2010.06.25 07:00 - Theme Session: Watching Time

The Guardian for this meeting was Eliza Madrigal. The comments are by Eliza, joined today by Pema, Maxine, Sartre, SophiaSharon, Bleu, Zen, Lucinda, and Adams ("who could not resist a theme sesson on rocks"). ;-) I have posted greetings at the end of the session.

Pema's 'Watching Time' exploration email can be found at the end of the main discussion, and also, please note an upcoming series: Pema Pera: I just would like to make one announcement. I propose to start a weekly series of meetings on the "time" topic, for anyone interested, here in this pavilion, on Fridays, 6 am -- one hour before our regular 7 am meetings. I'll announce it on the PaB email group, but I just wanted to give you an early warning :-)

So, Onto the session!

Adams Rubble: Hello everyone :)
Sartre Placebo: hey adams
SophiaSharon Larnia: hi Zen
Adams Rubble: A Rubble hates to miss a session on rocks
SophiaSharon Larnia: :D
Zen Arado: Hi all
Maxine Walden: rocks, Adams?
Pema Pera: :-)
Eliza Madrigal: For those who do not have a copy of Pema's recent email, which follwed the 'Art as Being' theme session, I have a notecard...
Maxine Walden: wonderful, Eliza could you toss one my way?
Adams Rubble: Rocks and time Maxine :)
Maxine Walden: ah...
Eliza Madrigal: Hi Zen :)
Maxine Walden: thanks, Eliza
Zen Arado: ty Eliza
Pema Pera: don't toss too many rocks, Eliza . . . .
Eliza Madrigal: Wonderful to see you all this morning :)
Eliza Madrigal: Well, it is a 'heavy' note...
Zen Arado: those in glass houses.....
Pema Pera: :-) but timely!
SophiaSharon Larnia: ;)

Eliza Madrigal: Shall we begin? We've all been inspired I think, by recent time discussions and explorations. Would you like to introduce the theme session Pema?
Pema Pera: sure!
Pema Pera: the basic idea is: we really have no clue about what time is
Pema Pera: we use it, or sometimes we feel it uses us perhaps, but what is time?
Pema Pera: space, there we have some idea:
Pema Pera: there are many objects around us, and we can "create space" for them
Pema Pera: but "creating time"? to some extent, yes, in songs, in music, in dance
Pema Pera: but what *is* it -- and is there perhaps a chance to open up more for time and thereby to find new freedom, openness, possibilities?
Pema Pera: that's all I wanted to say by way of introduction, and in order to really get deeper, I think it's much better to explore, rather than to speculate -- hence the explorations I suggested in my email to the group, which Eliza copied on her note card
Pema Pera: Eliza, is there anything you'd like to add?
Eliza Madrigal: So you are talking about exploring 'our' experience of time as directly as possible, as opposed to what time might 'BE' in a theoretical sense... Or is it the same in a way?
Pema Pera: not theoretical, but really more directly what time is -- how it feels like, what hints it can give us -- and then, with that in hand we can certainly step back and theorize to some modest extent. But I think we have to start with experiments, don't you think?
Eliza Madrigal: yes, I should mention that I have worked with the exercize on the notecard a bit, and though it is difficult to articulate, I begin to get a feel for the exploration....

--BELL--
 

Eliza Madrigal: that there is alive quality to 'letting time present' ...
Eliza Madrigal: and I begin to wonder, well, is 'that' time... or it is just what happens when I relax and 'let see'...
SophiaSharon Larnia: Hi Ewan, let me message you about our theme session :)
Zen Arado:doing this kind of exercise helps me to see beyod the usual label we put on an object - the immediate shallow categorization - the 'isness' or being of the object
Zen Arado: but it doesn't really help me to see 'time' in the object
Eliza Madrigal: Thanks Sharon :)

Pema Pera: can you tell us what happened when you did the exercise, Zen?
Zen Arado: I just seemed to see it (a shell I picked up from the garden) in a more deep way and in more detail
Zen Arado: but I only did the exercise once
Pema Pera: that's great Zen that it worked so quickly already
Zen Arado: (I live on reclaumed land and shells regularly appear in my little garden)

