A popular idea in modern culture is that “we’re all one”.  Assuming this to be the case, it follows that to “exclude something from the whole isn’t possible.  We can wish it wasn’t so; we can try to throw it away, but where is away? Everything that is, is.  If it isn’t possible what actually occurs when we reject?

Rejecting physical objects isn’t too problematic. I throw away garbage from my house to the recycle bin, and it’s taken away to the dump.( A great word for the place where rejected objects end up.) The objects are still part of the whole but are no longer in my house.

When I reject a person the trouble with rejection begins to show itself.  If I’m someone who’s aware of responsibility to other’s feelings, I will experience guilt with the rejection of another and that creates pressure on my mind.

The trouble is even more obvious with mental objects; ideas, beliefs, concepts.  When I reject an idea where does it go? The great dump in the sky? No, it goes to the personal unconscious. I may no longer be conscious of the idea I rejected, but because it’s still part of my psyche, it still has influence.  As with guilt, pressure occurs. We might even say that the consequence of rejection is guilt.

Every person, place, thing, idea, concept the mind has rejected causes a judgement to form which is the pressure to constantly reject that object; to keep it in its place in the unconscious.  When an object has been pushed out of the house– out of our conscious awareness–it is still part of the whole, since everything that is, is.  But like the physical dump, we can smell it. Everything rotting in that dump is perceived by the environment, and like the state of the earth today, on the verge of disastor, our individual psyche’s become unhealthy dump sights.

Acceptance has the opposite effect; the conscious mind has no pressure from an overfilled unconscious–the dump. It is open and free to observe without judgement as judgment derives from the rejected objects.

Acceptance is not a passive state but one of inclusion that, when necessary, discerns if an object is garbage and needs to go to the dump or if it can be tolerated and remain in the house. More later on acceptance.

Wakened from the dreamworld to the rising of the sun (even if it’s behind clouds) opportunity calls like a bugle at revely.  What will this day bring, for every day is new? 

How we greet it is up to us. Do we view it  with dread that more will be asked of us than we feel capable of managing; with a sigh of boredom that this day will be like hundreds of others, a repetition of mundane activity; tired, heavy, physically unwell do we pull the covers back over our heads and wish the sun did not rise; or with hope and anticipation of adventure and exploration. 

Attitude is everything.

However, how much control do we actually have over the outlook we wake up with? The old saying, “He got up on the wrong side of the bed” has merit.  Today I woke up on the right side and greeted the day with optimism and joy, but that is not the case everyday. So what determines which side of the bed I get up on?

Health, rest, chemical balance, hormones, dreams, fears, worries, negative or positive patterns of thought  . . .   including unseen influences outside our awareness; astrology, elemental shifts in the earth, cycles of the moon, the weather . . . !!! So many things influence which side of the bed we get up on that it seems virtually impossible to name the reason or reasons for a sunny attitude versus a dark one.   

It appears we have little choice, yet though we are at the effect of so many different things, we also determine many of them ourselves, and it is to that list we must look for help to find the way to choosing our attitude.

The List:

1. Good diet, exercise, and rest. Knowing our individual chemical and hormonal balance, and monitoring changes over time. Avoiding habits that harm physical well-being.

2. Getting to know and take care of emotional needs. Saying “no” to overextending.

3. Maintaining mental fitness through stimulation; learning new things, dialogue to exchange ideas and some form of mindful practice like meditation to learn how to control thoughts. 

What we control is what we take in and what we keep out of our body/mind. 

As for the rest . . . learn to accept. Tomorrow; acceptance, what is it?

At around 2 years old children must work through the developmental issue–the conundrum– of whether they’re special or not; whether they exist as a unique entity.  Every other sentence, is “look at me . . .” As parents, it’s exhausting however, if the child isn’t adequately reflected he turns inward to see himself- and like Narcissus in Greek Mythology, he’s forced to hold up his own mirror to realize his existence. He now lives in his own eyes but lacks an ability to see others.

If the child is seen by his parents the conundrum is resolved in an ability to know he’s the only one, but he’s not the only one who’s the only one.

Held in solitary confinement or being stranded alone on a desert island, will drive anyone mad. The ego cannot hold  it’s grip on reality without support from the environment. Like the child unreflected, the solitary human will turn to the unconscious for validation which is the definition of madness; the boundary between the ego consciousness and the vastness of the collective unconscious is broken and the ego is drowned in archetypal images.

