CHAPTER THREE  -  Rumi. 

WEEK SIX. conversation by clair and tim

"Why do you stay in prison
when the door is so wide open?".
.

Rumi

 ~ ~ ~

its alot of conditioning... alot of layers laid down by a dedicated society/educational system and media to untangle, understand and decide upon...  layers well bound by zillions of days and 30's of years and a history which dates back to the beginning of time...

when i have seen that there is a door where i was lead to belive there wasnt, maybe i start to see its outline, the whole procedure is going to take oddles and oddles of time with lots and lots of unraveling...like a veryveryvery long jumper...and i realise right now, that even this thinking - 'that its gonna take time' - is slowing down and limiting my exit...!  and without these thoughts,  i might pave a quicker exit, and maybe even somtimes, i will leave like a ghost! ... effortlessly and with forward energy.......and .... freedom........!!!  yum....!!!  i'll be out and loop the looping!   @   *   !

clair

To acknowledge the door is to give the prison credence, to give it life. Maybe Rumi is questioning the existence of either-the door is *so* wide open because it isn't really there. If we see the door, we see the prison-yet we are already not incarcerated, we are already free. If only we could see so.

The layers that you speak of are real, they dampen our sensitivity to the freedom that is so close, a freedom that is only accessed in the present moment, so we can easily (if not voluntarily) flit between liberty and servitude, each breath bringing a gentle new moment that could be either.

T

mmm...interesting, you are saying that through the nature of there being a door there is in fact, by default, a prison?

c

If we imagine a perceived 'escape' route, we are allowing ourselves to acknowledge that we are walled in some way.  The very notion of saying 'there is no door' is a conscious step in the direction of freedom. By having no door, we have no boundaries, ergo we are free.

But we often do feel restricted, imprisoned, trapped and if some vague thought of thinking 'I am not trapped' was enough to free us in an instant, then perhaps we would all be doing it?! Or maybe it really that simple? I may adopt this notion right now and see where it leads me.

T
mmm...well do say where that notion in action leads you :)  

... so in acknowledging that there is a door, whether open or closed, you are feeling it is a restricting... but what if the room was desirable...most of us in england like a roof and walls - as long as there is a door which opens and closes.... but anyway, i think i know where you are coming from here...

the mind is the biggest organ of the body and contains a heart, it is super conscious super sub conscious.  it is more clever physically and emotionally than any other part of the body. it is a dream and it is a nightmare.... capable of bliss or touture, and anywhere in the middle and it is always somewhere on this spectrum...
c

Well, I have certainly toyed with the notion that we can be free by realising that we are already free...I like the concept (and I subscribe to the tenets of it) but it certainly is not instantaneous! That said, I have been thinking about the reasons that I sometimes feel restricted in my life and that has led me to think creatively about some very practical changes that I can make to address those areas. Perhaps the prison dissolves in degrees rather than a *kapow* ?

t

yes indeed and which returns me, to my beginning writing,..that its not just our mind but our society...our culture - where other cultures are celebrating life, living, community and freedom at the centre of their idelogly,  we are celebrating money as our form of wealth and fear as a way of control.

these teeth that we speak of, they actually dont let go, that easily...

but they do ease and cease over time and have started to ease much in my world, which feels like the way to go...! yay! and yay to all!! @  *

c

Sure, if you crave the perceived security of money, brick and mortar comforts and the like, you are building a new prison rather than escaping one! In my experience, people who stockpile money, possessions etc spend a lot of their time worrying that someone/something is going to take them away-no way to live, not for me anyway. As a wise man once said 'I was born with nothing and I've still g

ot most of it left' 

T

good work! @ *)
c
 

CHAPTER THREE  -  Rumi. 

WEEK FIVE. conversation by clair and melissa

"At night, your beloved wanders.
Don't accept consolations.

Close your mouth against food.
Taste the lover's mouth in yours".

.

Rumi

 ~ ~ ~

mmm....interesting this, 'dont accept consolations' (where colsolation means : the comfort you feel when consoled in times of disappointment....) mmm...

what does this mean...? ...dont let him or her go?  allow only one thing to touch your lips and that is the lips of your lover while staving yourself in the meantime...?...feels just a little bit unhealthy....

and  now i am feeling a little angre, this idea that we have to keep accepting and accepting, self harming as we go...

when sometimes its not right and its not okay and we have to look out for ourselves from our highest watch-out tower ... when we know that the sea is too black and too dark and too wavey and too poluted and too unstable and too unaware. and we just have to say no... and then eat something nice ;)

clair

'At night your beloved wanders' - At first glance this seems like it can be interpreted pretty easily: most of us have had first had experience with (or at least know) someone who 'wanders' from the ties of a relationship. But perhaps we can look at this line in a slightly more abstract way: perhaps the beloved which this line speaks of isn't a flesh and blood partner, but a memory, or even a pure creation. Maybe we're hearing about a dream, in which a person long lost, or never in existence at all, is free to wander, to become real.