Bleu Oleander: I began to see how time and space allow being to be so time a player in the beingness of the universe

Pema Pera: would anyone else like to report on what happened when they did this kind of exploration?
Eliza Madrigal: Hi Lucinda :) We're having a theme session on time. The note is a copy of Pema's recent email (which for log readers I will post at the end of the session ;-)

Adams Rubble: I can't help but think of time as an historian and my stone wants to talk to me about eons and how humans come and go and they are mainly a nuisance pushing it around :)
Maxine Walden: :), Adams
Eliza Madrigal: :))
Pema Pera: :-)
Lucinda Lavender: Yes thank you
Pema Pera: how nice to see that so much opened up for all three of you!

Eliza Madrigal: Bleu, would you like to say more? your "beingness in the universe".. interesting phrase
Bleu Oleander: beingness is multi faceted to me
Bleu Oleander: many elements or players involved
Bleu Oleander: time being one of them
Bleu Oleander: the need to see objects in time
Bleu Oleander: to make sense of the world
Bleu Oleander: perhaps the universe is timeless

Pema Pera: do you have a sense of time speaking to you or expressing itself or . . . in all this, if I may ask?
 

Bleu Oleander: I have a sense of time allowing
Bleu Oleander: permitting
Bleu Oleander: acting through space
Bleu Oleander: so maybe time as an actor
Bleu Oleander: so yes in a sense has a speaking role

Pema Pera: how about considering Play as Being as "Being playing me playing as Being" and then
Pema Pera: "Being playing Time playing me playing as Being?
Pema Pera: would that make sense?
Bleu Oleander: yes
Adams Rubble: no
Adams Rubble: :)
Eliza Madrigal smiles
Pema Pera: that would be an interesting exercise/exploration by itself, perhaps for the next break
Pema Pera: (and we can then ask Adams what happened, hehehe)

SophiaSharon Larnia: I've done the exercise, and the one thing that comes to mind the most is everything changes in time
Pema Pera: yes!!!
SophiaSharon Larnia: that what i see is one moment

Zen Arado: yes - time is change
Zen Arado: time is impermanence
Adams Rubble: so being changes me?
Pema Pera: you tell us, Adams!
SophiaSharon Larnia: does being change
Pema Pera: let's play with it, explore, and see what happens
Eliza Madrigal: which also seems the living quality of things, in a way... animation?
Pema Pera: interesting point, Eliza
Maxine Walden: will have to creep away during the next 90 sec pause
Zen Arado: we couldn't measure it except that it changes things
SophiaSharon Larnia: nods
Eliza Madrigal: Glad that you could be here for a little while, Maxine!
Maxine Walden: thanks, glad as well!

Pema Pera: So during the next 90 seconds break let's try to really feel what it might mean: "Being playing Time playing me playing as Being" -- even if we have no idea at all what that might mean, we can just try and plunge in!

--BELL--
 

Eliza Madrigal looks to Adams :)) heh
Adams Rubble looks around
Pema Pera cups his ear
Pema Pera holds his breath
Zen Arado: allows Adams some time

Adams Rubble: There may be some descrepancy about how we think about Being to our perceptions of what this means
Pema Pera: I hope so!
Pema Pera: (sorry :-)
Adams Rubble: the first thing that comes to mind to me is that we have a place in this earthly community while we are present
Adams Rubble: if Being is playing us, then are we fighting to be individuals?
Adams Rubble: that doesn't make sense does it?
Adams Rubble: what I am thinking is maybe we are less in control than we think
Adams Rubble: vis-a-vis the statement
Adams Rubble: each of us fits into the human community like a piece in a puzzle
Adams Rubble: earthly community

Zen Arado: time is changing us whether we like the change or not
Eliza Madrigal: hm, it's an interesting idea... our imposing individualness 'against a grain' in a sense, when letting Being play perhaps has a natural distinctiveness...
Adams Rubble: well, we see the change in ourselves daily
Eliza Madrigal: (forgive me if extrapolating)

Pema Pera: yes, if Being is playing us, then the us we normally think we are has no control; it's all Being playing . . . and "we" have been Being all along . . . .
Bleu Oleander: i think so
Pema Pera: and that can be a very very liberating message, already on the level of an idea, at first
Pema Pera: and then when we let the idea blossom, come to life, we can begin to feel and explore it
Pema Pera: and the "pieces in the puzzle" may fit!

