Wow.
It has been a long time
And so much has happened.
Likely, I'll be returning. I'm just not sure when.
In the meantime, I just wanted to share something I saw recently that I really loved.
Please enjoy!
Showing posts with label quantum enlightenment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label quantum enlightenment. Show all posts
Friday, April 9, 2021
Tuesday, June 12, 2018
Do You Really ... Want It Darker?
Dying. Death. Light snuffed out, but not completely. A grey sheen, its source not visible, infiltrates the vast space I float in. My awareness simmers. I wait. Minutes. Hours. Days. Weeks. Months. Eternity?
A tunnel of warm sticky heat envelops me. Pulls and sucks me deep into its vortex. The timeless nothingness stretches me; thinner, thinner, thinner.
My psyche travels through some cosmic sieve, and I lose … what is it that I have lost? The brighter part of myself—an ember—falls away. It is gone.
Images from my life, memories—the ones I buried—jangle through me. I’m reminded in vivid detail of every evil I ever committed—from the smallest lie to the most deplorable betrayal. The excuses I made for myself—every rationalization—consolidates into a single trail of gluey telltale.
The sticky thread spins and rolls into a compacted ball of cowardice, envy, self doubt, and self pity. The grey light is extinguished. I have arrived in a void of omnipotent blackness as an impotent, seething blotch.
Heat builds around me, my consciousness implodes. Raining down through the ethers, I am mortal ash. — Umbra, Isolt's Enchantment
Quantum Musings: "Quantum Electrodynamics ... does not see [the] universe as static but [as] a dynamic arena where matter and energy are spontaneously created and destroyed and [the] particle anti-particle annihilative dance keeps the stage rocking." — Amir Suhail Wani
Umbra.
The darkest part of the shadow. A quantum manifestation of all unresolved human suffering.
OMG!
There couldn't be a better theme song for Umbra than "You Want It Darker" chillingly performed and superbly written by genius songwriter Leonard Cohen.
"You Want It Darker" Lyrics
If you are the dealer, I'm out of the game
If you are the healer, it means I'm broken and lame
If thine is the glory then mine must be the shame
You want it darker
We kill the flame
Magnified, sanctified, be thy holy name
Vilified, crucified, in the human frame
A million candles burning for the help that never came
You want it darker
Hineni, hineni
I'm ready, my lord
There's a lover in the story
But the story's still the same
There's a lullaby for suffering
And a paradox to blame
But it's written in the scriptures
And it's not some idle claim
You want it darker
We kill the flame
They're lining up the prisoners
And the guards are taking aim
I struggled with some demons
They were middle class and tame
I didn't know I had permission to murder and to maim
You want it darker
Hineni, hineni
I'm ready, my lord
Magnified, sanctified, be thy holy name
Vilified, crucified, in the human frame
A million candles burning for the love that never came
You want it darker
We kill the flame
If you are the dealer, let me out of the game
If you are the healer, I'm broken and lame
If thine is the glory, mine must be the shame
You want it darker
Hineni, hineni
Hineni, hineni
I'm ready, my lord
Hineni
Hineni, hineni
Hineni
Isolt of the Waters is an ancient water elemental whose betrayal and enchantment has forever changed the Whole. When a young scholar in Idonne discovers her story, along with tales of dwarf magic and the birth of Umbra—a malevolent entity dwelling in the Void—he dreams of a life filled with adventure and heroism.
A tunnel of warm sticky heat envelops me. Pulls and sucks me deep into its vortex. The timeless nothingness stretches me; thinner, thinner, thinner.
My psyche travels through some cosmic sieve, and I lose … what is it that I have lost? The brighter part of myself—an ember—falls away. It is gone.
Images from my life, memories—the ones I buried—jangle through me. I’m reminded in vivid detail of every evil I ever committed—from the smallest lie to the most deplorable betrayal. The excuses I made for myself—every rationalization—consolidates into a single trail of gluey telltale.
The sticky thread spins and rolls into a compacted ball of cowardice, envy, self doubt, and self pity. The grey light is extinguished. I have arrived in a void of omnipotent blackness as an impotent, seething blotch.
Heat builds around me, my consciousness implodes. Raining down through the ethers, I am mortal ash. — Umbra, Isolt's Enchantment
Quantum Musings: "Quantum Electrodynamics ... does not see [the] universe as static but [as] a dynamic arena where matter and energy are spontaneously created and destroyed and [the] particle anti-particle annihilative dance keeps the stage rocking." — Amir Suhail Wani
Umbra.
The darkest part of the shadow. A quantum manifestation of all unresolved human suffering.
OMG!
There couldn't be a better theme song for Umbra than "You Want It Darker" chillingly performed and superbly written by genius songwriter Leonard Cohen.
"You Want It Darker" Lyrics
If you are the dealer, I'm out of the game
If you are the healer, it means I'm broken and lame
If thine is the glory then mine must be the shame
You want it darker
We kill the flame
Magnified, sanctified, be thy holy name
Vilified, crucified, in the human frame
A million candles burning for the help that never came
You want it darker
Hineni, hineni
I'm ready, my lord
There's a lover in the story
But the story's still the same
There's a lullaby for suffering
And a paradox to blame
But it's written in the scriptures
And it's not some idle claim
You want it darker
We kill the flame
They're lining up the prisoners
And the guards are taking aim
I struggled with some demons
They were middle class and tame
I didn't know I had permission to murder and to maim
You want it darker
Hineni, hineni
I'm ready, my lord
Magnified, sanctified, be thy holy name
Vilified, crucified, in the human frame
A million candles burning for the love that never came
You want it darker
We kill the flame
If you are the dealer, let me out of the game
If you are the healer, I'm broken and lame
If thine is the glory, mine must be the shame
You want it darker
Hineni, hineni
Hineni, hineni
I'm ready, my lord
Hineni
Hineni, hineni
Hineni
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Tuesday, March 27, 2018
Interspecies Communication?
Is it quantum communication?
Can we communicate with plants ... the trees, the flowers, the grass ... as much as we can communicate with other animals? Is that ability hard-wired into our biology only to be snuffed out by mis-education?
Vulcan would take Quasimi a gift. Something to delight him.
The dwarf god possessed as much skill over wood as he did over metal. He cut a branch from a towering white oak.
The spirit of the tree emerged. Crimson stained her fingers. She staunched the flow of blood from a gash in her side. “You bereave me with no consideration?”
Vulcan fumbled for words. His glance darted between the wood in his hand and the tree spirit’s wound. “I didn’t know you were alive.”
“Your lack of awareness is apparent.”
He held out the branch, to return it to her.
“No. It is like a child. Once born it cannot re-enter the womb. But know this: It will retain memory of the roots that birthed it.”
“I meant to use it for a gift.”
“Do with it what you will, but don’t steal from me again.”
“And your wound?”
