Tag Archives: mind

September 30, 2014 · 11:16 am

… moans from an unruly writer …

Installation by Frederick Franck

While I write, wrestle with style, query words battling for attention and set out sequences to string ideas together, anyone watching me might assume I’m a nervous wreck. My body, perfectly able to string an arrow to a bow and hit a target, has a wild notion of focus when it comes to writing. It shifts and wriggles, gets up pretending I need a coffee, ends up cleaning the sink, checks the porch for post and so on, all the while allowing my word sculpting to continue until, bingo …. I rely on intuition, which slips into little silences, opens a crack in the surface of things and reveals a hidden layer, and, occasionally offers a glimpse into the infinity of now. A tiny glimpse is all it takes to relax, sharpen senses and spark a creative dialogue between my inner voices that often quarrel and fool around like the average family.

I respect moderate conflict, it stirs up mud but clears the air, and even when the inner crowd gets fed-up with listening – grace, solitude, or a good night’s sleep bring additional insights, bridge divides and re-establish a tolerable rhythm of chaos and peace.

Am I fooling myself? Is my knack for intuition just guesswork. Is it inborn? Does it evolve with experience, as a kind of deeper listening skill humanity moves towards? Can it be learned? Is it worth defending? Or is it the relic of a go-with-the-flow philosophy that avoids closer analysis of my thought processes and behaviour? I seem to struggle with two kinds of temperaments, one looking for the particle and the other for the wave, stretched between rational and irrational numbers. The two temperaments compete but need each other.

Pilgrim Fool by Celcil Collins

Scientists and statisticians tend to approach the unknown rationally, and seem set to eradicate human incompetence and messiness. Some frenzied rational prophets go as far as knocking anything that can’t be quantified and evidenced. I value logic, what annoys me is the attitude that scoffs at people who hold hands with the fool.

There are more reliable methods than the vagaries of intuition, shown in a New York Times piece by Gary Wolf ‘The Data Driven Life’ from April 2010, a long but brilliant article that received many pages of diverse comments. Not everyone is keen on the Quantified Self.

I resist being monitored and quantified by data, fixed as particle, ticked off for my risk-taking folly, my random cross-referencing. The geeks and outliers the article describes have fun recording their every move. And I grant that someone suffering from high blood pressure or apnoea benefits from being nudged by a gadget to take a deep breath. I remember being excited and applauding the first biofeedback devices that affirmed how thoughts affect our physiology and vice versa. When it comes to data dependency, I have a hunch it will starve emotional intelligence, which I strongly believe develops through mastery of language.

Working a few years for Social Services, we used to write narrative assessments until a computer programme with tick boxes was introduced. We hated it. Conveying observations in writing was shoved aside as time-consuming, subjective and vague, while quantitative recording was hailed as reliable, though its data hinges no less on interpretation and application.

Recently I skimmed an article suggesting future novels will be written by computers. My cynic leapt from its slumber and argued that a machine hasn’t got 100 Billion neurons and can’t be intimate with nature, is immune to changing metabolisms and moods – hour by hour, night and day. Immune to what comes on the breath, with wind, dust, rain and radio waves that travel through the cosmos, nor is a machine influenced by dreams, synchronicities, diets, layers of revolving memories, kind gestures, general anxieties, rejection, loss of control, loss of a loved one, global news … the unpredictable influx of thoughts and emotions that our mind continuously sifts, evaluates and re-interprets.

Irrational humans can’t be quantified and controlled, which may be why since ancient times there has been an ambition to create artificial beings. Here a bit of fun from Turing and his colleague Strachey – a reasoned-out love letter, achieved through programming a 1951 computer to make sentences via algorithms, having been fed on love synonyms from a Thesaurus:

Honey Dear – My sympathetic affection beautifully attracts your affectionate enthusiasm. You are my loving adoration: my breathless adoration. My fellow feeling breathlessly hopes for your dear eagerness. My lovesick adoration cherishes your avid ardour.

Yours wistfully, M.U.C. (Manchester University Computer)

…. M. U. C. is eager, if a little verbose and breathless 🙂

Since then, artificial intelligence is even more breathless with numbers, but operates highly sophisticated technology that improved the quality of our lives. I admit I’m fascinated by the concept of cyborgs, but don’t want to get plucked into the human network protocol .

Our privacy is at stake. And our relationship with nature? … its record of life and the human experience, the treasure house of the collective unconscious, translated and re-membered through DNA, invisible spheres and the very light we breathe. Anything alive changes from moment to moment. And our experiences, insights and expectations have a vital part in the changing.

Nature is the book I grew up with, it taught me stuff: About growing … put a seed into earth, tend to its needs and its story flowers. About resilience … a seedling lost in a dark corner will grow towards any spot of light, no matter how it must bend and curl its stalk around obstacles. About connections … the dynamic geometry of the tiniest plants and vast galaxies are reflected in each other.

