A couple of days ago, I was gifted time with my friend on a beach in a chair under an umbrella, but it doesn’t stop there. My friend, S, immersed in a new book find, Reality, by Peter Kingsley, also gave me the gift of reading aloud to me from this book. The shade, the water, the sky, the sand, the searing words: what have I ever done to enjoy such richness as this?
Here is an interview, but the part (starting about 12:00) about our senses is crazy good for me in my now. Peter Kingsley’s descriptions here gave me a recognition of a dullness of my awareness. I sat for a moment just now and felt a heightening from being in 5 senses at once. The rest of my flow suddenly felt like black and white, comparatively. Am I often anesthetized to my senses? Can one maintain an awareness at this level in a moment to moment?
Life as Improv 
I really like this. I really jumped in to my own direct experience.
Even just attempting 5 at once steps it up – how fun – like getting a new pair of eyes, ears, hands, insides, nose, tongue to experience life with! I wonder if the body/brain might start blending them together for experiences with synesthesia.
This is how I healed myself. 🙂
What a wonderful thing, Laurie, how fully you dove into the moment – coming back with so much to share! xo! m
🙂 Yes. Now… to find a way to express it… that is interesting too… I have written a little book.. somehow ..with my little notes. Working on printing it. Yes, there is a beyond the senses thing too .. maybe that is the combination of them all together.. an even deeper connection.
❤
As the illusion of separation starts to slip in these “safe place(s)” (-that a Orange is Black reference that might make Eden chuckle) Things just keep getting more and more interesting. YES YES YES feed the soul. It is to be really present when you use your hand lotion or when preparing a cup of tea from the moment you decide to have one to getting the water ready to picking the tea to the steep to the drinking using all 5 senses at once and letting every other thought go! Now, we are spinning the whole universe in a cup! Excellent share. -x.M
There is a film that comes to my mind called “Wrist Cutters”* where the characters who chose to exit by their own hands found themselves in a world much like our own, only with muted sensations. The coloring in the film took on such grey tones.
Mindfulness practice had been bringing seeming technicolor in, I thought, as I slipped and slid between each of my senses with singular focus, such as Tolle suggesting awareness of our hands – but trying to bring online all 5 at once – so simple – yet, wowza, new lens altogether. I’m sure this advice came with the avatar suit instructions somewhere, :), but I seem to have misplaced those papers – So loving how the words and teachers appear when the heart (and senses) are ready. xo! m
*Film is mentioned for this illustration alone, not a movie recommendation 🙂
Wow, what a discovery– the whole thing really. Anyone who can connect engineering back to the sacred, the holy, and the Sufi, is clearly firing on all cylinders in this plane and more than a few in the other. I love the thought that Western civilization began with a sacred purpose, that we are the living culmination of Purpose, and also the part about the natural movement between East and West– how both are required, each flowing into the other, to connect the circuits of the globe. The West can’t simply become the East… The West must be the West, in the greatest way possible…
Reminds me a twinge of the 19th century “science” of John Keeley, who was developing “machinery” that ran on sympathetic vibrations, e.g. Loving presence. Heart feelings resonating with atoms. There were some stories I came across once that he had been guided in these endeavors through connections with an ancient Greek spirit. I wish I could remember which, but anyway, very cool stuff. I am inclined to run, not walk, to the bookstore… Thank you for sharing this…
Michael
So glad you watched the whole thing, Michael. When Sheila was reading to me on the beach, my whole being perked up, not only from his masterful language, but from the information that was coming from some deep deep dives of exploration and trueness to his own unique path – as illustrated the Cambridge story. I will be borrowing “Reality” when S returns from her trip, but have wondered about his earlier books as well. Excited to explore these early peaks into this view of a conscious creation of Western Culture – compelling! A visiting Greek Goddess – Sympathetic Vibrations – seems in line with the likes of Coral Castle – and Tesla – I do so yearn toward the mysteries, again and again. did you catch the trippy editing, or maybe even mind reading at 16:50 that Sheila called out. Magic summer wishes to you and your loved ones, this weekend! m
Yes, I thought my viewer got stuck the first time, and the audio simply continued, but I see it is repeatable. I watched it again and I think it was done for effect perhaps, the way the camera zooms in on him at that precise moment, but at the time it didn’t matter because I felt like I had just been rung like a bell. His description of there being a void in between and linking the senses was great. The one thing I was left wondering at the end was what he felt the “purpose” of Western civilization might be, or have been, and what is unique about it as composed to the Eastern world, etc. I think that is a really interesting question… Maybe Sheila can tell us if he addresses this in the book? 🙂
Magic wishes returned as well!
