Perspectives on perspective - a meandering...

My father had a saying on a small plaque over
 his desk that said:

"Don't judge another man till you've walked a mile in
his shoes."

I Googled it to see if I could find the quote, and it came
up with several variations.

I liked this one:

"You can't really understand another person's experience
until you've walked a mile in their shoes."

Cherokee Indian saying

~

Then it gave someone's interpretation on the meaning:

"to experience life as someone else lives it and see the
world from their perspective, instead of trying to
change their perspective; it's known as empathy and
compassion..."

author unknown

~

And then there was this one...

You never really know someone until you understand 
their point of view, until you climb around in their skin
and walk around in it.

Harper Lee
To Kill a Mockingbird

~

How often in the "spiritual culture" do the spiritual elite
try to convince you that their perspective is the "right"
perspective, the non-dual, spiritual perspective,
under the guise of "Truth."

But maybe we all just "see" the "Truth" differently,
through different "windows", through different
 lenses of perception...
It's all a play of perspectives...

Namaste 

_/\_

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Different Perspectives out the same window

 

"Downtime" - Rod MacIver

A crucial consideration in creating a [creative and authentic] life,
 is downtime.  By downtime I don't mean just time away from
the work.  I don't mean time to run errands or time to watch TV,
but time for reflection and solitude.  Time to let your mind
just wander to wherever it wants to go.  Time to absorb whatever
messages the larger universe might want to send.  Time to give
the messages deep inside your inner world an opportunity
to bubble up.

Without downtime [solitude], and it does require discipline and
planning, you lose touch with yourself.  You lose perspective on
the challenges of your life, and they start to take over.  You lose
access to your creative juice.  You may think that what you are
doing is dealing with pressing issues, and that those issues are so
important that you can't afford time away, but the message your
inner world will receive is that it is not valued.  It will then
retreat, and your [creative] work, your life, will lose power.

All the major setbacks in my life have come after a protracted
period of addressing pressing issues and not taking time off to
relax my mind and gain perspective.

Rod MacIver
Artist 
Heron Dance

~

Photo from the Internet

Happy July :)

Has anyone got an igloo I can use ?

LOLOLOLOL

 

Perspective, Perception & Interpretation - Ted Chiang

The physical universe was a language with a perfectly ambiguous 
grammar.  Every physical event was an utterance that could be
parsed in two entirely different ways, one causal and the other
teleological, both valid, neither one disqualified no matter how
much context was available.

It's like the famous optical illusion, the drawing of either an
elegant young woman, face turned away from the viewer, or
a wart-nosed crone, chin tucked down on  her chest.  There is
no "correct" interpretation; both are equally valid.

But you can't see them both at the same time.

Ted Chiang
Stories of Your Life and Others

with thanks to Whiskey River

for photo too :)

~

We each have unique stories, perspectives, perceptions,
 and frameworks of interpretation of Reality.
 I celebrate our diversity - our unique waves/expressions on
the Greater Ocean of Being...

MM

 

The Mysterious Creative Unknown - a meandering...

Recently I watched a series called "Creative Energy Levels on
video by Donna Iona Drozda - artist/writer, and fellow blogger.
I watched the Intro and "0" (zero) videos, (there are 9 levels).
During the "0" video she talked of the zero being a symbol of
wholeness.  That was my Aha moment, and wrote in my journal -
"I need to come back to wholeness, come back to my Authentic
Being-Self!  My Natural State of Being.  I need to reclaim my
wholeness again.  So I started engaging in creating vortexes
with CrayPas oils.

~

Twenty years ago I worked with an artist/"spiritual teacher"
of the Kashmir Shaivism tradition who had a studio called:
"Art Iza Way."  He used creativity/art as a way of remembering
your True Self.  Now, I'm not an "artist", but I started drawing/
painting "vortexes" (top down) back then on pieces of poster
board with CrayPas oil sticks.  During sessions he would show
me how oftentimes figures would unexpectedly emerge in and
through the"art", depending on how you *looked* at it -
The Mysterious Creative Unknown.

