Colette Obrien

 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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Oblivion derives from the latin, to forget, and is defined by Webster as the condition or fact of being forgotten.   To obliterate is to erase, leave no trace, destroy. Today it is often used to describe a place or a state of being. 

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.

A dream, like a dragonfly, alluringly invites us to follow. This morning early, not yet light, I woke in a state of awe; the dream, like a brilliant violet dragonfly flitted across my mind’s eye. Seductively, it came close and darted away, again and again. How I longed to name it, define it, tell it’s story, believing if I could it would be mine. But what would that accomplish, I wondered? Holding it in my hand, would it be more meaningful? Why wasn’t it enough to experience it’s color and movement, its scent of mystery, like something glimpsed through mist that comes in and out of focus?

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?

Wind –whistle. . .  wet–whine . . .  weather–wonder . . .   water–whimsy . . . withywindle–Bombadil.

A waterfall proceeds from a flood of wind whistle wet whine weather wonder water whimsy withywindle Bombadil. An alternative to media news– how many inches will fall and what catastrophe will result from said inches– is achieved.

In a whimsy of water wonder, the mountain is streaming, dreaming of fishes, dreaming of life underground underfoot underhill, wetting its whistle in long draughts of crystaline purity.  Falling from above to below, from the sky to the ground, from the heights to the depths it fills every tiny crack, fissure, hole, void; healing all divisions, it brings together what, through draught, was torn asunder. 

Whistle a merry tune as the wind whines and wends its worried way through forest growth to clean and clear the old and dead, falling as the water to meet and make a mush to feed worms and weavils, mushrooms and columbine.  If the house I built, or the den made by a coyote, or the ant’s carefully constructed hill slips and slides moved by water’s fall, so???

Stored safely in travelers bodies upon return from exotic destinations are just as exotic bugs –travelbugs.   Catching a ride on high speed vehicles to colonize new planets, the darlings have “traveled” the world and today are more prolific than the w.w.w. humans are so fond of.

Where did  this interesting juxtoposition of terms originate?There are 145 million links on google,and though I didn’t read through all of them, the first few pages didn’t give the original derivation of the term.  How many links do you think there are in the bug world? Quadro-trillions? (If Shakespeare could make up words, so can I, and though today we think “he’s Shakespeare,  he’s brilliant.” When he made up the words he was just a guy and his mother would surely have protested at the proliferation of misspelled words on his pages.

Now, about those bugs, the difference between a home-grown bug and those brought from far away places is that our bodies recognize the difference and tolerate the home bodies with reasonable discomfort (reasonable discomfort being an oxymoron). While, on the other hand, they react violently to strangers, even when the stranger is no more of an actual threat.

Our psyche reacts just as the body; experiencing reasonable discomfort when those we know hurt, abuse, ignore, or violate our persons while fearing a stranger no matter how kind their intentions.  We trust known individuals to do what they usually do and distrust the unknown for we do not know what they may be capable of.

Mist swirls around my woodland cottage like giant angel wings that flutter and fan; forms appear and disappear back into the void, unbelievable earth magic. The “day of the dead” a time of magic, of sorcery and the unseen. How perfect that the weather mirrors this concept. Today a group of women share “Psyche’s tasks with me and we play with forms; magazine cutouts, ribbons, tinsel and glitter to create individual visions of the creative process within each of us to honor life, the great mother and her abundant gifts.

How grateful I am for such a day and the opportunity to share it with other caring beings.  It is a welcome reminder that no matter what is going on around us we have the capacity for appreciation and joy and to continually find new answers to the challenges that life brings. Remember always that there is another day and with that day another chance to love, to share, to enjoy, to hope, until there is not.

I am both glad and sad and tears flow from both feelings like the rain outside.  A wise woman once said that a woman needs to cry every day to keep the feelings flowing and the heart open–  an internal washing that cleanses stuck feelings that may be lingering and are no longer relevant. It is critical that our feeling body be fresh and able to receive what this day has to offer.  Yesterday’s feelings are of no use today and can interfere in the ability to respond authentically to what is here now..

As I talk with friends and family it’s interesting to note how many are on fire with new purpose. This response to the current crises is heartening.  It proves what I have been on fire with myself and that is that the correct response to change is to become more creative, not to curl into a ball shivering in fright unable to move.

A favorite story comes to mind:

Two frogs were hopping through the barn and each jumped accidentally into separate pails of milk. Both frogs flailed their legs wildly and cried out with fright “I’m going to die, I’m going to die”  One frog then threw up his arms in despair and sank to the bottom and died. The other frog kept flailing all night until the milk turned to butter and he climbed out.

There are distinct recognizable psychological differences between individuals who do well in crises and those who do not.  Those differences are what I propose to explore in the workshop for winter “Creative Tools for Changing Times.” Some people learn those skills as young people surviving difficult environments while others seem to come equipped with them but in either case they are things that can be taught. 

“Courage is tested under duress”,” character is formed in the struggle with life’s challenges.” Cliches are archetypal expressions true at all times and places.  I tend not to use them for they are a lazy way to say something and yet why reinvent the wheel.  Nothing could be truer about facing difficulties than these truisms and though I would never ask for life to be difficult in order to become strong, when it does become difficult I can accept the challenge and engage with it with all of my energy and awareness so that the opportunity to improve is not lost.

Due to the changes in our world I’ve decided to focus all my attention on workshops and counseling and put aside writing fiction for the time being. I believe the need for tools in a changing time is greater than that of purely self focused projects.

My grandmother used to tell stories about “the great depression” as she called it. Not that that is where we are; our current situation is unique as the time and circumstances are different. However, her stories about altering expectations and banding together to weather the storm were positive and made me wish for something like that in my own life. A time when people would realize how important they are to each other, and reach out to help and support and co-create their lives. The stories were about sharing meals and coming up with ways to have fun without spending money. My father was a young man and he and his friends spent all their leisure time “hanging out” sharing meals and games, putting on musicals and plays instead of going to paid events, saving for things and looking forward to them like trips to Yosemite camping or to the beach on the trolley in Los Angeles where they lived.

I love life and I love my life but there are things that I find unnecessarily harsh, things to do with living too much as solitary individuals; missing a sense of community on a daily basis which has been  lost in the last generation.  I don’t believe humans are meant to live so selfishly. It is painful to believe one is so alone and that everything must be done by oneself without support of family and friends.  So many people in this country now live that way and it makes me terribly sad. If there is a silver lining to this time, one of the ways I see that is in our realizing once again that working together is a lot more satisfying productive and fun that doing it all alone.

One of my reasons for studying other cultures and other times has been a desire to find a sense of connection that no longer exists as it once did in this country. No where and at no time in any history that we know of have people lived such solitary, disconnected lives. The first time I went to India I would watch people with one another, always touching and always emotionally connected. I sat in a group meeting and watched a mother and her grown daughter; the way they touched as they talked, the ease of their being with one another made my cry and long for such comfort. Life is difficult and challenging in any time or place but it does not have to be so harsh!!!.

With that in mind I’ve expanded the schedule of workshops for 2008 and ‘09. My intention is to create more workshops that will look at tools for positive change both individually and collectively. Look in the schedule section of this site to see what’s coming.  If you have interest and live in the SF Bay area please contact me.