“It will heal in time.” The tree spirit re-entered the white oak. — Excerpt from The Tale of Hermes' Wand, Isolt's Enchantment
Song Lyrics:
We turn away to face the cold, enduring chill
As the day begs the night for mercy love
The sun so bright it leaves no shadows
Only scars carved into stone
On the face of earth
The moon is up and over One Tree Hill
We see the sun go down in your eyes
You run like river, on like a sea
You run like a river runs to the sea
And in the world a heart of darkness
A fire zone
Where poets speak their heart
Then bleed for it
Jara sang, his song a weapon
In the hands of love
You know his blood still cries
From the ground
It runs like a river runs to the sea
It runs like a river to the sea
I don't believe in painted roses
Or bleeding hearts
While bullets rape the night of the merciful
I'll see you again
When the stars fall from the sky
And the moon has turned red
Over One Tree Hill
We run like a river
Run to the sea
We run like a river to the sea
And when it's raining
Raining hard
That's when the rain will
Break my heart
Raining, raining in the heart
Raining in your heart
Raining, raining to your heart
Raining, raining, raining
Raining to your heart
Raining, raining in your heart
Raining in your heart
To the sea
Oh great ocean
Oh great sea
Run to the ocean
Run to the sea
Isolt of the Waters is an ancient water elemental whose betrayal and enchantment has forever changed the Whole. When a young scholar in Idonne discovers her story, along with tales of dwarf magic and the birth of Umbra—a malevolent entity dwelling in the Void—he dreams of a life filled with adventure and heroism.
Can we communicate with plants ... the trees, the flowers, the grass ... as much as we can communicate with other animals? Is that ability hard-wired into our biology only to be snuffed out by mis-education?
Vulcan would take Quasimi a gift. Something to delight him.
The dwarf god possessed as much skill over wood as he did over metal. He cut a branch from a towering white oak.
The spirit of the tree emerged. Crimson stained her fingers. She staunched the flow of blood from a gash in her side. “You bereave me with no consideration?”
Vulcan fumbled for words. His glance darted between the wood in his hand and the tree spirit’s wound. “I didn’t know you were alive.”
“Your lack of awareness is apparent.”
He held out the branch, to return it to her.
“No. It is like a child. Once born it cannot re-enter the womb. But know this: It will retain memory of the roots that birthed it.”
“I meant to use it for a gift.”
“Do with it what you will, but don’t steal from me again.”
“And your wound?”
“It will heal in time.” The tree spirit re-entered the white oak. — Excerpt from The Tale of Hermes' Wand, Isolt's Enchantment
I'll leave you with U2's One Tree Hill, a song about loss, honor, nature, and wonder ...
We turn away to face the cold, enduring chill
As the day begs the night for mercy love
The sun so bright it leaves no shadows
Only scars carved into stone
On the face of earth
The moon is up and over One Tree Hill
We see the sun go down in your eyes
You run like river, on like a sea
You run like a river runs to the sea
And in the world a heart of darkness
A fire zone
Where poets speak their heart
Then bleed for it
Jara sang, his song a weapon
In the hands of love
You know his blood still cries
From the ground
It runs like a river runs to the sea
It runs like a river to the sea
I don't believe in painted roses
Or bleeding hearts
While bullets rape the night of the merciful
I'll see you again
When the stars fall from the sky
And the moon has turned red
Over One Tree Hill
We run like a river
Run to the sea
We run like a river to the sea
And when it's raining
Raining hard
That's when the rain will
Break my heart
Raining, raining in the heart
Raining in your heart
Raining, raining to your heart
Raining, raining, raining
Raining to your heart
Raining, raining in your heart
Raining in your heart
To the sea
Oh great ocean
Oh great sea
Run to the ocean
Run to the sea
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Thursday, March 15, 2018
On Writing War & Grace: Video Update #5
Pre-Order War & Grace!
In a time when the Realm of Faerie and Planet Earth exist in symbiotic union, the epic journey of a young half-faerie woman will transform the future of both worlds ...
My name is Melia Albiana and I stand on the edge of the abyss.
Before I leap, I exhale a breath out of time.
The beauty of the Whole unfurls before me—its intricacy, its complexity, its endurance, its mystery, its majesty.
I am filled with awe.
The universal awareness passes and I am left with the poverty of my personal legacy.
I will die young.
I will die broken.
I will die grief-stricken.
I will die lonely.
And I will die a monster.
I will also die consumed by love.
Whimsical and edgy, Daughter of Light is an epic fantasy with an intriguing cosmology and well-developed characters for readers of all ages.
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Tuesday, March 13, 2018
Come Away, O Human Child
Illusion, magic, seduction ... a tangled knot of obedience and betrayal, loss and a desire for vengeance give rise to Isolt's enchantment.
Ahead, an enormous marble palace seemed to rise from the ground. Its polished turrets pierced a darkening sky. Isolt dropped Tarquin’s hand. Her elegant feet refused to take another step. She wrapped her arms around herself to quell the uncontrollable shivering that possessed her. Tarquin faced her. His face swirled in a spiral. Isolt rubbed her eyes. All this marching. She was exhausted.
He held a key forged from a luminous dark metal in his palm. She let her gaze rise. His shock of blond hair and familiar broad shoulders shushed the foreboding within.
“This is our home,” he said. “Use the key to unlock the door. Please, so we can live here forever.”
With one hand cradling her belly, Isolt reached with the other. The metal was so smooth. So mesmerizing. Clutching the mysterious key, she walked slowly to the palace door. The key practically slipped itself into the lock. As she turned it, she looked back to smile at her beloved king.
He waved her on as she pushed opened the door.
A malignant force gripped her and yanked her within. The air reverberated. The walls of the palace disintegrated.
No one heard her cries.
Her first thought was of her son. There was no way to save him.—Isolt's Enchantment.
Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water-rats
There we've hid our faery vats
Full of berries
And of reddest stolen cherries
[Chorus:]
Come away, O human child
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand
For the world's more full of weeping
Than you can understand.
Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim grey sands with light
By far off furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles
Whilst the world is full of troubles
And is anxious in its sleep.
[Chorus]
Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams
[Chorus]
Away with us he's going
The solemn-eyed
He'll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal chest.
[Chorus]
For he comes, the human child
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand
For the world's more full of weeping
Than you can understand.
Isolt of the Waters is an ancient water elemental whose betrayal and enchantment has forever changed the Whole. When a young scholar in Idonne discovers her story, along with tales of dwarf magic and the birth of Umbra—a malevolent entity dwelling in the Void—he dreams of a life filled with adventure and heroism.
Ahead, an enormous marble palace seemed to rise from the ground. Its polished turrets pierced a darkening sky. Isolt dropped Tarquin’s hand. Her elegant feet refused to take another step. She wrapped her arms around herself to quell the uncontrollable shivering that possessed her. Tarquin faced her. His face swirled in a spiral. Isolt rubbed her eyes. All this marching. She was exhausted.
He held a key forged from a luminous dark metal in his palm. She let her gaze rise. His shock of blond hair and familiar broad shoulders shushed the foreboding within.
“This is our home,” he said. “Use the key to unlock the door. Please, so we can live here forever.”
With one hand cradling her belly, Isolt reached with the other. The metal was so smooth. So mesmerizing. Clutching the mysterious key, she walked slowly to the palace door. The key practically slipped itself into the lock. As she turned it, she looked back to smile at her beloved king.
He waved her on as she pushed opened the door.
A malignant force gripped her and yanked her within. The air reverberated. The walls of the palace disintegrated.
No one heard her cries.
Her first thought was of her son. There was no way to save him.—Isolt's Enchantment.
Loreena Mckennit sings about faery's and the seduction of a nameless human child in Stolen Child:
Stolen Child lyrics:
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water-rats
There we've hid our faery vats
Full of berries
And of reddest stolen cherries
[Chorus:]
Come away, O human child
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand
For the world's more full of weeping
Than you can understand.
Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim grey sands with light
By far off furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles
Whilst the world is full of troubles
And is anxious in its sleep.
[Chorus]
Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams
[Chorus]
Away with us he's going
The solemn-eyed
He'll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal chest.
[Chorus]
For he comes, the human child
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand
For the world's more full of weeping
Than you can understand.
