"The apertures of our awareness are not fixed in place. We can adjust our depth of field, expose the vibrational lattice within and beneath all form. Here we can find the nexus where what we perceive morphs in accordance to the concepts we hold."
"Natural wisdom seems foolish from the perspective of form-rigidity. When our depth of field is focused upon the density, rather than our interconnected weaving of the living lattice, its filaments pure energy."
You see more deeply and clearly anyone I know. I too have a sense of the structure beneath the form, the way in which concepts can dissolve and perceptions can shift. And at some point, it seems sometimes, this dissolution can go too far and begin to dissolve meaning itself. And so we dance in the weaving between fluidity and form, where reality is called into creation from possibility.
I have also been exploring clearcuts this evening. I recently moved out of town, and I've been exploring my neighborhood looking for views of eastern horizons to watch the moonrise. One of them is on a road on a hill between two mansions. The other is at the edge of a newly-planted clearcut, where yellowthroats and white-throated sparrows whistle and red-tailed hawks cry out from their high perches at the edges. I think I prefer the clearcut...
The problem is never *what we do*, whether that is burning oil or digging mines or cutting trees. On some level, clearcuts are not so different from post-fire landscapes, and nature is almost endlessly resilient, creating ecosystems even amidst radioactive fallout, and also destructive beyond our wildest dreams, from glacial floods to supervolcanoes to asteroid impacts. The problem is that we perceive ourselves as separate, and almost any conceptual rigidity or moralizing will reinforce separation.
If we no longer perceive ourselves as separate, we will behave differently, but I do not think we will regard our former selves as bad.
Oh yes, I really love what you’re saying here! It was mullein a few years ago who taught me that it was my own conception about clearcuts that was really standing in the way. I have struggled with seeing the land torn up… from a few different angles, one admittedly, being aesthetic! Besides all the other parts. But I feel you’re absolutely correct about the natural place in the Great Pattern that clearcuts have. It’s so wise to be able to take that larger view. It’s one of the things that originally drew me to your writing! Yes… it is the separation that is the issue, and I am with you, knowing that there is only love for that which we are in all of our forms from the wisest widest view.
Mmm, yes the dissolution of meaning you bring up is a facet of the deeper weave…where we come face to face with the fact that we are the ones making the meaning. And yet… these days, I seem to continually settle in a place of sensing where there is a deeper meaning underlying all things. A meaning within the lattice so to speak…that may not be easy to speak about in a human way. I feel it as a kind of sacred yes inherent in the turning of galaxies, the sprouting of seeds, the falling of rain, the movement of birds, the digestion in our own bodies…. anything and everything ultimately flowing along this current of yes. It’s just something I’m experimenting with, that holds a resonance beneath words. As always I appreciate your comments!
I think I have a pin in your last piece, it arrived in my inbox while we were in the midst of packing and driving west. I’m looking forward to tuning in there
A meaning within the lattice...yes, I feel what you are saying. Perhaps it is only the limited mind that fears that dissolving concepts, dissolving stories will lead to a loss of meaning. That fear is something I have felt, on this journey, but always, in deeper attunement, meaning has returned - and also a sense that there is inherent meaning in all things, from the mosses and lichens covering trees to the dance of planets and galaxies. Perhaps we simply choose where within the great tapestry we will tune in, what stories we will write within it.
I think that if we were to move beyond separation we might still clearcut forests sometimes. But we would do it very differently. We would ask permission. We would discern which forests are ready for change, ready to burn, ready to start over. We would offer gratitude to each tree. We would return ash and fertility to the land. And we would replant and nurture a whole ecosystem, for its own sake and perhaps to be harvested again some day, not a monoculture tree farm with a cut date already on the calendar.
I find that people often get "stuck in concept" - deciding that some particular thing we're doing is bad (burning fossil fuels, eating meat, killing animals, clearcutting forests, etc.), and that we could solve our problems if we all stopped doing the bad things. Except that we of course can't agree on what the bad things are, and then we get "stuck in concept" doing things we have defined as good, whether that is declaring war on "invasive species" to "restore" landscapes to an ideal in our minds or shooting some owls to save other owls or maintaining a strictly vegan diet and ignoring what our bodies are telling us.
And so, I say, it is not a matter of what we do or don't do, but how we do it, who we perceive ourselves to be as we are choosing.
I love the pulse of this. I hear the river in it.
I’m thinking of you as I draw myself a bath outside, overlooking the river.
I’m loving the image of this while literally also in the bath.
I like your description and method of going beyond perception and what is seen with the eyes - especially when sensing Nature and form.