He showed me how to *look* at art (life) from different angles,
turning it, or looking sideways at it, etc., and see what revealed
itself.  Interestingly my earlier vortexes didn't reveal anything
"mystical" :)  He was trying to show me through art, that
everything is a matter of perspective, which of course depends
on how you *see*, and from *where* you see. He would say:
"life is a play of perspectives."

He has since moved his studio, and calls it "Self Discovery Studio,"
and no longer offers "art" as part of his sessions, but uses
different styles of Self-inquiry through relaxed conversation, as
well as meditation, and sometimes chanting.

~

One night after listening to the "0" video in the Creative Energy
Levels series with Donna Iona Drozda, I decided I wanted to
revive doing vortexes.  So pulled some poster board from under
the bed, cut out an 11x11 piece, got the CrayPas oil sticks, picked 
the colors I was drawn to (usually 2 complimentary colors), used a
large piece of cardboard, which just happened to under the bed as
well, and just started rubbing the oil sticks in circles, one by one,
on a piece of poster board.  I worked on the floor on the piece of
cardboard.  It was 11:30pm.

It was exhilarating and calming at the same time - freeing, just going
round and round, creating circles with my fingers and thumb.  Then
I started blending the oils on the poster board with fingers and thumb,

also going in a circular motion.  The corrugated cardboard made
imprints as well, as I worked the oils together.

Working in this way there really was no intention.  There was no
expectation of what it will look like, other than a vortex, but
sometimes it surprised me.  It is the Creative Unknown that sometimes
emerges.  In the photo above a "figure" emerged.  It appeared to be a
hooded figure at first, then it seemed to be a cap with possibly a long
beard. I clearly saw a face with two eyes looking out at me.  I gasped,
and was excited.  I get excited when there is movement from
within; when "The Mystery" reveals Itself in some way, whether
through art, poems, or life itself...

The "far away" view here in the photo gives the overall look of this
mysterious figure.  In closer views the figure got lost, blended back
into the vortex.  It is seen better in person than what the camera can
capture, and you may not see anything at all, or you may see
something different.

It'z magical :)

Creativity can bring a new sense of wholeness and balance back into
life again;  and can "reconnect" me with my "Inner Life" - my Inner
Beingness - waiting to reveal Itself...

Mystic Meandering
Feb. 11, 2024

~

Art - Mystic Meandering
Vortex Art
Red Vortex with Figure
Feb 2024

 

Perspective - Vaclav Havel

There are no exact guidelines.  There are probably no guidelines
at all.  The only thing I can recommend at this stage is a sense
of humor, an ability to see things in their ridiculous and
absurd dimensions, to laugh at others and at ourselves, a sense
of irony regarding everything that calls out for parody in this
world.  In other words, I can only recommend perspective and
distance.  Awareness of all the most dangerous kinds of vanity,
both in others and in ourselves.  A good mind.  Gratitude for 
the gift of life and the courage to take responsibility for it.
Vigilance of spirit."

Vaclav Havel

with thanks to Whiskey River

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Light abstract on wall...

 

Solace...

What remains...
When all surface identities,
all beliefs and facades of truth have
proven to be untrue,
and the mental constructs begin to fail...
is a more authentic, softened, innocent perspective;
a simplified view of reality...

One begins to feel more,
viscerally,
the finer, subtler vibration
of the Ineffable;
which was here long before we were born...

There is no need to remember...

The mind and body may fail in their functions,
may still contract
around old thought and feeling impulses
of the brain...
But trust that the Ineffable in you
Remembers Its Origins...

So Rest...

Let the mind float...

Be still, aware...

Keep feeling...
Keep listening inwardly,
for the Music,
The Divine Rhythm,
the pulse of the Universe

playing subtly,
the original Rhythm of your pre-conceived life...

Find solace in the Rhythm
that plays you;

the Breath within the breath
that breathes you;
the Rhythm of
That which is
eternally Present in you;
That to which you have
devoted your
Heart...

Mystic Meandering
April 22, 2016

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Opening to Beauty - Rod MacIver

Of the challenges of life
Which are many, which we all have
Those inevitable just by virtue
Of being alive
And those that are self-imposed
Unnecessary but no less real
One of the most important
But easiest to avoid
Is seeing beauty.