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Sunday, March 4, 2018
We Will All Know Joy
In Isolt's Enchantment the story of a young priest in Idonne—Ryder—intertwines with tales about the origin of the Whole and the history of several magic artifacts that will figure largely in Daughter of Light.
The day came when the dwarf god crawled for the third time from the depth of Una’s belly. Blackened with soot and ash, he labored beneath a magnificent fiery wheel. The wheel flung energy far and wide from the core of its rotation. Vulcan roared, “I name this the Sun.”
A great light followed in the wheel’s wake, dispelling the darkness.
“What have you done?” Una exclaimed, “I can see all that I am, and I am glorious!”
It took all Vulcan’s strength to heave the flaming ball into the heavens where it would dance with the moon, like a lover, across Una’s starry skies until the end of time. “The Sun will be recognized as my most marvelous creation.”
Indeed it was, for Vulcan’s magic created a light which would rise each day from the east, spreading its potent, life-giving force upon Una’s fecund belly. Each night it would set in the west, as the moon appeared amidst the sparkle and shine of millions of twinkling stars.
“It’s breathtaking,” Una murmured. “Can I ever thank you?”
“I will bring my people here. They will nurture you to spectacular abundance. We will all know joy.” — Isolt's Enchantment, Isolt's Enchantment
Suffice it to say the road to joy will be a long and one winding one ...
I love this guitar cover of George Winston's Joy. It has the feeling of creation.
The day came when the dwarf god crawled for the third time from the depth of Una’s belly. Blackened with soot and ash, he labored beneath a magnificent fiery wheel. The wheel flung energy far and wide from the core of its rotation. Vulcan roared, “I name this the Sun.”
A great light followed in the wheel’s wake, dispelling the darkness.
“What have you done?” Una exclaimed, “I can see all that I am, and I am glorious!”
It took all Vulcan’s strength to heave the flaming ball into the heavens where it would dance with the moon, like a lover, across Una’s starry skies until the end of time. “The Sun will be recognized as my most marvelous creation.”
Indeed it was, for Vulcan’s magic created a light which would rise each day from the east, spreading its potent, life-giving force upon Una’s fecund belly. Each night it would set in the west, as the moon appeared amidst the sparkle and shine of millions of twinkling stars.
“It’s breathtaking,” Una murmured. “Can I ever thank you?”
“I will bring my people here. They will nurture you to spectacular abundance. We will all know joy.” — Isolt's Enchantment, Isolt's Enchantment
Suffice it to say the road to joy will be a long and one winding one ...
I love this guitar cover of George Winston's Joy. It has the feeling of creation.
Isolt of the Waters is an ancient water elemental whose betrayal and enchantment has forever changed the Whole. When a young scholar in Idonne discovers her story, along with tales of dwarf magic and the birth of Umbra—a malevolent entity dwelling in the Void—he dreams of a life filled with adventure and heroism.
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Saturday, March 3, 2018
Who Do We Owe?
And what do we owe them?
Anton straightened the front of his robes and folded his hands before him on the desk. “You romanticize danger and risking your life. But the world beyond these walls is not what you think it is. You’re safe here in the citadel—”
“A safety that is suffocating me. Must my body weaken and my spirit wither while I am still young?”
A shadow darkened Anton’s pale blue eyes. “Fate brought you to the Order. You’re a gifted scholar. And soon you’ll be a gifted priest.”
“I will soon be a man. One with ties to no family. I would choose my own future.”
Anton pushed his chair back with a loud scrape. He stood up and leaned across his desk. “The Order of Idonnai has invested in you. We’ve fed you, sheltered you, and trained you. You owe us your allegiance.” He paced.
“Your demand I pay with my life’s blood for not drowning me like an unwanted kitten is unfair! I’m nothing more than a slave here.”
Ryder didn’t see Anton’s hand, but he felt the crest of the ring cut his lip as his head jolted to the side. He relished the sting as he licked blood from his lip.
Anton stepped back. “You will take your vow!”
Any gratitude or indebtedness Ryder had ever felt toward Anton or the priesthood leached from him. He controlled his impulse to pummel the priest, but his entire body shook with the effort. He would not take the Oath of Non-Interference, because he would never commit his mind, or his body, or his heart to a life of inaction. — The Idonnai Guard, Isolt's Enchantment
If our life does not belong to us, who does it belong to?
Anton straightened the front of his robes and folded his hands before him on the desk. “You romanticize danger and risking your life. But the world beyond these walls is not what you think it is. You’re safe here in the citadel—”
“A safety that is suffocating me. Must my body weaken and my spirit wither while I am still young?”
A shadow darkened Anton’s pale blue eyes. “Fate brought you to the Order. You’re a gifted scholar. And soon you’ll be a gifted priest.”
“I will soon be a man. One with ties to no family. I would choose my own future.”
Anton pushed his chair back with a loud scrape. He stood up and leaned across his desk. “The Order of Idonnai has invested in you. We’ve fed you, sheltered you, and trained you. You owe us your allegiance.” He paced.
“Your demand I pay with my life’s blood for not drowning me like an unwanted kitten is unfair! I’m nothing more than a slave here.”
Ryder didn’t see Anton’s hand, but he felt the crest of the ring cut his lip as his head jolted to the side. He relished the sting as he licked blood from his lip.
Anton stepped back. “You will take your vow!”
Any gratitude or indebtedness Ryder had ever felt toward Anton or the priesthood leached from him. He controlled his impulse to pummel the priest, but his entire body shook with the effort. He would not take the Oath of Non-Interference, because he would never commit his mind, or his body, or his heart to a life of inaction. — The Idonnai Guard, Isolt's Enchantment
If our life does not belong to us, who does it belong to?
The melodic movement of Michael Hedges' instrumental piece Aerial Boundaries captures the dance of Ryder's determination to move beyond the limits Anton and the priesthood have set for him.
Isolt of the Waters is an ancient water elemental whose betrayal and enchantment has forever changed the Whole. When a young scholar in Idonne discovers her story, along with tales of dwarf magic and the birth of Umbra—a malevolent entity dwelling in the Void—he dreams of a life filled with adventure and heroism.
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Friday, March 2, 2018
A Slave to Matter
Is there an unseen force that drives Life? If we can’t see it, how can we communicate with it? Can we feel it? Could our bodies—in their totality—crassly be referred to as wetware for Cosmic Consciousness? Does an obsessive drive for external information (facts and events as defined by a limited human point of view) and wealth (owning, collecting, and/or amassing matter) distort dumb down numb shut off our physiological transmitters?
In the chapter Koldis, an ambitious member of a wealthy scholastic order in the business of hidden knowledge prioritizes his rise in the priesthood’s hierarchy. But he’s blinded—figuratively and literally—figuratively by a quest for immediate gratification and literally by the Sand Gypsies.
A slave to matter, he's blinded by all that glitters and dismisses all that he cannot "see."
Anton bowed his head in a show of obeisance.
Cashel, the head of the Order of the Idonnai, motioned him to sit.
The elder priest removed a dull leather pouch from the desk. He passed it from hand to hand. The unmistakable clink of coins filled the silence between the two men. “We’ve received word from Typhos,” Cashel said. “A sailor claims to possess an artifact of great interest to us. If the offer proves genuine, I’d like you to purchase it for the library’s collection.”
Although he was curious as to what the object might be, Anton didn’t ask. Reticence was a trait valued by the Order, and the young priest had long molded his character to gain approval from his superiors. He remained silent as he held out his hand.
Cashel made as if to give him the bag. His hand froze. “You must speak of this to no one.”
