Moving..

I originally started this blog mainly for the exercise of writing my thoughts. I didn't think too many people read it but I've been surprised by the people I've met who say they enjoy it. I've decided to move the blog to posterous - I'm not really sure why, it just feels a little easier to use. So here's the link: http://mysticd.posterous.com . See you there :)

breathing the wind..

the wild wind spoke to me the other night

the same breath that we breath that gives us life

and makes the trees dance and sing their wild, reckless song

the same wind that causes my wind-chime to resonate with my soul

the same breath that breaths the music that flows from my flute

And so the wind was wondering why we hide inside

And it was wild and strong and powerful, yet sad

sad that we feel we don't fit

sad that we feel everything is moving so fast

and that everything is so out of control

And it told me we need to breath more

and remember that the air we breath is part of us

just like the sounds we hear, the light we see, the food we taste and smell

the cold and the heat that we feel

a combination of Earth, Water, Fire

and Wind

And then I realized I was talking to myself

but so was the wind..

Friday afternoon mindstream..

Sometimes I just let my thoughts flow, without trying too hard to contain them - just go with it and see what happens. Like this:

My youngest daughter can't entirely read yet. So she has this oral she needs to do at school, but obviously can't just use crib notes. The solution: I drew some little pictures - icons - for her to remember the various sections of her talk. Bushbabies live in trees - so I drew a tree with a house on it. Bushbabies are bluish grey but the South African version is slightly yellow - I drew my version of a bushbaby eating custard. Isabelle loves custard - so despite the picture looking more like a stick man, with a tail, holding a square over a circle (instant custard being poured into a bowl) she remembered it. And for the bluish grey - I drew a cloud. Within a few minutes we had memorized the whole thing and she got it right first time.

This got me thinking about language - and hieroglyphics and other symbol based systems of writing. We tend to see writing as a contained unit. I give you a book and that's pretty much it - you read it and you're expected to get it all from the words used. Or like reading what I'm writing here. I sort-of expect you to understand what I'm getting at without having too much context.

But perhaps it all started differently. What if writing wasn't so much to contain a message, but the symbols were used to remind the 'reader' of a story they already had heard. That the symbols and the culture went together - like maps to a 'file' that contained that knowledge.

But I guess that's what words do as well, or names of people, animals, things. Each word, each phrase triggering a memory.

So I did some research to find out the origin of language - and got everything from theories about the tower of Babel and language supposedly being proof of a higher power, to whole lot of other stuff that you only find on the www. But the one thing that triggered a thought, as words tend to do, was the recursive nature of language, which led me to think about the word 'word'. We have a word for 'word', a word used to describe itself, which reminded me of an old friend who used to say 'Words don't have meaning, meaning has words'.

But there's another lesson in here - that the mind is full of words that take up so much space and time, full of meanings and memories and perhaps all this stuff is there because if it wasn't, then maybe there wouldn't be any meaning at all. And perhaps this is the truth of truths - that, as a very wise man once said, what we need isn't meaning, but an experience of being truly alive. And if, every now and again, we don't allow all these words to get in the way, that might just happen. So now is a good time to stop this flow of words and go and enjoy the weekend....

What if?

All throughout life we are taught that there is something we need to attain. Something out there that will make us happy. Something that, when we achieve it or reach a certain goal, we will be complete, whole, enlightened, whatever.

And so we spend our lives trying to find this thing or this place, or we come to the conclusion that we're not good enough for this and so we give up, spending the rest of our lives making excuses as to why it wasn't meant for us, but believing we're some kind of failure.

But - what if that's all wrong, that this 'system' is all messed up. And that the whole time everything we needed, everything that matters, was all already there, all the time, we just forgot..

That this 'reality' existed right here, right under our noses, we just became so involved in everything else, that we somehow forgot - forgot how to truly see, forgot who we really are. 

Secrets

Most of what's going on in the universe is a secret. That sounds so far away, and yet most of what is going on in my body right now, in my mind is also in secret, not only to you, but to me. My heart continues beating, pumping blood through my body, and a community of millions of cells quietly go about their business of keeping 'me' going.

We live with the illusion that we know what's going on around us, that 'they' know who I am, what we're doing. We go into meetings thinking that we all know what we're talking about, that we understand each other, and yet most of what is in our minds remains a secret.

And when we do connect with each other, how that information is transferred, how it creates the reality in my brain is also a secret, a mystery.

I was sitting at an airport recently. No-one knew me. Very few people even spoke my language. To some I was a tourist who's bag needed wrapping, to some I was this stranger buying stuff with money that I didn't understand and they spoke slower in Spanish, so that perhaps by some miracle I would understand. and when I left the memory of me would vanish into the stream of people the same way the drops of water in a river is constantly disappearing before our eyes, without us noticing, because all we see is this continuous stream of water.

And then to the customs official I was a drug smuggler. I looked the part having just spent days in the mountains, unshaven, tanned, grubby clothes, traveling alone with a backpack. At least that is how it seems, but what was really on his mind was a secret, as was what was on mine. It was my secret that I was a seeker, a traveller, a magician, a father, a husband, a musician, a thinker - all of the ways I see myself, but to him I was a suspect. And when, to his surprise, he found nothing I wonder what I became and whether I will ever be remembered by him and the cute translator who interrogated me. That too is a secret.

And this is the question - does anything really exist, because everything in the Universe is dependent on everything else. Do I really exist except for the image of me that is in the mind of those who love me, and the memories I have of who I am, where I've been and these thoughts that have a life of their own.

So perhaps the key is to hold it all lightly, to realize that nothing really exists apart from everything else. That reality is what we create every moment, this moment, the only moment there ever is. The echoes of the secret past and the anticipation of a secret future all constantly being created and forgotten, right now.

an ode to the rhythm of life

Everything has rhythm. The moon hs rhythm, the sun, the planets circling the sun all following their own cycle. The Universe is pulsing with endless and multidemensional polyrythms. 

And we too, a profound expression of all of this, also have our own rhythms. Our heart beat, sleeping and waking, the movement of walking, our daily routines - all are rhythm.

And yet somehow human beings have become so accustomed to the tick, tick, tick of time. The clock telling us when it's time to wake up, when it's time to eat, go to work, have lunch. It's time to pay our bills, pay our taxes, time to vote. We pay for time, get paid for time, have to put in leave in order to make use of the time that is granted to us by a higher power. There's time for tv, time for bed, time to retire. How much time do we have left until we die..

And yet underneath it all is the gentle, constant, rhythm. Our hearts beating, and our chest rising and falling with each breath, like the tides of the ocean dancing to the rhythm of the moon. 

Perhaps our survival, our response to this 'global crisis' is not so much about bail-outs, reducing carbon emissions, working harder, and all of the so-called solutions we come up with to fix a problem that we really don't fully understand.

Perhaps it's more about learning to listen again, learning to surf, learning to dance, learning to drum like our ancestors did - moving, breathing and making love to the rhythm of life.

The shapes that shape us

Why do we do what we do?
Why do we think what we think?
Is there some deeper meaning to it all,
or are these simply patterns repeating themselves
and we do and think these things because that is what we do and think?

Why do we ask why?
How does this work, this feedback loop that allows awareness to be aware of awareness?

And if my body is constantly changing,
and the me I see is not the same me that I saw the day before
What is the pattern that keeps it all together..
Like the form of a whirlpool or the shape of a tree or a river.

Is it some mysterious morphic resonance?
or is it the future, pulling the present into shape
and does this pattern continue once this body has gone?

Perhaps we already know the answers
But haven't yet invented the words..