not native fruit

response to solitude, etc

A friend who has been a Buddhist nun for 20 plus years wrote this response to my previous blog, and I asked her if I might share it here:

Shonen

I don't know anything about what they call Artemesian solitary austerity or the joyous union of Aphrodite, though I can guess, but I understand the difference she paints between the misogynist patriarchal structures and the more balanced contemplative  formats. I wonder if anyone really knows anything about these groups devoted to Artemis or Aphrodite, and whether they really were based on feminine principles. It seems to me, since they were dominant power structures in their cultures, they still may have been controlled by men, but it seems to me it's hard to discern what really went on from the available information. In any case, in a perfect world, or organization, there needs to be,  I think, a balance between action with focus, which I think is the masculine principle, and feeling receptivity, the feminine.  Chastity is definitely a character quality that can be expressed whether one is in a
sexual union or not. And I think this is a point well taken:   Anxiety towards the opposite sex and a solitary life are two realities which should not be confounded."    Nor do I think solitary contemplation and joyous union are mutually exclusive. It seems to me that many monastic orders have become dangerously one-sided. It says very clearly in words attributed to Jesus that One must love the Lord your God, AND your neighbor as yourself. Not Love God OR your neighbor. So we need to have that relationship with God, which fuels a relationship with other persons, and allows the practice and application of what is given and felt in the God contemplation. The vows of poverty, chastity and obedience are wonderful, I think, when taken spiritually, but when usurped by a materialistic patriarchal structure for the purpose of worldly authority and control are perverted and extremely detrimental.  Who is more poor of self than a mother or caregiver, who expresses
divine love in tenderness, nurturing and patience with a child? Who is more chaste than a lover, wife or husband, who is loyal to their partner and believes in their loveliness through many cycles of life? And who is more obedient than one who refuses to do what they are commanded to do out of obedience to the commandment to love their neighbor? But of course those acts don't fit into a traditional monastic format.  I would say Principle, or law/truth is a masculine function, and Love, the feminine, and both are necessary to manifest Life in creation.

Thanks for the food for thought!

non-reductive physicalism: soul

My friend Nancey Murphy, a philosopher and theologian, has developed a philosophical theory called 'non-reductive physicalism.'  I've been in this camp for about twenty years now, and am happy that someone has been able to create a coherent philosophy to account for this stance.  I'm just an ordinary person who is 'living' my philosophy, finding support for it, thinking it through, but not in any systematic philosophical way, so I appreciate her work very much.  I'd like to respond to it here on the blog, with some of my own discoveries that match up with what she is saying.  So, here goes:

In discussing the origin of the problem of soul-body dualism, Murphy writes: "For many Greek thinkers reality was conceived as a hierarchy of beings exhibiting varying degrees of materiality.  ONe important conflict in ancient philosophy concerned the question whether the soul belonged to this gradation of material realities."  (p.3, Whatever Happened to the Soul)  In other words, is the soul a material entity, albeit of a subtle quality of matter?  "Plato described the person as an immortal soul imprisoned in a mortal body.  Origen (185-254) followed Plato in teaching that the soul is incorporeal and eternal, pre-existing the body."  (pp3-4, ibid)  It is easy to see how, in our scientific post-modern age, this kind of concept of the soul is no longer acceptable.  I don't think it's necessary for me to describe here why this body-soul or body-mind dualism is no longer acceptable, but I can refer you to Murphy's book, 'Anglo-American Postmodernism,' if you are interested in further reading on this subject. 

Thomas Moore, on the other hand, represents a psychological, non-dualistic approach to the soul au courant today, when he writes: "Soul is an elusive word.  For many, soul is an invisible but finite essence, made of some spiritual substance, that keeps the body together and functioning in life and flies off to another dimension at death.  In relation to the body, it is like a genie in a bottle." (p.40, The Planets Within, the Astrological Psychology of Marsilio Ficino.)  Clearly Moore does not agree with this understanding of the 'soul.'  His book's subject is Marsilio Ficino, a Renaissance hermeticist.  "The soul Ficino places at the center of his professional and personal life is not this creature of folk religion.  For him soul is a quality of existence, a quality rather than a quantity.  For that reason it is better to speak of soul rather than a soul.  When we say that a person has soul, we usually mean that he shows evidence of internal movement.  People who clearly have soul show a certain depth, vitality, individuality, familiarity with pain and death, and good humor.  Soul is also depth, a metaphor we use to point to a certain intensity of experience.  With soul, events are not merely two-dimensional; they carry an invisible but clearly felt dimension of depth, a reverberation and resonance carrying through beneath the surface of everyday experience."  (pp.40-41, ibid)