'Don't accept consolations' - If I went with my first instinct, this line involved not basking in self pity, and the pity of others, for an unfaithful partner. But if we look at it in the same way as the previous line, it becomes 'don't accept consolations for a partner whose life was lost, or who never was at all.'

'Close your mouth against food' - Which first seemed almost like something you'd find on one of those dreadful pro-ana sites: 'stop eating, become beautiful, and your man will stay!' - now became something else entirely. If one wants to exist solely in their own dreams, in a reality created by ones self, one does not need the comforts of food. And on a slightly more grim note - if one essentially wants to dream forever, one must sleep forever, and withholding food is certainly a method for that.

'Taste the lovers mouth in yours' - A reward of not eating, then, isn't the return of an unfaithful lover, who ultimately becomes all the nourishment you need. The reward is to enter the place in which your lost or created lover becomes real, and can truly be tasted for the first time.

I'm not sure if that interpretation makes these lines beautiful, or just terribly depressing!

Melissa

hi melissa, 

i like this idea, that the wandering lover is not flesh or blood but a part of ourselves, a memory ....

it reminds me of an amasing song by leonard cohen who at the end of the song repeats 'dont go home with who you came with....dont go home with who you came with'  and later it become evident that he is not talking about the girlfriend/boyfriend/mother/friend sitting in the sit next to you, but yourself!!  yep!

clair

I've never heard that song, but you're right, it's the same idea! To go further on my previous point, I'm sure all of us have had one of those dreams where we create a person who feels so real that when we wake up, it's almost painful that they're gone. When reading those Rumi lines (with no prior knowledge of the piece as a whole), I can't seem to shake the image of an incredibly lonely person, who only truly feels 'alive', when dreaming. I suppose it's not that hard to understand: when you're dreaming, you're totally in control. It may feel like a series of random events, but in reality everything that happens is happening because your unconscious/subconscious mind wants it too. For lucid dreamers (such as myself...at times!) this creates a world of possibilities...especially for those who feel like they have little control over their own reality.

mmm the idea of lucid dreaming - (dreaming that you have control in creating) sounds amasing!! in fact, it begs questions around the differience in daily living and lucid dreamimg?? ..i guess real life has the potential of being more sustaining?  my dreams have got me thinking recently...ive been waking and my dream has redirected my day, what a life!  dreaming! ...quite awfal sometimes too!!

i think that Rumi was probably not a very lonely person but his words capture a lot of human emotion and human condition...  i find it interesting that as different as we all are, we find the same sort of feelings good and bad...like nobody sais they enjoy being lonely (although they might enjoy being alone) ... mmm

Lucid dreaming is definitely something incredible. I always used to be able to control the events of my dreams a bit, but as I've gotten older, it's become easier. I totally agree with you about the difficulty separating this kind of dreaming from reality. What's preferable, especially to someone down on their luck in the real world? 

Dreams have a large influence on me too, and I often find them inspiring. As a writer, I get lots of ideas through dreams, and it's rewarding to know that these ideas always existed in my head, just waiting for me to find them! 

how clever that is...!  is it a technique you had to work on...can anyone begin to lucid dream...?

i always find it quite astonising what we actually cunguar up... the images, the complexities, the story line....sometimes, i am in a quiz and although everyone around me is getting all the answers right and i am getting them all wrong, guess who is actually getting them all right ...! (and composing the questions at lightning speed ;) hee hee.

i am having difficutly sleeping, so after about an hour of lying awake feeling somewhat stressed i opened my window more for fresh air to think in (nearly always helps) and switched on my computor...feeling much better now ;))

c

CHAPTER THREE  -  Rumi. 

WEEK FOUR. conversation by clair and anna

"Sit down in the circle.
Quit acting like a wolf, and feel
the shepherd's love filling you".

Rumi

 ~ ~ ~

Am I a wolf?  Today I don't feel like the wolf.  Today I feel like the lamb.  No, not even the lamb, the rabbit.  Today I feel like a rabbit in the middle of a busy road, surrounded by flashing lights and roaring engines and swerving cars.  My husband is leaving me.  I discovered this morning, and by this afternon we've resolved to be grown up, and mature about it, we're civilised, we're appropriate, we're doing our best not to be socially awkward, but he's leaving me, and I feel like a rabbit on a busy road.  Maybe that's the fallacy of the western world -that even in your weakest, most vulnerable, most dangerously isolated moment you're still part of an economic and political system that makes you the wolf.  

anna

dear anna, 

we start out our writting week toether as strangers, i read your words above as my first contact with you and this contact seems to be at a very intense moment for you.   i feel your expression and honestly and your heart. 

