Tag Archives: Consciousness

A or B?

Unity – the state of being made one; a condition of harmony

Separation – a break; a place where a split happens; an intervening space

Awakening – an act or moment of becoming suddenly aware of something

Dormancy – something that is not active or growing

Intrinsic – belonging naturally; essential

Extrinsic – not part of the essential nature of someone or something; coming or operating from outside

Mutual – feeling the same emotion, or doing the same thing to or for each other

Unilateral – (of an action or decision) performed by or affecting only one person involved in a situation, without the agreement of the other

Emergence – the fact of something becoming known or starting to exist

Stagnation – the state of not flowing or moving

Contact – the act of touching each other

Avoidance – the act of keeping away from

Resonant – something with a deep tone or a powerful, lasting effect

Muted – not expressed strongly or openly; (of a musical instrument) having a muffled sound as a result of being fitted with a mute

Transcendent – describing the rising above something to a superior state

Mundane – very ordinary and therefore not interesting

Include – to make part of a whole

Exclude – to shut or keep out

Love – an intense feeling of deep affection

Apathy – lack of interest, enthusiasm or concern

Allowing It to Emerge

I’m in a global community called the Evolutionary Collective.  All told, there are probably two hundred of us exploring consciousness within a structure created by Patricia Albere.  Fifteen souls were on a live video call this afternoon.

Part of the experience is in pairs, with eyes open and connected.  For ten minutes, one person answers the question “What are you experiencing right now?” while the other silently moves her consciousness inside the speaker.  Then the two switch roles for the second ten.  During the third segment, the partners talk back and forth, responding to “What are we experiencing right now?”

It’s a mysterious process.  It’s easy to rattle on about concepts and ideas, feelings and bodily sensations, but Patricia is pointing elsewhere.  I was with “Mary” today and here’s where I went for my ten minutes:

I’m experiencing a lake, perfectly smooth.  I’m swimming with my head up – it’s the breast stroke – and you’re beside me doing the same.  Our motions are so smooth, so effortless, and we smile at each other.  Ahead is the horizon.  It’s a simple line between sky and water.  There’s no land.  I look around and see the same horizon everywhere.  I don’t know where we are but there’s a great sense of ease, of safety.

And now I’m diving, my hands touching ahead of me … down and down into the dark.  Hundreds of fish, of all shapes and hues, come to say hi.  They dive with me, with little smiles on their faces.  The water is cool and lovely and I can breathe easily.

Soon all is black and I continue to descend.  No fear.  Just a sweet sinking towards I know not what.  And now I’m experiencing a light way down below and I’m excited to see what’s there.  As I near the ocean floor, there it sits – a tiny gold ring.  Magically, I move my hands and arms and head through it and it settles around my waist.

I’m so happy to have found a golden friend.  Yes, the ring is alive.  It holds me gently on my stomach and back, just a tender pressure that’s so comforting.  I gaze down in wonder at the glowing and pulsing entity encircling my waist.

“Who are you?” I ask.

No words come back but the ring smiles just a bit and holds me some more, a touch firmer now.

***

Mary and I don’t analyze.  There’s no figuring out.  No evaluating.  Just the sense of something opening, inviting us to explore.  And we’ll continue to do that.

 

Meditating

I did so for a long time this afternoon.  I sit in my cozy turquoise chair in the bedroom and gaze out at the field beyond.  Then I close my eyes.  On my better days, worlds open.

Today, I started with lots of thoughts coming through – about the British Open golf tournament I’d just watched, about the Mutual Awakening global community I’m a part of, about my swollen left foot.  I’ve learned to watch it all without further editorial comment, and usually I’m successful there.

After maybe half an hour, a sweet curtain came over me and all the words receded to the back forty.  A type of fullness came over my face, the sense of there being a huge space around me.  Somehow I was watching and wondering at the absence of thoughts.  It was so quiet.

Today, saliva started dripping from the corner of my mouth and I just sat there with the dribble, having no desire to wipe it away.  The liquid was just a natural part of the sitting, easily included in the whole experience.

Later, there was some humming noise nearby.  And eventually a thought did come: “That’s my neighbour’s generator.”  One thought led to many more and I wondered if I was in the middle of a power failure.  There was no sense of being disturbed by the sound.  I opened my eyes, tried my lights (they worked), put on my shoes and went next door.  Sharon and John’s generator simply does a test for fifteen minutes every week.  No sweat.  Back home, back in my chair, eyes closing and peace returning within a short time.  Goodbye again, dear thoughts.