Murphy looks at other ancient conceptions of soul that are more 'vitalistic' than substantive.  "Aristotle thought of the soul not as an entity, but more as a life principle.  He illustrates the relation of soul to body with an analogy: if the eye were a complete animal, sight would be its soul." (p3, ibid)  This view is about potency, what Thomas Aquinas called 'virtue,' from the Latin, vir, 'male power.' Soul and virtue in this sense are similar to the Asian images of 'qi' (China) and 'prana' (India), the energetic source of power and movement in matter.  In fact, this image of the eye and sight is very similar to the Bhagavad Gita's way of indicating the presence of divinity in matter.  Krishna says, "Of luminaries, I am the radiant sun, and of lights in the night, I am the moon.  Of words I am OM, and of prayers I am the prayer of silence. Of things that move not I am the Himalayas.  Among things of purification I am the wind, and of all things that measure I am time. Among creators I am the creator of love."    

These images suggest both Aristotelian potency and also Ficino's essence.  These are not merely images of 'greatness' or power but also of essentials, of that which 'means' the very thing that is alluded to.  The sun is the prototype of all illumination, (who can hold a candle to the sun?), and the very nature of 'light' during the darkness of the night is indeed imaged by the Moon. Om is the sacred sound that underlies all sound and all words.  In need of an image of the essence of 'that which moves not' what could be more dramatic and complete than an image of the Himalayas?  The wind in many indigenous cultures signifies purification and change.  And what is more creative than love?

In other translations: I am "The policy of conquerors, the potency of kings, The great unbroken silence in learning's secret things; The lore of all the learned, the seed of all which springs" -(this is from Sir Edwin Arnold's translation on line).  Anyway, I'm sure you get the idea.  "Among winds (I am) the whirlwind, and (I am) Wisdom Supreme of what is wise, Words on the uttering lips am I, and the eyesight of the eyes" - the very same image used by Aristotle and making the same point.

To be continued...And I suppose I ought to add a few words about myself to explain why I'm doing this writing.  I was a philosophy student at UC Berkeley briefly - however, I had been accepted into the department which was quite an honor in itself.  I later studied liberal theology at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, graduating with a master's degree in 1985.  I went on to study indigenous medicine and healing systems, and am a self-published writer living in Berkeley.  I've always been interested in etymology and the way the meanings (and sounds) of words change over time.

north pole sunset

 

"This is the sunset at the North Pole with the moon at its closest point last week.
a scene you will probably never get to see in person, so take a moment and enjoy God at work at the North Pole.
And, you also see the sun below the moon, an amazing photo and not one easily duplicated. 
You may want to pass it on to others so they can enjoy it.
The Chinese have a saying that goes something like this:
'When someone shares with you something of value, 
you have an obligation to share it with others!' 
I just did.. Your turn"

A friend sent this to us.  Isn't it beautiful? 

I like the passage too - reminds us of just how much God doesn't need us - God's been having fun creating effects like this for untold millenia.  I've heard it said that we are here because God wanted His or Her handiwork to be appreciated.  My question is - How good a job are we doing at that?  Is that really our top priority?

pear-tree collage

 
 
Loren left a comment about images that reflect who we are, and I thought I would post this collage, which is based on a dream-image I later worked with using 'active imagination' during contemplative prayer.  I tried to draw the scene, but was not satisfied with the result, so I resorted to clip art to create this collage. The original dream image featured myself sitting on a bench beneath a heavily-laden pear tree, outside the gated, walled-garden of my home.  Sometimes I would sit alone on that bench, and at other times passers-by would sit down with me.  Sometimes we would talk, sometimes I would listen and at other times we might both just sit together in silence.