~ ~ ~

for me it is the polical system, it is the govenment, it is the bank that it the wolf.  not me. and not you.  

~ ~ ~

i am a frowning light.  i am everso concerned with the unsoundness i see on earth.  and i am light.

i too, today,  have lived an emotionally difficult day ...

clair

Hi Clair,

So where is the line you have to cross to go from being lamb to being wolf?  From oppressed to oppressor?  Is it when I accidentally buy something that isn't ethically produced?   Is it when I switch over when the guilt-inducing charity ads come on the tv?  Is it when my (albeit meagre) savings are in a bank which invests in the arms trade?  Is it when I accept a system that is based on greed?  Is it when I turn on Friends instead of writing to an MP/CEO/Decision maker?  Is it when I don't hold my politicians accountable for their actions?  Is it when I buy another pair of shoes that could feed a family in sub-saharan Africa for a month?  Is it when I don't fight against the system with every penny, every second, every drop of blood, as I surely would if it was me, or my family being oppressed instead of some nameless other 6000 miles away?

I don't know.  But I'm reminded of that saying of Jesus' "It's easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven" and think today that might say: "It's easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a westerner to live an ethical lifestyle"!  I think it's a balancing act - maybe we have to find a way to live with the tiny things we do which make us complicit with the wolves without losing our minds, still never completely absolving ourselves of any blame at all?
Anna x

i hear you.    ... eventually,  i believe we ourselves are our best ownner, our best parent, our best  guide and our god.   looking after ourselves is our most precious and greatest responsibilty and only in doing this can we give the best to the earth, its animals and each other.  it is not selfish,  it is not greedy to be the best we can be and to give ultimate support to ourselves in this quest.

what we decide is' best' will be personal specific and part of being the best we can be,  is to make this decision wisely as well and re-jigging it where necessary.  and part of  fully  looking after ourseleves will involve our acceptance of things that are too difficult to sustainably do or feel....and to give ourselves some breathing space and acceptance for the fact that we are living in the western comsumerist world we do.

sustainability is of massive importance for burn out not to become a limiting factor so being too hard, too harsh, too disiplined or to be unforgiving, would call for eventual collapse/inability and dis ease and is not the way to ultimate heath.        

as they say, disipline the disapline

clair x 

I partially agree with you - our fundamental needs are for our own survival, but I think the problem (almost all of the problems, in fact) stems from situations when we consider our own survival in isolation.  I think to look out for yourself without giving any consideration to those around you allows you to disregard anything you do that hurts someone else.  This is what I think Rumi's saying about the circle - everyone is eye-to-eye in a circle, and you can't ignore the impact of your actions and words on others.  There's an old traveller saying that a story is told 'eye to eye, mind to mind and heart to heart'.  Not a bad lesson to live by? 

Anna x

exactly, part of looking after ourselves is to look after others treating them with respect and love... we completely do ourselves over if we treat people, other animals or our earth in any other way,  and, i belive, if we are well, our natural way will to be to do so.

 Sit down in the circle.
Quit acting like a wolf, and feel
the shepherd's love filling you.  rumi

this is a beautiful image... i feel today that the wolf  is all the distractions....all the drink and other drugs, all the consumption... all the kidding ourselves, all the desception and the lies... all the lies...all the ones to ourself and to the other...

clair X

 

definition of Complicity.   implies that one has significant, though not necessarily principal, responsibility.

CHAPTER THREE  -  Rumi. 

WEEK THREE. conversation by clair and joe

"Open your hands,
if you want to be held.".

Rumi

 ~ ~ ~

These two lines could be completly seperate together they work really well. But what if "Open your hands" is just another way of saying open your mind, i.e to touch things like rainfull at 2:30 in the morning while stood in your backgarden, while whistling "Paint it black" By the rolling stones. Lets face it everyone wants to be held!

joe 

every one wants to be held but can everyone allow themselves to be held or allow themselves to hold..?

...yes i think its another way of saying 'let love in'...and in its many forms...rainfall...deep dark winter nites or furry soft summer ones...

clai

What if its meant to be a purely literate meaning, not wanting someone to hold you physically but to listen to what you have to say, and then giving advice and help verbally. Maybe Rumi thought that this would be to simplistic though and too obvious, meaning people would glide over the importance of the sentance untill they struck on something thought provoking.

joe

i find that poets often speak as if from a place of knowing or absolute....like the poetic ideal here - to simply open your hands in order to be held...

im sure there is quite alot of truth in it and maybe in a more harmoniouss and emotionally healthy society such a simple and continual act might reep its' just rewards...

the question on my lips today is is  there enough love to go around ?  and i would like to ask a hundred people if they feel they are receiveng enough love.  and if not what the problem is...are our hearts in 'love drought'? ... has fear or hate got so heavily bound and woven in that love has muted, dried up or changed colour?

