2010.08.31 19:00 - Play as Bubble

The Guardian for this meeting was Eos Amaterasu. The comments are by Eos Amaterasu.

Orcas, babies as beings, oceans, bubbles, falling out of the universe (not!) ... 

 

Paradise Tennant: smiles and waits for the world to rez :)

Eos Amaterasu: smiles and waits for Paradise to rez :-)

Paradise Tennant: smiles

Paradise Tennant: going to take a long time

Paradise Tennant: how have you been :)

Eos Amaterasu: pretty well...

 

Eos Amaterasu: My wife and son just got back from an orca-watching kayak trip

Paradise Tennant: wow

Paradise Tennant: double wow

Eos Amaterasu: my son shot this short video

Paradise Tennant: very cool !

Eos Amaterasu: they really lucked out: my wife grew up on Vancouver Island, but till now had never seen an orca live

Eos Amaterasu: one can't avoid the impression that orcas appreciate things :-)

Paradise Tennant: yes! they are expressive and intelligent

Paradise Tennant: smiles they were very lucky :)

Paradise Tennant: they must be just shining with the sheer joy of that :) expereince

Eos Amaterasu: yeah, I think it was a significant experience for both of them

Eos Amaterasu: encountering another significant mammalian life form

Eos Amaterasu: plus the whole environment

Eos Amaterasu: they remarked how tiny the Nova Scotia trees were when they returned

Eos Amaterasu: Hi Fox

Fox Monacular: Hello Eos, Paradise

Eos Amaterasu: Paradise has still not quite rezzed?

Paradise Tennant: hiya fox gtsy :) waiting for the cushions :) to appear they are shy these days :)

Fox Monacular: I was having a lot of troubles rezzing right now as well

Eos Amaterasu: Odd - I'm not having any particular problem

 

--BELL--

 

Eos Amaterasu: I had heard there were all kinds of animals and things here...

Fox Monacular: here?

Eos Amaterasu: in the playgoda here...

Paradise Tennant: yes flowers fish .. birds :) :))))

Fox Monacular: jellyfish...

Eos Amaterasu: now all dissolved in the deep plenitude of the play of being

Paradise Tennant: smiles yes :) a deep plentitude love that phrase

Eos Amaterasu: plenipotentiary: full of good and plenty

Fox Monacular: :)

Fox Monacular: nice

Eos Amaterasu rummages for his totem

Paradise Tennant: smiles

Eos Amaterasu: Would either of you ladies have a topic of interest or appreciation?

Paradise Tennant: smiles and thinks of fox and her vivid dreams and images :)

Paradise Tennant: and listens :) with expectant eyes :)

Fox Monacular: not fair:)

Paradise Tennant: lol

Eos Amaterasu: and ears...

Eos Amaterasu likes vividness....

Fox Monacular: no, no vividness in my mind - too hot here!

Eos Amaterasu: Paradise is probably also hot

Eos Amaterasu: I'm hot here in Halifax - broke records for heat today

Paradise Tennant: yes really hot here too ..kind of weather you just want to sit in a bathtub in with occassional sprinkles of cold water :)

Paradise Tennant: 40 + degrees

Fox Monacular: same here

Fox Monacular: in Boston

Eos Amaterasu: the heat is attracting Hurricane Earle

Eos Amaterasu: So Fox, play us a beautiful viviv image....

Eos Amaterasu: *vivid

Paradise Tennant: grins

 

Fox Monacular: something I was wondering about today - we noticed how when you have a baby, an infant, it's a lot of work, and fun, and amazing stuff - but almost like an extraterrestrial... and then at some moment you realize it's an actual human, with her own will, and preferences, and likes and desires!

Fox Monacular: how does that happen?

Eos Amaterasu: wow, yes, for me that is very vivid!

Paradise Tennant: a miracle

Eos Amaterasu: although I recall that the second my son came out of the womb I was struck by the extent to which he had will and intensity and energy....

Paradise Tennant: smiles one you made :)

Fox Monacular: (we put our daughter in part-time daycare, a couple of times a week for 3 hours... so it's like all of a sudden she's outgrown our exclusivity!)

Fox Monacular: yes! I remember that too!

