2011.12.16 06:00 - Regarding Reality: Graceful Integrations

The Guardian for this meeting was Maxine Walden. . . 

Bruce (bruce.mowbray): Good morning, Eliza!

Eliza Madrigal: Hi Bruce :))

Eliza Madrigal: your antlers and sweater match nicely

Bruce (bruce.mowbray): Thanks! It is an Irish knit sweater.

Bruce (bruce.mowbray): I used to be able knit like that.    

Eliza Madrigal smiles
Eliza Madrigal has never knitted but always amazed to watch those that do
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): Good morning, Maxine!

Eliza Madrigal: recently saw the work of an artist who does huge knitting installations
Maxine Walden: hi, Bruce, Eliza

Eliza Madrigal: covering the wall street bull for instance :)
Eliza Madrigal: Hi Maxine! :)

Bruce (bruce.mowbray): There's a lot of "bull" to cover there, Eliza.

Eliza Madrigal: :)
Maxine Walden: :)
Eliza Madrigal: beautiful message to the email group maxine, thank you
Maxine Walden: ah, thank you.
Maxine Walden: lovely discussions!

Wester Kiranov: hi all
Eliza Madrigal: Hi Wester :))
Maxine Walden: hi, Wester
Maxine Walden: Thanks for all your help, Eliza in postings
Eliza Madrigal: my pleasure Maxine, these sessions are so valued

Maxine Walden: Just reviewing the note I wrote which was reviewing some of our journey these past weeks, with dreams and 'other' art as our compasses
Maxine Walden: art as a kind of dreaming is such an interesting idea for me

Wester Kiranov: you mean a different kind of dreaming than our everyday lives?
Maxine Walden: It also is so interesting to see that the effort/intention to investigate the nature of the current against which we swim turns into our giving into the current and sailing with it...as if the current may be perceived as an impediment but somehow lends energy into the transcendence of it...
Maxine Walden: Wester, I see dreaming as a broad term to cover everyday dreaming and the sort of musings we all seem to be experiencing as well
Maxine Walden: Smiles as I am still trying to discern the nature of the current against which we swim, maybe just fantasies of 'worries' etc. (hmm, needing to think a bit more for a minute)

--BELL--

Bruce Mowbray ponders anxiety as a desire to hold on to what has gone downstream with the current -- more than worries about what might be coming from up-stream.
Maxine Walden: yes, Bruce
Bruce Mowbray: cling?
Bruce Mowbray: clinging to the impermanent?
Bruce Mowbray: I've been having sleep dreams about this - - all week. Like dreams about persons I've not seen for years.. .
Bruce Mowbray: and things that I have lost.
Eliza Madrigal: oh my... time of deep reflection bruce?
Maxine Walden: yes, care to say more, Bruce?
Bruce Mowbray: Actually, they are sort of like art - in that they are calming and also reflective, yes.
Eliza Madrigal: mmm
Bruce Mowbray: I am confronted by potential anxiety. . . but somehow "understand" that there is nothing for me to worry about. . . so I wake up feeling relaxed and "resolved."
Bruce Mowbray: sort of hard to put into words, you know.
Eliza Madrigal nods... helpful to try, too
Bruce Mowbray: It's as if everyone and everything in the dreams (like my ex-wife, for example) is saying, "It is all right. It is perfectly all right."

Maxine Walden: these things are hard to put into words, but I get a sense of the current of anxiety you are encountering and then recognizing it as just that (or rather nothing substantial other than a kind of background noise perhaps?)
Bruce Mowbray: but without actually speaking.
Eliza Madrigal: that's beautiful
Bruce Mowbray: yes, Maxine - that's it.
Maxine Walden: hmm
Maxine Walden: that background noise...
Bruce Mowbray: but it is rare that I can remember my dreams at all - and I am remembering all of these.
Maxine Walden: ah! interesting
Bruce Mowbray: yes. It sure grabs my attention!
Maxine Walden: :)
Maxine Walden: as if 'look at me'?
Eliza Madrigal: dreams may be a kind of 'soft power' in our lives
Bruce Mowbray: yes, and as if, this is what you've been "praying" for....
Maxine Walden: say more, Eliza?
Bruce Mowbray: so Basic Goodness is giving you want you "need" - - - sounds corny, but that's how it feels.
Bruce Mowbray: and I wake up very relaxed and settled about all of it.

Bruce Mowbray listens for more from Eliza.
Eliza Madrigal: just considering that there are various ways in which we're shocked or thrown in life... and then dreams are this stream of influence, comfort often, presence...
Eliza Madrigal: we're 'off guard' in sleep
Maxine Walden: sounds wonderful and refreshing, Bruce.
Eliza Madrigal: healing
Eliza Madrigal: what is needed is 'available' somehow
Bruce Mowbray ponders "availability" as "grace."
Eliza Madrigal: indeed yes
Maxine Walden: hmm, yes, lovely image, Eliza,
Maxine Walden: the dreams offering gentle comfort against these 'shocks' or noises

Maxine Walden: Thinking of our 'reptilian' brain, sending messages from that ancient 'jungle' which our more recently available dreams then comfort us about , as if saying 'you are not of the jungle now...those echoes are from our ancesters...'

