2010.11.04 07:00 - Being on the spot

The Guardian for this meeting was Storm Nordwind. The comments are by Storm Nordwind.

Bruce Mowbray: Hi, Storm.
Bruce Mowbray: Good day, Eden.
Storm Nordwind: Good morning all!
--BELL--
Eden Haiku: Good morning :)
Bleu Oleander: hi all :)
Bruce Mowbray: Good morning-day, Bleu.
Eden Haiku: Hi Bleu :)

Bruce is wearing a tag that includes the word "bohemian".

Storm Nordwind: Bruce is a bohemian today. By European cultural standards, I approve! ;-) Though I'm not sure it means the same in America (?)
Bruce Mowbray wonders what Storm means by "bohemian. . . "
Bruce Mowbray notes a downy woodpecker climbing the bark of a tree right outside the window.
Storm Nordwind: I mean someone who has active cultural interests who may not follow the herd
Bruce Mowbray: Wow -- You surely got that one RIGHT!
Bruce Mowbray: no herds for moi.
Bruce Mowbray: not even herds of bohemians like miyself.
Storm Nordwind: hehe!
Bleu Oleander: i've herd that about you Bruce :)
Bruce Mowbray wonders what a herd of hermits would feel like.
Eden Haiku: :)
Bruce Mowbray: In one of my sonnets, I labored long and long over one line. . .
Bruce Mowbray: It finally came out: "Honest as an ox outside his herd."
Storm Nordwind: How is the honesty of an ox compromised by his herd?
Bruce Mowbray: Well, this, surely, is my own prejudice. . . but I sort of feel that anything's honesty is somewhat compromised by identification with a herd.
Eden Haiku: Living in an ashram felt like being in a herd of hermits.
Storm Nordwind: Ah I see
Storm Nordwind chuckles with Eden
Eden Haiku: hehe
Bruce Mowbray: I'm working on the flavors of "every-where-ness" -- and discovering that this is very liberating.
Storm Nordwind: What if, Bruce, the ox does not feel an identification with the herd, if dissatisfied perhaps with its mores or behavior?
Bruce Mowbray: I can be everywhere even though I appear to be inside a herd.
Bruce Mowbray: Yes, Storm, it seems to be a question of "identification" VS "authentic self."
Storm Nordwind nods
Bruce Mowbray: but there shouldn't be a tension there. . .
Storm Nordwind: Perhaps the easy route is identification. Group-think is thought for the lazy, maybe?
Bruce Mowbray: Hmmmm. . . I don't feel that it's for me to say. . .
Storm Nordwind: Very wise :)
Bruce Mowbray: I've always been envious of folks who could pull together as a team. . .
Bruce Mowbray: although that's always been a big hurdle for me.
Storm Nordwind: Ah there's difference there. A team wants to pull together and makes an active decision to do so. Group-think is abdication of motivation - quite the reverse

Intuitive back channel.

Eden Haiku: Heard something interesting on Twitter today: "Intuitive back channel"...#ibc. It describes the invisible flow of trust between friends.
Bruce Mowbray: wow. Please say more, Eden.
Bruce Mowbray ponders "invisible flow of trust"
Eden Haiku: I don't know much more for now, but I like the fact they had a name for it.
Bruce Mowbray: I like "invisible flow of trust" as a sort of mantra-point.
Bruce Mowbray: like a verbal mandala.
Eden Haiku: That's how I interpreted: "intuitive back channel"
Storm Nordwind wonders about the invisibility. To whom is it invisible?
Eden Haiku: Maybe invisible is not the right word.
--BELL--
Bleu Oleander: maybe more visible in body language, actions, levels of comfort etc.
Bruce Mowbray: perhaps, "Intuited flow of trust..."
Eden Haiku: That's the way I undestood the "back channel", as something you do not hear in the foreground ?
Bruce Mowbray: nods.
Bruce Mowbray: Is the autologger working again, Storm?
Storm Nordwind: Actually I don't know Bruce. If it isn't I have my own log as back-up
Eden Haiku: It worked fined on Monday and yesterday Zen posted his session.
Eden Haiku: Eos too on Tuesday.
Bruce Mowbray: Yes, I noticed that you claimed this session -- and just thought I'd ask. I also have the cache back-up.
Bruce Mowbray: Oh good, Eden.
Storm Nordwind: That's very thoughful. Thank you! :)
Eden Haiku: You know there is a timetable of all the sessions Bruce?
Storm Nordwind: And a Google Calendar option for those that use it
Bruce Mowbray: I received a sort of schedule a long time ago -- with all of the GoC's listed. . . but don't know where to find an updated one.
Bruce Mowbray: May I return to the topic of invisible trust, please?
Storm Nordwind: http://wiki.playasbeing.org/Information/Guardian_Timetable
Bruce Mowbray: oh thanks!
Storm Nordwind: Please go ahead Bruce :)
Bruce Mowbray: (I've just bookmarked that page -- Thanks!