Eos Amaterasu: that was indeed also alien, like having an alien (which is how I've heard some women describe being pregnant)

Fox Monacular: hehe, a parasite:)

Eos Amaterasu: yes

Eos Amaterasu: that's part of the plenitude of nature, mutual parasitism and symbiosis et al

Eos Amaterasu still has vividly in mind the image of the rotting log in the Windhorse Farm forest, so rich and full of "nothing missing"

Fox Monacular: I attended a one day vipassana course when pregnant, and the teacher told me to meditate as usual, but to completely avoid all the space of the baby! she said: "that's not yours"

Fox Monacular: that was when it struck me for the first time - it's mine, but not mine

Paradise Tennant: could you feel the difference in spaces when meditating

Eos Amaterasu: give her space and also hold her space?

Fox Monacular: no, i could only tell that my back and my butt hurt:)

Fox Monacular: but seriously, yes

Eos Amaterasu: meditation 101: back and butt hurt :-)

Fox Monacular: in vipassana in particular you're supposed to go deeper and deeper into all sensations on and in your body

Fox Monacular: starting with surface sensations, and then going inside

Eos Amaterasu: would you say that's a form of appreciating the presence of their appearance?

Fox Monacular: so yes, she told me to not go into baby's space

 

--BELL--

 

Fox Monacular: yes, and also a form of realizing their impermanence:)

Fox Monacular: and practice equanimity, non-judgemental, no difference

Fox Monacular: Hi Bruce

Paradise Tennant: smiles that is a really handy one to have down pat :)))))))

Eos Amaterasu: Hi Bruce (emerging from the 90 secs)

Bruce Mowbray: Hello. Please continue with your conversation.

Paradise Tennant: hiya bruce gtsy :)

Bruce Mowbray: gtsy, too, Para.

Fox Monacular: so back to the first question, when does it happen that you recognize a full being in your child:)

Paradise Tennant: smiles ..they are there from the outset

Paradise Tennant: likely in the womb too

Eos Amaterasu: well, in one way for me that happened in the very first second of my child's life in this air: it actually struck me: he was already himself, not mine

Paradise Tennant: nods

Fox Monacular: yes, it's so strange

Eos Amaterasu: but then that happens on further levels

Paradise Tennant: did you see the unmistaken child :)

Eos Amaterasu: such as that you don't have 100% communication

Fox Monacular: but it's hard to change from MY child to the child in the world:)

Fox Monacular: Hi Calvino!

Paradise Tennant: smiles hiya cal ;))

Bruce Mowbray: Good evening, Calvino.

Eos Amaterasu: yes, it is a certain kind of tender pain

Eos Amaterasu: HI Cal

Calvino Rabeni: Hello ! I love to see a lively meeting :)

Fox Monacular: I just started to realize that my daughter is not mine, but belongs and lives in the world, fully connected to everything (not just through me)

Calvino Rabeni: Or live to see a lovely meeting :)

Paradise Tennant: smiles we are all pregnant with .. err .. perception :)

Fox Monacular: (feels good to be here! I miss PaB:)

Eos Amaterasu: I think the more "oceanic" relationship can build up some trust

Fox Monacular: :) yes, but how?

Eos Amaterasu: but then she becomes a child of the world, as you intimate, with her own perceptions, or her own being percepted

Eos Amaterasu: I think trust can build up on a deep unarticulated level (but that might be a male slant on it)

Fox Monacular: :)

Eos Amaterasu: but it's similar to relationship with a dog....

Eos Amaterasu: you build up a relationship

Eos Amaterasu: my wife went with my son (age 17) on an orca-watching kayak trip

Eos Amaterasu: that seems a bit like further opening up to the phenomenal world

Fox Monacular: what about structure? it's also so important, especially with children, they seem to feel so much more secure when things are predictable

Fox Monacular: wow

Fox Monacular: yes

Paradise Tennant: lol dogs sigh yes!

 

Fox Monacular: my 2 year old just discovered the ocean

Eos Amaterasu: yeah, I think structure has to do with trust

Eos Amaterasu: kids are actually very conservative

Eos Amaterasu: reliability

Paradise Tennant: trust is the basic building block of life ..of economies of the world :)

Fox Monacular: just watching her enjoy it was a wonderful experience for us

Bruce Mowbray: Hello, Aztlan.