Thank Neil, I appreciate hearing from you.
"The apertures of our awareness are not fixed in place. We can adjust our depth of field, expose the vibrational lattice within and beneath all form. Here we can find the nexus where what we perceive morphs in accordance to the concepts we hold."
"Natural wisdom seems foolish from the perspective of form-rigidity. When our depth of field is focused upon the density, rather than our interconnected weaving of the living lattice, its filaments pure energy."
You see more deeply and clearly anyone I know. I too have a sense of the structure beneath the form, the way in which concepts can dissolve and perceptions can shift. And at some point, it seems sometimes, this dissolution can go too far and begin to dissolve meaning itself. And so we dance in the weaving between fluidity and form, where reality is called into creation from possibility.
I have also been exploring clearcuts this evening. I recently moved out of town, and I've been exploring my neighborhood looking for views of eastern horizons to watch the moonrise. One of them is on a road on a hill between two mansions. The other is at the edge of a newly-planted clearcut, where yellowthroats and white-throated sparrows whistle and red-tailed hawks cry out from their high perches at the edges. I think I prefer the clearcut...
The problem is never *what we do*, whether that is burning oil or digging mines or cutting trees. On some level, clearcuts are not so different from post-fire landscapes, and nature is almost endlessly resilient, creating ecosystems even amidst radioactive fallout, and also destructive beyond our wildest dreams, from glacial floods to supervolcanoes to asteroid impacts. The problem is that we perceive ourselves as separate, and almost any conceptual rigidity or moralizing will reinforce separation.
If we no longer perceive ourselves as separate, we will behave differently, but I do not think we will regard our former selves as bad.
Thank you for sharing as always!
Oh yes, I really love what you’re saying here! It was mullein a few years ago who taught me that it was my own conception about clearcuts that was really standing in the way. I have struggled with seeing the land torn up… from a few different angles, one admittedly, being aesthetic! Besides all the other parts. But I feel you’re absolutely correct about the natural place in the Great Pattern that clearcuts have. It’s so wise to be able to take that larger view. It’s one of the things that originally drew me to your writing! Yes… it is the separation that is the issue, and I am with you, knowing that there is only love for that which we are in all of our forms from the wisest widest view.
Mmm, yes the dissolution of meaning you bring up is a facet of the deeper weave…where we come face to face with the fact that we are the ones making the meaning. And yet… these days, I seem to continually settle in a place of sensing where there is a deeper meaning underlying all things. A meaning within the lattice so to speak…that may not be easy to speak about in a human way. I feel it as a kind of sacred yes inherent in the turning of galaxies, the sprouting of seeds, the falling of rain, the movement of birds, the digestion in our own bodies…. anything and everything ultimately flowing along this current of yes. It’s just something I’m experimenting with, that holds a resonance beneath words. As always I appreciate your comments!
I think I have a pin in your last piece, it arrived in my inbox while we were in the midst of packing and driving west. I’m looking forward to tuning in there
A meaning within the lattice...yes, I feel what you are saying. Perhaps it is only the limited mind that fears that dissolving concepts, dissolving stories will lead to a loss of meaning. That fear is something I have felt, on this journey, but always, in deeper attunement, meaning has returned - and also a sense that there is inherent meaning in all things, from the mosses and lichens covering trees to the dance of planets and galaxies. Perhaps we simply choose where within the great tapestry we will tune in, what stories we will write within it.
I think that if we were to move beyond separation we might still clearcut forests sometimes. But we would do it very differently. We would ask permission. We would discern which forests are ready for change, ready to burn, ready to start over. We would offer gratitude to each tree. We would return ash and fertility to the land. And we would replant and nurture a whole ecosystem, for its own sake and perhaps to be harvested again some day, not a monoculture tree farm with a cut date already on the calendar.
I find that people often get "stuck in concept" - deciding that some particular thing we're doing is bad (burning fossil fuels, eating meat, killing animals, clearcutting forests, etc.), and that we could solve our problems if we all stopped doing the bad things. Except that we of course can't agree on what the bad things are, and then we get "stuck in concept" doing things we have defined as good, whether that is declaring war on "invasive species" to "restore" landscapes to an ideal in our minds or shooting some owls to save other owls or maintaining a strictly vegan diet and ignoring what our bodies are telling us.
And so, I say, it is not a matter of what we do or don't do, but how we do it, who we perceive ourselves to be as we are choosing.
Your last sentence here is gold, as the essence summary of your expression here. Yes. Ten-thousandfold yes.