2012.02.19 19:00 - The Space Between Us

The Guardian for this meeting was Calvino Rabeni. The comments are by Calvino Rabeni.

oO0Oo Resident: Greetings Cal :-D
Calvino Rabeni: Hi Sam :)
oO0Oo Resident: He's here.. here with me now red ribbon !
Calvino Rabeni: What's the red ribbon about?
oO0Oo Resident: Ultimately, or specifically?
oO0Oo Resident: If you click on it.. you get a menu of functions
oO0Oo Resident: Boxy made it. Very creative.
Calvino Rabeni: I don't know, .. maybe there's an intermediate zone between ultimately or specifically
oO0Oo Resident: Likely yes...
oO0Oo Resident: me nods
Calvino Rabeni: I wouldn't know where to start
oO0Oo Resident: we can only project
oO0Oo Resident: Have you seen the film Tree of Life?
Calvino Rabeni: that's what we're for
oO0Oo Resident: My thought is to start there
Calvino Rabeni: No, what is it?
oO0Oo Resident: Ultimately or... LOL .. sorry
oO0Oo Resident: um...
oO0Oo Resident: It is a story
Calvino Rabeni: oh ?
oO0Oo Resident: large parts of which have to do with father son relationships
Calvino Rabeni: mmm
oO0Oo Resident: What it might take to please a father
oO0Oo Resident: recieve his love
oO0Oo Resident: and acceptence
oO0Oo Resident: what happens when that doesn't work so well
Calvino Rabeni: it has a point of view from the son?
oO0Oo Resident: there are three sons, a wife.. various points of view
Calvino Rabeni: who gets learned about the most?
oO0Oo Resident: me considers
Calvino Rabeni: :)
Paradise Tennant: smiles hello sam cal :)
oO0Oo Resident: well.. YMMV... I learned a bit.. about the power between parents and children.. and how misunderstood that can be...
oO0Oo Resident: Hi Para
oO0Oo Resident: Just talking about the film Tree of Life
Paradise Tennant: smiles waves and listens
Calvino Rabeni: Good eve, Para :)
oO0Oo Resident: and appreciating Boxy's ribbon
oO0Oo Resident: cool eh?
Calvino Rabeni: Where is boxy's ribbon?
Paradise Tennant: smiles
oO0Oo Resident: 12 log toronto
oO0Oo Resident: oops
--BELL--

Paradise Tennant: smiles started reading a wonderful book today .. that I found in my bookcase .. no idea of when or where I picked it up :)
Calvino Rabeni perks up his ears
Paradise Tennant: Anam Cara by John O Donohue
Paradise Tennant: really has me enthralled :)
Calvino Rabeni: smiles yes a great book
Paradise Tennant: A Book of Celtic Wisdom
Calvino Rabeni: I like all his books
Calvino Rabeni: They have grown full of book marks
Paradise Tennant: don't think i have read him before
Paradise Tennant: just a wow
Calvino Rabeni: yes wow
Paradise Tennant: such a lyrical beautiful wordsmith
Calvino Rabeni: nods
Calvino Rabeni: A tremendous project too :) - contemplating various themes such as beauty, or belonging, in depth, through a full spectrum of human life experience.
Paradise Tennant: smiles what I will be reading for the next few weeks plan to make my way through what he has written
Calvino Rabeni: All are good!
Calvino Rabeni: My favorite is "Eternal Echoes"
Paradise Tennant: Ok will read that next
Calvino Rabeni: May I be permitted a lengthy quote?
Paradise Tennant: smiles and listens
oO0Oo Resident listens too
Calvino Rabeni: The section title is "The Eros of Thought":

The mind cannot resist exploration, because it always sees the world mirrored in itself. The huge longing of the human mind is to discover ever larger shelters of belonging. ''Your mind is the double mirror of the outer world and your inner world.'' It is always actively making pictures of things. If you lost your mind, you would lose your world as well. Your mind is so precious and vulnerable precisely because it holds your world. Thoughts are the furniture of the mind. They are the echoes and pictures that hold your world together. This is the fascinating adventure of perception.