Eos Amaterasu: HI Aztlan

Aztlan Foss: hi everyone

Fox Monacular: Hello Aztlan

Paradise Tennant: khiya azlan

Eos Amaterasu: That's incredible - discovering the ocean

Eos Amaterasu: I'm happy for your daughter :-)

Fox Monacular: yes, very conservative! my daughter does not let me put on my husbands's shirts!

Eos Amaterasu: ha ha

Fox Monacular: yes, that was wonderful

Eos Amaterasu: the ocean is like phenomenality gone oceanic

Fox Monacular: she was just standing here, her feet in the sand, just screaming with joy at every wave that would submerge her feet!

Bruce Mowbray: ;-)

Eos Amaterasu: (all those memories of long beaches and sound of surf)

Fox Monacular: amazing

Fox Monacular: and then when she was wet and cold, she discovered the sand:)

Eos Amaterasu: that's where William Blake was coming from

Paradise Tennant: lol i think I remember doing the same thing

Fox Monacular: so simple, and yet felt very profound, how she was just sitting in the sand, totally focused, looking at all different colors of the sand grains

Eos Amaterasu: same place as your daughter's mind / world

Eos Amaterasu: the universe is in the details

Paradise Tennant: god is in the details

Fox Monacular: yes:)

Paradise Tennant: smiles

Fox Monacular: or how they totally enjoy soap bubbles!

 

--BELL--

 

Fox Monacular: it was terribly hot here yesterday, she couldnt sleep, so we tool her outside, on the street to blow some bubbles... 100% joy, just running after them, and how they want you to enjoy with them together! 'look!' I wish we retained some of that capacity for joy as adults:)

Eos Amaterasu: you can blow bubbles, fox :-)

Fox Monacular: I did:) yes

Eos Amaterasu: bubbles are amazing, fragile and all the colors that can appear

Paradise Tennant: smiles but it never really goes away

Paradise Tennant: it is still there

Eos Amaterasu: the bubble

Paradise Tennant: just cluttered

Paradise Tennant: the joy

Aztlan Foss: yeah once you clear out the clutter you're left with that child-like joy

Eos Amaterasu: so how to clear out the clutter

Eos Amaterasu: (or turn it to bubbles)

Fox Monacular: feels good! until you remember the dishes and the bills, and the phone calls you forgot to make

Fox Monacular: :)

Aztlan Foss: hehe I gues it depends on your particular clutter

Fox Monacular: but if you can turn all these things into bubbles:)!

Paradise Tennant: smiles at fox

Fox Monacular: play as bubble

Paradise Tennant: they are sort of bubbles ..they evaporate on their own

Paradise Tennant: nods there is a great theme session

Eos Amaterasu: Fox, one thing is that you might notice your child noticing changes in her relationship to you and to the world: it puts her in a lonelier spot too

Fox Monacular: yes, bubbles are a good example of impermanence:)

Eos Amaterasu: bubble seeing

Fox Monacular: yes, so true, Eos

Fox Monacular: it's kind of painful

Eos Amaterasu: but I also recall such perceptions in myself as a child

Fox Monacular: realizing it was also true as soon as the umbilical cord was cut, but now somehow more obvious

Eos Amaterasu: yeah, you gave life and now also life leaves you

Bruce Mowbray: Hello, steve.

stevenaia Michinaga: hello

Fox Monacular: Hi steve!

Eos Amaterasu: Hi Steve

Paradise Tennant: hiya steve :):)

Fox Monacular: but you know, despite all theses changes, something still feels the same:)

stevenaia Michinaga: sorry to interrupt, pls continue

Eos Amaterasu: we have themes of bubbles and mother/child together/separating going....

Paradise Tennant: were bubbling

Eos Amaterasu: is the something something like trust, Fox?

Eos Amaterasu: maybe it's deeper than trust

Fox Monacular: also, it's not just her being more embedded in the world, it's also me kind of returning to the world:)

Eos Amaterasu: wb

Fox Monacular: trust, yes, but deeper certainly

Fox Monacular: :)

 

Calvino Rabeni: Perhaps if the children sleep with the parents until 9 or 10 years old, the trust and loneliness would be different, or so I've heard

Fox Monacular: she slept in my bed until she was 1.5 years old:)

Fox Monacular: until i couldn't take it anymore waking up every 2-3 hours because she would want a boob:)

Fox Monacular: Calvino, I heard that many Japanese families have such sleeping arrangements