Enough samples to show the obvious – nature teaches through metaphors. My theme is resilience. I take risks and accept that struggling makes me inventive, expands my consciousness, polishes my heart and challenges me to think for myself.

My moan extends to the growing practice of enticing people to emulate machines in service of progress and economic efficiency, in jobs that dull the senses and dull the mind.

Meanwhile I cheer the unruly folk, including fools, dreamers, innovators, artists, poets and writers with an ear towards the hidden – who translate past and future newly into the present – the open-minded, who can tolerate conflict, value intuitive signals that chime in the heart, and who can occasionally endure being suspended like a leaf on a gossamer thread.

What do you, my reader, think?

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September 21, 2014 · 10:54 pm

… gossamer bridges and palaces …

I’m a terrible hypocrite. I can’t stand spiders in the house, but I adore them in my garden, where their bridges and palaces are now quivering everywhere, only visible against the sun or by the rare leaf suspended in mid-air … exquisite.

A leaf floating free

From stem and branch – inholding

The ever-tree myth

Once more nature translates its lore to the soil, carrying patterns of relationships to new settings.

We do the same, daily and all year round, translating our experiences to ourselves and others … our cells, bodies and minds continuously changing, never the same, despite appearances.

I wish for grace in waiting, the hibernating towards re-membering afresh the cyclic occurring wholeness in new formations.

And I wish for the patience and good humour of my tiny Buddha.

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July 11, 2014 · 4:46 pm

… physical books I loved to bits…

Aged eighteen, while staying with a family friend in London, I came upon the catalogue of the greatest photographic exhibition of all time – The Family of Man – a mirror to the essential oneness of mankind throughout the world.

The exhibition was assembled by Edward Steichen for the Museum of Modern Art and contained photographs from sixty-eight nations …

There is only one man in the world

and his name is All man

There is only one woman in the world

and her name is All Woman

There is only one child in the world

and the child’s name is All Children

The inspiring collection of images decided my first career as a photographer.

Ironic, given that my parents’ photographic business had held no interest for me. I realised my search was for what shone through reality, the essence in people and situation. I was inspired by poetry, story, light and shadow, movement, point of view and framing.

Fully embracing this passion started an active and adventurous period of my life, with opportunities to travel and mingle with groups of highly eccentric and creative people.

A decade later, at New York’s Kennedy airport, after a several momentous months in Washington DC, while waiting for a flight back to Amsterdam with my husband to be, a title on a book rack screamed for my attention … well, it jumped at me like a dream tiger.

Man and his Symbols.

You couldn’t find a better window into the ideas of Carl Gustav Jung.

It was Jung’s last project, addressed to a wider public, readers who would not normally come upon the over 17 volumes of his work.

Due to its pocket size, as you can see, the yellowed pages of my copy travelled and have been well-read over the years ….

The book came about through the persistence of the remarkably diverse John Freeman: http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/politics/2013/03/john-freeman-face-face-enigma

He interviewed Jung in a Face to Face programme for TV: https:/ /www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPGMWF7kU_8

Seeing the programme, Wolfgang Foges (Aldus Books,) urged Freeman to persuade Jung to write a book for the general public. Jung firmly refused – until he had a dream. He consequently asked Freeman to act as editor and co-ordinator with the average reader in mind. So it became a collective project between Jung and four of his followers, M L von Franz, Joseph L Henderson, Aniela Jaffe and Jolande Jacoby, and was completed before Jung’s death in 1961,

In his introduction Freeman suggests the reader will find it a persuasive and profoundly absorbing journey … which, for me, was true from the start. During eight hours on the plane, with an occasional glance at my partner, the receding skyscrapers of Manhattan, and the expanse of oceans, my interest in dreams and the unconscious were powerfully validated. The book makes a convincing case for the imaginative life as the most distinctive characteristic of human beings. I totally grokked this: The unconscious is no mere repository of the past but also full of germs of future psychic situations and ideas … they grow up from the dark depths of the mind like a lotus and form a most important part of the subliminal psyche.

Two years on, having become a mother, and living for five years in rural Somerset with treasured time to study, it was C G Jung’s work that inspired me to delve into cultural and mythological research, leading on to my training in psychotherapy, and later still, to write novels.

My shelves contain many more books I loved to bits, and I wonder if digital version of these publications would have had the same lasting impact.

Frankly, I doubt it.

Only today I shared a tattered copy of Kahlil Gibran’s ‘The Prophet’ with a supervision client. She had never heard of the poet and was delighted.

Do you have books that fall apart through love and physical touch and still inspire?