Michael
From “Reality”
Empedocles is starting to spell out the nature of the divine command–or at least the first half of it. He is explaining where it comes from; how to obey; just what it involves. For we already know the identity of what he calls “the pledges from our Muse.”
They are our sense perceptions.
They are everything we are able to see and hear, taste and feel. And these perceptions are inviting us, demanding of us, commanding us to do just what anyone would logically expect.
They are commanding us to perceive.
They are urging us to do the one thing that, by their very existence, they are bound to insist that we do. Perversity is when we fail as human beings to do that one thing by wandering off instead into thoughts and dreams.
They are commanding us, in this world of the senses, to stay present; to be aware.
Somewhere in my cyber travels I remember hearing Peter speak. I love that he addresses a common attitude in the west that denies that any gifts come from the western tradition. Not only are gifts lost or unrecognized, without an appreciation of the Greeks and all of the Abrahamic religions, including the mystics of each, we become blind to how much we are still affected by thousands of years of accumulated culture, especially as the mystical voices are the hardest to hear. Hillman, Joseph Campbell and Henry Corbin (among many others) are all good sources for a better appreciation of western culture through the history of so many lost voices.
But importantly, we must never let another’s experience take the place of our own. Any good teacher worth their salt will emphasize this. Even our own misunderstandings and failures carry us further than hanging on every word of the wisest souls. You guys are the choir here, so I am reminding myself and don’t mean to sound like I am reminding anyone else. 🙂
Amazingly, as humans we can practice seeing with double vision; the ability to be aware of what is sensed, while at the same time knowing and reflecting on that sense awareness. The paradox of separation and unity can be understood through the practice of double, or even multiple vision.
Perhaps in a less enlightened culture, the 2nd vision was the angel, an invisible being whose intent was to release us from our habits of knowledge and file of images that often keep us from looking up and directly sensing the world. For me, there is nothing like a good walk, anywhere, that lends an opportunity to take in a sensed body/world anew and yes, to speak and listen to the invisibles.
Thanks Marga, for inspiring us with Peter’s great insights!
xxx
Debra
Oh Wow, Debra! You are so inline with the ideas that are exploding fireworks (nod to the 4th) in me from my exposure to these deep threads for exploring. I’m looking forward to this book! I love the image of an angelic being as an outward projection of a human’s need for release from these habitual, blinding mind-sets. I look at your word choice “Perhaps in a less enlightened culture, the 2nd vision was the angel,” and I suddenly see that we are such a mixture of enlightened and unenlightened all overlapping at once – and the angelic being is still perhaps in use, often for this task right here, right now. I can clearly see your invisibles, enjoying the walks with you, without any tasks but to accompany you in friendship. Waiting for the sun to go down to go walk to the River tonight with my daughter – Thank you for sharing such great thoughts. xo! m
Hi Marga,
Love this:
“and the angelic being is still perhaps in use, often for this task right here, right now.”
Perhaps however we come to understand the existence of angels or invisibles, or not, their pure love for us abides. I’d like to think so.
Hope the riverwalk with your daughter was a delight.
I am so happy to share some walking with you and all of my cyber friends.
xxx
Debra
Most excellent… all of you. I learn and learn, and learn, and learn every single moment. (yea! thanks to you… many thanks… oh, the gratitude!) ~ m.
… and hugs and bugs and nibs and jugs of hot cocoa, all round.
Hi Meredith,
I just saw your note here, to me and others, and wanted to say how much I enjoy your heartfelt writing!
Yes, I’d share my chocolate with you anytime. 🙂
Debra
So eerily familiar…..
I noticed…..at about minute mark 16:50, he says “and that’s eternity.” But we only hear it in the video, his lips don’t move…….as if we hear his thoughts.
Does this ring a bell? haha
I watched this in the middle of the night and I saw the moment just the way you describe, but thought I must be imagining things. Wow. And those very words echoed afterwards! So cool to put an person with such rich words. (and magic, apparently) BonVoyage – send pics! xoxoxo!
“What have I ever done to enjoy such richness as this?”
I’m going to jut go lay down in that sentence for a minute.
Such a great space, the present moment, to stretch out within! But if I remember correctly, soon you will be back to dancing 🙂 !!