Psychological existence is dependent on visibility. If, like the tree that falls in the forest, he falls and no one hears him, he doesn’t exist–to himself.  And since no one else is there to see him fall, to anyone else either.

Whether physical existence is dependent on visibility is a question for tomorrow.

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Do the stars care that I gaze at them in wonder?  If everything changes when it’s being observed, what does that say about the star’s recognition of the attention given by almost 7 billion humans, not to mention all the other beings that turn their attention to them each night?

Cat’s eyes light up in the darkness, like star-light they project into the void.  What do they see that we do not?

If eyes are windows into the soul, it is no wonder humans have gazed into the great eye of the sky and imagined gods and goddesses,  universal-mind, the infinite, the creator, the over-soul.

Like the cat, maybe we see many things held in that great infinite space, but without the ability to register our usual perceptions of light and form to give it meaning, we catch a glimpse and call it wonder, or awe, or mystery.

 That felt experience has made believers of humanity for millenia; believers of life outside our usual ability to perceive where the imagination and faith reign supreme and meaning beyond the mandane is found. 

Wonder

I do.

The cultivation of peace is at the center of psychological and spiritual practices that strive for growth.  Defined by Webster as; serenity; calm; quiet; tranquility; harmony, we tend to assume that means a cessation of thought.

But if you’ve ever tried to still your mind you will have discovered you could not.  This failure causes most of us to believe something is  wrong with us. Whether it was in the middle of the night when you couldn’t sleep or in a meditation or yoga class or at  school or work when you were “supposed” to be quiet, you will have discovered the mind is NEVER still. It’s not just you; you’re not broken, but life can best be described as a state of perpetual motion. Physics has proven that all matter is in motion, and though we’re unable to see a rock moving, we now know that it is.

So if peace isn’t an absence of thought, what is it? The answer to discovering a peaceful state is in the last word of the dictionary definition; harmony which is an absence of conflict. Since I cannot stop my mind from thinking, and would not wish to for it would mean I was no longer alive, my thinking must become harmonious.

A mindful practice is one in which one watches their thoughts. Have you ever just watched and not been drawn in? If drawn in you will discover tension as at the heart of most of our thinking whether it’s problem solving, worrying, regretting, etc. In other words; most thinking is conflictual by nature. Does that mean harmonious thinking is not possible?

Not at all, just unusual. When we’re able to watch our thoughts without being drawn in to the conflict, harmony is the result.  Accept everything, reject nothing, and the mind is at peace.

 Oddly out of the ordinary is whimsy’s definition.  Just the feel of the word on my lips makes me smile, a verbal form of Prozac for the spirit.  Like the archetypal trickster in Jung’s psychology and the Tarot deck, whimsy tricks us into a shift of perspective.  To see the ordinary a little out of kilter allows us to play with the object outside of the box of our usual view/belief about it.  Whimsy stands things on their head, or tail, or puts ballet tutus on those we’re intimidated by. Harry Potter learned to handle his fear of dementors by making fun of them.

Playful spirits are a form of whimsy; making the imagination and all of the “unseen” world into a place we can venture into without so much fear.  That’s not to say we can rid ourselves of nightmares but we can balance the tendency of the mind to fear the dark by seeing light within the darkness.

Most of us in the western world today have important concerns but they’re not life threatening; meaningful work, the mortgage, money for our children’s college, our daughter’s weird boyfriend, etc.   We don’t live in Sub-Saharan Africa or any number of other places where whimsy would be inappropriate.  We normal neurotics, as Woody Allen spoofs regularly, are candidates for lots more whimsy.  Most of our fears aren’t helped along by worrying, but will benefit greatly by lightening.

On the table in the dentist’s office waiting room I visited too regularly as a child, was, “Laughter the Best Medicine.”  It really did help make those fearsome visits a little more tolerable. Proof of that is that I remember the jokes, not the drill.

Whimsy is also considered childish. And what is meant by childish? Playful, imaginative, fun-loving, fearless, courageous, adventurous, curious, uninhibited . . .

If by being whimsical adults we tap into that list, I say “Go For It.”

What is a thought made of?  If everything in existence is made of matter, and our thoughts exist, does that mean they have matter? And if they don’t have matter, do they exist? If thoughts do have mass, and our human experience is a bundle of memories/thoughts, we will still exist when our physical bodies transform into worms and cats.