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February 23, 2014 · 2:57 pm

… the child in us …

Close your eyes and imagine standing on a beach … warm sand under your bare feet – a light sea breeze brushing your skin – gulls sailing above the sparkling crests of waves. Breathe a while, to the rhythm of the surf lapping at the shore – in – out – in – out – in – out – and let your eyes rest on the silver skyline.

There is nobody here but you – and a visitor – a child you invite to appear as it will.

At what distance does the little person appear?

Observe its posture, age, gender?

What do you sense about it?

Does it look at you, or not?

Is it curious, shy, withdrawn?

Notice your thoughts and feelings, don’t draw conclusions – do nothing.

Sense the realm of consciousness this little person lives in, and still your mind. If the child plays with shells do the same, remaining where you are. If the child skips along the surf, wait. If it takes one step towards you, wait. If it turns its back on you or walks away, sit down and wait. All the while communicate silently – I’m here as a friend.

He or she may come close – or not – play with you – or not. Be patient. This little one represents your essence and must be free to approach the strange adult you’ve become as it chooses and when it’s ready. Maybe next time. Don’t over-act. Even if the child is friendly, keep in mind it may try to please your expectations. Remain calm, interested, approachable.

* * *

Visiting an imaginary coastline, metaphorically a boundary between the conscious and the less conscious psyche, brings insights even if no images emerge. Try and silence your usual thinking process. Enter the scene as in a daydream, or have a friend slowly read the text.

Insights change from day to day, according to mood. You could experience joy, get a glimpse of what’s important in your life, or be prompted to engage in frank reflections – a valuable process, helping us to develop empathy.

For example, if sadness or pain knock at the sight of this child, ask yourself … have guardians chided your curiosity and strong spirit, or humiliated your weakness and poor confidence? As a result your own adult may have unwittingly come to reject your child as unworthy, regarding it as ungrateful, stubborn, nagging, or awkward with the shame of buried secrets? Consider – fear of abandonment, punishment or guilt about early fantasies may compel children to please grown ups in order to cope and emotionally survive. The legacy could be a distrust one’s own feelings. Signals received as pain, or love, might equally overwhelm.

Next time you hear a baby or toddler screams, let’s say, in a supermarket, observe what happens in your body, and watch other shoppers. It grates at our nerves at best, and can trigger physically embedded memories of helplessness, and sometimes more. Good to remember when we judge people who shout and act irrationally. There are behavioural therapies to desensitize triggers that threaten to overwhelm people with rage. Then again, active imagination is more deeply transforming, and the symbolic expression of complex emotions (see later) frees energy and meaning, making a difference to our collective state of consciousness.

If some of these reflections ring true, return to the imaginary shore as long as it takes to earn the trust of your child. Your adult’s task is simply to be present, reflect, and allow the younger being to initiate communication.

In daily life, begin to set aside pockets of time for that little person in you, encourage a symbolic process, without pressure, to write or draw about early joys, pains, hurts or dark thoughts, like having hated a parent, or once wished someone to drop dead. Children have such fleeting fantasies when they feel threatened and powerless. It’s normal. Holding on to self blame is the problem.

Suffering brought to consciousness lifts the spell of self blame. Despite appearances of confidence and adult bravado, the child in us is often anxious. Deep down may linger legitimate anger, and, deeper still, sadness and the longing for a precious moment of total acceptance. We call it love. It takes time to soften hearts.

Imagination serves multiple roles. It can draw us into habitual loops of negativity and self harm, or stimulate insights and enhance creativity. Artists know this. Imagination can also heal psychic wounds frequently handed down through generations. The healing aspect is especially powerful when employed consciously. Jung called it ‘Active Imagination.’

In this way, every imaginary journeys can be followed up by freeing condensed energy and meaning – symbolically – through drawing, painting, writing, movement, music or play, allowing what wants to emerge, be it forgotten wonders, or burdens, like unacknowledged anger a child had no means to express in early life.

And most significantly, nurturing a trusting relationship and rapport with our younger being invites the Beloved – our essence – and with it the light of intuition and inner guidance.

‘Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.’ ― Rumi –

Perhaps all the dragons of our lives
are princesses who are only waiting to
see us once, beautiful and brave.
Perhaps everything terrible is in
Its deepest being something
that needs our love. — Rainer Maria Rilke –

The imagery above is in continuation of my last post ‘journey into mystery.’

https://courseofmirrors.wordpress.com/2014/02/06/journey-into-mystery/

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February 6, 2014 · 10:56 pm

… journey into mystery …

Close your eyes … switch on a light in the area around your heart and see the image of a rose bud emerge … at first a luminous tip of colour … the bud stirs … the sepals gradually turn outwards. See the petals unfold in a slow and fluid movement … until the rose has opened and exudes its delicate fragrance.