It's a practice, like Buddhism or Yoga
Except that you are focused outwardly.
There are days I've walked through a field of wildflowers
Through forests of huge hemlock trees
Barely noticing, absorbed by some problem or other
Some painting not going well
Some piece of writing not coming together.

When I open my heart to beauty
Submerge myself in it
Turn my thought processes over to beauty
I get immediate perspective
On all the other things going on in my life
Which are truly important,
And which are trivial, meaningless, pointless.

Living in the woods
Surrounded by nature all day long
In a multitude of forms: sounds,smells, sights
You can come to accept beauty as normal
Take beauty for granted
It doesn't complain.

Beauty offers itself to us
Without price
Other than the price of paying attention
Focus, open heart, time.

Rod MacIver
Artist and Writer
Heron Dance Art Studio

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

LIVE!

LIVE!

Let go...

Let it all go:
Hopes for the future.
Regret for the past.
Expectations for the present.

LIVE!

Embraced in the space of
your Aliveness,
at the still point of
your Being.

With no conceptual scaffolding of belief
to hold "you" together...

LIVE!

Disappear in the Excitement
of the Infinite Dancing Heart...

LIVE!

Without requiring yourself to be
different,
without wanting to change
who you ARE...

LIVE!

Authentically...  Genuinely...

Emptied out of the way your
conditioned mind tells you
what your life must be...

LIVE!

Free yourself from your facades
and the attachments to
your patterns of perspective
that keep you safe, but confined...

LIVE!

Let go into the Cosmic Stream

that already carries you...

LIVE!

Trust the unfolding of the Fire in your Soul...

Mystic Meandering
Aug. 13, 2022

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

A Divine Hug - Jessica Nathanson

I am here, even in this anger and despair
See me here, and you will see me everywhere
How deeply can you enter this moment to be with me?

If you only hear me
In the spaces between sounds
You'll miss me in music
If you only hear me in stillness
You'll miss me in thunder
If you only think of me as light
You'll not see me
When I'm weeping

If you only want me radiant
You'll reject me
When I show up in agony
When I am (you) drowning in darkness
I am with you, wherever you go,
whatever you do...

Let yourself commune with me...

Jessica Nathanson
Excerpt from her poem called:
"Message from God"

with thanks to No Mind's Land

~

Photo from the Internet

 

Competition and Compassion - Sharon Salzburg

Competition today is tantamount to a blood sport -
and not just on the playing field or in the ring.

The psychoanalytic theorist Karen Horney introduced
the concept of hyper-competitiveness as a neurotic
personality trait almost 70 years ago.  She characterized
the hyper competitive coping strategy as "moving against
people" (in contrast to moving toward or away from people).
Her observations are now all too evident in our culture.
Extreme us-versus-them behavior has created a lonely world.
There is always some new adversary to move against, so we
get locked into a vicious circle of measuring our strengthe
by disparaging others.

Competition is natural, a part of the human arsenal for survival,
but when it creates enmity, we need to question its power in our
lives.

This is where sympathetic joy - joy in the happiness of others -
comes in.  If we're in a competitive frame of mind, when
 something good happens to someone else, we think it 
somehow diminishes us.  It doesn't really, of course, but
being consumed with jealousy and envy clouds our judgement.
Even when we're not in the running, extreme competitiveness
makes us feel as if we were.

If we approach life from a place of scarcity, a mind-set
that emphasizes what we lack instead of what we have, then
anyone who has something we want becomes the enemy.

As a Buddhist monk Nyanaponika Thera says:

"It is compassion that removes the heavy bar,
opens the door to freedom,
makes the narrow heart as wide as the world..."

Looking closely at the life of someone we consider to be the
competition, we are bound to see hardships that the person
endured or understand how tenuous status and good fortune
can be. When we can connect with a perceived enemy on the
level of human suffering, winning or losing seems less important.

A few years ago I led a meditation group at an elementary school

in Washington, D.C.  The walls of the school corridors were
plastered with homilies:  Treat people the way you would like
to be treated.  Play fair.  Don't hurt others on the inside or the
outside. The message that stopped my short, however, was
Everyone can play.