Calvino Rabeni: Yes, I was reading about that

Calvino Rabeni: and noticing it in some videos

Fox Monacular: it also depends on the cultural practices and questions of 'appropriateness'... in north america it wouldn't really fly... we're so obsessed with ideas of 'personal space'

Paradise Tennant: hmm you to like falling asleep to the sound of my parents talking in the living room .. the murmurs .. even it you are not .. in the same room ..there is a feeling of presence in the house

 

--BELL--

 

Fox Monacular: :) I remember that too, Paradise:)

Calvino Rabeni: I remember adjusting to sleeping outside N. America in places where there were a lot of friendly noises at night

Calvino Rabeni: it took some getting used to, then I liked it

Paradise Tennant: more .. just the sense of love .. being protected .. was kind of spectacular to be carted off to parites in your pjs and some how miraculously wake up your own bed

Calvino Rabeni: :)

Eos Amaterasu: almost like being born, Paradise!

Paradise Tennant: yes we end one life carted off .. in old pjs and awake the next in a nice snug bed :) it seems

Fox Monacular: :)

Eos Amaterasu: there's a theme here of waking up to your perceptual world, including deeply perceived feelings such as love and fear and loneliness

Eos Amaterasu: and of going from my mom to the big momma of the world

Fox Monacular: yes, as a parent, you really want to shelter your child, but at the same time realizing that pain and loneliness are also powerful catalysts for growth and appreciation of the stuff of the lived world

Fox Monacular: so it's a bitter-sweet feeling

Eos Amaterasu: and we're in a world full of such bitter-sweetened beings

Paradise Tennant: hmm remember one night at a lawn party sitting in a chair outside and something touch my knee and I felt enveloped in love .. when I looked up no one was there .. still wonder about it .. often think love is a presence that persists

Paradise Tennant: profound love .. lasts .. in a tangible way

Eos Amaterasu: hmm, both subtle and fleeting, a touch on the knee, then gone, but lasts all the way....

Fox Monacular: I heard somewhere that 'love is when you make a space inside yourself where another feels completely free'

Paradise Tennant: smiles at fox

Eos Amaterasu: nicely put

stevenaia Michinaga: yes

Eos Amaterasu: I bet prerequisite for that is to allow yourself to be completely free

stevenaia Michinaga: and safe

 

Fox Monacular: such a nice conversation, thank you everyone, unfortunately I must go now (our living room is alos out bedroom and our office, so it's the light-out time:)

Eos Amaterasu: good night fox (& daughter)

Fox Monacular: :) good night everyone!

Bruce Mowbray: Good night, Fox. and Thank you.

Paradise Tennant: good nite fox ..thank you :)

stevenaia Michinaga: night fox

Paradise Tennant: sweet dreams :)

Calvino Rabeni: That was a good session theme idea, Eos

Eos Amaterasu: Oh, thanks, it was actually inadvertently thanks to Eliza

Paradise Tennant: smiles :)

Eos Amaterasu: who started talking about "closure"....

 

Calvino Rabeni: I recently went to some sweat lodge ceremonies - it felt like being in such a world

Eos Amaterasu listens

Paradise Tennant: smiles and listens

Calvino Rabeni: and then I was reading some blogs about other non-native people who experienced a culturally different experience of collective wisdom in the traditional cultures

Calvino Rabeni: hard to describe, subtle, but emotionally memorable

Calvino Rabeni: Reminiscent of Bruce's statements a few weeks ago

Calvino Rabeni: that you can't fall out of the world

Bruce Mowbray: ;-)

Calvino Rabeni: but you can fall "into" it , as an experience

Eos Amaterasu: blue blue windows behind the stars

 

--BELL--

 

Calvino Rabeni: because it has always been there

Bruce Mowbray: and appreciate that experience.

Paradise Tennant: 

Blue, blue windows behind the stars, 

Yellow moon on the rise, 

Big birds flying across the sky, 

Throwing shadows on our eyes. 

Leaves us Helpless, helpless, helpless.

Paradise Tennant: smiles a feeling of letting go ..

Paradise Tennant: release

Calvino Rabeni: :)

Calvino Rabeni: The sweat lodge is a religious ceremony taking place in complete darkness, other than the glowing stones.