love is such and invisable thing...more so than other invisable things (like oxygen) . but my feeling is so long as there is this world/people/other animals and nature, the supply of love on this land should be unstoppable.......................................................................?
c

I think the reason you dont hear about love and passion as much as you do about hate and negtivity is the people dont buy newspapers for happiness. They buy them so their own mundane crap lives seem somewhat better. I have been with my wife since i was 16, im now 23, we have been married for 3 years this august and have a beautiful 4 month old girl called issabelle. Our lives are seemingly perfect weve not had to deal with tragedy or upset and so our outlook on life is allways positive. But as im in a band and write lyrics people will not want to hear about how lucky I am. So instead i look for the morose subjects that cross my path.
As for is there enough love to go around ponder this if you will, A billionaire who has only 2 months to live decided to re-write his will and leave his wealth to charitys and what not, 9 times out of 10 the family of the man would take court action against the will, they would try and angle at he wasnt in full controll of his brain as he was only a hares breath away from death when re-writing the will. These people would fight for years in the courts to ensure that the money they believe is their entitlement stays theirs.
 joe 

that sounds like a very beautiful situation, you and your little family, and so where do you draw your moroseness for your lyric writting from!? and how does this work for you.....yes there seems to be a poetry in sadness...

clai


When writing serious morose lyrics, I think up stories, like the song i have about a homeless man in the park, or my next door neighbours who argue. It works for me because i have a vivid imagination and can visulize how these people might feel.
 
Open your hands, if you want to be held,
close your eyes, if you dont want to see.
joe

oh i see, yes its funny what the audience wants to hear....although i think with regard to the media, and especially the news, its often that bad stories can be 'more bad' than good stories can be good...for example where rape and murder score quite hightly on the bad scale, the opposites - birth and making love, though are pretty good for the people involved, and not really news worthy .. :) 

clair

Well, Its the last day of correspondence, how should we draw this conversation to a close. I think we should go experimental, and do the following, i will write two lines of poetry and you write two lines, and so on untill we gedt to an end. Ill begin.

Time is on no ones side,
The hour glass is broke. 

let your hands and arms open freely

let the caged bird fly and see the love in her wings

do not question the reason why 

just take in the joy that freedom brings 

people make their own clothes for freedom

what is freedom for me is not for you

so freedom itself does not exsist

anywhere 

but in our minds eye.....?

thank you joe

clair

 

CHAPTER THREE  -  Rumi. 

WEEK TWO. conversation by clair and sister chris

"Drink all your passion,
and be a disgrace.

Close both eyes
to see with the other eye".

Rumi

 ~ ~ ~

I can see no better way to be disgraceful!

As for closing eyes, one deafblind man I used to work with had no sight at all but used to say: I can see far more with my third eye. He meant his spiritual eye. I think when we can see around us perfectly, we don’t always see – really see! I agree with Rumi that we have to close our eyes and allow that other eye to see.

Sister Chris

...i think rumi might mean, by the line 'drink all your passion and be a disgrace'  not to worry what other people think, be yourself, your very unique and true being...where 'disgrace' means not to be approved of by the next person...but to be truely acceptable to you yourself and in line with your own principles...

its interesting that i should write to you around this rumi line, (i hadnt pre-looked at the line before i asked if you would like to write) .... you being a nun...because as i read it i too thought of drinking and general headinism...and thought oh ! ...but then on looking again i felt the sentiment above...

the other  thing that happened yesterday is that a new friend of mine brought me two gifts that he had found, a pair of trainers and a bible...he said 'to protect'  i said 'is it a christian bible?', he said 'yes, it doesnt matter, it will just protect'.  he grew up in a musilim culture.

i dont feel to belive in organised religion and i thought recently that i belive more in a god with two o's  - 'good'...  though this can be hard to define ...

clair

Dear Clair,

 

This is my response:

 

I like what you say about being unique and not worrying about approval. If we are unique and already “approved of” in our uniqueness, then we don’t need to look for approval. But I think we need to live up to our uniqueness, not use it as an excuse for behaving badly.

 

I think God already has 2 o’s. But he has 1 o as well. I love the idea of being given a Bible and a pair of trainers to protect, and even more special being given them by a Muslim. He didn’t give you the Koran; he gave you the Bible.

 

I don’t think you can go far wrong if you believe in Good, Clair.

 

Sister Chris 

is god definatley a 'he' for you?  and does 'he' have a face or does he look like energy and what in colour? 

i have realised that belief in itself is exceptionally strong, strong enough infact to create...

 clair

Dear Clair,

 

God is “he” to me, mainly because I feel secure with that image. He doesn’t really have a face, but He is a kind and loving force, whose love I could always be sure of if nobody else in the world loved me.