Imagine the rose expanding in size … to a palatial sphere that invites into its passages. Overcome the weight of your thoughts and wander barefoot with feather-light steps towards the luminous centre. Rest here for a while … absorb the tenderness of the realm’s ambience and the exquisite fragrance of rose into every cell of your body.

Become the rose …

Move your consciousness upwards … lift on spirit wings and witness the rose palace merge with the landscape below. Soar higher and look down on clusters of houses, roads, cities, fields, hills, rivers, woods … see the shape of countries, continents, coastlines and oceans spread and curve the horizon. Move higher still, until the whole earth floats in deep space like a marble.

Feeling light and trusting, imagine you are level with the moon and look back at the shining marble turning in space … ribbons of white cloud, blue oceans, pale sands, green forests, red rock and snow-topped mountains – your home – vast in your memory but also small enough to be held in your palm.

Think of the people who have been and are close to you … in love … or alienated by hurt and dispute … people you shelter in your heart or have expelled from it. Sense the mysterious weaving of souls in the tapestry of the universe … your separate thread belonging and active in the creation of earth, the home of your human family.

Know that every sincere thought travels … know the creative potential alive within you is reflected in all life forms throughout the universe …

We are the mirror as well as the face in it.
We are tasting the taste this minute of eternity. We are pain and what cures pain. We are the sweet, cold water and the jar that pours. – Rumi

Slowly descend – return to earth – into the rose palace.

Step away from the luminous sphere … let it ebb back into the small flower, petals folding … see the bud float into you open hand … sense how its power wishes to stay alive in you … for its beauty to unfold whenever you need loving. Here is how – place the rose and the whole experience of rose-becoming into your heart.

* * *

Over the years I composed many similar imageries with archetypal themes. They are tools of reflection I use with clients and in workshops. When I guide, the process becomes subtly interactive and explorative. Some journeys are safe to walk alone, like the one above, and they are as powerful as your imagination allows.

Should I share more such imageries? Let me know.

Here a more elaborate space visit … http://aeon.co/film/overview/

The poem from ‘Open Secret’ – Rumi transl. by John Moyne and Coleman Barks.

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January 21, 2014 · 4:54 pm

… accessing altered states …

After last week’s dark matter, I welcomed a beam of light, provided by a friend who engaged a small group into exploring how to access altered states, states of consciousness outside the ‘normal’ Beta brainwave frequency (between 13 and 30 Hz cycles per second) defined as awake and alert state.

Imagine everyone was normal, or, by definition, alert, outward orientated and falcon-eyed. Present governments and corporations would be challenged. So it seems a paradox that our culture puts pathological labels on altered states of consciousness, which are as common as day and night, and as changeable as the seasons. Artists, athletes, train spotters, kids on play consoles, football fans, shoppers wandering dazed through supermarkets … are all under the spell of certain wavelengths. Depending as to where our energy is drawn to or focussed at, we may be carried by any collective mood, be it of disenchantment or Joie de Vivre. Whatever wave we surf on or drown in, when we resonate with a like-minded tribe, we feel less alone. There is no such thing as a ‘normal’ state.

The frequency of our brainwaves shifts in two ways: changes in mood alter our physiology – changes in physiology alter our mood.

Re: changing our physiology – our friend brought along a few technical gadgets and apps we played with. Listening to the pulse of higher Beta frequencies, for example, tricks the body into stimulating synapses and can activate higher energy centres (chakras.) See, for example the link to mind-machines at the end of this post. There are apps offering similar devices that can be downloaded from the internet.

One exercise we did without gadgets lightened my heart, which had been battered last week. We formed groups of three’s and had one person facing two others who stood close together and slowly moved their outer arms, independently. The person observing moved their left and right arms in accord with the arms of the two people they were facing, trying to match the disparate movements. This involved right and left brain attention. After about 10 minutes the rapport achieved was beyond words – peace and spaciousness and a deep appreciation of where the other was innermost, like being taken into a sacred circle. This blissful sense of connectedness works best among people who have trust and sympathy for each other.

A traveller puts his head under the edge of the firmament – original (1888) printing of the Flammarion engraving.

I use methods of mirroring, matching and mismatching sparingly in my work with clients. And if appropriate, I offer guided imagery, which induces a light trance state that facilitates fluid awareness, images, and striking insight.

As children we may have been mirrored in ways that affirmed, ignored or rejected our sense of reality. Affirmation happens through rapport, a sense of being accepted and recognised. Lack of rapport and interference can send us on less-walked, though potentially creative journeys. With the advent of virtual global networks the chances of finding rapport have widened. Then again, given the internet is also a mirror to our collective unconscious, we may occasionally drift rudderless in the hive mind, which is also a kind of trance, feeding us stuff.