When you become aware of your thoughts and your particular style of thinking, you begin to see why your world is shaped the way it is. It is an exciting and frightening moment to realize your responsibility for your own thoughts. Then you know that you also have the freedom to think differently. Rather than having to travel always along a predetermined track of thought, you now begin to realize the excitement of thinking in new directions and in different rhythms.
You see that thinking has something eternal in it. In the Western tradition, thought has been understood as the place within the human person where we are most intimately connected with divinity. Thought is the place of revelation. The dance of thoughts is endless...

Thought is a profound form of longing. Much of the thought that cripples us is dried out, dead thought. There is no warmth of longing alive in it. Thought that loses touch with feeling is lethal.

Thought is the form of the mind's desire. It is in our thinking that the depth of our longing comes to expression. This longing can never be fulfilled by any one person, project or thing. The secret immensity of the soul is the longing for the divine. This is not simply a haunted desire for an absent, distant divine presence that is totally different from us. Our longing is passionate and endless because the divine calls us home to presence. Our longing is an echo of the divine longing for us... This desire lives in each of us in that ineffable space in the heart where nothing else can satisfy it or still us. This is what gives us that vital gift we have called "the sense of life."

oO0Oo Resident: Thanks Cal
oO0Oo Resident: "huge longing"
Calvino Rabeni: This book is a great work of contemplation of the same theme - belonging - in many areas of life. A wonderfully thorough tour!
Paradise Tennant: smiles
--BELL--

Calvino Rabeni: I like the imagery of the ... (looks at the big pink band that suddenly appears around the sitting area) wow, that ribbon can stop you dead in your tracks :)
Calvino Rabeni: HI Storm !
Storm Nordwind: Hi Cal and everyone :)
oO0Oo Resident: Storm :)
Paradise Tennant: hiya storm
Paradise Tennant: we are talking of .. John O'Donohue :) will give you a note :)
Paradise Tennant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfvS2LYbZLQ
Storm Nordwind: Thank you
oO0Oo Resident: Wow Para! Poem is amazing.. and how about the eyes of that dog?! @@
Paradise Tennant: smiles at sam :)
Storm Nordwind: That recitation is wonderful, and for me shows how important it is to recite, not just read. I can imagine many other voices making those words sound pretentious, whereas as he makes it sound true and authentic.
Calvino Rabeni: It's a soul art
Storm Nordwind: Indeed. The soul shines through and claims it.
Paradise Tennant: smiles
oO0Oo Resident: :)
Calvino Rabeni: O'Donohue is refreshing and unique ... when it seems the world is divided up into the Thinker's camp and the Non-Thinker's camp, he finds ways to travel through and across those edges.  His writing has what I think of as a shamanic sense to it - a sense of traveling in subtle realms.
Calvino Rabeni: For example:

Thought crosses fascinating thresholds when it engages mystery. Mystery cannot be unravelled by thought, yet the most interesting thinking always illuminates some lineaments of mystery. It opens our minds to a depth of presence that cannot be rifled by even our brightest or most vigorous ideas. Mystery keeps its secret to itself. With its reserve, it invites us ever nearer to the hearth of truth and belonging. Mystery kindles our longing and draws us out of complacency into ever more refined and appropriate belonging. A life that has closed off mystery has deadened itself...