“Of course not.” The weight of the bag hit Anton’s palm. Gold. He would be required to make an accounting of the coins upon his return. He counted them out now while the elder priest watched. He raised his eyebrows.
“You’re authorized to negotiate the price of the sale. However, I prefer you pay all the gold in that bag than let the artifact be sold to another buyer.”
In the chapter Koldis, an ambitious member of a wealthy scholastic order in the business of hidden knowledge prioritizes his rise in the priesthood’s hierarchy. But he’s blinded—figuratively and literally—figuratively by a quest for immediate gratification and literally by the Sand Gypsies.
A slave to matter, he's blinded by all that glitters and dismisses all that he cannot "see."
Anton bowed his head in a show of obeisance.
Cashel, the head of the Order of the Idonnai, motioned him to sit.
The elder priest removed a dull leather pouch from the desk. He passed it from hand to hand. The unmistakable clink of coins filled the silence between the two men. “We’ve received word from Typhos,” Cashel said. “A sailor claims to possess an artifact of great interest to us. If the offer proves genuine, I’d like you to purchase it for the library’s collection.”
Although he was curious as to what the object might be, Anton didn’t ask. Reticence was a trait valued by the Order, and the young priest had long molded his character to gain approval from his superiors. He remained silent as he held out his hand.
Cashel made as if to give him the bag. His hand froze. “You must speak of this to no one.”
“Of course not.” The weight of the bag hit Anton’s palm. Gold. He would be required to make an accounting of the coins upon his return. He counted them out now while the elder priest watched. He raised his eyebrows.
“You’re authorized to negotiate the price of the sale. However, I prefer you pay all the gold in that bag than let the artifact be sold to another buyer.”
Anton’s subtle smile was genuine. To be trusted with such a mission assured his continued rise in the Order’s hierarchy. — Koldis, Isolt's Enchantment
Presenting Rebecca Ferguson's Glitter & Gold:
Lyrics:
How good or bad, happy or sad
Does it have to get?
Losing yourself, no cry for help
You don’t think you need it
And old friends are just a chore,
But now you need them more than ever before
All that glitter and all that gold
Won’t buy you happy
When you’ve been bought and sold
Riding white horses, you can’t control
With all your glitter
And all of your gold
Take care of your soul
Take care of your soul
How high, how low, how on your own
Are you gonna get?
Because
Losing your soul, will cost you more
Than the life you’re paying for
And all those friends you left behind
You might need ’em when it’s cold outside
All that glitter and all that gold
Won’t buy you happy
When you’ve been bought and sold
Riding white horses, you can’t control
With all your glitter
And all of your gold
Take care of your soul
One day you’re gonna wake up and find that
New dream is losing its shine and
Nobody is by your side
When the rain comes down and you’re losing your mind
So, who you gonna run to?
Where you gonna hide?
Glitter and gold
Won’t keep you warm
On those lonely nights
And all those friends that were such a chore
You’re gonna need them more than ever before
All that glitter and all that gold
Won’t buy you happy
When you’ve been bought and sold
Riding white horses, you can’t control
With all your glitter
And all of your gold
Take care of your soul
With all of your gold
Take care of your soul
Take care of your soul
Isolt of the Waters is an ancient water elemental whose betrayal and enchantment has forever changed the Whole. When a young scholar in Idonne discovers her story, along with tales of dwarf magic and the birth of Umbra—a malevolent entity dwelling in the Void—he dreams of a life filled with adventure and heroism.
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Thursday, March 1, 2018
The Meaning of Celeste is "Heavenly"
The Delphinus choir sang as they always did at twilight. Their mysterious harmony filled the birth room with spiritual hope and yearning. Celeste’s spirit soared. She envisioned her soul climbing the peak of Mount Azyllai. The pain that made her delivery so difficult melted away. The gods would bless her son.
Rays of eternal light parted the threatening wall of shadows. Celeste thought of the fine reed basket, pale downy blanket, and luminous seashell rattle nestled therein. In her mind’s eye, her newborn son gripped the kingly noisemaker and beamed. — Excerpt from The Stargazer, Isolt's Enchantment
If quantum reality is reality, then our experiences are rooted in a vast interconnected invisible world, and the love of a mother for her child transcends life and death.
Loreena Mckennit's The Old Ways is the perfect song to capture this bittersweet birth of a child in the land of Idonne.
Loreena Mckennit's The Old Ways is the perfect song to capture this bittersweet birth of a child in the land of Idonne.
Lyrics:
The pounding sea is calling me home, home to you
On a dark new year's night
On the west coast of Clare
I heard your voice singing
Your eyes danced the song
Your hands played the tune
T'was a vision before me
We left the music behind as the dance carried on
As we stole away to the seashore
We smelt the brine, felt the wind in our hair
And with sadness you paused
Suddenly I knew that you'd have to go
Your world was not mine, your eyes told me so
Yet it was there I felt the crossroads of time
And I wondered why
As we cast our gaze on the tumbling sea
A vision came o'er me
Of thundering hooves and beating wings
In clouds above
As you turned to go I heard you call my name
You were like a bird in a cage spreading its wings to fly
"The old ways are lost," you sang as you flew
And I wondered why
The thundering waves are calling me home, home to you
The pounding sea is calling me home, home to you
The thundering waves are calling me home, home to you
The pounding sea is calling me home, home to you
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Wednesday, February 28, 2018
Isolt's Enchantment & Holy Water
One day she gave birth to a daughter, beautiful, vivacious and flowing. Una said, “I shall name you Isolt of the Waters, for you have brought with you all the springs, rivers, lakes, and oceans.” — Isolt's Enchantment
Water—from its supernatural qualities, especially potent in the enchanted world's Great White Sea, to its source of energy, inspiration, and wisdom throughout Melia's journey—serves as the passageway between the enchanted and mortal worlds and is a significant actor in Daughter of Light cosmology,
It's curious that, even today, water's unique qualities cannot be explained by quantum mechanics. Probablitity waves, definite states, pilot waves, quantum coherence, tunneling ... no one's figured out water's quantum magic. But we do know:
-- every organism we know of needs water to survive. In fact, without water, life on Earth would have never begun.
Lyrics:
Somewhere there's a stolen halo,
I used to watch her wear it well.
Everything would shine wherever she would go,
But looking at her now you'd never tell.
Someone ran away with her innocence
A memory she can't get out of her head.
I can only imagine what she's feeling
When she's praying kneeling at the edge of her bed.
And she says
“Take me away,
Then take me farther,
Surround me now,
And hold, hold, hold me like Holy Water.
Holy water.”
She wants someone to call her angel,
Someone to put the light back in her eyes.
She's looking through the faces and unfamiliar places.
She needs someone to hear her when she cries.
And she says
“Take me away,
Then take me farther,
Surround me now
And hold, hold, hold me like Holy Water.
She just needs a little help
To wash away the pain she's felt.
She wants to feel the healing hands
Of someone who understands.
And she says
“Take me away,
Take me farther,
Surround me now,
And hold, hold, hold me,
She says:
“Take me away
Then take me farther,
Surround me now,
And hold, hold, hold me like Holy Water.
Like Holy Water,
Like Holy Water,
Like Holy Water.”
Isolt of the Waters is an ancient water elemental whose betrayal and enchantment has forever changed the Whole. When a young scholar in Idonne discovers her story, along with tales of dwarf magic and the birth of Umbra—a malevolent entity dwelling in the Void—he dreams of a life filled with adventure and heroism.
