Oh Sarah what a beautiful phrase “golden toned reminder of the living magic we posses” !! I’m so happy to be connected with those words ☺️ and I am thankful that is what you received from this piece. Thank you sister 🪞🕯️
Awww Emma such beautiful writing dripping with wisdom.
“I can see the convergence points, both small and large, where the pattern within the weaving changes unexpectedly on account of some wish of mine becoming fulfilled spontaneously.”
Wonderful essay, Emma, and I really enjoy that photograph of the water droplets on that blade of grass. Your point that we ought to "allow ourselves to be drawn to what we love, rather than trying to back pedal away from what we want to avoid" was powerful.
A few other lines based on the same idea were memorable, such as that "it makes sense to me that we would be guided towards our preferences, rather than warned away from what we don’t want"--like geese not being warned against winter, but called to their desires. Your first invocation of the idea puts it well, that "our inner guidance is always calling us towards what we want, not warning us against what we don’t want." Thank you for writing and sharing.
I’m glad you liked the water droplets - they had such an effect on my moment. And I like knowing those lines resonated with you. I always like to look at wild nature for clarification, and the innate impulses migratory species act upon seems like a deep teaching I’m not quite sure how to put into words, but I am trying. Thank you for taking the time to read and share your thoughts!
Such good knowings and reminders, particularly (for me) the truth that in any given moment we are living some of our previous wishes, and possibly not recognizing them. To notice them as they happen, to celebrate them—what a good aim to set right now. Merci beaucoup 🧡
Thanks for highlighting this Esther. It’s such a simple thing, but like we’ve seen with the ‘casual’ thoughts, simple seems to be where the power is most concentrated. (When I first typed concentrated, it came out consecrated via autocorrect. I think that might be an insight revealed)
I have read this a few times now, and you bring some things into more clarity.
Last week I wrote this to a friend:
"I have had countless experiences of receiving what I am seeking in the moment, whether it's an identical printer listed on the day that mine breaks, or a whole set of irrigation pipe just right for our farm, or a local wood-fired hot tub. There is a counterpoint to that though - anything that I fixate on with my mind is usually impeded. A package that I am compulsively tracking is more likely to be delayed or sent to the wrong address, and when I am in a hurry I am more likely to encounter delays. It is as if something is continually teaching me "the will is not the way". Setting intention allows the pattern to weave in response. Attempting to force a result or a schedule creates resistance."
And then you wrote:
"And what impresses me the most, is that these spontaneous arisings usually occur after I have either forgotten about having the desire in the first place, or relaxed into the space of its perceived absence without any feelings of lack. When I look out over the tapestry of my life, I can see the convergence points, both small and large, where the pattern within the weaving changes unexpectedly on account of some wish of mine becoming fulfilled spontaneously."
What this says to me is that a wish is a will set free. Free to allow the pattern to weave around it, weave it into being. I have always thought that I have a weak will but that isn't true. I spontaneously and authentically desire many things, and many of them have woven to fruition. What I lack is "willpower" or "determination" - the ability to singlehandedly and by force bring my will into being. Whenever I try to have willpower, the pattern weaves hurdles and barriers as if to remind me that this isn't the way it really works.
This leads me to the realization that some of my masculine-feminine couplets have imbalanced analogs, so instead of will-discernment we have something like determination-obligation. Control-surrender and dominion-submission. Exchange-relationship and extraction-sacrifice. One that asserts power over and one that gives power and autonomy away. I'll have to see if that makes sense to weave in to the overall project.
"Sometimes desire is equated with suffering, but I think that is only when desire becomes yearning via belief that the thing wanted is not possible."
It may be belief, but often that belief is borne of experience. If we never receive what we truly desire, then eventually we believe that we will never receive it. As to why it isn't received, I think there are many reasons - old patterns, karma, trauma, conditioned fear, an overly strong mind that we cannot relax, and of course the structural issues of poverty and discrimination and exploitive capitalism. My father was a lifelong spiritual seeker who wanted nothing more than to feel true connection in his heart. Nothing could get him there - not the Catholic Church in which he was a priest, not a partnership with a woman (my mother) who channeled messages from spirit, not Perelandra or biointensive gardening, not meditation or fasting or the Course in Miracles. I connected with him after he died and he was so happy to have finally healed his old heart wound, after understanding that it simply couldn't happen while he was embodied. So I would say I have learned to trust that everyone has their own timing and process of healing and evolution and awakening to their true nature, and not to ascribe fault or failure or judgment to those who cannot find what they seek.