Sharon Salzburg
Buddhist Teacher

with thanks to The Beauty We Love

(and photo too)

 

Not to Worry - Emmet Fox

It makes no difference how deeply seated may be the trouble,
how hopeless the outlook,
how muddled the tangle,
how great the mistake.

A sufficient realization of love will dissolve it all...

Emmet Fox

with thanks to  Death Deconstructed

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

The Swan and The Frog - Dennis Holtje

Photo by Robert Woeger on Unsplash

There once was a beautiful white swan that came from the great
ocean to the North.  After being in the South for the winter, it
was ready for the return journey home.  So it took off and with
its big wing span and shining white feathers, it soared effortlessly
through the blue sky.  After a long while, and far along the journey,
the swan began to tire and came down to land for a rest.  It landed
right on the edge of a water well and let out a deep sigh.

In the bottom of this well there lived a frog.  The frog said, "Well,
who are you and where do you come from?"

"I am a swan, and my home is on the water of the great northern
ocean," answered the swan.

"Ocean?  How big is this ocean? asked the frog.

"Very big," said Swan.

"Is it this big?" Frog asked, taking two hops backward.

"No, much bigger," said Swan.

So the frog took five huge hops backward, saying,
"Is the ocean this big?"

Swan said, "No, it's much bigger than that."

And so the frog went around the entire well - his whole
reality, as he knew it - and asked the swan, "Now, is the ocean
as big as this?"  And the swan said, "No, it's much bigger,
much bigger!"

Thereupon the frog said, "Well, you're a fool and a liar!"
because he knew there could be nothing bigger than
 his world and his well.

Dennis Holtje
From: Light to Sound

 

 

Quantum Strangeness - Fred LaMotte

Here's another secret of quantum strangeness from the annals
of the quark.  All events, as to their quiddity, are equally
significant.

The daring leap of a tree frog from the spigot of your garden
hose, to her sanctuary in a pot of begonias, is as important as
the birth of a new political party, or an earthquake in Brooklyn.

The universe is not just as you see it, but as the frog sees it.
Your attention magnifies a breath of August breeze into a
hurricane; but for the frog, all human catastrophes are as
weightless clouds in a distant sky.  They pass soundlessly
overhead.

Why do you assume that your chief concern should be mine?
The liberal wants to convince me, the conservative wants to
convert me.  Neither allows me to create myself.  But that is
one task I can do better than anyone else.  Let me follow the
wondrous river of my own interest over all its rocks, through
the rough waters of responsibility and consequence, and I will
learn my lesson much better than you can teach me.

A Greek philosopher said, 'Be kind: everyone you meet is
fighting a great battle.'  A Jewish carpenter said, 'Judge not,
lest ye be judged.'  Here's another piece of advice: if you want
to see radical transformation in humanity, stop trying to change
each other.

Have you ever walked the labyrinth?  One who seems closest
to the goal may suddenly find their way veering far off.  When
two pilgrims pass, they don't know who is nearing the center,
and who is drifting further from it.  Compassion is precisely
this not knowing.  All they can do is bow...

Fred LaMotte
Uradiance

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Mystical Fog...

 

Unable to sleep, I pattered down to the living room
at 3:45 am and was surprised to find fog out the
window.  I haven't seen fog in a very long time...
I grew up in New England, but have lived in semi-
arid Colorado for more than 40 years.  There's not
often fog here...  So what a delight to find my
child-like wonder again! - on a sleepless mystical foggy
night; falling in love with the simple beauty and
magic of nature in the wee hours...

Here's a different view out the back window.
The chimney on the house behind us looks like
a lighthouse. :) A matter of perspective I know... 

And here I inverted the color for even more magic... :)

~

Regard everything as fantasy...

Regard everything as transparent...
See through everything...

See that everything is in transition...

Liberate concepts and beliefs...

Let go of the need for an "answer"/solution...

Rest in the nature of Essence ~ the Primordial
State of everything...

Be a child of fantasy...
Be curious instead of afraid...