An hour or so later, my eyes just opened.  No planning.  I sat there, watching the birds flit to and fro on my young tree.  Everything was lovely and I wondered if I could reach this space when talking with someone.  I think I can, and in fact I sometimes do when I’m on one of the online Mutual Awakening sessions with folks from here, there and everywhere.

My quiet times are influencing my times with people.  The solitary softness melts into the conversations I have.  And the connections go deep.

Alone and together … I need them both.

Home County

Tonight is the beginning of this weekend’s Home County Folk Festival in London, Ontario. I just showed up at the bandshell in Victoria Park. Maybe thirty folks were scattered among the sea of folding chairs and I did what any self-respecting folk purist would do. I gave a speech.

“Welcome to Home County. This is my 80th time here [the festival is celebrating its 45th anniversary!] I’m happy to announce the results of our draw. One of you lovely couples has won an all-expenses-paid trip to Mexico!” I then pulled a nickel from my wallet and flipped it. Looking at a middle-aged couple in row six, I approached them with handshakes. They smiled a lot and didn’t believe me for a second … but it was fun.

And then the music started – a duo of women with lovely voices and sweet lyrics. But all around me people were talking, and they kept doing so song after song. Yuck! What about respect for the performers? I wasn’t brave enough to tell the folks to be quiet and just watched the situation, fascinated with what I was tempted to call a lower state of consciousness. But really, yapping during the singing is just another way of being. I decided to let it go.

And the skies started dribbling. A drop here and a drop there, and suddenly the umbrellas were up in full force. I wanted to feel superior to people who are so protective of their comfort, but I realized there was no cheese down that tunnel. So more letting go. The drops doubled and so did the umbrellas. I was enjoying the refreshing spatters on my arms and shirt and reflecting on the differences among us.

Halfway through the performances, I thought it would be cool to throw my consciousness inside all these festival goers. I tried, which is never a good sign, and nothing happened. Oh well. You’re such an idealist, Bruce.

An hour later, Donovan Woods was wrapping a song, and I looked out over the crowd. Zap! I was there, inside them all. And within the band members too. Bruce was beyond the edges of Bruce’s body. Bruce had spread himself wide. He was inside all those heads.

Then the rains really came and guess whose umbrella was up like a shot? And … the expansion into other folks’ souls had gone poof.

Ain’t life a mystery?

1 … 2

I am me.  Could I be we?

Walt Whitman knew a thing or two about relationship.  His poems often sang with love, and although many words passed through his fingers, my favourite ones are these:

We were together.  I forget the rest

To create a girl or boy, you need a partner.  All the solitary wishing on your part won’t bring forth a new life.  It takes two.  And to create the most exquisite spirals of consciousness, I also don’t think one is enough.  We are meant to unfold each other into realms unknown.  The whole thus revealed is way beyond the sum of the two parts.

Last night, I had a dream
We were inseparably entwined
Like a piece of rope made out of two pieces of vine
Held together, holding each other
With no one else in mind
Like two atoms in a molecule
Inseparably combined

So true.  May we entwine each other.  May ribbons of light float between our eyes.  May we see the beauty.  I sat quietly tonight and waited for the majesty of communion to emerge in a song.  What a marvelous thing – this brain – for the title came to me: Old French Lane.  From somewhere in my past, a very long time ago.

“Yes … this is what I want to share with my WordPress friends.”  But Google was silent on the matter.  YouTube was no help.  And I abided, feeling into the way home.

“Bruce, you wrote about Old French Lane years ago in your blog.  Search.”  And so I did.  And so it is here.

Seven jewels lie in the channel
South of England’s shores
Where you and I once walked together
Where I’ll walk no more

Hand in hand we would go
In the sun and in the rain
Through the streets of St. Helier
Down the Old French Lane

With Jersey sunshine falling on your hair
Shines in strands of red and gold
And eyes of green like the emerald sheen
Of your ancestral home

That was so long ago
Red and gold turn silver now
But eyes of green will never change
In my memory somehow

 

Swollen

I’m sitting in the Bloor-Gladstone Library in Toronto, watching the life of the city unfold before me. So many folks heading to so many places. Very cool. And now my gaze moves downward … to my left foot. It’s quite swollen and a challenge to walk on. I’m tempted to analyze the heck out of the situation, to come up with the hows and whys, complete with action plans and a furrowing of the brow. But no. Instead I just look long at my foot, with love. And with curiosity. The arteries and veins are hidden beneath flesh and the ankle bone is similarly obscured from view. There is no sorrow, no fear and actually no problem. I’m going to a concert tonight and I’ll simply take a short subway ride rather than hoofing it.