I really really like your insight about a wish being “a will set free.” If I ever try to force things a) it doesn’t work b) I feel uncomfortable at the very least c) if and when it does come to fruition, it is always in a manner so different from how my intellect was attempting to make it happen in the first place. Even if there are similarities, there are always aspects of the fruition that are beyond my ability to plan or include (thankfully). In the phrase “a will set free” I feel the wildness of the wish itself - the impulse sending out into the field of creation, to be responded to in ways unknown.
I see what you mean about the imbalance in some of the couplets. When I look at the list you have in “A Framework”, the columns read as the elevated/integrated/exalted form of the masculine/feminine quality. What you bring up here feels like the qualities closer to their detriment (to use an astrological term). I’m cheering you on as you evolve this couplet contemplation, and I’m here for it.
“I would say I have learned to trust that everyone has their own timing and process of healing and evolution and awakening to their true nature, and not to ascribe fault or failure or judgment to those who cannot find what they seek.” Yes, I wholeheartedly agree with you. Trusting everyone’s unique timing (including the Earth as a whole) has been a major point of soothing for me. As well as much deeper acceptance.
There’s more I will to respond to, but I want to allow it more thought. Thanks as always for the exchange. I appreciate it.
I feel another writing taking shape that will explore the imbalanced couplets that exert power over self/others or give away power and autonomy - something about cocreation and codependency. Thanks for weaving and exploring with me.
I think I have been hesitant to write about my experiences with will or wishes weaving into reality because a) it doesn't work for everyone for various reasons, and I am obviously unable to determine whatever shift or healing or resolution they might need, and b) it is very easily distorted or interpreted within the dominant paradigm as "we create our own reality with willpower or focused intention" and books like "The Secret" sell millions of copies and foster a sense of entitlement and a tendency to assign self-responsibility to others' suffering in a way that depletes empathy and interbeing and creates an artificial hierarchy of self-realization.
You have a way of balancing a confidence that "this is our true nature" with a humility and allowing and openness to mystery. There are no laws of attraction, only the fundamental nature of cocreation. You help me and others to take the final step from "allow me to be whole so that I can fix this broken world" - a kind of guilt-ridden or high-stakes activism - to relaxing fully out of separation and into cocreativity, weaving toward harmony rather than away from harm.
You will also have a book to write some time, I think :-).
I deeply receive your reflection of what you see in my writing. I am really thankful, and feel affirmation for why I am even writing in the first place.
I understand/hear what you are saying re: hesitancies in writing about “will or wishes weaving into reality”, and still I think it’s really important to talk and share about our experiences within the quantum fabric of our lives. My whole path has unfolded before me thanks to other people from all kinds of traditions/frameworks/belief structures who were willing to talk about their experiences in the deeps of the inner/outer dimensional confluence. I saw within them the possibility for myself. Ultimately, all we have to give others is our own example, and that’s a lot! Buhner was emphatic that as a society we have a false, linear reductionist map of reality that really needs to be rewritten. Replaced by those of us who can and care to go into the “wildness of the world” as he called it - and come back with our field notes. I see you doing just that in The Dendroica Project. That’s why I think what you are sharing is so important. It’s a part of the new maps we are creating.
For most of the summer/fall I have been contemplating the idea of how we are re-culturing ourselves, on account of coming across the phrase “old growth societies” that Buhner quoted in “…Imaginal Realm.” I am envisioning that this web of collective resonance we are a part of is creating new culture (and eventually renewed society) on account of being able to rewrite the maps so to speak, from a non-linear, wild, quantum, frequency-based understanding, that inherently includes the mind-body-life continuum and cocreation. I’ve been feeling an essay gradually coalescing around this idea.
What you brought up in B) reminds me of how the law of attraction teachings, like many things, are greatly diluted in mainstream culture. Diluted and often convoluted. Sometimes I get an urge to write an essay to bring clarity around this subject, but I always end up putting it to rest.
“The fundamental nature of cocreation” - Yes! That’s an excellent phrase, and a great jumping off point.
Thank you for seeing a book connected to me. That has been one of my longest-held dreams.
Really nice essay, Emma. Having Gray Jays handfeed must have been incredible as well. I have yet to see one and they are on my bucket list to see one day.
I like how you put this: "The surprising appearance of a wished-for experience is very much the same, with its own vibrational current running through the atmosphere of our perception."
I think that perception is so important to having those wished-for experiences and truly does create the conditions that make them possible. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you so much for your reflections Neil! Gray jays are so sweet. I'm excited for you to see them one day.
Yes, I agree so much with you about perception. I like what you said about how it "truly does create the conditions." Nice to know creating the conditions is that close to home, so to speak.
