Month: June 2013

Looking into fire and darkness

Our memories span more than our history. Our memories span the time our race spend on this earth gathering lessons and trying to understand the shadows and light. The fire and the abyss.

When we stare into the fire and see figures dancing in it or watch the darkness of night shift form while staying an open abyss we dive into our ancestral and hidden memory and open ourselves to it’s lessons but also to its downfalls.

We go into darkness from light and seek fire as illumination and thus create both sight and shadow. Within shadow lies the fear of the unknown our ancestors had and in our attempt to avoid the realm of not knowing we begin to make up things which are not there. The load becomes much lighter in life by accepting we do not even understand fully what is in front of us and a vale of false pretence is lifted off us.

Here are two drills to illustrate this:

1 In an open space have two or more people walk through you with you avoiding contact. We change this known drill by addin one simple rule. You cannot look at the people coming at you and once you see then you must move your gaze onward. Knowing what you do not see can be very affective in getting connected to nature without the shadows getting in the way.

2 Walk around your house slowly with your eyes closed and listening feeling and tasting you work to avoid all walls and contact besides your floor. Move slowly if you wish to open the door to this. If you like me need to support glasses avoid leading with your nose…

No emply places

Often people look at a bird flying without noticing all the air around it. A tree is remarkable for its leaves and branches but people miss out on the spaces between them and the light which passes between them.

Physical

Stand in front of each other and ask your partner for the drill to slowly hit your face. We choose the face to further free the eyes at all ranges. As the movement toward you happens notice the space created by the moving body and limbs and allow the strike to land softly a few times. Next move your arms from the open space between the arms and the body to affect his movement so you are not escaping the strike but adding to it. From self control we begin to affect others and becoming aware of the empty space will remove a rather thick cloth from your eyes.

Emotional

Look or think of something you feel strongly about. A loved one, an enemy and so forth. Count what you consider their virtues and slowly run down toward the neutral qualities such as taste in food and go to what you consider negative such as enjoying Brussels sprouts and racism. Reverse the scale and see the same qualities working to find the good in the bad and vice verse  so you can see the open spaces in your emotional picture taking and again self awareness is freedom.

Mental

Take a look out the window or simply look at a batch of nature. Even the most urban place has nature from flies to tell you who left food or bait out to moss telling where moisture seeps. Find two objects and divide the space between them and find something in the middle. It can be a crack in the sidewalk, the trail of a slug or the direction where a motor is running. Continue until you have no place to cut and start again. This way you clean out the notion that there is space without a happening within it and you will be open and free to note smaller and less educated sign. For example if you walk in a savanna and suddenly the birds stop chirping before dusk becomes dark it is a very serious sign. If you walk down the stairs and suddenly the staircase stops cracking it is also a sign. Tread with care.

Repeat the same drill with a partner and give each other your landmarks and learn from your close but different points of view.

TYPES OF FEAR

Fear of the body of any switch from the status quo. The body has no knowledge of hospitals or medical help. Any injury can prevent producing progeny and thus logically should be avoided. Any unknown range of movement for example belongs in this unknown and if we made it to this day without it, it is not a must.

Fear of the unknown as a risk that cannot be estimated. What is behind door number two? What lies beneath me in the dark?

Fear of the imagined unknown. How will the limb coming my way augment chances of me eating solid foots in the near future and so on. This usually results in us acting on those imagined futures and missing out on what is happening now.

Fear that comes from our genes: fear of loud noises and heights and mothers in law if you are of Polish decent. Trying to overcome it instead of accepting it will result in ulcers cancer and the like. Listening to these fears openly and honestly will result in being a reasonable person who can put them in the right place when needed.

Fear of the mind from any switch from the social status quo. The human animal survives in groups and must therefore abide by the laws of the group. Any chance of ostracizing by the group may result in death and lack of progeny.