Googling for scientist’s views on this subject, a few important points emerged:

Some scientists believe the photon, a tiny particle others consider too small to have mass, does. The problem is it can’t be measured at rest. To be without mass implies it has no mass when,”At Rest”. Photons move in waves and that implies mass. Like sound waves photons can be reflected which means something with no mass can be blocked or affected by mass.  But are thoughts photons, or something related to the electric nature of the activity of the brain.

Glenn B. Wheaton of HRVG: “Because of the electrical and magnetic platform that gives birth to thoughts, it is likely that thoughts are fields that actually flash to cognizance. It is why you cannot look too closely at a thought. Thoughts have a dwell time that fades upon recognition. Thoughts are fleeting, thoughts pass, thoughts that pass are collapsing waves. We can look at a brainwave signature but we cannot chase the electrons to word, phrase, or sentence. I believe science will ultimately have to accept that thoughts are micro bursts of electromagnetic activity.”

Science is as yet uncertain and therefore of no assistance. So here we are left to our own thoughts on the subject! It’s the old “faith or reason” dilemna once again, and I’m a person of faith. 

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The idea that there is a place called oblivion is so radical to any thinking being it’s shocking to discover how prevalent it is in common conversation.  I would like to see this place. Is it like the image above? Has anyone ever been there?  Like heaven and hell the assumption is that these are actual physical places. Oblivion then would be a place of forgetfullness where memory is erased, but is memory any more real than a place called oblivion? Memory is an idea; an experience of the mind describing something or someone that is or was at one time Real. But memory itself is an abstraction not unlike the abstraction of nothingness, of not-being.

Current physics refuses the concept that something can be and then not be.  What is-is. What isn’t-isn’t.  Though it changes shape, all matter always was and will always be.  Life on planet earth was at one time star-stuff.  The original matter that was the star was something else before. Does that mean that the star is now in oblivion? If everything that ever was still exists in some form what difference does it make if it is remembered by the human mind?

The important thing is that it still exists;  the atom that became a star that became my cat, that will become part of a tree.  All one flow of energy in a constant stream of creative bliss; the music of the spheres.  And my little human life? What will it become and where will what I call ‘me’ go?  Certainly not to oblivion, and probably not to heaven or hell either.

A question for next time; does thought have matter?

I truly hate, abhor and am in terror of being lost.  I feel the same way about losing something, or someone, or an opportunity.  Why does loss have such a hold on our psyches that we will do anything in our power to prevent it happening? What do we mean by LOST? One moment the car keys are in my hand, the next I can’t find them and my memory isn’t helping.  Magicians constantly play with us on this subject; appearance and disappearance intrigue and frighten us. 

 ”To be or not to be” is the question. Projecting onto objects the potential for their disappearance moves us a step away from the actual fear; our own.  The mind imagines not being, just as well as it imagines being. How can one be and not be? If my keys were here and now they’re not, where are they? Is it possible for physical objects to disappear? I love the story of the clothes dryer’s ability to eat socks, one at a time. Again the mind plays with loss and imagines how it can happen. We make jokes of what frighten us and of what we are incapable of understanding.

Transformation is one of the most useful answers to lost and found– My cat Desiree dies in the forest and within several months all parts of that animal have become some element of earth.  I’m not a biologist so can’t say exactly what the animal fur and bone has transformed into but I know it has. But what happened to the cat that was and is no longer? The physical parts have transformed and Desiree is lost, never to be found again. Disappeared from the face of the earth. No wonder I’m so afraid of Loss and so intent on finding any small misplaced item; maybe it’s me.

If I did manage to catch hold of it, I would surely admire it for awhile, and eventually, believing I’d come to an understanding of its nature, I would put it down and look for something else to capture my imagination. Had I caught the dragonfly or had it caught me?

Like a dream analyzed, knowledge sought and gained leaves a brief impression on the mind, and then the fickle creature moves on.  The mind holds to the belief that the current love interest will be the final one; the one that ends the seeking. However, the mating of concept with reality is an unquenchable thirst, a hunger never sated. It is the nature of mind to seek knowledge and of knowledge to seduce with creative fluorishes of color and movement and of possibilities only dreamed of.  Like dreams in sleep that elude capture or if caught, aren’t what we’d wished for. 

Mind’s nature is to posset questions and seek their answers certain there will come one special one; one unlike all the others that will give us peace, believing if it isn’t found in life surely when the answer to that biggest question is before us, and we know what happens after death, surely then?