Pema Chodron
Buddhist teacher

"Play" of Perspectives - Joan Ruvinsky

 Every philosophy [spiritual teaching] seeks to describe,
even explain, How It All Is.

...the various systems are simply roles that
Consciousness takes on, the way a person changes outfits
from day to day - same person, different look.

All different and divergent philosophical [spiritual] positions
are the outpourings of Consciousness at play.  
Any philosophical [spiritual] position, no matter what, is only
a partial viewpoint, in which only a fragment of the unitary
whole is described.

We can never approximate the capital-t Truth in words...

Joan Ruvinsky

From: The Recognition of Our Own Heart

[brackets mine]

~

Life is simply a Divine "play" of perspectives
that allows every expression/position to be played...

MM

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Life size chess board in atrium of a nearby office building
(notice 2 pieces are missing)
Photo color digitally inverted to show perspective:
Black became White
White became Black
and shades in between

Your Outlook Matters - John O'Donohue

Sometimes when we look out, the world seems dark.
War, violence, hunger and misery seem to abound.
This makes us anxious...  What can I do in my private little
corner of life that could have an effect on world events?
Believing ourselves to be helpless, we hand over our
power to forces and systems outside us that then act in
our names; they go on to put their beliefs into action; and
ironically their actions are often sinister and destructive.

We live in times when the call to real presence is urgent.
We need to rediscover the careless courage, yet devastating
simplicity of the little boy who, in the middle of the
numbed multitude, in naive Socratic fashion, blurts out:
"But the emperor has no clothes."
When spoken, the truth can bring down citadels of falsity.

The spirit of a time is incredibly subtle [or not], yet a hugely
powerful force.  And it is comprised of the mentality and spirit
of all individuals.  The way you look at things is not actually
a private matter.  Your outlook actually and concretely affects
what goes on.  When you take back your power and choose
to see the possibilities for healing and transformation, your
creativity awakens and flows to become an active force of
renewal and encouragement in the world.  In this way, even
in your own hidden life, you can become a powerful agent
of transformation in a broken, darkened world.

John O'Donohue
From: To Bless the Space Between Us
(written in 2008!)

~

Intuitive Art - Mystic Meandering

If you look closely you can see little "beads"
scattered in the painting and the larger one in the purple heart.
They are Snowflake Obsidian from a bracelet I once wore,
and just happened to find them in a little plastic cup.  I had placed
them in a particular order on the painting that was lying on
my work table, and then accidentally hit the canvas, scattering
the little beads over the black and white swirls of the painting. 
I left them where they were, and glued them to the painting. :)

The properties of Snowflake Obsidian are:
Brings about balance, removes negativity from
 a space or person, and  promotes a sense of calm and
 inner centering - where our real power lies.

Amazing!

Facing Into the Light...

Facing into the Sun for my daily
dose of warmth and light,
weeks of information overload
and overwhelm regarding
"the pandemic" has taken its toll
on my psyche...

Waking each morning
wondering - am I going to "catch it"?
watching for the signs;
wondering - will there be enough food
in the stores to last the *months* they
say it will take for the virus to dissipate?
What would be the "best" day to go
foraging for food in our big box
grocery stores, where food once
filled the shelves and cases, but
which has become sparse in the
panic of the pandemic?
What day would the shelves be
stocked the most - with the least
people to navigate?
One doesn't know these things now...

Who would have thought we would
become hunters and gatherers again,
searching for our daily bread...

Ominous...

But...

Today is not a day for mental discursions
of what I cannot control;
nor for fear of the unknown.
I must turn, instead, within
to the Sanity of my Inner Being,
and *stay* there, shelter there;
"stay home" in the Core of my Being,
if I can find "Her" again;
feel "Her" Presence, "Her" Light.

But it was not "She" who wandered off,
or was deluged with the collective fear
of the pandemic.
It was only my mind that fell into
the scare...

The Beauty of the World still exists.
The Earth is still suspended - stable - in space;
rotating around the warmth of the Sun
that lights us daily.
The Universe still sings its song
- uncalamitous -

ever-present in its
*essential* movement.

So I thank the Luminous Universe for being
- for perspective.