Being on the spot.

Bruce Mowbray: Well, recently I've been working with the idea of "One's Spot" -- a term that Trungpa and Pema Chodron use a lot.
Bruce Mowbray: In one's spot, there is confidence, centeredness, a sense of groundedness, and a lot of other stuff...
Bruce Mowbray: and it seems to me that it's out of that "spot" that trust might flow.
Bruce Mowbray: (I'm not saying this very well....)
Eden Haiku: You mean when one is grounded into one's spot then trust can flow from there ?
Bruce Mowbray: Yes. . . but also that when one has found one's "spot," she/he can open bravely to herself/himself.
Bruce Mowbray: develop tenderness for herself.
Bruce Mowbray: and from there, one moves into flowing trust for everyone else.
Bruce Mowbray: For me, it's a matter of taking personal responsibility for my own work.
Bruce Mowbray: (and not relying on the herd to do that for me).
Eden Haiku: Not remembering the expression 'one's spot" in Trungpa but in Castaneda I do...Wondering if it's a similar thing...
Bruce Mowbray sits on hands and listens.
Storm Nordwind: It would seem to me that once one has found one's "spot", that it would take a very deliberate effort to leave it or lose it. Or perhaps I am too optimistic? :)
Bleu Oleander: or share it?
Bruce Mowbray: Your "optimism" is exactly how I see it too, Storm. . .
--BELL--
Bruce Mowbray: It feels like existentialism's "being for itself." - - - One makes a decision. . .

Learning to feel.

Eden Haiku: What I remember from Castaneda, is that the young sorcerer-apprentice takes a looong time to sit in a spot which feels "right". The sorcerer doesn't have any explanation as how to find it :)
Bruce Mowbray: One makes a decision and it seems the the entire cosmos melts and bows to that -- yes, it is quite important to find the "right spot."
Bruce Mowbray: and "right spot" is also "right" on all levels - physical, spiritual, and emotional, etc.
Storm Nordwind: I haven't read it, but that sounds, Eden, like a lesson is learning to feel rather than finding what's right! :)
Eden Haiku: Something we can find and lose again, I'm afraid though... It's a dynamic process...
Bruce Mowbray: Well, yes, I have often felt that I'd "lost" it. . .
Eden Haiku: Yes Storm, learning to feel, exactly.
Bruce Mowbray: but it also feels like a comet orbiting it's sun . . .
Bruce Mowbray: and although there is an "outer darkness," eventually the comet returns to a close encounter - - only to be thrust outward again.

Eden's example.

Eden Haiku: I had the most wonderful exhilarating feeling of oneness with the public once in a poetry reading. Was never able to recreated it exactly as exhilarating...
Bruce Mowbray: dynamic.
Bruce Mowbray listens for more from Eden.
Bleu Oleander: lovely when that happens Eden :)
Eden Haiku: I guess I was reading my poetry from my very
Eden Haiku: delivering my poetry from what we call one's spot, that day :)
Bleu Oleander: "only connect"
Bruce Mowbray: Hmmmm. . . It seems that if one knows one's spot, then one might be able to dwell inside a herd and not lose herself.
Storm Nordwind agrees
Bruce Mowbray: Until this moment, I've always thought of "herd" as a negative term.
Bruce Mowbray: now that is changing.
Eden Haiku: It was a dark dark dark piece and I was connecting with another woman friend poet through some "intuitive back channel" I guess and we were laughing it out and the people in the crowd just jumped in and waves of ecstasy were flowing in the small joint where this was happening, during a poetry festival.
Bruce Mowbray thinks: That's WONDERFUL.
Storm Nordwind smiles
Eden Haiku: It was,

A quote from Forster.

Bleu Oleander: Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect, and the beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation that is life to either, will die.
Eden Haiku: The American beat poet Anne Waldman was at that festival and she had pulled all of us at another level of communication.
Bleu Oleander: E.M. Forster
Eden Haiku: Beautiful quote Bleu !
Alfred Kelberry: meep-meep!
Bleu Oleander: one of my favorites
Bruce Mowbray: Good morning, Al!
Bleu Oleander: hi boxy
Eden Haiku: meep-meep Alfred
Alfred Kelberry: good to see you all :)
Eden Haiku: Return to... What was it, with Emma Thompson, such a wonderful movie, was from a novel by Forster I think...
Bruce Mowbray: Room with a View?
Eden Haiku: yes, that too...
Bleu Oleander: was she in Howard's End?
Alfred Kelberry: florence... sounds romantic :)
Eden Haiku: Howard's End was the ttle I was looking for.
Alfred Kelberry: oh, i remember her from "an education" :)
Bruce Mowbray: ;-)
Eden Haiku: In French it was "Retour à Howard's End"... hehe
Alfred Kelberry: lovely british movie :)
Eden Haiku: Connect, only connect.
Alfred Kelberry: oui
--BELL--

Fragments and integration.