The word “dictionary” comes to mind and then “larger than usual” emerges. More looking, more feeling into. Perhaps I’m becoming bigger than the reality I’ve known. Maybe old versions of myself are moving to the background and a birth is in process. It could be that the bubble of Bruceness is beginning to stretch outwards, so that the surface of my skin isn’t the end of me.

How much of life, how much of humanity, will I choose to include? Will there even be a boundary? It sounds pretty scary not to have one. Will I continue to exclude certain life experiences and certain people or will all of that fall away like snow off a steep roof on a sunny spring day?

Will the voice inside cease its fearless roar of “Not this, not that” in favour of “Yes please”? Will I share my resources with the homeless fellow on the street? Will I let fear and sadness blossom when they knock loudly on my door, demanding my attention, and bid them “Arrivederci” when it’s time for them to go? Will I look deeply into the eyes of the folks who come my way and welcome the souls peeking out? Will I embrace the differing hues and intensities of the rainbows who stand before me?

Will I fall into the moment, again and again, letting the thoughts float away in favour of the boundlessness of it all? Will I listen to the music of muses, rejoice in the smiles of strangers, bless the acts of kindness that are all around? Will I float above the Earth, arms and legs spread wide, letting the air currents take me where they will? Will I jump into the flame of transformation, feeling the burn and the shock of things totally new?

Will I be alive, in my body and soul, throwing streams of light into the world, exploding with other human beings into the vast unknown?

The Spirit that animates us all needs me to swell, to meet the emerging planetary consciousness face-to-face, to evolve with all those interested into a fuller humanity, where love moves past achievement and intelligence and wealth.

Young children will inherit what we adults choose to create.

Shift

Well, well, well.  I’m in the middle of a strange state of consciousness and I feel the need to write about it.  But will I make any sense?  Perhaps not.  Perhaps my readers will get together and recruit a few white coats for my front porch pleasure.  I guess that would be fine.

My head says that this is something about mathematics.  My face screws up in wonderment.  Maybe I’ll just go with it and see what operations present themselves.

I’ll start with the number 10.  11 and 12 are close neighbours and suggest incremental progression towards a number of life benefits.  I’ll get a little better day by day.  But what about 10³?  10 and 3 seem pretty closely related but when you put them together that way, you end up with 1000, which is a quantum leap from 10.  And what would my life be like if I leapt quantumly on a regular basis?  If I said things that sounded awfully strange to an innocent bystander but made celestial sense to me.  Would the world shun me?  Possibly.

What would be my purpose in saying strange things?  To merely stand out in a crowd or to find connections that up to now had remained dormant in me?  It could be that my contribution to life on this planet will be to connect two disparate thoughts in a way that no one has before.  That’s worth the possibility of social ridicule.

I wonder what I’m saying.  I’m floating in a shifted consciousness and am happily creating word groups that WordPress readers may find deficient.  Oh well.

Now I’m flying inside my head.  How remarkable.  It’s not an exploration of the various forms of earthbound self-transportation (walking, running, skipping, crawling) but a clean break from the general concept, a lifting beyond the bonds of gravity.

Now I’m under a tree, floating free on a swing.  The rhythm is intoxicating.  Swooping down to the low point and then climbing to a horizon, with time and space ceasing at the moment of stillness, before I plummet back towards the ground.

This conversation is nonsense, I say.  I suppose it is, in that I’m currently not in the realm of rationality.  My mind is swooping like my swinging, and soaring like a bird into the heavens.  But of what use is all this?  I don’t know.  It’s very different and my fingers on the keys seem to have a mind of their own.  I feel the pressure to stop, to cut my losses in the arena of public evaluation, to save my reputation, to return to balance.  Yes … I am skewed right now, leaning precariously into the unknown, risking isolation and condemnation.  Oh well again.

Now a smile on my lips.  “You’re free, Bruce.”  Society members will choose their reactions to me – some positive and some negative – and it doesn’t matter.  It doesn’t even matter what I think of me.  Something almost inexpressible is trying to emerge from my history of Bruceness and maybe I just need to get out of the way.

Something brand new, I do believe … at least in my life.

Sending Love Out Into The Universe

Sharon Salzberg is a Buddhist teacher, and also a co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts.