 

I think belief creates, but belief is faith, and we can’t explain it. I don’t believe my faith could create a being as strongly in my mind if such a being didn’t exist. I’m so glad you’re talking about faith in our conversation, because I always fight shy of the subject, believing it to be intrusive in many people’s lives.

 

Thank you, Clair!

 

Sister Chris

god sounds like a positive force in your life and one that creates a lot of harmony and community...but so often i see religion segregate and divide people and nations (as much as unite them) and it is this that i find difficult.

community in our culture, and in my opinion, lacks ever so greatly and religion is one way place community can be nurtured and held and for this, it is aplaudable.  loneliness, unlike draught, seems unmathimatical...as there are soooo many people!! ...its like a tsunami where in yet everyone is so crazily thirsty !
clair

Hello Clair!

 

I think religion is used as an excuse for war and division. At the heart of every religion there is peace, unity, and a good routine for a fruitful life. But then you get extremists. They give religion a bad name. They mention it, but they don’t mean it – they don’t live it!

 

I agree totally about loneliness. Yes, people are crazily thirsty! Society encourages independence. You haven’t made it socially until you’re independent … even if you’re 90. You have to stay in your own place and get someone coming in twice a day. Other than that, life is lonely. Computers tell us to keep separate. Go on facebook, but don’t go out and meet the person. Send them an email even if you could turn round and talk to them! I believe in community. I think it’s what we’re about. When we were looking for a house to move to, we looked around for the greatest area of need. Where could we fit in? Where could we do some good for the people around us? Okay, we live in a Vicarage which isn’t the smallest of houses. We have a garage that I just keep the garden tools in. But the man opposite doesn’t have a garage and he likes to do DIY, so the garage is his when he needs it. It’s lovely to reach out into the community. That’s what I think faith is all about. It’s not just praying for people – it’s putting that prayer into practise.

 

Sorry to go on, Clair. I hope you’re not yawning. I shall miss our conversations when the week is over.

 

My love and best wishes,

 

Sister Chris

yes, ive been considering recently that our society seems to be strangely invested in creating fear in us, and i speak specifically about  fear around strangers.  from a very early age society teaches us 'unknown people fear'....our parents begin by teaching this to us which they themselves were taught, our 'teachers' teach the same and our media also... almost investing in keeping us apart form each other.

have you heard about couch surfing?  its a worldwide community who lend their sofas/spare rooms/homes/free time, to people who are travelling and wish to stay with them for free.  in this way, strangers stay in each others houses/homes. couch surfers then give those they put up and those they were put up by, reference's, and which go on their profile.   for me,  this is an example for the massive breaking down of this conditioned stranger fear thinking. .

of course, i understand that sometimes people do cruel things, but my suggestion is that this issue is not helped by a society who protects us by keeping us apart and who teaches distrust and aloneness.  my implication being, that in some way, this teaching of fear thinking (in the name or disguise of  protection), is actually acting to promote anti social behaviour... a society that expects and teaches that people are going to be hurtful (and hurt), to rage or to murder, creates exactly this, the side effect being a massive lacking in community spirit, separatness, anziety, depresion, lonelyness, sadness, unnurture and unfullfillment
clair

Dear Clair,
I think what you’ve written – particularly the last paragraph – is a brilliant description of what society conditions us to be like and the effects. I didn’t know about couch surfing, but you know, as I was reading it I was thinking: “I don’t know how I would feel about that. If I didn’t know the person …” That’s exactly what we’re taught to think from very young children. But in fact, we have a spare room here to put people up. We usually know them, but people sometimes just contact us from the internet. Some of them give us a donation, but others just stay and we don’t worry. We just consider that some people are able to be more generous, and so it covers for the people who stay for nothing.
I think there are all the feelings you mentioned when people are not used to being part of a community or accepted by it: separateness, anxiety, depression – a lack of confidence too, I think. And just not knowing how to be part of a wider family. I think it does lead into crime, rage and even the desire to murder – to get back at this community in which they have no part. I heard of somebody stealing, because he felt nothing but anger for the whole of society, and he had no worry about hurting or damaging the people he was stealing from. When he went to prison, he discovered a whole community for the first time in his life!
Deep, deep, deep! We have quite a lot in common, Clair, that we wouldn’t have discovered without these conversations.
My best wishes,
Sister Chris

i am almost charmed by the idea that this man discovers community on being put in prison.

light shines brighter around every shadow.

i remember a friend of mine saying that it is only when something breaks, his washing machine doesnt work or his house is leaking that he has the need to reach out to community, to re-engage and to be part of..

within our society individual flats, houses and  all this technology offer great sanctuary, safety and convience but all too often, with the hefty price tag of a lonely world.

thank you for writting with me sister chris. 

a  real pleasure

clair :)

Dear Clair,

 

I don’t know if I’m supposed to respond or whether we have come to the end of our week. But I’m responding just to be on the safe side. I think high rise buildings are a good means of isolation. When I lived in Birmingham , they began pulling them down and building neat little houses with miniature front gardens. But this was only because people were being followed into lifts and assaulted. One lady was killed by a man who had followed her into her own front door. But this is why they pulled the flats down – not because people had already said they were isolated and lonely and frightened and away from the rest of community, but because somebody had been killed!