Just beautiful Emma. I experienced this as a golden toned reminder of the living magic we possess. Much thanks for that ⭐️🍄🟫🍂🌘
Oh Sarah what a beautiful phrase “golden toned reminder of the living magic we posses” !! I’m so happy to be connected with those words ☺️ and I am thankful that is what you received from this piece. Thank you sister 🪞🕯️
Awww Emma such beautiful writing dripping with wisdom.
“I can see the convergence points, both small and large, where the pattern within the weaving changes unexpectedly on account of some wish of mine becoming fulfilled spontaneously.”
I love this Essay ! So inspiring
Thank you Sweet Jen ☺️ I’m always glad to hear what rings for you
Wonderful essay, Emma, and I really enjoy that photograph of the water droplets on that blade of grass. Your point that we ought to "allow ourselves to be drawn to what we love, rather than trying to back pedal away from what we want to avoid" was powerful.
A few other lines based on the same idea were memorable, such as that "it makes sense to me that we would be guided towards our preferences, rather than warned away from what we don’t want"--like geese not being warned against winter, but called to their desires. Your first invocation of the idea puts it well, that "our inner guidance is always calling us towards what we want, not warning us against what we don’t want." Thank you for writing and sharing.
I’m glad you liked the water droplets - they had such an effect on my moment. And I like knowing those lines resonated with you. I always like to look at wild nature for clarification, and the innate impulses migratory species act upon seems like a deep teaching I’m not quite sure how to put into words, but I am trying. Thank you for taking the time to read and share your thoughts!
Such good knowings and reminders, particularly (for me) the truth that in any given moment we are living some of our previous wishes, and possibly not recognizing them. To notice them as they happen, to celebrate them—what a good aim to set right now. Merci beaucoup 🧡
Thanks for highlighting this Esther. It’s such a simple thing, but like we’ve seen with the ‘casual’ thoughts, simple seems to be where the power is most concentrated. (When I first typed concentrated, it came out consecrated via autocorrect. I think that might be an insight revealed)
I have read this a few times now, and you bring some things into more clarity.
Last week I wrote this to a friend:
"I have had countless experiences of receiving what I am seeking in the moment, whether it's an identical printer listed on the day that mine breaks, or a whole set of irrigation pipe just right for our farm, or a local wood-fired hot tub. There is a counterpoint to that though - anything that I fixate on with my mind is usually impeded. A package that I am compulsively tracking is more likely to be delayed or sent to the wrong address, and when I am in a hurry I am more likely to encounter delays. It is as if something is continually teaching me "the will is not the way". Setting intention allows the pattern to weave in response. Attempting to force a result or a schedule creates resistance."
And then you wrote:
"And what impresses me the most, is that these spontaneous arisings usually occur after I have either forgotten about having the desire in the first place, or relaxed into the space of its perceived absence without any feelings of lack. When I look out over the tapestry of my life, I can see the convergence points, both small and large, where the pattern within the weaving changes unexpectedly on account of some wish of mine becoming fulfilled spontaneously."
What this says to me is that a wish is a will set free. Free to allow the pattern to weave around it, weave it into being. I have always thought that I have a weak will but that isn't true. I spontaneously and authentically desire many things, and many of them have woven to fruition. What I lack is "willpower" or "determination" - the ability to singlehandedly and by force bring my will into being. Whenever I try to have willpower, the pattern weaves hurdles and barriers as if to remind me that this isn't the way it really works.
This leads me to the realization that some of my masculine-feminine couplets have imbalanced analogs, so instead of will-discernment we have something like determination-obligation. Control-surrender and dominion-submission. Exchange-relationship and extraction-sacrifice. One that asserts power over and one that gives power and autonomy away. I'll have to see if that makes sense to weave in to the overall project.
"Sometimes desire is equated with suffering, but I think that is only when desire becomes yearning via belief that the thing wanted is not possible."
It may be belief, but often that belief is borne of experience. If we never receive what we truly desire, then eventually we believe that we will never receive it. As to why it isn't received, I think there are many reasons - old patterns, karma, trauma, conditioned fear, an overly strong mind that we cannot relax, and of course the structural issues of poverty and discrimination and exploitive capitalism. My father was a lifelong spiritual seeker who wanted nothing more than to feel true connection in his heart. Nothing could get him there - not the Catholic Church in which he was a priest, not a partnership with a woman (my mother) who channeled messages from spirit, not Perelandra or biointensive gardening, not meditation or fasting or the Course in Miracles. I connected with him after he died and he was so happy to have finally healed his old heart wound, after understanding that it simply couldn't happen while he was embodied. So I would say I have learned to trust that everyone has their own timing and process of healing and evolution and awakening to their true nature, and not to ascribe fault or failure or judgment to those who cannot find what they seek.