Eden Haiku: "live in fragments no longer" (from Forster's quote) I find a little troublesome though...I love fragments. They lead us to the whole don't they?
Bruce Mowbray during the "drop" felt it, like: "Only discover that you - and everything - are already connected."
Bruce Mowbray: (remember that comes from a hermit of 40 years!)
Bruce Mowbray: I love fragments too, Eden.
Eden Haiku: We already all connected, that,s true but then when someone steps in boldly (as Anne Waldman did in that festival), being simply herself, connecting with us, well it created something, she was a sparkplug somehow :)
Alfred Kelberry: maybe it was meant like fragments of our mind? scattered thoughts, disturbance and worry...
Bleu Oleander: fragments means detached or imcomplete parts to me
Alfred Kelberry: sparkplug :)
Bleu Oleander: may or may not lead to the whole
Bruce Mowbray: fragments of the mind -- Does that mean "many minds" -- or are the fragments like individual pieces of a stained glass window.
Eden Haiku: Yes, me too. And that is all I have I feel: fragments, bits and pieces, fractions of the whole. And then I work with that? Isn't that what we do when we create? Ah right, it does not ncessarily leads us to the whole...
Alfred Kelberry: bruce, i think the latter
Bleu Oleander: yes, creation is like that for me too
Bruce Mowbray: integration as "the work"?
Eden Haiku: Yes! Integration.
Bleu Oleander: working with fragments to reach a whole
Bruce Mowbray: ;-)
Alfred Kelberry: so when we work out our fragments we meditate :)
Bruce Mowbray: Our minds seem to have minds of their own.
Bleu Oleander: doesn't always work for me though and I have to paint over the canvas
Eden Haiku: Yes, me too :) Write another book...
Bleu Oleander: (have a lot of painted-over canvases)
Bruce Mowbray thinks, "Fascinating metaphor - 'painting over the canvas.'"
Eden Haiku: habe written lots of books :) he he
Alfred Kelberry: bruce, actually... as in many perceptions and no self concept, many minds could be right...
Bruce Mowbray: I've named 12 of my "minds."
Bruce Mowbray: and charted their ages, preferences, prejudices, etc.
Bleu Oleander: start over many times using fragments of all the painted-over canvases ... trying to put them together in a new way to reach a whole, finished painting
Bruce Mowbray: so integration is a BIGGIE for me.
Alfred Kelberry: organasized your skandhas :)
Bruce Mowbray: yes, Al.... ;-)
Alfred Kelberry: bruce, integration of those "minds" is consciousness
Bruce Mowbray: You know, being able to paint over the canvas -- or turn to a new chapter - - is really a miracle of human existence.
Bruce Mowbray: healing, fresh, a new beginning.
Eden Haiku: Bleu, isn't magical when suddenly the work just "appears" after all the painting-over...
Storm Nordwind: I once met a psychologist, a wannabe mentor, who insisted I reflect, divide and compartmentalize and then finally integrate, and couldn't accept that integration may have already happened! ;)
Bruce Mowbray: another "miracle," Eden.
Bleu Oleander: yes, recognizing that appearance is key Eden
Alfred Kelberry: eden, is there really a finish line for an art piece?
Bleu Oleander: yes, I think so Alf
Bruce Mowbray: Agree, Storm. . . It seems sometimes that the only work we ever do is on ourselves. . . (And I'm guessing that the psychologist was doing his own work more than he was doing work on you.)
Bleu Oleander: i've gone past it many times :)
Storm Nordwind: "A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."

After that quote from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, it's time for our little group to fragment.

Bruce Mowbray: Folks, I have a busy day ahead. THANK YOU for letting me begin it with you.
Bleu Oleander: bye Bruce
Storm Nordwind waves
Bruce Mowbray: Bye for now.
Alfred Kelberry: bleu, i guess it's a wonderful feeling when you paint an abstract painting and suddenly - oh, it's done! :)
Eden Haiku: Knowing when to stop when it "appears". Once I add so much details to a painting that it became a kind of greyish blurr...
Alfred Kelberry: bye, bruce :)
--BELL--
Bleu Oleander: well, must go too ... bye everyone, take care :)
Storm Nordwind: Bye Bleu
Eden Haiku: Bye Bleu, take care.
Alfred Kelberry: bye colorful girl :)
Eden Haiku: It felt very good here this morning Storm, thank you for the beautiful "intuitive back channel" hehe
Storm Nordwind: :)
Eden Haiku: bye bye Boxy!
Storm Nordwind: My pleasure :)
Storm Nordwind: I too must disappear. Please excuse me.
Alfred Kelberry: bye stormy