Water—from its supernatural qualities, especially potent in the enchanted world's Great White Sea, to its source of energy, inspiration, and wisdom throughout Melia's journey—serves as the passageway between the enchanted and mortal worlds and is a significant actor in Daughter of Light cosmology,
It's curious that, even today, water's unique qualities cannot be explained by quantum mechanics. Probablitity waves, definite states, pilot waves, quantum coherence, tunneling ... no one's figured out water's quantum magic. But we do know:
-- every organism we know of needs water to survive. In fact, without water, life on Earth would have never begun.
So we'll begin our journey today with an ode to Isolt of the Water's dark enchantment, Holy Water by Big & Rich.
Somewhere there's a stolen halo,
I used to watch her wear it well.
Everything would shine wherever she would go,
But looking at her now you'd never tell.
Someone ran away with her innocence
A memory she can't get out of her head.
I can only imagine what she's feeling
When she's praying kneeling at the edge of her bed.
And she says
“Take me away,
Then take me farther,
Surround me now,
And hold, hold, hold me like Holy Water.
Holy water.”
She wants someone to call her angel,
Someone to put the light back in her eyes.
She's looking through the faces and unfamiliar places.
She needs someone to hear her when she cries.
And she says
“Take me away,
Then take me farther,
Surround me now
And hold, hold, hold me like Holy Water.
She just needs a little help
To wash away the pain she's felt.
She wants to feel the healing hands
Of someone who understands.
And she says
“Take me away,
Take me farther,
Surround me now,
And hold, hold, hold me,
She says:
“Take me away
Then take me farther,
Surround me now,
And hold, hold, hold me like Holy Water.
Like Holy Water,
Like Holy Water,
Like Holy Water.”
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Tuesday, February 27, 2018
Daughter of Light and Quantum Engtanglement
War & Grace, the final installment in the Daughter of Light trilogy will FINALLY be available on March 20 (the first day of Spring)! Beginning tomorrow, and for the following 90 days, we’ll be traveling through the series with excerpts from the different books, quantum musings and inspirational songs.
Like many (most?) (all?) contemporary fantasy authors, I read Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia as a child and the major Tolkien works (The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings) as a young teen. It’s common knowledge that Tolkien and Lewis were friends, professional colleagues and that they both professed a personal faith in Christianity which inluenced their respective works.
Like many (most?) (all?) contemporary fantasy authors, I read Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia as a child and the major Tolkien works (The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings) as a young teen. It’s common knowledge that Tolkien and Lewis were friends, professional colleagues and that they both professed a personal faith in Christianity which inluenced their respective works.
The Lord of the Rings was a huge and direct inspiration for Daughter of Light, but—of course!— changes had to be made. Who wants to retell The Lord of the Rings when it’s already been told so well?
What were the designed changes (made over a decade ago) in Daughter of Light?
- The protagonist along with a multitude of other major characters are female.
- While Tolkien’s cosmology pre-dates contemporary history, the Realm of Faerie and the rest of the enchanted world in Daughter of Light exist parallel to the mortal world. There's a (quantum) exchange of energy between the two.
- The Primal Essence, the Parallel of Shadows, and the Void in Daughter of Light are quantum realms.
- Language, style of dress, the attitudes and experiences of the characters in Daughter of Light travel much closer to modernity.
Thus, Daughter of Light explores and relies on the newer ideas of quantum mechanics and how reality forms. QUANTUM ENTANGLEMENT is at the heart of the story … “quantum entanglement … predicts that changing one particle instantaneously changes the other — even if they are on opposite sides of the galaxy, 100,000 light-years apart.”
In Daughter of Light, Isolt’s enchantment is the seed of that quantum entanglement, crossing the boundaries of time and space, planes and multiple hearts and lives …
Isolt of the Waters is an ancient water elemental whose betrayal and enchantment has forever changed the Whole. When a young scholar in Idonne discovers her story, along with tales of dwarf magic and the birth of Umbra—a malevolent entity dwelling in the Void—he dreams of a life filled with adventure and heroism.
Ebook
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Tuesday, September 12, 2017
Melania Trump and Her Dignified Silence
I have a long history of "studying" and, as a female, "living" women's issues. I suppose you could say I was "radicalized" in my early/mid-twenties. After I graduated from college with an accounting degree and landed in the cubicle of a major oil company, I found myself bored to death and was BOMBARDED on a moment-by-moment basis with the question: "Is this all there is?" You see, I was not interested, at all, in getting married or in having children, i.e. another brick in the wall, another cog in the machine, another consumer ... In those days, I was considered a bit on the fringe ... (No longer, lol.) (Also, please note that among the many supposed contradictory aspects of my evolving understandings, while I've never had children, I totally honor those brave enough to take on the role of mothering!)
Stumbling on the works of the old school feminists, Friedan's Feminine Mystique, Millett's Sexual Politics, and, of course, Beauvoir's Second Sex was quite an AWAKENING, but not more so than the art installation on A Woman's Period I viewed on the last day I spent on the campus of the West Texas university I graduated from. Throw in Alice Milller's For Your Own Good, a diatribe against pedagogy in general, and I had a personal revolution in the works. I went on to read Woolf's A Room of Her Own, Chopin's Awakening, Wharton's House of Mirth and became much enamored of Atwood's works, including, yes, The Handmaid's Tale. Then I signed up for the first Women's Studies class at the first majority-minority university in Texas. Cool, huh? (Remember this was all decades ago... ) I continued thinking and writing and reading on the subject of women's place in the world: from Wolf's The Beauty Myth to Dworkin's Women Hating. Dworkin was both intriguing and disturbing. By the time I finished Intercouse, I felt like I was going to have to become a lesbian if I was ever going to be able to count myself a bonafide passenger on the Feminist Bandwagon in the direction it was rolling. And though all my relationships with men and males at the time were troubled, I had to face the fact that on the sexuality continuum I'm simply on the left if left is heterosexual and right is homosexual. SIGH.
My next big shift occurred when I realized that "all man are not oppressors" and "all women are not saints." Another big SIGH. I know, when you're in the process of being indoctrinated, nuances and reality are the first things that must go! What a blessing, relief, breath of fresh air when snippets of the truth and real life experience begin to seep back into the mental box/metal ideological container you find yourself trapped in. Because, yes, all dogma ... political, psychological, religious, social ... builds boxes and containers, metaphorical prisons and cells: Essentially cages, and of course we're "whipped" by obliging dominatrices when we stray. Is that why S&M is breaking into the mainstream? So many of us living as SUBS to the ideological DOMS of the day?
I finally began choosing my own books to delve into. I loved Mary Daly's Beyond God the Father and salivated over Clarissa Pinkola Estes. Run With the Wolves was her breakout hit but I treasured one of her audio recordings, The Red Shoes: On Torment and the Recovery of Soul Life. (Whose specular influence I wrote about in the short story The Girl Who Dreamed of Red Shoes—the second story in The Girl Who Believed in Fairy Tales). So, I became tired of being a victim—just got sick of everything being about my own personal grievances—broke out of my Dogma Dungeon and began seeing myself as an individual who lives on a globe with billions of other individuals.
Since then, I've continued to grow and change, transform and transcend, have troubles and triumphs, and, basically, live my life with (more) joy. (Maybe it's just "with joy" not "with more joy" because when you're living in the DOGMA DUNGEON, you're so focused on not getting whipped, and policing, and interrogating, etc. well, not much time left for joy ... or beauty... )
Certain things are TIMELESS. They really are. TRUTH. BEAUTY. Oh, and SILENCE. Which would—could—entail knowing when to Shut Up, Stop Talking ...
