provided by our very human form of consciousness, and the visceral experience of our emotional states and their effect on even the most subtle human physiological responses. We cannot separate ourselves easily from our evolutionary inheritance as a member of the genus Homo, who eventually became a cognitive creature, since we are still very much a product of that evolution. Many of our psychological inclinations and biological imperatives conflict with our more rational and cognitive capacities, and in ways that can pose the kinds of challenges we face in the 21st century.

Our current state of affairs as an American society, and indeed the state of affairs in the many diverse societies and nations of the world who share these challenges, present us not only with an opportunity to demonstrate our values, but also to bring together the many nations of the world in a common goal to answer the challenges posed by those who would perpetrate violence in the pursuit of a radical fundamentalist ideology.

The spirit of our American way of life, characterized by the ideals upon which our nation was originally founded, is not always evident in our actions in the world at large, nor in the rhetoric of our political and religious leaders, but in his book, Russell Kirk detailed the ideals which we have continually strived to attain, and which, if realized, could make all the difference in facing the challenges of our day:

“Kirk argued that Americans possessed those things that made a conservative counterrevolution possible: “the best written constitution in the world, the safest division of powers, the widest diffusion of property, the strongest sense of common interest, the most prosperous economy, an elevated intellectual and moral tradition, and a spirit of self-reliance unequalled in modern times.”

–excerpts from his article on the Heritage Foundation website entitled, “The Conservative Mind of Russell Kirk,” by Lee Edwards, Ph.D.

We need to find a way to answer the difficult questions posed by our circumstances that embraces the spirit of these values, and recognizes that the goal of achieving world peace can only be accomplished if we look within ourselves and reconnect to the human spirit, which Faulkner described as being “…capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.”

Filed under Books, Brains, Consciousness, Nature, Personal, Philosophy, The Human Spirit Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

Crossroads

November 2, 2015 2 Comments

Crossroads2a

In my previous post, I wrote about author Richard Brautigan, whose success in the late 1960’s and throughout the 1970’s brought him great notoriety and financial rewards for a time. His tendency to engage in a variety of self-destructive behaviors, and a degree of recklessness in attending to his own well-being, over time, ultimately led to his gradual decline into near obscurity, and to tragically choosing to end his own life at age 49. While my life has been much different in a number of ways, the lessons contained in his all-too-brief life, as well as in the lives of others with similar outcomes, have challenged and complicated my own journey in ways that have forced me to re-examine my path–to stop here at the crossroads–and to take a long, deep, breath.

Naturally, I have all the usual concerns about the future and planning for retirement that most people do. All of my children are grown and have started having their own children, but the opportunities presented by an “empty nest,” have actually unsettled me a bit. For a handful of years now I have been attempting to formalize my research and writing into a more coherent stream in this blog, and it has been both illuminating and challenging to direct and sustain my energies in the process. It seems that I am quickly approaching a point where I must consider my choice of direction for the time I have left to act in this life. Looking ahead and looking back, as well as looking at the divergent roads that may lead in one direction or another can be daunting, especially when measured against the responsibilities and demands of sustaining oneself in the 21st century. The crossroads can represent an approach to the culmination of everything that came before reaching them, but it can also bring to bear the memories of all the uncertainty and mystery that one had to face in order to arrive there in the first place. As always, not all choices are equally viable, but now there is far less time to redirect them, should it become clear that alternative choices may have provided an opportunity for a better outcome.

Throughout most of my life, trying to discern in which direction I should turn when I’ve arrived at crossroads has always been a bit problematical, but these days it seems heavy-laden with considerations that reflect the uncertainty and mystery even more than before, as well as a heightened awareness of them, brought about by a number of harsh life lessons in recent years. A post by a fellow blogger and creative writer, David Cain, speaks to the central dilemma:

“I will never see the world quite like anyone else, which means I will never live in quite the same world as anyone else — and therefore I mustn’t let outside observers be the authority on who I am or what life is really like for me. Subjectivity is primary experience — it is real life, and objectivity is something each of us builds on top of it in our minds, privately, in order to explain it all. This truth has world-shattering implications for the roles of religion and science in the lives of those who grasp it.”

http://www.raptitude.com/2010/10/9-mind-bending-epiphanies-that-turned-my-world-upside-down/?awesm=fbshare.me_AV3k9

goethe2

Clearly, I have been in the torrent of the world this past month. October managed to escape me with my attention focused elsewhere, even though I have been struggling to hobble together an important blog post which I hope to be posting this week. The quote from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is actually from a play he completed in 1790 after a trip through Italy entitled, “Torquato Tasso.” I was able to locate an English translation from the original German by Charles Des Voeux which is available online thanks to the Harvard College Library Dexter Fund. In that play, the character Leonora reassures Alphonso:

“A talent doth in stillness form itself–A character on life’s unquiet stream.”

I have been swimming in “life’s unquiet stream,” and in moments of stillness, perhaps I have been developing a degree of character in the process. One can only hope! I also revisited a musical recording from my youthful days in the military by Emerson, Lake, and Palmer:

The Sage
——–

I carry the dust of a journey
that cannot be shaken away
It lives deep within me
For I breathe it every day.

You and I are yesterday’s answers;
The earth of the past came to flesh,
Eroded by Time’s rivers
To the shapes we now possess.

Come share of my breath and my substance,
and mingle our stream and our times.
In bright, infinite moments,
Our reasons are lost in our eyes.

–Emerson, Lake & Palmer – Pictures At An Exhibition Lyrics

Signpost.

Reviewing the events of my life these days, I’ve begun to see the role that the expectations of others has played in many of my choices. Beginning with my experiences in the formal education portion, not only was I constantly concerned about not meeting the expectations of my parents and teachers, but I often suffered the consequences when some performance I gave fell short of those expectations. All of my efforts were inevitably scrutinized to the point where it seemed I was only just barely surviving that scrutiny, until eventually it all came to a breaking point–a crossroad–when I turned in one particularly awful performance in my sophomore year at college, which resulted in re-directing my life away from the university for a time, and propelled me toward the events which took place in each of the far-flung locations I have been describing this past year as a young soldier, winding his way through the labyrinth of spiritual awakening.

There are challenges for me these days, but I have been seeking guidance and support and remain hopeful that November will be a first step in a positive direction. Thanks to all my readers and friends for your patience and comments!

Filed under Consciousness, Personal, Philosophy, Poetry, The Human Spirit Tagged with , , , , , ,

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