Trance states draw us into collective wave-signals. We need rapture to remind us of a greater unity, like when millions of us look up to the full moon at the same time, or watch global events on our screens. We need those reminders of belonging like the air we breathe. Innumerable focussed activities produce altered states: art, games, sport, dance, voice, music, spiritual practices, rituals and mind altering drugs, dreaming, writing, reading, guided imagery, meditation, sound frequencies, light pulses … the sun 🙂 and so on.

Altered states of consciousness fluctuate. I’m not alone in having had lucid dreams and out-of-body experiences, sensations of oneness and peace, as well as being subjected to global traumas and the occasional attack of negativity. Means that improve our rapport with ourselves, others, nature, and the cosmos – means that regulate and tune our psychic energy and gain us a wider perspective on our existence, seem more wholesome than antidepressants. Though it’s useful to keep in mind that subliminal sound/light pulses can be applied to manipulate the public.

No doubt biofeedback devices have a future. Hopefully technological advances will lead to the realisation – and evidence that humans are part of one intelligent, pulsating organism – the cosmos – expanding and contracting – yet in a continuous process of becoming conscious of itself and connecting to deeper and further dimensions.

Sites that may interest: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_machine http://synthesislearning.com/article/brwav.htm http://www.brainwavecollege.com/what-are-brainwaves.htm http://www.nlpu.com/NewDesign/NLPU_WhatIsNLP.html

A Ted talk on advanced applications of brainwave readings http://www.ted.com/talks/tan_le_a_headset_that_reads_your_brainwaves.html

There are many related blog posts on this sit, here the most relevant: http ://courseofmirrors.wordpress.com/2014/01/11/thoughts-on-dark-matter/ https://courseofmirrors.wordpress.com/2013/08/28/the-mystery-of-thoughts/ https://courseofmirrors.wordpress.com/2011/05/14/thoughts-on-awareness/

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January 11, 2014 · 2:56 pm

… thoughts on dark matter …

Breath shuttles across nature’s warp and weft – to breed – bloom – yearn – form thoughts – his – hers – mine – our thoughts – woven yarns flung into the unknown like a slow spread – to be unpicked

two waters meet

breathe in – breathe out longer – meet the other at their edge – to merge – converse – or – should you prod – witness spume lift from the wave – fire split the wire – earth shake – heaven open – dreams unravel …

In the night – specks of light appear – the rest is hidden in curved time – yet present – spirit abiding in inverse spheres – as above so below – weak neutrinos permeate all – unobserved but heard as cosmic noise from dark realms – until atoms splash towards the crack of dawn – we call it birth …

Two clusters of galaxies in collision. The ordinary matter, gas and stars from both clusters shown in red, is slowed down in the collision. The DARK matter, shown in blue, sails through and keeps on going because it does not interact. Both colours are false –the red is an image of x-ray emission, and the blue is an image of the gravitational effect on the light from more distant galaxies. Source: NASA/ESO

Two galaxies in collision. Ordinary matter, gas and stars from both clusters – in red – is slowed down in the collision. The DARK matter, shown in blue, sails through and keeps on going. Both colours are false –the red is an image of x-ray emission, and the blue is an image of the gravitational effect on the light from more distant galaxies.
Source: NASA/ESO

The background to this poem: I was feeling depressed about the superficial and withholding communication with a distrustful relative. Fed up with allusions and secrecy, I plucked up the courage to prod a straight question. The answer was as a torrent of toxic and defensive anger. After the assault over the telephone I was dumbstruck. I laid the incident to rest, and instead edited a big chunk of my present manuscript.

Before going to bed, I read in a novel, ‘Eventide’ by Kent Haruf (a wonderful discovery – more about this author another time) and came upon a graphic scene that encapsulated my battered state – as if a bull had pounded me into the mud – which happened to a character in the chapter. Literature can deliver fitting words and metaphors for experiences.

I don’t regret my prodding. I discovered the nature of a spell on me. As it happens in families, wounds are handed down generations, and unless someone prods them the poison can’t drain.

Attitudes and projections, powered by feelings, influence us and others deeply – irrespective of distance, or time. Unexpressed messages travel. It happens unconsciously. The process might be better acknowledged if there was evidence of a medium that carries thoughts, faster than light. Mocked-at psychic phenomena could be re-evaluated. My bet is on the untraceable, neutral neutrinos that apparently pass through ordinary matter unimpeded at superluminal velocity.

At the time of writing this poem arrived …

Do Not Love You (Pablo Neruda)

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep

* * *

A film by Werner Herzog I want to see: Encounters at the End of the World

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gr5IvOFXuH4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eO9GEL_RzlY

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August 28, 2013 · 1:38 pm

… the mystery of thoughts …

Every child is truly switched on to the imagination. But frequently the environment belittles the imagination, and the gift can end up suppressed under the blanket of rationality. People with a strong creative drive may settle down to live in a straitjacket, and then find themselves overwhelmed by images, thoughts and associations, especially around full moon.