--BELL--

Maxine Walden: Perhaps this current of anxiety is in part the 'background noise' of all those ancestral voices, embedded in the neural circuitry we all are endowed with

Bruce Mowbray ponders "ancestral voices" as DNA chat logs.
Eliza Madrigal smiles
Wester Kiranov: I was wondering about the differences, and parallels, between left/right brain and reptilianbrain vs "higher" brain
Bruce Mowbray: :)
Maxine Walden: lovely, Bruce
Eliza Madrigal: ... realized yesterday that I may have a hidden 'belief' of needing obstacles... that I may give obstacles credit for being fuel to meaning and various sorts of work... maybe not 'wrong' but not the whole picture
Maxine Walden: like to hear more, Eliza
Bruce Mowbray: "conflict gives meaning to the plot?, Eliza?
Eliza Madrigal: that view would make relaxing pretty hard... yes

Wester Kiranov: do you ever feel you don't have enough obstacles, Eliza?
Maxine Walden: And Wester, pondering your query...
Eliza Madrigal: can't say that is one of my concerns..haha

Maxine Walden: seems we all have obstacles, which right now brings the image as obstacles as stepping stones in the river, or can be viewed as firm impassible impediments; might be entirely a matter of perspective?
Eliza Madrigal: stepping stones seems very apt
Maxine Walden: nods...
Eliza Madrigal: maybe there can be a romanticism where one builds up the complexity/contrast, as bruce suggests
Bruce Mowbray: "Everything is workable" . . . (?) - - rocks as impassable blockage or a stepping stones.
Bruce Mowbray: as*
Maxine Walden: depending upon how embedded we are in having to push to rocks aside? that might be ancient jungle view which only knew rocks from one perspective
Bruce Mowbray ponders reptilian brain as impassable blockage or stepping stones -- Take you pick?
Eliza Madrigal: as though we may impose added struggle onto many things which could be stepping stones?
Bruce Mowbray: "Choice" as the "higher" brain's "availability." (?)
Eliza Madrigal: not recognizing the appearance for what it is
Eliza Madrigal: ah, yes

Bruce Mowbray: "lower" brain has few is any options -- "higher" brain has infinite options.
Maxine Walden: I think so, Bruce, choice and fleibility are more recent acquisitions, but seem so easily lost, as in 'when I am anxious...'
Bruce Mowbray: few if any*
Maxine Walden: yes, nicely said

--BELL--

Bruce Mowbray: The common expression "He's lost his mind" would not mean that he'd lost his "lower brain" - but only his "higher brain" -- -- In other words, "he lost his mind" means, "He lost his capacity to know options."

Maxine Walden: maybe another perspective, dimension is this range of experience, from the absolute 'lost in the current' to the ability to use the stepping stones...ancestral and recent history, all in our pocket...
Maxine Walden: yes, Bruce
Eliza Madrigal: '*all in our pocket* :) Indeed this seems the healing avenue dreaming may open up ... relax to see
Eliza Madrigal: being more like a fish than a robot :)

Maxine Walden: :), the dream as opening the pocket...way out of the pocket...hints of things to come...
Bruce Mowbray: integration of minds within each person - - those several minds that comprise each person's mind- - integration/balance/allowing/no resistance to any of them?
Eliza Madrigal nods
Maxine Walden: yes, no resistence to any of them, which may aid regarding the 'terror' about ancient intensities which are just that, ancient intensities, not the 'truth' about the present
Eliza Madrigal: so this is part of what we're learning with appreciation practice... with greeting everything including self in a friendly and inclusive way
Bruce Mowbray: Deep in our pockets we have also buried "intensities" from our personal histories, not just the ancient intensities. . . (also to be included and greeted in a friendly and inclusive way)
Maxine Walden: yes, Eliza, that seems right, friendly toward all parts, intensities...
Maxine Walden: agree, Bruce
Bruce Mowbray: takes courage.
Maxine Walden: indeed!
Bruce Mowbray: dreams can help with the courage.
Eliza Madrigal: :)

Wester Kiranov: dreams can also help see what you don't have the courage to face during the day
Maxine Walden: :) dreams lifting us, accompanying us, letting us see ...
Eliza Madrigal: indeed
Maxine Walden: yes, Wester!
Maxine Walden: maybe dreams offer the accrued wisdom that our everyday selves cannot tap into
Eliza Madrigal: nods
Maxine Walden: if we can trust the dreams, and not just brush them away
Bruce Mowbray: Yes.
Eliza Madrigal: rich resource
Wester Kiranov: or the dreams just don't let themselves be talked out of what you know but don't want to see
Maxine Walden: so agree, Eliza, rich resource

Bruce Mowbray: I must excuse myself now. . . Thank you Maxine, Eliza, and Wester. Have a beautiful weekend.
Eliza Madrigal: as this time as well
Maxine Walden: dreams as quietly persistent, Wester?
Eliza Madrigal: Thanks Bruce
Wester Kiranov: bye bruces
Maxine Walden: thanks so Bruce
Wester Kiranov: quiet or not so quiet
Maxine Walden: yes, about time to go. We will be pausing til first Friday in January
Eliza Madrigal: Have a lovely holiday

--BELL--

Wester Kiranov: have a good holiday too
Maxine Walden: Hoping you have warm holidays!
Eliza Madrigal: and restful ones!
Maxine Walden: bye for now.
Maxine Walden: yes, rest very welcome!!
Eliza Madrigal: bye for now :)
Maxine Walden: bye for now
Wester Kiranov: bfn maxine, eliza. I'm leaving too
Eliza Madrigal: K, Wester :) Be well :))