Eos Amaterasu: letting go... into being been.... being seen

Calvino Rabeni: A poem -

Calvino Rabeni: 

To Darkness 

You, darkness, of whom I am born -- 

I love you more than the flame that limits the world to the circle it illuminates and excludes all the rest. 

But the dark embraces everything: shapes and shadows, creatures and me, people, nations - just as they are.

Calvino Rabeni: ... by Rilke

 

Eos Amaterasu: Calvino, were you saying there was a non-traditional appreciation of traditional culture/form (like sweat lodge)?

Bruce Mowbray: When I first came to understand that I could not fall out of the universe, I felt truly free and truly secure and truly at home for the first time in my life.

Paradise Tennant: nods

Calvino Rabeni: I understand, Bruce

Bruce Mowbray: I know you do, Cal. Thank you.

Bruce Mowbray: What is "non-tradition appreciation of traditional culture"?

Eos Amaterasu: Hmm, seems like a fitting finale for the journey of Fox's daughter....

Calvino Rabeni: The blogosphere is a huge place - hidden in it are all kinds of appreciations and experiences that somehow can't be formulated in a way that gains the status of a cultural awareness

Bruce Mowbray: Whites appreciating native American culture?

Calvino Rabeni: For example

Eos Amaterasu: you mean there are individual awarenesses and appreciations that don't get the status of cultural memes?

Calvino Rabeni: Hmmm, yes

Calvino Rabeni: more or less, I'm not sure about memes, but the knowledge can't circulate widely

Bruce Mowbray: an infinite number of "individual awarenesses"

Calvino Rabeni: because it doesn't become collective

Eos Amaterasu: Bruce, does not falling out of the universe include "death"?

Bruce Mowbray remembers "Starry Starry Night" - both the painting and the song, for some reason.

Paradise Tennant: is pretty sure you do not fall out of the universe when you die

Eos Amaterasu: (there goes another one :-)

Bruce Mowbray: I don't know yet, Cal.

stevenaia Michinaga: wonders where is "Out of the universe"

Bruce Mowbray: Oh - sorry, Eos...

Paradise Tennant: lol

Eos Amaterasu: That's a nice koan, by the way (you can't fall out of the universe)

Calvino Rabeni: Fall into Life

Bruce Mowbray: so far, so good.

Bruce Mowbray: I've also had some 'feeling' of 'contact' with persons who have died, so they - at least - didn't fall completely out.

Paradise Tennant: nods

Paradise Tennant: smiles

Paradise Tennant: can you say more Bruce :)

 

--BELL--

 

Bruce Mowbray: Well, thanks for asking, but I'm beginning to nod off. . . and we have so many wonderful themes already in this one session.

Paradise Tennant: ok :)

Bruce Mowbray: ;-)

stevenaia Michinaga: I must go too, thanks all

Eos Amaterasu: ciao stevenaia

Eos Amaterasu: & bruce

Bruce Mowbray: Thanks to everyone. This will be a wonderful log to read whenever Eos gets it posted.

stevenaia Michinaga dies from laughing....

Paradise Tennant: sigh yes it is getting late :) amazing how the time flies :) nite bruce .. steve .. eos .. cal . thank you :)

Bruce Mowbray dies from laughing....

stevenaia Michinaga: :)

Eos Amaterasu: & eos is also leaving (September already)

Eos Amaterasu: tragic events here :-)

Eos Amaterasu: but happy events :-)

Eos Amaterasu: bye cal and para

Calvino Rabeni: Good night, sleep well :)

Calvino Rabeni: And now there's been an abrupt change in season; heavy rain, dark skies; a need for warm enclosure at night; the coming dark seasons.

Calvino Rabeni: Bears feasting on the fall harvest and preparing their lairs

Calvino Rabeni: Humans turning their attention to indoor life and activities

Calvino Rabeni: ...

Calvino Rabeni: Another Rilke poem on the theme of the dark - from a collection titled "A Year WIth Rilke" (which I highly recommend)

Calvino Rabeni: -

Calvino Rabeni:

Prayer Night, so still, where things entirely white and things of red and all colors of the rainbow are lifted into the one stillness of one darkness -- bring me as well to immersion in the Many.

Is my mind too taken with light?

If my face were not visible, would I still feel separate from other things?

Look at my hands: Don't they lie there like tools?

Doesn't the ring on that finger look just like itself?

Does not the light lie upon them with such trust -- as if knowing they are the very same when held in darkness.