“Whenever I teach lovingkindness retreats in an urban setting,” Sharon explains, “I ask students to do their walking meditation out on the streets. I suggest they choose individuals they see and, with care and awareness, wish them well by silently repeating the traditional phrases of the lovingkindness practice, ‘May you be happy.  May you be peaceful.’  I tell them that even if they don’t feel loving, the power of their intention to offer love is not diminished.  On this day our retreat took place a few blocks from downtown Oakland.  Since we were directly across the street from the Amtrak station, several people chose to do their practice on the train platform.”

“When a train pulled in, one woman from the class noticed a man disembark and decided to make him the recipient of her lovingkindness meditation. Silently she began reciting the phrases for him.  Almost immediately she began judging herself: I must not be doing it right because I feel so distant.  I don’t feel a great wash of warm feeling coming over me.  Nonetheless, reaffirming her intention to look on all beings with kindness instead of estrangement, she continued thinking, ‘May you be happy.  May you be peaceful.’  Taking another look at the man, who was dressed in a suit and tie and seemed nervous, she began judging him: He looks so rigid and uptight.  Judging herself, she thought, Here I am trying to send lovingkindness to someone and instead I’m disparaging him.  Still, she continued repeating the phrases, aligning her energy with her deep intention: to be a force of love in the world.  At that moment the man walked over to her and said, ‘I’ve never done anything like this before in my life, but I’d like to ask you to pray for me.  I am about to face a very difficult situation in my life.  Somehow, you seem to have a really loving heart, and I’d just like to know that you’re praying for me.’”

***

For the last week, I haven’t felt loving.  My whole focus has been on me being sick.  Sometimes, when I’m composing a post, the old Bruce makes himself known.  But it feels like I’m a far cry from the human being who wished others well throughout my three-month meditation retreat.  Perhaps I’m wrong.  Maybe you can’t go back to a less inclusive form of consciousness.  It could be that the physical symptoms are merely masking the essence of Bruce.

Tonight I choose to meditate.  I don’t imagine that tomorrow a guy in a suit is going to say “I’ve never done anything like this before.” and that’s fine.  In Massachusetts, I was clear that my love was reaching people.  I’m somewhat less clear right now … but actually it still touches others, whether I’m feeling euphoric, sublime or flat.

So … I will do what I’m meant to do, through the good times and bad.

Lost

Sometimes my consciousness is “normal”, with me addressing the daily tasks of life.  Sometimes it’s spacious, as the flow of awareness and compassion holds me.  And sometimes there’s a jolt of disorientation as something completely new floods my being.

In the early 70s, I travelled with my girlfriend and her dad from Vancouver to the slopes of Mount Baker in Washington.  They were skiers.  I was not.  I strapped on my snowshoes and set off up a hill on my own.  Partly I was thrilled to be exploring solo, but there was an itsy bitsy parcel of fear as well. Soon the lodge was out of sight and it started to snow.  Gosh, what a winter wonderland!  I plodded onward, being careful to make my steps wide so that one snowshoe wouldn’t overlap the other.  At one point, I looked up and saw that the nearby trees were dimming … and then some more … and then gone. Everything was gone, in all directions.  I had walked into a whiteout.

There I stood.  Nowhere to go.  Not knowing uphill from down.  No idea how long it would last.  Stunned to silence and immobility.  All my insides were stunned as well – mind, heart and soul.  Would I survive this?  Is this the end of Bruce as we know him?  All the structures I had built around my humanity were gone, irrelevant.  It was like A, B, C, … Ψ.

I stood for at least twenty minutes.  Then the snow cleared.  But I was changed.

In August, 2010, Jody and I were driving back from Nova Scotia through the States.  After crossing back into Canada at Buffalo, we headed west on Highway 3, a secondary road.  I knew that sooner or later we’d catch a glimpse of Lake Erie on our left.  A couple of hours more and we’d be home. That trip was a lot of time behind the wheel, and I was tired.  On and on we went until there was a huge lake up ahead … on our right.  I pulled over and gazed out the window at the blue.  Huh?  Does not compute.  Actually, I wasn’t doing any computing.  I just sat there with my mouth open. Completely fried.  All functions having ground to a halt.  Stunned again.

There was a big empty space where brains should have been.  It had to be another planet I was on.  All thoughts of reason, of a gradual accumulation of life experience, frittered away.  Only many minutes later did Jody and I figure out how to get back to Earth.  For a short distance, Highway 3 curved to the right and headed north.  The idea was to turn left at a certain intersection to resume the westward trip.  I missed the turn.  And continued until I came upon … Lake Ontario.

A total break in the head
A discontinuity of consciousness
A plummet into the unknown
Lovely