Pema Pera: because it's all Being's puzzle in the first place
 

Bleu Oleander: nice metaphor the puzzle
Bleu Oleander: puzzles are timeless in a sense
Bleu Oleander: but placing the pieces are in time

SophiaSharon Larnia: do you think it's possible to drop the notion of change also?
Pema Pera: and I love the compassionate way you brought in that puzzle sense, Adams!
Eliza Madrigal: When I work on a puzzle, I'm amazed at how quickly it comes together when I relax and 'let' it kind of unwind the tension of my trying to figure it all out
Pema Pera: yes, and the dropping should go beyond both change and non-change, to something richer than either @ Sharon
Bleu Oleander: richness is the reward
Pema Pera: Sartre, does this make some sense, what we are talking about, if I may ask?
Eliza Madrigal wonders how many of us are turning over 'beyond both change and non-change' :)
SophiaSharon Larnia: beyond time
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Adams Rubble: if we look, we can easily see what doesn't change in us, at least while we live :)
Pema Pera: beyond "me" :-)

Zen Arado: dropping the concept of impermanence because it is impermanent too?

--BELL--
 

Pema Pera: Shall we try one more round, during the next 90 sec break, of ""Being playing Time playing me playing as Being""?
Bleu Oleander: 90 sec .... 90 1-sec moments of time presenting anew which can be broken down further to say everything is new
SophiaSharon Larnia: the object represents what it was and what it will be, which is all objects.
Eliza Madrigal: Nice Bleu!!
Pema Pera: yes, Sharon, it is all so connected, more than "added together"
Zen Arado: reminds me of old Anglican phrase: 'As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end, Amen
 

Eliza Madrigal: :) I'm interested in the way Bleu's and Sharon's sentences overlapped... a sense of each moment presenting all in one 'place'... almost but not quite
Eliza Madrigal: Is this part of what we begin to notice in this kind of exploration I wonder... an unfolding almost crackling quality...
Bleu Oleander: more fluid than crackling to me
Eliza Madrigal: so tough to describe, like dipping into another language...
Bleu Oleander: seamless
Eliza Madrigal: and yes, Bleu.... like 'welling up'... :)
Eliza Madrigal: so interesting to compare

Bleu Oleander: boundaries fall away

Pema Pera: crackling like a fluid waterfall ? :-)
Bleu Oleander: :)
Eliza Madrigal: hahha
Eliza Madrigal: yes no compartments ;-)
 

Pema Pera: I have only a few minutes left . . . then I have to leave (midnight and the bar/lounge I am in, in Nagoya, Japan, will be closing :-).

I just would like to make one announcement. I propose to start a weekly series of meetings on the "time" topic, for anyone interested, here in this pavilion, on Fridays, 6 am -- one hour before our regular 7 am meetings. I'll announce it on the PaB email group, but I just wanted to give you an early warning :-)

SophiaSharon Larnia: claps
Bleu Oleander: oh wonderful
Adams Rubble: Thanks Pema
Pema Pera: in a way, it could be seen as an extension of the Time, Space, and Knowledge sessions we had last year
Eliza Madrigal: Yes!! Just great :)
Bleu Oleander: start my day with time
Pema Pera: but then in a PaB rather than Kira setting
Pema Pera: hahaha, Bleu!
Eliza Madrigal: mmm, yes :)
Lucinda Lavender: so interesting this topic...