 

Why can isolation not be a good enough reason? Why do people have to see community only from 20 floors up? Why do they have to look down on it like some stranger from another planet? It’s their community – our community!

 

I’m preaching in Church tomorrow, Clair! I reckon I’m practising for it now!

 

It’s a real pleasure writing with you too!

 

Sister Chris

CHAPTER THREE  -  Rumi. 


WEEK ONE. conversation by clair and emmanual

1

"there is a community of spirit
join it and feel the delight
of walking in a noisy street 
and being the noise".
Rumi
 

~ ~ ~

The place where we are all one

where we are in communion

is right here right now

whether in nature

in the temple

or on the high street

Spirit embraces all

unconditionally

and we are all that

One Spirit

Hare Krsna

emmanual

does that stop us feeling lonely?

clair

Yes
Loneliness is forgetting
And that is ok too.
X

lonliness is forgetting?  in what way is lonelyness forgetting?
c

Why do you ask me questions you know the answer to?
Forgetting there is no separate self, become the noise, embrace it all, delight in the freedom from the idea of your little self that says no to this yes to that, noise is music too, noise is music that is more than your idea of music, the spirit is more than your idea of spirit, remmember that, don't judge life and search for God, you are life and life is God, delight in that. X

i see, that type of forgetting.  it seems that forgetting is the main trouble here then... or is it not knowing or not feeling all of these bigger connctions?

since there is so much phyical and emotional lone and loneiness i can only inagine that people have lost the roots to this connection and so extremely that lonliness is a number one dis ease in many of the towns and cities that i have known.  even if you are right, how can this knowing (ops of forgetting) spread around the corners of this room, this street, this city, and the corners of this world?

my feeling is that this knowing in itself is not enough.

this thought has inpired me to look up with species of animal who live in packs and not alone, the list follows...


monkeys, most lemurs, apes (except orang-utans), wolves, dingoes, African wild dogs, dholes, bush dogs, lions, hyenas, elephants, most deer and antelope species, horses, dolphins, rats, buffalo, bison, ants, bees, termites, some wasps, banded mongooses, meerkats, dwarf mongooses, naked mole rats, and numerous species of bird and fish.  this list is not exhaustive ...

humans seem to be  somehwhere in between, pairing off rather than herding off as well as needing some time alone...

i have seen (and felt) that people stop growing their happiness levels when they are alone too much of the time, there is somethig about sharing time which is essential for most human being to reach their capasity for happiness (although hanging out with the wrong people can obviously work in the opposite way).

its more sunshinny today .)

clair

yes yes yes
but that is ok too
that is the main point
all embracing
the whole universe
is in such a precise and delicate balance
that the slightest change in regularities would cause it to collapse
making space for a whole new universe
that is physics
physics is Spiritual
no mistakes, yes to mistakes
yes to suffering, suffering is Love too
we are not disconnected but the feeling of disconnection
is part of the Love Play of creation
we experience a sense of disconnection
and that is part of the miracle
in devotional Love of God
the sense of separation is a Spiritual mood
an emotional flavor
Rumi cries about it often almost relentlessly
at the same time as he cries with the ecstasy of communion
there is a Spiritual mood for every known emotion
including loneliness
they are all to be cherished in relationship to God
to each other
to God in each other
i love the feeling of longing for my lover
feeling the absence of my Lover is Love
are you lonely?
am i?
do you Love loneliness?
the longing for God
is the evidence of God.... 
e

there is a beauty to longing because longing is romantic imagination at its fullest...its just sooooo full of imaginations and thoughts, full of stars and words...night falls at the moment we wish for it, day breaks in the moment we are ready, sun shines and when rain falls we are not alone.

c 

How could we ever be alone, at worst we are with our idea of ourselves, connected, disconnected, communion, separation, who chooses, Christians call it Grace, Bhaktas call it uncaused mercy, what does Rumi call it, did you know he never wrote a word, he had thousands of disciples and he just spewed this stuff out while one of them took notes, like Jesus, Buddha, Krsna, Rumi did not exist, he is simply one of Gods' ideas about us..... X

e

thinking about lonelyness makes me think about relationships and those of all animals.  the following animals are momogamous :

wolves, beavers, malagasy jumping rats, praifie vole, black vulture, bald eagles, dikdiks which is an african dwarf antelope


all but the antelope possess high demards of child care which gets split between male and female, so there is biological reasoning associated with their monogamy.  the male antelope leaves all child care to the female and so its reason for monogamy must reside in something other.