I'm a fan of Melania Trump. I love her SILENCE. When she talks—in any one of those five or six languages!—she actually says fabulous things, but her SILENCE in a world where everyone else is competing for more and more oxygen, well, her silence is ... Stunning, welcomed, and inspiring.
Certain things are TIMELESS. They really are. TRUTH. BEAUTY. Oh, and SILENCE. Which would—could—entail knowing when to Shut Up, Stop Talking ...
Because, in the end, life is not about women—or anyone—being a certain way as opposed to being ANOTHER certain way, whatever those ways are; it's about everyone fully realizing their Self as they see fit. Where America does that, where her constitution protects the rights of her citizens to be their True Selves, that's where America becomes "that city shining on a hill". Because LIFE creates novelty and variety to evolve, thus we're in harmony with LIFE—as an individual and as a culture and a nation—whenever and wherever we allow novelty and variety to flourish in all their marvelous and unpredictable ways.
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Tuesday, September 5, 2017
Sunday, May 21, 2017
Is the Divine Within You?
I read God’s Ecstasy by Beatrice Bruteau last year (I think!) It’s a short book (172 pp.) but I read it very slowly because there is simply so much packed into each paragraph.
The book was written in 1997, but 20 years later it’s still a fascinating read. Dr. Bruteau had degrees in mathematics and philosophy, and she was a contemplative Christian. The book represents her effort to bridge the new insights quantum mechanics has provided about our Cosmos and her religion. I don't think her bridge fully crosses the gorge, but it’s a thought-provoking work.
She relies on three essential Christian religious symbols as the foundation for her thesis: the Incarnation, the Theokotos, and the Trinity. The Incarnation and the Theokotos work well for me as symbolical representations of potent spiritual/metaphysical reality but I confess, whenever she dove into the Trinity, everything became convoluted for me.
The book’s first three chapters discuss her broad views of the universe as “the creation of a self-creating world.”
“the Godmade universe is made as a self-making universe” and “to share in the divine life I must accept the vocation of consciously living in the self-creating universe”
“Joining in the creative work is really central to the whole contemplative enterprise”
“What Earth and the other heavenly bodies are manifesting is the glory, the overflowing creativity activity, that necessarily expresses and thus images the Creator.”
“When we are conscious and knowing the universe is conscious and knowing.”
The final quote is an idea I myself have been pondering for over two decades, that through each of us, through the experience of our lives, the universe and the Infinite become more knowing which would mean that each and every one of the moments of our existence is recorded—felt? received?—by this massive consciousness …
If that’s the case, nothing is meaningless … or static … because everything is constantly in flux as more becomes known.
In Chapters 4 through 7, Bruteau traces the evolution of the universe and some of the potential spiritual implications of that history. In her march through time, Bruteau discuses:
The Big Bang, the Inflation Scenario, Phase Transitions (“it may be that the idea of phase transition is an excellent way to see the whole picture: the universe evolves and ‘self-creates’ by passing through a period of phase transitions."), the stars, astrophysicists, quantum mechanics, the earth’s molten beginnings, symbiotic chemistry and bond formation, molecules of life: sugars, nucleic acids, and proteins, enzymes, catalysts, DNA, RNA, autocatalytic circles, hypercycles, emergents, the first cells, bacteria rule the world (“Bacteria are the ultimate in promiscuity. They engage in gene-swapping all the time.”), oxygen and the eukaryotic cell, diploid nuclei and meiosis, gametes, selection and adaptation, gene wars, and junk DNA, consciousness, language, and memes.
Whew. Makes your head spin! Here are some of her conclusions:
“The interactions are complicated. Organisms have to struggle with the environment, yet the environment is what sustains them. They often fight with members of their own kind, yet they also care for own kind, in some circumstance’s at the individual’s considerable expense. They may be in a predatory/prey relationship with other species, or again they may be in a symbiotic relationship of mutualism, in which each helps the other. The struggles against each other usually lead to discovering better ways to succeed in the struggle, first by one side, then the other. Even better ways to find better ways are developed, better ways to evolve are evolved.
It is one long fascinating story of the creation of novelty.”
“[Nature] is constantly renewing itself and constantly giving rise to forms that never existed before. And the most exciting thing about this novelty is that it is unpredictable. A theology that imagines that the whole history of the world from start to finish is already known is no longer a source of meaningfulness for us. It is not true to our experience.”
“Everywhere there is multiplicity organized into unity, the unity being strongly dependent on the multiplicity and even the diversity … And this is exactly what we see in the world on every level or scale of organization. Galaxies, molecules, organisms, societies—they are all examples of unity supporting and implying multiplicity, and multiplicity sustaining and implying unity.”
“Akin to the conjunction of diversity and unity is the balance of variation and stability…under the conditions of finitude … Randomness and determinism provide for novelty [variety] and stability.”
What’s going on here? Novelty, unpredictability, multiplicity unity, variation … all these words are exciting, inspiring, motivating … and then there is stability. Life needs that too. If we were born and our beings dissolved, i.e. there was no stability, continuity, or constancy of self, how much meaning would be lost? To ourselves? To the universe?
Along with this idea of the need for stability, not a stability that precludes evolution, but a stability of existence, she brings in another interesting concept: Severance.
In a discussion of parenting as the gifting of life as a mirror of the Divine gifting of life, she states:
“One gives being but does not control how it is expressed, one does not know what form it will take, what will happen next, how it will turn out. To pass on the gift of life is to pass on the ability to give the gift of life, and what happens past that point is out of one’s hands. This is that truly makes it a gift of love.”
Ahem. In this particular post I'm not going to discuss those parents—or those children!—who refuse to let go ... we're talking about ideals here!
“Severance is where development starts … and that inevitability involves hurt and failure, but overall, despite, and more often by means of hurts and failure, the whole process becomes more … The closed boundary … is the beginning of selfhood in the finite order … the figure is ‘discrete’, set off, separated … This is the universe’s general tendency to … be discrete and then clump, that’s the basic way of making a universe … when you have … several (from ‘severed)’ discrete bodies, you can have various clumping patterns, and your on your way to variety and creativity … If the universe were just an evenly distributed homogenous continuum of energy there would be no structure: no differences, and hence no creative unions … The great marvel, the great beauty, the great delight of the creative unions to come are dependent on those strange requirements of severance.”
Again, this amazing Cosmos we live in, partake in, is a vast flow of paradoxical elements, we change, grow and evolve in the context of stability, we unite and combine in the context of separation.
And on where we are going …
“Edward Fredkin, an early computer genius, has said that the universe looks to him like a great computer with a program running it. [He also said] the program is so complex that there is no way to shorten it and jump to the final answer. The only way to find out the answer is to let the program run in real time.”
So does any of this matter to us, to our daily lives, to our personal relationships? Does it have any impact on our goals and dreams whether they be for world peace or to create a family?
Consider Bruteau’s thoughts on Divine Intervention ….
“… The Infinite does not ‘intervene’ in the finite. The infinite as a whole is ‘exegeted’ in the whole of the finite, but the Infinite cannot be a participant in any interactions between the finite beings because that would finitize it. Only finite beings can be agents in finite interactions. The infinite can be ‘present’ in and even as the whole finite world, but it cannot be some particular part of the finite world or control some particular interaction in the finite world. All finite interactions are defined from particular points of view, and the Infinite cannot take one point of view rather than another. While this may be disappointing, it also relieves us of otherwise intractable problems, especially questions about why the Infinite doesn’t intervene in ways we (from our point of view) would like it to do.”