I think this may perhaps be a rather odd vocation, but it seems to be mine.  I've managed to translate my vocation into work (in different forms at different stages in my life: pastoral visitor, acupuncturist, elder companion), and using this image in active imagination I was even able to view a future event that was quite meaningful in my life.  Later, after I became initiated into the Sufi Order of the West in 1988, you can imagine my surprise when I discovered that my 'sufi name' is often written calligraphically in the form of a pear!

It seems to me that in our culture we are bombarded with images of certain kinds of people: businesspeople, sports people, music-culture people, celebrity stars, and to some extent political icons.  We fancy that we 'know about' such people thanks to their prominence in the media, but do we really?  It seems as if these are really the only choices of how to be.  But actually, there are all sorts of other kinds of people who rarely make an appearance in film, sit-coms, the news, or even in documentaries.  People who have vocations such as mine do not make a lot of money, as a general rule, and so we are probably not considered to be attractive subjects for the media.  There are a few exceptions, 'Babette's Feast,' the Danish film from the '80's, some of our films that feature western types living in solitude on remote ranches (can't think of any titles, just images from a few films), and I'm sure you could also name several more.

spiritual art appreciation

What child enjoys solitude?  Probably not many, and I can't say that I exactly enjoyed it, but the hours of solitude I experienced as a child led me to a vivid appreciation for 'reality' - a sort of heightened sense of wonder, a fascination with form, color, line, dimension and texture - all the elements necessary to mastery of the visual arts.  My mother felt conflicted about art.  She sent me for free art classes sponsored by the Philadelphia School system on Saturdays, but she literally drew the line at that.  When I went to high school, things like 'art school' (sic) had to stop, (even when my work was being featured by my teachers). The nuns would not allow an 'academic track' student to take art, etc, blah, blah, blah.  Anyway, I continued to dabble in the subject, taking an art history class in my freshman year (and only year) of college, and learning a few things about how to 'see' as an artist: perspective, etcetera.  I suppose, if I'd been a 'real artist' I would have felt compelled to create art anyway, and not just in the desultory way I went about it, everyone once in a while having a burst of expression, creating drawings for a calendar one year, 'illustrating' a 'novel' I'd written another year.  (All of these things were thrown away by my mother, because my work included sexual themes among the other more intellectual themes - I was interested in history and archaeology at the time.) 

But none of this is the point.  What I would like to say is that the real impetus behind my drive towards art, whether visual art or literary art, was a kind of Love.  I loved the forms, the colors, the lines, the textures, the surreal sense of the unreality of dimension.  I wanted to express this love by re-creating what I saw.  However, although I did indeed show early promise for being able to do that, I lacked the amount of practice necessary to achieve any kind of technical competence.

Instead, I find, when I look back over my life, that I have 'collected' examples of truth and beauty that satisfied my sense of artistic wonder.  Many of those examples collected over the years have disappeared.  At certain times, there was almost a glut of examples, so that I became lulled into thinking they'd always be there.  Now it is nearly impossible to find some of those images, at least not without paying substantially.  Interesting.  However, I do still have some pictures, passages I've copied from books, books of photography, etcetera.  I find it odd that I chose to collect rather than create, without really intending it consciously.

I understand some of the obstacles to my creativity.  For a long time, I felt that I just didn't have the right.  I didn't have the kind of background or education that others seemed to have, who seemed able to create at a level I could only aspire to.  Then, it always seemed as if I were just going to be playing catch-up.  Then, also, I channeled so much of my artistic, visionary impulse into prayer, spiritual reading, participation in the kind of imaginative spiritual groups that were popular in the 1970's.  Soon, things got really serious, and the representative of the diocese suggested I attend theology school to have a career as a 'lay-minister' in the catholic church, and I began to think more seriously about a career in spirituality and 'healing.'  I began to develop a different skill set. 

So, yes, I can see the evolution of my life and how I diverged from the path of artistry to which I had been originally attracted.  I'm wondering what my options are now, at this stage in my life (being sixty now).

bathing cap

I need to buy a new bathing cap.  The black one I now own is starting to split.  Sometimes I feel like I'm measuring out my life in new bathing caps - (how pathetic) - which I always purchase at Mary's and Joe's Sporting Goods in Albany.  Let's see, I guess I've been buying bathing caps there for thirty years.  I used to swim at the Albany High School pool, and now I swim at the Y in Berkeley. 