As a child I was intensely curious about the spaces between things, and about light. Had I not locked horns with an opinionated physics teacher I might have taken up the challenge to study sciences. Another fascination of mine was pattern repetition – how the veins in a leaf resemble the shape of a tree. And scale – how tiny bodies, big bodies, our planet, galaxies, the universe, are all reflected in each other.

Hindukailash, image from wikipedia.

Like Indra’s net of pearls in Vedic mythology, where the surface of each pearl mirrors all other pearls, a metaphor for the interconnected networks of mutual relationships between parts and systems. Mount Kailash is depicted here as the timeless and motionless centre of this net, housing Shiva’s family.

Not only visible structures are held together by interactive nets, our social systems, political systems, spiritual systems and the internet operate within a network. We can observe that the invisible psyche (mind) functions not only through logic, but also through aesthetics, independent of space/time, and is held by another kind of coherence – a net of meaning. And what is generated from this net of meaning is a finer kind of energy, not evidenced by present scientific methods – namely intelligence.

We knew it all along – research established that our emotional experiences leave an imprint in the cells of our body, that the brain is more than the squishy mass under our skull but a medium spread throughout the body via a network of neurotransmitters. There have been hair-splitting arguments for and against the idea that the recipient of an organ can experience personality traits of the donor, based on the speculation that each cell carries a hologram of the whole body and its memory.

Feelings and thoughts arising in my consciousness are filtered through my body’s memory. They also depend on my state of anxiety or calm, my interest, attitude and other variables, such as the weather, my relationship with the elements, with people, the collective mood, solar flares, or the constellation of planets. On some days, maybe after a meaningful dream, or a spell of mantras, thoughts are forming clearly on the breath, like reflections in a still pond, on other days, thoughts rush in on water rapids threatening to drown me, or they plod in like turtles, slow and guarded.

Objective reality is not the only game there is – what in the universe has not interacted at some point in time, irrespective of distance? Everything is linked up. Einstein called it the ‘spooky action.’

The motherboard for this wonderful instrument we call the brain, which comprises our whole body, is formed in the womb. I believe the intelligence involved in creating any specific body must lay in more than known DNA codes, must include the indeterminable non-local DNA of a spirit world. Our body foremost operates like a receiver and transmitter for as many wavelengths our radio station in time attracts or is able to tune into.

From this station, stabilized by repetition, I sort clusters of sensations and feelings, and process thoughts and ideas attracted to me from the collective psyche, a vast sea, which the individual mind must learn to navigate. Images and signifiers are coloured by whatever I consciously or unconsciously mirror and relate to.

No matter how much information we absorb, through our senses, through language and concepts, through comparing patterns, reasoning and calculation, everything, comprehended or not, will be filtered through the body’s motherboard that keeps adjusting to experiences and expanding fields of perception, fields that extend way beyond personal memory. All this information is continuously re-shuffled, as is the meaning we assign to it.

Our body is a motherboard – planet earth is a motherboard – the whole cosmos is a motherboard for a spirit we cannot comprehend, an invisible hand that touches us like a breeze, made visible through what it animates.

All we know is that images, thoughts and ideas are reflected in us. They travel via synapses in the neurons of our body, they travel on the air between minds, they travel among stars, they echo from under the sea, waving to us as plankton, they speak to us from every creature, from every blade of grass, from every stone, and they beep from within our bodies through tweaks of pleasure or pain. All matter, all people and objects we interact with store the memory of that interaction, including interactions with things we hate or nurture, and with places we live in.

We don’t invent anything, we re-discover, re-connect and re-create from the vast storehouse of knowledge and information provided to us by nature, and by the spirit between matter that makes up the cosmos, an embodied being that is becoming conscious of itself.

We are on the air, sent, programmed, radioed and broadcast, identified with all manner of things, ideas and beliefs. Yet if we look deep inside our emptiness, we know, the non-material aspects of us can potentially detach and be free, maybe enjoy tea with Shiva’s family and witness the world turn on its axis – a state some people experience spontaneously or through meditation. A state of pure consciousness not identified with this or that. In the meantime, we could at least be kind to ourselves …

‘Thoughts are beings that generate … One thought of kindness gathers a thousand beings of love and kindness around one.’ Hazrat Inayat Khan

I don’t know if a singular mind/psyche, the incredible art of a lifetime, survives the physical death of the body. Maybe a coherent individuated mind leaves a dent, an influence within the collective psyche. Like the organ of the heart, over time, achieved its definite function. But does it matter? Nothing is lost. All information is continuously re-shuffled into new forms and constellations.