Pema Pera: yes, and fits perfectly with dreams . . .
Eliza Madrigal: Endless
Lucinda Lavender: :)
Pema Pera: I *loved* your dream circle Lucinda!
Pema Pera: Will try to make it next time from the beginning
Lucinda Lavender: thank you so much for being there
Pema Pera: and recommend it to anyone!
Lucinda Lavender: we are working on it...
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Eliza Madrigal: Thank you Pema, and everyone. What a nice session
Pema Pera: thank you too, Eliza!
Lucinda Lavender: wondering if there have been dreams that point to this whole thinking...
Bleu Oleander: thank you everyone
Pema Pera: and everyone!
SophiaSharon Larnia: yes thanks you Pema and Eliza ^^
Adams Rubble: Thanks you all :)
Pema Pera: oh yes, Lucinda, a hundred or so for me :-)
Lucinda Lavender: great...
Zen Arado: thanks Pema, Eliza and all
Pema Pera: dreams that is
Bleu Oleander: looking forward to more about time
Pema Pera: thanks, everybody!
Lucinda Lavender: the richness...
Pema Pera: bar is closing, have to quit :-)
--BELL--
Adams Rubble: :)
Bleu Oleander: bye Pema
Eliza Madrigal: Bye Pema, good night :)
Adams Rubble: bye Pema and everyone :)
Pema Pera: bye for now
Lucinda Lavender: bye Pema.
Bleu Oleander: bye all :)
Lucinda Lavender: !
Zen Arado: bye all
SophiaSharon Larnia: bye everyone :D
SophiaSharon Larnia: waves
Sartre Placebo: bye everyone
Sartre Placebo: who´s leaving
Eliza Madrigal erases her bar of 'goodbye's since I missed them all
Eliza Madrigal: hahah

===

Pema's email (then the rest of the session at the bottom):

  I have one question for all of you: if you have time and interest,
  please try to do the following experiment/exercise/exploration in RL,
  before joining us on Friday morning in SL:

  Look around in your environment, and pick up a simple natural
  object, a stone or a piece of wood, or anything that speaks to you.
  Put it in front of you, relax, and look at it for a while, gently,
  with soft eyes.  Perhaps you can just look with the eyes of your
  heart, whatever that may mean for you.  Don't hurry, just gently
  watch the object for a while.

  Once you have become comfortable with the object, feel/sense how
  time is presenting this object, in all its particularity.  Let
  time present the object anew at each and every moment.  While
  focusing on that momentary newness, try to also feel some of the
  timelessness and completeness of each presentation.  You don't have
  to just stare, you can pick up the little thing, feels its weight
  and texture, befriend and greet it in any way you like.  Sure, it
  is timeless, but so are you, and that may be a good place to meet!

  Finally, when you're really at ease with the whole situation,
  slowly extend your consideration beyond the particular object to
  include more and more of its surroundings.  You can start with
  what is given in its immediate neighborhood, what it rests on,
  what surrounds it.  See all of that, too, as given by time.  And
  little by little, you can extend that context to include more and
  more, as far as the eye can see and beyond, finally including the
  whole Earth and ultimately the whole universe in which the object
  is embedded.

  See everything as presented by time, anew in each moment, the
  object and the whole world that supports it.  Is there a way in
  which it makes sense to see the object _as_ time in some sense?
  Can you see time as playing the object perpahs?  You can explore
  what it may mean to let Being play through time as the object and
  the whole Universe around the object.  Being letting time play you
  play as Being.

  Well, that's a lot, for sure!  Better not to try it all at once, or
  you might overdose. :-)  You can start your first session, just a few
  minutes, say, with the suggestions in the first paragraph.  Then a few
  more minutes, perhaps later in the day, on the second paragraph.  And
  so on, whatever feels right for you.

  And no rush!  We'll talk about our initial impressions on Friday, but
  I'd be more than happy to come back to this exploration a number of
  times.  I feel it can be a really rich entry into a different world
  in which time can take on quite a different meaning from our normal
  clock time or I'm-just-too-busy-today time.  Why not invite some magic
  into your life by looking at what is closest and yet strangest: time!

===

Lucinda, Sartre, and I continue the discussion for a little while ...  