The store is still owned by Mary's and Joe's family.  My partner, G, used to eat breakfast every morning with Joe at the counter of the old Golden Bear restaurant at Gilman and San Pablo, now Genki Japanese food.  I remember Joe, a sharp spare man with a narrow face and thinning hair, a small smile playing always about his lips and a sparkle of slightly devilish humor in his eye.  Joe died suddenly in his fifties of a heart attack.  It was difficult at first, but Mary and their kids and grandkids have carried on the business, a nice large Catholic (most likely) Italian family.  I like shopping there.  They serve all the Catholic high schools and so forth in the area.  Reminds me of growing up in Philadelphia, which had a large Italian Catholic population when I lived there.

Catholicism has been on 'hard times' lately, what with all the sex-scandals, but it has its good points too.  It has been known to produce some very positive, ethical, thoughtful (as in cerebrally active) people.  Old Catholicism had a somewhat incestuous relationship with Islam for many years, from which I believe it benefited in ways that benefited me.  One of the things that really worked for me in Catholicism was its contemplative wing, its allowing and even cultivating of silent prayer - communing with the Divine, if you will - even if only as a sort of side-offering, the main offerings being sacramental life and missionary activity. But the introverts had a place in the Church too.  Also it's had a tradition of a life-style combining work and spiritual reading, which seems to be the life-pattern I am following, without really 'intending' to, it's just come naturally.  I think the work and spiritual reading pattern is  Benedictine, which was a quite pervasive influence and model of Christian life at an early period of the expansion of the Church in Europe, hence its deep influence in later Catholicism.

Early on, Catholicism embraced an ideal of perpetual virginity, making sexual matters central to its spiritual ideal.  Family life was in there somewhere, but it was 'lesser' than the life of perpetual virginity.  Certainly at some times in human history it seems as if people flock to the life of perpetual virginity, but at other times - easier times - the constant focus on virginity becomes more difficult to navigate.  Many of the men who became priests in the twentieth century received little or no formation in how to deal with emotional and sexual needs.  So...in addition to the sex-scandals, we see a high level of alcoholism and mild forms of mental illness in that population.

Well, back to happier themes - back to my bathing cap! - I find my time at the Y, both swimming in the pool and also sitting in the little steam room, to be a very meditative and restorative part of my day.  A kind of athletic monasticism seems to balance me and bring me back to myself.  I'm so grateful for the Y.

more on 'coming apart'

i think what strikes me most forcibly at this point is that for all the effort i've put into living right - and there are many of us who are making this effort - going through our twelve-step programs, cleaning up our addictions, working out regularly and cultivating a healthy lifestyle, maintaining good family relationships and successful work habits, supporting our spiritual well-being and communities - all of it in the belief that we are creating something solid and lasting - at the end of the day it all has to be dismantled and taken down.  I don't mean this as a negative statement - it may sound as if I do - but no, i'm just saying, this is a very different process.  i still believe that the 'dismantlement' stage is firmly founded in the quality of the life we've created.  the end of life hardly stands alone.  people talk about a 'flow' of life, and of 'being in the flow.'  For me, there has been a 'flow' of time, seasons, ideas, people, activities, and i can recognize the places in my life where i was rather slow to catch the wave, and other times when i was surfing the pipeline, but i was never capable of complete free-flow, i always needed a safe harbor, where i could 'return to base,' and i found that in my relationship with my partner and the home we created together.  This will also have to be 'dismantled' - I think I find that hardest of all.  And when I say 'dismantled,' I don't mean only in the physical sense of that word, but also in terms of how I think of myself, my life, my relationships.  I'm going to have to find some other 'base' as I make the final transition - I can see that already.  Of course, I have my faith in God, and a rich inner life, lots of spiritual artistry, so perhaps it will not be too difficult to re-form my base even more securely around that.  All the great spiritual traditions tell us that this is what we need to do.

more joanna field

"NOW I'VE GOT IT.'  FIRES TEARING AND RENDING THE EARTH, UPHEAVALS...