This strikes me as true. And so does this …
“The new things build on the old things. And as the better working ones crowd out the poorer ones, the population as a whole comes to be characterized by innovations. Those innovations then become part of the foundation on which the next round of innovations is built … But all this comes out of the dynamics, the process, the functions of the spontaneously assembling natural bodies. Nothing is imposed from the outside. There is no guiding hand. Each stage of organization leads naturally to the next on the basis of the way things are already happening. We are modeling a universe that makes itself, from the inside out, as an act of ecstasy, not one that is made from the outside by imposition.”
Then there comes the procession of evil from the biological imperative to survive onward to a what might be considered a higher consciousness.
The protectionism, aggression, deception of the “selfish-gene” advances to alliances for mutual benefit then advances to a reciprocal altruism based on memory, i.e. I will likely have future interactions with you and that advances to the recognition of the “rights of others’” by way of acknowledging the Absolute/Infinite as a mutual Ground of Being. So that “the real basis for sin (I know, a word replete with a millennia of baggage; I would use a word more akin to suffering myself ) … is the failure to find the Absolute in oneself.”
Okay.
So the Theokotos, a Greek word meaning ‘God-bearer’ used traditionally for the Virgin Mary, makes me think of all our mothers as physical vessels giving birth to the infinite in finite form.
We all have the potential to “incarnate” divinity.
How do we do this? Well, folks have been trying to do this for aeons by praying, fasting, meditating, taking pilgrimages, studying sacred texts … Does any of it work? Seems like to a degree. Is it a worthy cause? Effort? Probably only if you believe it to be so. I just don’t think it’s a pursuit that one can be forced or shamed or otherwise coerced into. I also think the process of living itself evolves us, so how much focused effort is actually required?
I don’t know. Regardless, I emphatically do believe that:
“Divinity is within you: it is growing toward emergence.”
So here on this planet, there likely never will be any direct Divine Intervention … there is and will only ever be us and our thoughts and actions. The question is, by cultivating our inner connection to the Divine/Infinite how might our outer/finite world be transformed?
Will there ever come a day when everyone on the planet lives according to this state of being inwardly connected to the Divine? Is this where we're ultimately headed?
Honestly, I hope so.
In War & Grace, I call it Eryai;)
All quotes for this post are from: God's Ecstasy by Beatrice Bruteau
She relies on three essential Christian religious symbols as the foundation for her thesis: the Incarnation, the Theokotos, and the Trinity. The Incarnation and the Theokotos work well for me as symbolical representations of potent spiritual/metaphysical reality but I confess, whenever she dove into the Trinity, everything became convoluted for me.
The book’s first three chapters discuss her broad views of the universe as “the creation of a self-creating world.”
“the Godmade universe is made as a self-making universe” and “to share in the divine life I must accept the vocation of consciously living in the self-creating universe”
“Joining in the creative work is really central to the whole contemplative enterprise”
“What Earth and the other heavenly bodies are manifesting is the glory, the overflowing creativity activity, that necessarily expresses and thus images the Creator.”
“When we are conscious and knowing the universe is conscious and knowing.”
The final quote is an idea I myself have been pondering for over two decades, that through each of us, through the experience of our lives, the universe and the Infinite become more knowing which would mean that each and every one of the moments of our existence is recorded—felt? received?—by this massive consciousness …
If that’s the case, nothing is meaningless … or static … because everything is constantly in flux as more becomes known.
The Big Bang, the Inflation Scenario, Phase Transitions (“it may be that the idea of phase transition is an excellent way to see the whole picture: the universe evolves and ‘self-creates’ by passing through a period of phase transitions."), the stars, astrophysicists, quantum mechanics, the earth’s molten beginnings, symbiotic chemistry and bond formation, molecules of life: sugars, nucleic acids, and proteins, enzymes, catalysts, DNA, RNA, autocatalytic circles, hypercycles, emergents, the first cells, bacteria rule the world (“Bacteria are the ultimate in promiscuity. They engage in gene-swapping all the time.”), oxygen and the eukaryotic cell, diploid nuclei and meiosis, gametes, selection and adaptation, gene wars, and junk DNA, consciousness, language, and memes.
Whew. Makes your head spin! Here are some of her conclusions:
“The interactions are complicated. Organisms have to struggle with the environment, yet the environment is what sustains them. They often fight with members of their own kind, yet they also care for own kind, in some circumstance’s at the individual’s considerable expense. They may be in a predatory/prey relationship with other species, or again they may be in a symbiotic relationship of mutualism, in which each helps the other. The struggles against each other usually lead to discovering better ways to succeed in the struggle, first by one side, then the other. Even better ways to find better ways are developed, better ways to evolve are evolved.
It is one long fascinating story of the creation of novelty.”
“Everywhere there is multiplicity organized into unity, the unity being strongly dependent on the multiplicity and even the diversity … And this is exactly what we see in the world on every level or scale of organization. Galaxies, molecules, organisms, societies—they are all examples of unity supporting and implying multiplicity, and multiplicity sustaining and implying unity.”
“Akin to the conjunction of diversity and unity is the balance of variation and stability…under the conditions of finitude … Randomness and determinism provide for novelty [variety] and stability.”
What’s going on here? Novelty, unpredictability, multiplicity unity, variation … all these words are exciting, inspiring, motivating … and then there is stability. Life needs that too. If we were born and our beings dissolved, i.e. there was no stability, continuity, or constancy of self, how much meaning would be lost? To ourselves? To the universe?
Along with this idea of the need for stability, not a stability that precludes evolution, but a stability of existence, she brings in another interesting concept: Severance.
In a discussion of parenting as the gifting of life as a mirror of the Divine gifting of life, she states:
“One gives being but does not control how it is expressed, one does not know what form it will take, what will happen next, how it will turn out. To pass on the gift of life is to pass on the ability to give the gift of life, and what happens past that point is out of one’s hands. This is that truly makes it a gift of love.”
Ahem. In this particular post I'm not going to discuss those parents—or those children!—who refuse to let go ... we're talking about ideals here!
“Severance is where development starts … and that inevitability involves hurt and failure, but overall, despite, and more often by means of hurts and failure, the whole process becomes more … The closed boundary … is the beginning of selfhood in the finite order … the figure is ‘discrete’, set off, separated … This is the universe’s general tendency to … be discrete and then clump, that’s the basic way of making a universe … when you have … several (from ‘severed)’ discrete bodies, you can have various clumping patterns, and your on your way to variety and creativity … If the universe were just an evenly distributed homogenous continuum of energy there would be no structure: no differences, and hence no creative unions … The great marvel, the great beauty, the great delight of the creative unions to come are dependent on those strange requirements of severance.”
Again, this amazing Cosmos we live in, partake in, is a vast flow of paradoxical elements, we change, grow and evolve in the context of stability, we unite and combine in the context of separation.
And on where we are going …
“Edward Fredkin, an early computer genius, has said that the universe looks to him like a great computer with a program running it. [He also said] the program is so complex that there is no way to shorten it and jump to the final answer. The only way to find out the answer is to let the program run in real time.”
So does any of this matter to us, to our daily lives, to our personal relationships? Does it have any impact on our goals and dreams whether they be for world peace or to create a family?
“… The Infinite does not ‘intervene’ in the finite. The infinite as a whole is ‘exegeted’ in the whole of the finite, but the Infinite cannot be a participant in any interactions between the finite beings because that would finitize it. Only finite beings can be agents in finite interactions. The infinite can be ‘present’ in and even as the whole finite world, but it cannot be some particular part of the finite world or control some particular interaction in the finite world. All finite interactions are defined from particular points of view, and the Infinite cannot take one point of view rather than another. While this may be disappointing, it also relieves us of otherwise intractable problems, especially questions about why the Infinite doesn’t intervene in ways we (from our point of view) would like it to do.”