90 percent of birds are monogamous and that follows because they have to incubate the egg - a lot of work.  


since there are over 5000 species on earth there works out to be only about 3 percent of animals who are monogamous...do you think animals feel less jealouly than human animals? ... and maybe their next partner is just around the corner (as they not worried about whether he has long or short hair, he is creative/vegetarian or what his political beliefs might be)...?
c


The lovely thing about being an animal is that you don't need to worry because you haven't got the physical capacity to change much about your conditions, we can only speculate about the quality of their consciousness
The lovely thing about being a human is that the delusion of individual self and free will makes the story of our lives believable and therefore livable in the face of any experience....
e


the deeper the go the sometimes more beautiful.  the deeper you go the possibly more complex. the deeper go go the possibly less ignorant.  but is innocence is bliss?
c 

If by innocence you mean a mind in its pure and natural state, its original state that underlies all its psychological comings and goings I would say yes, innocence is bliss. X

e


horrah and yes indeed, thanks e

 .)

c

 

album cover, leonard cohen from 'songs of love and hate', 1971

CHAPTER TWO - Leonard Cohen

WEEK TEN. conversation by clair and sarah

 

10

"Yes, and thanks for the trouble you took from her eyes, I thought it was there for good, so I never tried"    lenoard cohen

~ ~ ~

this is one of my favourite lines....the generosity of cohen in praising the other man for the giving of a flake of his life, this flake being the one which took the trouble from her eyes...lovely... surrended and undefensive.  we could all take a leaf out of this book...

clair

I realise I have heard this song before, but have never really listened.  How beautiful...

Lyrically, it reminds me of a time in Greece when I gave from the depths of myself and let go.  Was such a painful time, but then to give and release left me with such an inner calm and strength.

...most people run from pain to pleasure.  But we need to experience pain to really understand pleasure...

sarah

mmm...yes i think that our bodies are very clever...all this stuff we call pain is possibly just pleasure or calm in the making...how we fret to get out of it, to get away from it, but let that pain just be and it will slowly seep away...

its a funny thought though - pain coming as your friend or to heal you ...

clair

I have found that emotional pain is a great teacher of life and though difficult, to embrace it will free you... as you say, let it be and it will slowly seep away.  A part of my loss I see as a gift.

Of course though, it's also very pleasant to not have an abundance of pain and to enjoy the light and love in life!

sarah

A part of my loss I see as a gift.  gosh, great, i know what you mean...

when it happens to me...sometimes small things...nearly every time i am confronted with some inconvience or difficulty... i realise, its all in the way you look at it, and that very thing can morf into a little gem of learning or experience. 

i must say though that sometimes things happen too many times and i'm left thinking that ive done my learning and that they might be better getting lost in the forest ... hee hee

clair

Exactly... As you know, I was haunted by an uneasy anxiety with pinpoints of panic.  Then one day as the panic was rising, I decided to say "hello" to this old friend.  Without any resistance this feeling lost it's power and went off to get itself lost in the forest.  Hurray!

sarah

nice one sarah ...maybe we have so much more power than we think... and maybe the power is in the facing rather than the hiding... three cheers!  :)) X

c

album cover, leonard cohen from 'songs of love and hate', 1971

CHAPTER TWO - Leonard Cohen

WEEK NINE. conversation by clair and chris

 

9

"If you ever come by here for Jane or for me.  Well,  your enemy is sleeping and his woman is free"
lenoard cohen

~ ~ ~

i am not the gatekeeper, the parks grown too wild, the chain rusted through long ago. You cant stop a flower scent cant stop the bees, cant stop a maiden so eager to please.

chris

indeed... the ideas around possesion keep rising up.  theres nothing to stop or to start it in relationship... is just is or it isnt (and anywhere inbetween).  she will give what she can and what she feels to. he will do the same. she is always free but might choose to share physical love with just one. and he might choose to do the same.

but here leonard cohen implies that the 'ememy' would have to be asleep (off guard) for this women to be free..?

clair

I think the key implication for me here, is a shared vulnerability to intrusion or loss and sleep,a deliberately ambiguous metaphor providing cover and multiple meaning to the exact nature of  relationship between the two persons, there circumstance, and whatever the enemy is, or could be.

Unless, of course, you know the entire lyric, and interpret the lines within that context.

I prefer not knowing, its more fun...!  Makes me think of Viking raids...and pre-raphaelite nymphs screaming as they run into the dark forest for cover !

Chris 

how the dark forest covers you, with all its branches and bracken and insects and noices... funny how we run for dark cover...and trust that cover...

clair

I find myself running for Duvet cover, I trust that cover with my life and with my dreams, i never think of think of the door to my room because it is made of steel and will never be broken whilst i sleep.