Digital storage provides a metaphor – information exists and roams freely in the wind of the collective psyche (unconscious) until it is embodied and gathered towards a purpose. Every event has a consequence. Nature is exacting, but also generous, what has been repressed in the flow of evolution will always return in one form or another.

Everything alive speaks to us, and all such relationships are processed in the stories we share, stories being containers of the richest kind of information.

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You can source other posts on the theme of reflection in the tag cloud on the right of this page. Like this sequenc of posts: https://courseofmirrors.wordpress.com/tag/hazrat-inayat-khan/

And you might want to check out posts under the tag ‘psychology,’ especially the one on ‘awareness,’ where I share R. Assagioli’s 10 psychological laws – how the body affects the mind and the mind affects the body. https://courseofmirrors.wordpress.com/tag/psychology/

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This post also appeared at Third Sunday Blog Carnival: September 2013 | Third Sunday Blog Carnival

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June 27, 2013 · 4:55 pm

… distractions …

We meet monthly, a group of local friends, offering workshops or discussing on a theme. Last we explored distractions, which, well, distracted us from other things that afternoon, like the rain outside, concerns about people being unwell, family, and the buffet waiting for us in the kitchen. Most of all, it made us present to each other. I share here my reflections on the theme after our discussion. A dictionary definition of distraction is: To cause to turn away from the original focus of attention or interest; divert.

We listed outer distractions – basically life’s realities, though they tend to get in the way of more immediate objectives and disturb our peace of mind:

Physical pain, noise, smells, temperature, food, weather, world news, politics, economics, ecology, bills, insurance renewals, nuisance calls, other people’s feelings and projections, family demands, accumulated clutter, maintenance tasks, bureaucracy, lack of response to a query, mail, internet, waiting … little things … we agreed that negatives can turn positive 🙂

Life’s demands tumble into our oscillating mind patterns as dissonances that excite or inhibit our well-being. Conflict results when we resist what’s happening. We may suffer loudly or in silence, or distract ourselves from unpleasant distractions through the innumerable uplifting or numbing sensations our culture offers.

As our discussion spiralled, we homed in on personal routines for dealing with distractions. They differed for each of us, depending on mood, attitude, the state of our nervous system, and the importance of the disrupted task. Days when everything is an effort are made up for by days when everything flows – bliss.

We went on to explore inner distractions, often reactions to outer ones.

Worries, anxieties, despair, obsessive thoughts, anger, pressure of deadlines, excessive associations and ideas, day-dreaming, nagging conscience, hesitations, doubts, guilt feelings, hastily given promises, boredom, pending obligations …

Regarding hesitations and doubts, the term gut-feeling came up. Can it be trusted? Somatic memories may trigger avoidance, a signal to protect us from danger, though the signal could equally sabotage our desires and deeper needs, whereas a higher level intuition might encourage us to re-evaluate what seems obstructive, and take a risk.

We find it exhilarating to watch wild animals chase prey, with total focus and concentration, fulfilling a vital need, which is why competitive sports are so attractive, where a clear and undivided attention towards a single objective gives an energy rush, even to the bystander. Having a passion, or specialising with narrow focus on mastering one skill or subject, is satisfying.

Having nothing that fully absorbs us for periods of time, we may be be tempted to roam in a vast sea of beautiful glittering mirror shards that will reflect a fuzzy sense of ourselves. But that’s fine too.

I had various passions in my life, which eventually come circling round to writing. One of my blog posts from last year contains a small excerpt from my second novel, where a character, Cara, shares a slice of the random processes of her mind. She turns out to be the myth-maker, the storyteller. If you’re a little peculiar, like me, you’ll grok this: https://courseofmirrors.wordpress.com/2012/05/10/the-wild-horse-of-the-mind/

I’m a dreamer. Like Cara shares in the excerpt, I occasionally like to let the horse of my mind run wild. I find wild things that way. Random, for better or worse, functions as the creative trickster in my writing, where distractions become allies. Sure, countless mental prompts heap up and demand execution. I procrastinate, adopting patience. My nagging voices are not jailers. They’re easily humoured until the time is right for a blitz of action.

In technological advanced societies, where the struggle for physical survival is being replaced by a struggle for identity, or its new definition, ‘brand,’ distracting prompts accumulate quickly. On the virtual stage I must become visible and speak up in order to engage with others. Love or hate the screens, messages keep wavering by. I become a switchboard for exceedingly complex influences. When switched on, I’m plugged into a bigger brain, the vast extensions of a collective nervous system. There is a challenged to assimilate differences and fast-changing knowledge. This calls for tolerance like never before. The Twitter stream, for example, of succinct messages and links, can be dizzying. However, if monitored and surfed with purpose, the information flow cuts through swaths of mindless, sensational news and opens meaningful connections across the world.