Calvino Rabeni: He has a book of blessings or benedictions called "To Bless the Space Between Us"
Calvino Rabeni: with some opening essays in each section
Calvino Rabeni: The long interview with Krista Tippett in the "On Being" series is a good one too
oO0Oo Resident: "and the ghost of loss gets into you" - phew
Calvino Rabeni: ooh
Calvino Rabeni: nods
--BELL--

Paradise Tennant:

I would love to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.
-- John O'Donohue

Paradise Tennant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NpHYXw2Ruw&feature=related
Paradise Tennant: He was 52 when he died in 2008.
Calvino Rabeni: Yes that's a great quote
Calvino Rabeni: As well as a gem of the spirit of the writer's art
Storm Nordwind: Powerful video. Thank you Paradise.
oO0Oo Resident: Indeed
Paradise Tennant: makes you want to give life a powerful squeeze :)
oO0Oo Resident rubs his face in the sandy beach without even thinking twice
Storm Nordwind: There are always things I manage to put off. This is a reminder that I don't really want to put anything off. :)
Paradise Tennant: lol
Paradise Tennant: Yes
Paradise Tennant: no postponing
Paradise Tennant: no living to the expectation of others
Storm Nordwind: Reminds me of a cartoon I saw the other day. It's normally not poignant, but this was special. http://i.imgur.com/t2dfV.png
Storm Nordwind: I choose the powerful squeeze instead.
Paradise Tennant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLnpavXVAw8&feature=related
Paradise Tennant: he starts around 4.49 :)
Paradise Tennant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnLcyDrScvQ&feature=related
oO0Oo Resident: OMG Para's on a video bender ;)
Storm Nordwind chuckles
Paradise Tennant: will stop now :)
oO0Oo Resident: It's OK.. but I will lag behind watching them all
Calvino Rabeni: Thanks .. :)
Paradise Tennant: smiles hiya stev :))
Paradise Tennant: will give you a note
stevenaia Michinaga: greetings
oO0Oo Resident: Hi Stev :)
Calvino Rabeni: Hi Stev:)
Calvino Rabeni: There's a place in those where he talks about the untamed god, the wild one
Calvino Rabeni: "Your concept of God should be feisty, and imaginative, and rich enough, to incorporate all the hungers of your heart."
Storm Nordwind has a lifetime full of untamed gods, and is pleased to get a little respite in the last few years! ;-)
--BELL--

Storm Nordwind: Hi Steve! :)
Calvino Rabeni: Driven before the wind all these years, here and there, perhaps coming to rest.
Storm Nordwind: Resting in a place where even wild gods dare tread only with hushed footfall.
Calvino Rabeni: It's remarkable sometimes what legacy gets brought to one by a given name, or even more, by unnamed or even unnameable givens
Paradise Tennant: yes recognizes the uncontainable
oO0Oo Resident: http://is.gd/gFr1BG
Calvino Rabeni: speechless :)
Calvino Rabeni: Three qualities are really joined there - the reader, Whyte, and O'Donohue
Calvino Rabeni: excuse me though?
Calvino Rabeni: the atmosphere here is full of the scents of cooking :)
Storm Nordwind smiles
oO0Oo Resident: :)
Calvino Rabeni: Thanks everyone
Calvino Rabeni: be well :)
stevenaia Michinaga: bye Cal, enjoy
Storm Nordwind: You too!
Storm Nordwind waves
Paradise Tennant: smiles enjoy dinner cal namaste
Calvino Rabeni: _/!\_
oO0Oo Resident: 12 define repaste
--BELL--

oO0Oo Resident: _/\_ ;)
Paradise Tennant: smiles .. sleepily .. think I will go walk my anam cara :) .. and have a relatively early night .. thank you sam storm stev .. for the company ..the conversation and the poetry :))
stevenaia Michinaga: Night Paradise
Storm Nordwind: Thank you for all the videos!
stevenaia Michinaga: bedtime fr me too
oO0Oo Resident: Thanks Para.. Best regards to Blue :)
Paradise Tennant: namaste my friends :))
oO0Oo Resident: Night Stev :) Rest well :)
stevenaia Michinaga: bye Storm, Samud
Storm Nordwind waves
Storm Nordwind: I will go type up a recipe for the Cafe Kitchen! Please excuse me. :)
Storm Nordwind: Namaste
oO0Oo Resident: Nice to see you Storm. Best wishes...
Storm Nordwind: You too - as always :)