Sometimes the room becomes a prison that i made with my own bear mind and the other bears cant find me there, smarting, heaving, waiting, wanting.

chris

i like that...that last sentence...i know... sometimes i think that nobody knows that i'm here... like we turn invisable and silent...

i have been having the deepest siesta sleep... my body is so deep in them, so in the dreams, it refuses to come out without a tug of war style struggle between the two sides, the one who really wants to get up and the one that really doesnt want to...and then eventually i am flipped up and out like a pancake and into the world again... looking for lemon and sugar...
clair

album cover, leonard cohen from 'songs of love and hate', 1971

CHAPTER TWO - Leonard Cohen

WEEK EIGHT. conversation by clair and jes

 

8

"And what can I tell you, my brother, my killer, What can I possibly say?
I guess that I miss you, I guess I forgive you, I'm glad you stood in my way"
lenoard cohen

~ ~ ~

"whoever meets me will kill me!"   Mr Cohen, Mr Priest do you think you are the ghost of Abel the Shepherd? Then I will be Cain,  Qaheen the vegan son from Eden...son of Adam or the Serpent either way, the one who stayed with the original plan that 'Elohim'  gave mankind the fruits of the Earth to eat and the seed bearing plants.  Abel the Shepherd went against this- the first step of mankind losing contact with the innocent terror of Eden, the losing of contact with Nature, with animals being turned from companion status into a resource status. By the book of Leviticus the priests, the Cohenim are given detailed instructions of how to eat animals. The Tribe has truly fallen. Cohen! You and I are dead by now. The Mark of Qaheen has been surgically removed with the rest of our excuses. I don't need your forgiveness. You fucked up. And yes, I stood in your way- but you stood in the way of LIFE ITSELF. I could not set you straight. Fool. Now our children all suffer. Where's that candlestick maker? SETH!!

jes

indeed, those that pertray, pertray everyone and mostly and excruciatingly, themselves.  we can live and learn but we can not sacrifice life, sacrify animals, and our beautiful life giving earth again again again and again for our own greed/habit and egocentric concern.  it is not in peace. it is not the way.  no human has the god given 'mark of cain (or Qaheenn)' or indeed gets excused. and in this way  nobody sets her or himself free.

the earth is our life line. our heart. our soul. and such manner hurts all...

"And what can I tell you, my brother, my killer, What can I possibly say?
I guess that I miss you, I guess I forgive you, I'm glad you stood in my way" cohen


great learning and great love can come from things that can feel uncomfortable... i think  the use of the word 'killer' by cohen here refers to him being hurt/taken from/broken down or taught...but not actually killed...

clair

forgiveness is a funny idea, isn't it? I keep thinking of Nature as a Mother Goddess being the All-Forgiver- with capitals- the way that if we stopped using our scars of roads they would be healed up and grassed over in ten years... but the roads aren't as bad as the plastic, the half-life of plastic bags that only poets can forgive with their blessed "flowers of the desert" perceptions... but our social misdemeanors, challenges and learning processes are as gone as a photograph of a river.  

your words remind me that Blue-Eyed Jesus said "the Truth will set you free". The prison is illusion. With understanding comes the wisdom of forgiveness- beyond forgiveness- Nature HERSELF
Jes 

"if we stopped using our scars of roads they would be healed up and grassed over in ten years..."

 all the scars we have made... i like the way you have put this...all the poison we've tipped in to landfill and oceans leaving the earth darkered and bruised and yes, as you say, given a different treatment, would heal up and reaturn to its original life and colour.  

actaully i really like the idea of plastic bags being the desserts roses, sinful as that might be...  i guess it just so sparse there and so empty that a plastic bag might almost be quite welcome, all massive and crunched up...

for me, nature neither forgives or holds back forgiveness. it just is and what that 'is' is forced and pushed and driven into different directions and forms... some of them being death. 

essentially, nature 'natrually' is pro-life but i'm not sure how nature feels when that life is threatended or taken completely away, do you?...

clair 

Wow this is nice, I think I disagree...I think Nature is pro "LIFE/DEATH" being a unified/unifying process, the opposite of which is EXISTENCE which is the resistance and fear of LIFE/DEATH...and that our mission of humans is to reject the lure of EXISTENCE  and become ourselves the pulse of LIFE/DEATH itself.  So I think by these terms you are describing EXISTENCE rather than Great Mother Nature...?  I wonder if I have written enough to be clear...I FEEL clear...XJes

but how does nature feel?  nature doesnt exsist in the realm of feeling?

it is natrual for us to feel and we are part of nature so yes nature feels.

this doesnt feel particualy useful as i can see that we are all part and product of each other... but in this time... in this moment.... a stone is different to us

a stone is the same as us.

why dont we go and feed it porridge then?

it is porridge, thats where porridge comes from.

om. limitless mystical silence

jes

well yes indeed, and absolutley ... :)

clair X