This strikes me as true. And so does this …
“The new things build on the old things. And as the better working ones crowd out the poorer ones, the population as a whole comes to be characterized by innovations. Those innovations then become part of the foundation on which the next round of innovations is built … But all this comes out of the dynamics, the process, the functions of the spontaneously assembling natural bodies. Nothing is imposed from the outside. There is no guiding hand. Each stage of organization leads naturally to the next on the basis of the way things are already happening. We are modeling a universe that makes itself, from the inside out, as an act of ecstasy, not one that is made from the outside by imposition.”
Then there comes the procession of evil from the biological imperative to survive onward to a what might be considered a higher consciousness.
The protectionism, aggression, deception of the “selfish-gene” advances to alliances for mutual benefit then advances to a reciprocal altruism based on memory, i.e. I will likely have future interactions with you and that advances to the recognition of the “rights of others’” by way of acknowledging the Absolute/Infinite as a mutual Ground of Being. So that “the real basis for sin (I know, a word replete with a millennia of baggage; I would use a word more akin to suffering myself ) … is the failure to find the Absolute in oneself.”
Okay.
So the Theokotos, a Greek word meaning ‘God-bearer’ used traditionally for the Virgin Mary, makes me think of all our mothers as physical vessels giving birth to the infinite in finite form.
How do we do this? Well, folks have been trying to do this for aeons by praying, fasting, meditating, taking pilgrimages, studying sacred texts … Does any of it work? Seems like to a degree. Is it a worthy cause? Effort? Probably only if you believe it to be so. I just don’t think it’s a pursuit that one can be forced or shamed or otherwise coerced into. I also think the process of living itself evolves us, so how much focused effort is actually required?
I don’t know. Regardless, I emphatically do believe that:
“Divinity is within you: it is growing toward emergence.”
So here on this planet, there likely never will be any direct Divine Intervention … there is and will only ever be us and our thoughts and actions. The question is, by cultivating our inner connection to the Divine/Infinite how might our outer/finite world be transformed?
Will there ever come a day when everyone on the planet lives according to this state of being inwardly connected to the Divine? Is this where we're ultimately headed?
Honestly, I hope so.
In War & Grace, I call it Eryai;)
All quotes for this post are from: God's Ecstasy by Beatrice Bruteau
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Tuesday, May 2, 2017
The Silence Listens to Us
I promised closure to my thoughts on the book Silence by Shusaku Ends a while back.
And the Big Theme: In the face of horrific persecution, why does God remain silent? And how does that silence affect the faith and actions of Christians and/or followers of other organized religions?
That was um …. almost 7 weeks ago. So you can see I have taken some time with my response. In the book, silence is most often depicted as something horrifying, a devastating betrayal to the orthodox religious; if you to whom I pray to bow to seek approval from do not ANSWER me, SPEAK to me, INTERVENE on behalf: Then what is THE TRUTH—REALITY—PURPOSE—of it all?
Great questions.
My experience of silence—counterpoint to what I understand the experience of the characters in the story to be—is more like this:
Silence.
The Void.
The Quietest Thing Here.
God. Infinitude. Source. The Cosmos.
Does not speak in words.
Nor in intervention.
It converses in arcs. Nature. Time.
Our communication with the Divine is more like surfing, riding a wave. Clumsy and awkward, becoming absorbed with both success and defeat we lose our balance and flail into the depths.
It can be exhilarating devastating electric and engulfing all at the same time.
Wipe out. Or ride the pipeline. Swear off or never give up.
Static our journey through life is not.
Neither is it predictable, predetermined, or controllable.
How to perfect the art of the dance, achieve the nimble footsteps, sustain attunement to the thing that created us, but unlike us, does not communicate verbally.
One can deny God, but no one can deny Life.
More powerful. More subtle. More profound. More intelligent than anything any one of us can conjure or dream up.
And yet we crave to create. Improve. Manifest. Self-determine. Keep on breathing.
Children of life yearning to harness the invisible force that animates their selves, that is beyond their selves, that sustain their selves.
We find in the Silence:
Despair.
Inspiration.
Truth.
Answers.
Fulfillment.
Devastation.
Solace.
Comfort.
Regeneration.
Not the words, but the experience.
And the Silence listens to our pulse, our neurons, our bodies, our breath.
Overwhelmed by the massive void of quiet, we drown ourselves in a tumult of noise, oblivious to the sacred exchange, missing it all, because we falsely assume, believe that what is subtle, gentle, not forced upon us, not grasping for our attention with branding, violent indoctrination, a tsunami of words is useless, insubstantial, unworthy of our oh-so-precious time.
Silence is the wellspring.
The trailhead.
Some of us begin the journey.
Because Silence, the Void, the Quietest Thing Here, God, Infinitude, Source, the Cosmos, doesn’t demand allegiance, command obedience, or deliver judgment. It only ever offers.
And for those of us who endeavor to receive, another dimension opens, a different landscape emerges.
The mystery the wonder the awe threads itself into our reality and we are never the same.
I think Endo left his missionaries at the trailhead.
And the Big Theme: In the face of horrific persecution, why does God remain silent? And how does that silence affect the faith and actions of Christians and/or followers of other organized religions?
That was um …. almost 7 weeks ago. So you can see I have taken some time with my response. In the book, silence is most often depicted as something horrifying, a devastating betrayal to the orthodox religious; if you to whom I pray to bow to seek approval from do not ANSWER me, SPEAK to me, INTERVENE on behalf: Then what is THE TRUTH—REALITY—PURPOSE—of it all?
My experience of silence—counterpoint to what I understand the experience of the characters in the story to be—is more like this:
Silence.
The Void.
The Quietest Thing Here.
God. Infinitude. Source. The Cosmos.
Does not speak in words.
Nor in intervention.
It converses in arcs. Nature. Time.
It can be exhilarating devastating electric and engulfing all at the same time.
Wipe out. Or ride the pipeline. Swear off or never give up.
Static our journey through life is not.
Neither is it predictable, predetermined, or controllable.
How to perfect the art of the dance, achieve the nimble footsteps, sustain attunement to the thing that created us, but unlike us, does not communicate verbally.
More powerful. More subtle. More profound. More intelligent than anything any one of us can conjure or dream up.
And yet we crave to create. Improve. Manifest. Self-determine. Keep on breathing.
We find in the Silence:
Despair.
Inspiration.
Truth.
Answers.
Fulfillment.
Devastation.
Solace.
Comfort.
Regeneration.
Not the words, but the experience.
And the Silence listens to our pulse, our neurons, our bodies, our breath.
Overwhelmed by the massive void of quiet, we drown ourselves in a tumult of noise, oblivious to the sacred exchange, missing it all, because we falsely assume, believe that what is subtle, gentle, not forced upon us, not grasping for our attention with branding, violent indoctrination, a tsunami of words is useless, insubstantial, unworthy of our oh-so-precious time.
Silence is the wellspring.
The trailhead.
Some of us begin the journey.
Because Silence, the Void, the Quietest Thing Here, God, Infinitude, Source, the Cosmos, doesn’t demand allegiance, command obedience, or deliver judgment. It only ever offers.
And for those of us who endeavor to receive, another dimension opens, a different landscape emerges.
The mystery the wonder the awe threads itself into our reality and we are never the same.
I think Endo left his missionaries at the trailhead.
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