I really really like your insight about a wish being “a will set free.” If I ever try to force things a) it doesn’t work b) I feel uncomfortable at the very least c) if and when it does come to fruition, it is always in a manner so different from how my intellect was attempting to make it happen in the first place. Even if there are similarities, there are always aspects of the fruition that are beyond my ability to plan or include (thankfully). In the phrase “a will set free” I feel the wildness of the wish itself - the impulse sending out into the field of creation, to be responded to in ways unknown.
I see what you mean about the imbalance in some of the couplets. When I look at the list you have in “A Framework”, the columns read as the elevated/integrated/exalted form of the masculine/feminine quality. What you bring up here feels like the qualities closer to their detriment (to use an astrological term). I’m cheering you on as you evolve this couplet contemplation, and I’m here for it.
“I would say I have learned to trust that everyone has their own timing and process of healing and evolution and awakening to their true nature, and not to ascribe fault or failure or judgment to those who cannot find what they seek.” Yes, I wholeheartedly agree with you. Trusting everyone’s unique timing (including the Earth as a whole) has been a major point of soothing for me. As well as much deeper acceptance.
There’s more I will to respond to, but I want to allow it more thought. Thanks as always for the exchange. I appreciate it.
Thank you as well!
I feel another writing taking shape that will explore the imbalanced couplets that exert power over self/others or give away power and autonomy - something about cocreation and codependency. Thanks for weaving and exploring with me.
I think I have been hesitant to write about my experiences with will or wishes weaving into reality because a) it doesn't work for everyone for various reasons, and I am obviously unable to determine whatever shift or healing or resolution they might need, and b) it is very easily distorted or interpreted within the dominant paradigm as "we create our own reality with willpower or focused intention" and books like "The Secret" sell millions of copies and foster a sense of entitlement and a tendency to assign self-responsibility to others' suffering in a way that depletes empathy and interbeing and creates an artificial hierarchy of self-realization.
You have a way of balancing a confidence that "this is our true nature" with a humility and allowing and openness to mystery. There are no laws of attraction, only the fundamental nature of cocreation. You help me and others to take the final step from "allow me to be whole so that I can fix this broken world" - a kind of guilt-ridden or high-stakes activism - to relaxing fully out of separation and into cocreativity, weaving toward harmony rather than away from harm.
You will also have a book to write some time, I think :-).
I deeply receive your reflection of what you see in my writing. I am really thankful, and feel affirmation for why I am even writing in the first place.
I understand/hear what you are saying re: hesitancies in writing about “will or wishes weaving into reality”, and still I think it’s really important to talk and share about our experiences within the quantum fabric of our lives. My whole path has unfolded before me thanks to other people from all kinds of traditions/frameworks/belief structures who were willing to talk about their experiences in the deeps of the inner/outer dimensional confluence. I saw within them the possibility for myself. Ultimately, all we have to give others is our own example, and that’s a lot! Buhner was emphatic that as a society we have a false, linear reductionist map of reality that really needs to be rewritten. Replaced by those of us who can and care to go into the “wildness of the world” as he called it - and come back with our field notes. I see you doing just that in The Dendroica Project. That’s why I think what you are sharing is so important. It’s a part of the new maps we are creating.
For most of the summer/fall I have been contemplating the idea of how we are re-culturing ourselves, on account of coming across the phrase “old growth societies” that Buhner quoted in “…Imaginal Realm.” I am envisioning that this web of collective resonance we are a part of is creating new culture (and eventually renewed society) on account of being able to rewrite the maps so to speak, from a non-linear, wild, quantum, frequency-based understanding, that inherently includes the mind-body-life continuum and cocreation. I’ve been feeling an essay gradually coalescing around this idea.
What you brought up in B) reminds me of how the law of attraction teachings, like many things, are greatly diluted in mainstream culture. Diluted and often convoluted. Sometimes I get an urge to write an essay to bring clarity around this subject, but I always end up putting it to rest.
“The fundamental nature of cocreation” - Yes! That’s an excellent phrase, and a great jumping off point.
Thank you for seeing a book connected to me. That has been one of my longest-held dreams.
Really nice essay, Emma. Having Gray Jays handfeed must have been incredible as well. I have yet to see one and they are on my bucket list to see one day.
I like how you put this: "The surprising appearance of a wished-for experience is very much the same, with its own vibrational current running through the atmosphere of our perception."
I think that perception is so important to having those wished-for experiences and truly does create the conditions that make them possible. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you so much for your reflections Neil! Gray jays are so sweet. I'm excited for you to see them one day.
Yes, I agree so much with you about perception. I like what you said about how it "truly does create the conditions." Nice to know creating the conditions is that close to home, so to speak.