Fewer people are born into the blueprint of a tradition that defines them in terms of their roots, their country or family. The question – where do you come from – is shifting to – where do you put yourself, and to what purpose do you channel your energy?

Information available, the privileges we have, the choices and commitments we make, require astute intelligence of the heart, flexibility of mind, and they come with responsibilities. In today’s shadow play, we see people confront injustice head-on at the risk of becoming sacrificial heroes, which takes more courage than fighting a dragon. Others, like me, play subtler games. Those who have not found a purpose in their lives may get carried along by the sensation of it all, and continue searching for what matters most, for their deeper need.

So these are my reflection on the theme of distraction our friend introduced. We closed the meeting with a silence – an excellent practice for evoking a blank canvas/screen to re-draw one’s track on. Our time sees distractions speeded up, exposing us to multiple perceptions, some of them abhorrent to us, some of them uplifting. It is freed psychic energy that needs channelling. To develop a useful strategy for dealing with psychic energy we must look inside ourselves to find our homing device, our purpose, new communities, and new meaning.

I hope my reflections make you think about how you deal with distractions.

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Just discovered – a brilliant article in relation to our speedy electronic communications, it looks at the glitches that can reveal something truly distracting, and sobering … the mortifying ordeal of being known

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/15/i-know-what-you-think-of-me/?smid=fb-share&_r=2&

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May 20, 2013 · 10:14 pm

… consciousness – the mystery …

People who engage in therapeutic work with me often ask – why dig up my past, it holds pain, why look at attachment patterns, why explore the theme (myth) of my life? What a waste of time. I only want to get rid of my symptoms.

We all, without exception, suffered injuries. The creative question to ask is – how has the injury shaped my life, and what purpose does it serve? Many years ago, during a group dialogue following the inspirational talk of my Sufi teacher, we discussed three basic kinds of injuries. I connect my own experience to the third injury.

1 Having experienced physical injury can result in fight and flight behaviour – it brings a heightened sensitivity and develops a sharpening of the senses.

2 Having experienced sexual, sensual and emotional injury can result in escape from one’s self into others, estrangement from self, lack of differentiation and boundaries – the great challenge is to accept one’s self, differentiate as an individual from the tribe and take responsibility for one’s unique potential.

3 Having experienced injury on a cognitive level accelerates individuation – the escape is into deeper realities, a search for authenticity and truth and the development of symbolic reality – universal reality.

My novel, Course of Mirrors, is the fictionalised account of an aspect of my personal myth made universal – in the sense that memories of events don’t have to be real for a story to be true.

@ Natasha Tonkin

Even the most die-hard materialists among us grok that life is animated and guided by an all-pervading spirit? We are vessels, psychic switchboards for the spirit that animates and records all life.

An ungraspable phenomenon we try to name in vain.

Mental states pass through us. We call in and then process thoughts and feelings, seeking coherence, and – given we assign meaning to what happens to us – are gaining wider perspectives and deeper insights. With every new connection made and every little light brought to what is forgotten and unknown – collective consciousness grows.

Our body knows, if we care to notice, what stirs in our psyche, what wants to unfold and emerge. When energy flows freely through us our essential nature is uplifted, and our desire is aligned with the potential in us that seeks actualisation – in the way a cocoon reveals the butterfly. Our life has many cocoon and wing stages. The proverbial flutter that causes a stir in all spheres of the universe is like yet another love-transcended aspect of us emerging from yet another cocoon.

Presence, responding to situations, accepting differences and contradictions, frees energy that is ghosted and stagnant. While blocked energy creates frustrations and often painful symptoms, it is totally inevitable, since every organism evolves through condensed experiences. Life enhancing and life destroying events subject us to a pattern of repetition in time until we embrace change.

‘A truth outgrown crushes you under its weight.’ Fazal Inayat-Khan

To bring a repeating pattern to a higher level of flow requires a kind of quantum leap of consciousness. Small leaps occur frequently, especially when we befriend the unconscious and allow fresh symbols into awareness. The released light/energy brings new meaning and allows the self-actualisation of new potential.

‘It is obvious that the percolation of a timeless NOW is penetrating everything!’ – Philippa Rees

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The image above is by Natasha Tonkin, my son’s partner. It was done two years ago as Christmas card and gift idea towards illustrating my novel, to help bring it to life. I scanned and inversed the image for the mirror to appear light. Natasha’s animation website: http://pandahorse.com/

Link to a book I co-edited about the Sufi teacher I mentioned above, Fazal Inayat-Khan. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Heart-Sufi-Inayat-Khan-Reflections-ebook/dp/B00BFUO0T6/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1369084226&sr=1-1&keywords=heart+of+a+sufi

Link to ‘Involution,’ an exceptional book by a kindred spirit, Philippa Rees. http://involution-odyssey.com/ her book will soon hit the market. Her site is being developed.