In a flash, I was sure that this was what I had been looking for.  In my attempt to reconstruct the memories of childhood, objectively, I had for instance written:

'The photo I took when I was 12, of that curious rock on the coast at Dunstanborough.  I stuck it in my Nature Diary and also sent it in to the holiday photography exhibition.  The early rock strata had been thrown up in a curious contorted curve by some volcanic eruption.'

To the objective mind this incident marked a growing conscious interest in science.  But now I suddenly guessed that to another part of the mind it meant something else.  Just as I had once before discovered that I had two quite different groups of ideas about God, (see "A Life of One's Own, J.P. Tarcher, inc), according to whether I thought deliberately, or simply let thought come of their own accord, so this rock had two different meanings.  To part of my mind it was an interesting geological specimen, to the other it stood now for the idea of hidden inner fires, powerful and unaccountable, upheaving and rending the surface.  The first meaning had left me bored and depressed at the futility of what I was writing, the second had given me such deep satisfaction that I knew it was one of those significant memories from childhood that my questing imagination had been groping after.

But though my feelings told me this was what I wanted to remember, they did not explain why such an idea should be important.  Why should the idea of the inner fires of the earth have shattering importance, either to a twelve-year-old - or to me as I looked back on that twelve-year-old - since it was quite possible that I was reading my own present sense of its importance into my memory of that experience?  Volcanic eruption was not likely to be an important part of my life then, or now.  I thought that the only answer could be that it was important by analogy, that the idea of the inner fires of the earth was sufficiently like some other experience to be able to stand for, or symbolize, some experience that was too dimly felt or too complex and obscure to be expressed directly.  I wondered, did this possibility throw some light on my early passionate interest in nature?  I had a long way to go efore I could see the connection, but I felt sure the connection was there.  My next clues actually emerged from a study of journeys."  (pp.12-13, An Experiment in Leisure, by Joanna Field)

amma season

i've been absent from the weblog in recent weeks because i've been all caught up in 'amma season' - that wonderful time of the year that is better than school letting out, better than ski week, better than any holiday i can name - that time of year when amma visits the bay area from india.  we all had a fabulous time, and are still savoring our enjoyment of our time with her as she moves on her way across the country.  tomorrow will be her last day in los angeles and from there she will travel to santa fe new mexico.

as part of my service to the community this time around, i've published a new e-magazine called 'amma's forest dwellers' for old-timers, retired persons, contemplatives, hermits and the like - all of whom used to be called 'forest-dwellers' in the old folk-tradition of india.

i've also been reading Karen Armstrong's 'The Spiral Staircase.'  Years ago, I read her first book, 'The Narrow Gate,' about her time in the convent back in the late 1950's and early 1960's.  'The Spiral Staircase' tells her story after leaving the convent and eventually writing her best-selling books, such as 'A History of God.'  I found 'The Spiral Staircase' an engrossing memoir, plus entertaining (for example, her charming stories of Jacob), intriguing and educational (her description of her health issues), and I appreciated her articulate personal sharing.

i've been playing my dulcimer in the evenings more, as a part of my spiritual practice.  Toning and singing are even better, really, but i feel charmed by the mellifluous tones of the dulcimer.  like to feel the vibration under my hands and where the dulcimer lays flat across my lap.  my blue lion really truly does make exquisite sound.  very conducive to meditation.

silent eloquence by nina marshall

I fail to find a verb or form a phrase
that I consider worthy of your praise.
Does there exist sweet melody or rhyme
that’s fit enough to sing your song sublime?

In awe of you, the painter’s brush lies still,
the poet shyly puts aside his quill,
the violinist lays away his bow,
and flute sits breathless, basking in your glow.

Your silent eloquence sails height profound,
and conjured symphony without a sound.
With polished art, your glance articulates
the grace that elevates to supreme states.

My mind rests blissfully inside your silence
and radiates an inner soul alliance.

 

 

*     *     *      *     *
i try not to bother you all too much with my devotion to my wonderful satguru, amma, whom i dearly love.  but i just had to post this poem by remadevi nina marshall, who is herself a musician and a long time resident of amma's ashram in india.  not only is this a beautiful poem, but it expresses the spiritual intimacy that amma is capable of, and which each one of us feels, each in our own way.  i would not have dreamed that such an experience might be possible, and i truly felt as if i had found 'fabled gold' when i met amma.  that was twenty years ago, and the experience continues on.