For I am not "earthbound" in this madness,
but am part of a celestial movement of stars and
planets dancing together, where the Hush of The
Mystery was once experienced viscerally in a moment
of Pure Silence...

I remember...

It fills my being and warms me to the core,
quelling the fear all the way to the heart,
piercing the veils of ignorance that covered
my mind.

Facing into the Sun, absorbing its warmth,
begins to ignite the Light within.

Facing into the Light within, I am prepared to
move through the day - unfettered by the
unessentials of the madness around me.

At peace in the Celestial Movement of Life...

Mystic Meandering
March 29, 2020

10:10 am

~

Thank you to Alain Joly at The Dawn Within
for the spark of inspiration that ignited this poem...

~

Photo - the Flammarion Engraving
from the Internet

Fear - The Drug of Despair...

I keep trying to change the all-consuming music
running in my head ~ coronavirus ~
and listen for the soothing tones of
the deeper Inner Rhythm that will subdue
the fear of the body-mind in theses
stressful times...

But now the sun is almost past the eve,
and the collective shadow has overtaken me,
with thoughts of the state the world is in now...
Sometimes losing perspective, the bigger picture...
Unable to see beyond the maze mentality...
Losing touch with the deeper Music within...

Fearing my own vulnerability,
as well as that of humankind.
Startled by scarcity of necessities.
Shocked by man's unkindness to man -
hoarding...

Triggered by a virus...

Exposing man's darker side:

its selfishness, arrogance and greed;
its fear of the unknown,
and death;

Not Buddha Nature...
Not Compassion,

nor Christ Consciousness -
but the primal brain of fear and
survivalist consumption...

Fear - the drug of despair...

The new "normal"...

We have to change the music...

Mystic Meandering
March 15, 2020

Photo via The Beauty We Love

Life is a Stream of Events...

While lying in bed late one night recently, talking to my
husband about "life events", groping for perspective,
recognizing how I continue to live from habituated
patterns, reacting to life events, swimming up stream,
trying to keep my head above water, feeling drowned
by the stream of life - he made this statement:

"Life is a stream of events.  Events will always happen.
Events come and go."  The context of his statement was
to say - if we see that life is always a stream of events,
then we won't feel so overwhelmed by them, they won't
trip us up as much because we can adapt and adjust and
manage them.  Sounds a little like the Tao to me - to see
that no matter what happens Life is a Flow, and we are in
that Flow as well.  It was helpful to begin to see a way to
re-orient my way of going down stream...

In essence, he told me, what this is about is meeting life
as it comes by plugging in to the Cosmic Flow of the
Universe - meeting the "events" of life through seeing
the Cosmic Flow of all things, and through all things;
flowing with life as it happens, not getting focused on
the obstacles/events, or seeing the events as obstacles.
  He said by seeing that everything is the Cosmic Flow,
we can be assured that it is flowing the way it is supposed
 to - no matter what happens... When you don't fight it, you
 can begin to experience the harmony of Flow.

B knows nothing of Taoism, but he intuitively "tapped in"
to "the Tao" - The Flow...

Empty yourself of everything.
Let the mind rest at peace.
The ten thousand things rise and fall
while the Self watches their return.
They grow and flourish
and then return to the Source.
Returning to the Source is stillness,
which is the way of nature.

If you are willing to be lived by it,
you will see [the Tao] everywhere,
even in the most ordinary things.

Lao Tzu

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

The Darkness has Wisdom too - Brooke McNamara

painting by Joe-Maccer Deviant Art

If you can't change yourself, after all
the efforts, change the light
by which you read your story.

Exchange overhead for something softer -
a lamp, a candle, a vine of shining
holiday lights - and feel yourself
become hugged by the fabric of shadows.
You see the darkness here has wisdom too.
You see the objects around become related
by the pregnant emptiness that holds them,
and you.  Let this light reveal the rapture
of being just this.  Then, further still, try
moonlight, or no light, until, at last,
this open, sourceless incandescence
which you are
no matter who you think you are
will follow you from the inside
wherever you may go, however
you may change, or not.

Brooke McNamara
from - Feed Your Vow -
poems for falling into fullness

with thanks to The Dawn Within