Lucinda Lavender: very interesting...
Eliza Madrigal: Pema makes a good point about the overlaps...
Sartre Placebo: will you both come to the voice session later ?
Eliza Madrigal: A few months ago... hm... maybe quite a while now, there is a guardian who attends seldomly, named BertUm (rather than Bertram who attends more often)
Eliza Madrigal: and he suggested a theme or two on 'dreams and time'
Lucinda Lavender: ah...
Lucinda Lavender: would like to think more about this
Eliza Madrigal: I wonder if I can find those sessions

Indeed I found the one I thought of, and one I'd never seen before:  

http://wiki.playasbeing.org/Chat_Logs/2008/04/2008.04.12_13:00_-_Dreams_and_Time

http://wiki.playasbeing.org/Chat_Logs/2009/04/2009.04.19_13:00_-_Of_time_and_dreams

Eliza Madrigal: I'd like to attend the voice session, not sure yet whether I'll be home...
Eliza Madrigal: more likely if I sign off soon. Hah
Sartre Placebo: hehe :)
Lucinda Lavender: oh less...today is friday
Lucinda Lavender: I will be working
Eliza Madrigal: Ah
Eliza Madrigal: yes this is what is wonderful about the logs...
Lucinda Lavender: yes!
Eliza Madrigal: but I also love that PaB has so many textures lately....
Eliza Madrigal: we seem to really be exploring together
Lucinda Lavender: yes, in many different ways
Eliza Madrigal: indeed... inwardly, and branching outwardly too
Eliza Madrigal: :D
Lucinda Lavender: they maybe only appear as different expression...
Eliza Madrigal: interesting...
Eliza Madrigal: I feel very full now, after this session.. overflowing :)
Lucinda Lavender: yes
Lucinda Lavender: we are having a great opportunity to look at it all...
Eliza Madrigal: yes... and the capacity to see the opportunity seems a real gift too
Eliza Madrigal: Ah, better go
Lucinda Lavender: me too
Eliza Madrigal: Thanks again, and bye for now :) Enjoy work today Lucinda
Eliza Madrigal: and hope to see you later SartreYa
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Lucinda Lavender: thank you:)
Lucinda Lavender: Same to you both
Sartre Placebo: cya later
Lucinda Lavender: Sartre...I had to change back to viewr1
Lucinda Lavender: so I am remembering how to do things in it.
Lucinda Lavender: have gotten somewhat adjusted....good day!

====

:) As promised, back to beginning of the session greetings. Otherwise known as 'the starting at the end'... hahaha

Eliza Madrigal: Hey, Sartre :) & Hi Sharon
--BELL--
Eliza Madrigal: Hi Maxine!
Sartre Placebo: hey maxine!
SophiaSharon Larnia: :D
SophiaSharon Larnia: hi Maxine
Maxine Walden: hi, Eliza and all.
Eliza Madrigal: Oh, Sartre isn't old enough for philosophy island?
Eliza Madrigal: Hi Bleu, what a great color :)
Maxine Walden: hi, SophiaSharon
Sartre Placebo: hey bleu :)
SophiaSharon Larnia: hi Bleu
Bleu Oleander: hey everyone :)
Maxine Walden: Eliza, apologies that I will have to leave at 7:30am, will just quietly go
Eliza Madrigal: Hi Pema :)
Bleu Oleander: hi Pema
Sartre Placebo: hey pema
Sartre Placebo: is there a special session today ?
Eliza Madrigal: Oh, that's just fine Maxine. Lovely that you could be here at an unusual time
Bleu Oleander: yes
SophiaSharon Larnia: Hi Pema
Maxine Walden: :)) great to be here
Maxine Walden: hi, Pema
Pema Pera: hi everybody!
Pema Pera: (slowly rezzing)
Pema Pera: Yes, Sartre: we are having a theme session on the topic of "Watching Time"
Maxine Walden: Pema, just need to say that I will need to leave about 7:30am; but wanted to be here for as much as I can
Pema Pera: (see http://wiki.playasbeing.org/PaB_Theme_Sessions)
Pema Pera: np, Maxine, glad you could come!
Eliza Madrigal: Hi Adams :)
Maxine Walden: Me too
SophiaSharon Larnia: hi Adams
Maxine Walden: hi, Adams
Bleu Oleander: hi Adams