13-15 - Gaya's Pick

2009.09.13 01:00 - Silence happens

• Full of silence

2009.09.13 07:00 - Worst Harasser of My Peace is Myself

• Honestly, I find the nine seconds like emerging from swimming to take a breath. Sometimes I set the clock and sometimes not ... but part of what seems natural now.
• We should never say we are too busy. There is always time. Especially we gain back the time we spent.
• I think it is a good idea -- being busy means having to drop things you are too busy to do, so that you can then calmly do what you have decided is the most important; if you don't do that calmly, you will be less efficient -- in other words, it all is a form of wu-wei again.
• Sometimes we rush through things, so have to do them again and again.
• Of course some things have to be done, can't be dropped. They can sap energy.
• Yes, but even so, trying to do too many things in a frenzy means that you have to redo them later, as said. Driving yourself mad is never a solution.

• Doing this [APA] exploration, I was reminded of a conversation ... ; the point is to REALLY become friends with all that appears. Viewing everything that presents itself as alive, as expressing the life of the Universe, of Being...  That felt very powerful and at the same time very peaceful and inclusive.
• I love the idea of personifying the appearances, too. So that even the worst monsters of appearance can become friends.

2009.09.13 13:00 - A quiet-seeming session

• Well, struggling with a project. keeps reminding me to STAY COOL ... so, 9 sec. I am impressed by what I bring to that task from the 9 sec. a degree of letting it be, appreciating the rough parts. Every time I shift real world tasks, the 9 sec is very helpful.
• Care to share your experiences of this 90 sec just past?
• Immediate muscle relaxation ...
• That letting go, re muscle relaxation can be so informing ... reminding us of how wound up we get in our daily goings on; at least that is part of my experience.
• Also going into the 9 sec this week I've been amazed by how my focus shifts from three or maybe ten things objects to many more, a hundred or so. Letting them all be peers to each other, each with rights, like this old black canvass bag here with me, and me with it. it has its rights to be an appearance. I hadn't noticed it for a few weeks.
• All thoughts, things striving for attention deserving equal 'rights'?
• No striving, just a kind of isness, what I think we are calling the appearance of being ... I was describing earlier how I had to vacuum the house and found myself 9 secondsing it. Everything seems less an obstacle, I was able to me a bit slower, and more deliberate, and casual at the same time.

2009.09.13 19:00 - A brief meeting

• Hi, just dropped by to say hi and feel the vibes, got chicken cooking and gotta go in a minute.
• Nice
• For me, not the chicken :(

2009.09.14 01:00 - Silent

• Wild summer flowers

2009.09.14 07:00 - On the salty side ...

• I've been thinking about how in normal perception there is a kind of hierarchy of awareness, the things that fit the task. But if we drop that things are more equal, each with their own right to exist.
• /me nods ... it takes some stillness to do it, I think.
• Yes, and I am learning one can be still in the midst of action.
• That's trickier, to do it in the midst of action.
• I think it's a different state, focus and vigilance. in focus most of the world disappears but in vigilance it is all alive.
• Why is this a useful thing to do?
• It feels good. and leads to greater awareness. And easier relation of self to nature and stuff.
• I do, do what I think you are saying, during the 9 or 90 seconds sometimes. For me, it de emphasizes things I thought were important and allows for new perspectives. And it does feel good.
• Yes, a touch of a smile in the midst of difficulties.

• /me enjoyed that 90 seconds, playing it while cleaning salt, stirring rice ad putting the eggplant in the fridge, noticing her hand, the appearance of the presence of "herself"
• Those moments of looking at self as if it were another.
• It was odder than that, even ... not really as if the self were another. But just without the usual "importance" of the self doing the stuff. It felt nicely "present"
• Here is an interesting thing to do ... take say your left index finger. Look at it and ask it what it wants to do. It will tell you!! And glad, for once, to be asked!

• I like to do 9 sec as a place to step outside my stories and theories
• /me nods ... and then my busy mind scrambles to write the theories and stories again.
• Sure. Accepting to that's the way it goes ... if there is more balance, or even release the stories an increment that can be a good thing. If I allow myself the stories and theories and allow the "not" of that ... it's to the good, for me ...
• /me nods and smiles ... I guess they're appearances too ... to be befriended.
• I think so, .... resistance is futile :)

2009.09.14 13:00 - Exchanging Electrons

• I mentioned my thoughts about interconnectedness including all living beings, including animals and even trees -- there seemed to be some scepticism there :) -- any thoughts here?
• I have felt that too but sometimes, when I feel a bit stressed I lose that feeling.
• In a very physical way we exchange bits of ourselves with everything. We breathe out and the tree breathes in ...
• That's kind of how I see it too. Maybe more too, energy wise.
• /me considers this ... well we're exchanging electrons with everything we brush by ...

• I feel very connected to life as a whole, but not in a harmonious way, I feel ruthless sometimes in the rush of life. In that it's too intense and some has to be disposed with rather than enjoyed.
• That sounds related to choosing what is "important"
• Do you have an idea, how that could change?
• No ... I think I keep coming to cross roads, and maybe stay on the same route for fear of change.
• I think, that that is also a matter of time ...
• In German, there is a phrase "many drips brake even a stone" ... in this way ... so not waiting, but trying to do something, to think about, to change - as it seems you do already (?) :-)
• /me grins. Yes indeed.

2009.09.15 01:00 - Quite quiet

• I sat alone for most of the time. A joined me for a while but we didn't discuss anything.

2009.09.15 07:00 - Is this the same Void

• - found was sharing my lunch with a salamander.
• - was hearing a song from so long ago (I was so much older then, I'm younger then that now).  Remembered the chords, the car, the state and the mood  that was that song.
• - remembered to regret and regretted to remember.

• Many of the others
• were

• Voids,

2009.09.15 13:00 - Green Grass over the fence, but home is best

• Work is also an escape for me, I really enjoy it.
• That's great, so few people love what they do.
• Well I have all the big boy tools and equipment a man could wish for so work is like play.
• I work in theatre so work is also like play for me.

• If I may offer a piece of meta-advice: don't be in a hurry. Give yourself plenty of time *before* the process starts, to look into what you really want to get out of it.
• Yes, good point. I am one for becoming disenchanted with my dreams. Practical and good looking is what I need.
• "Stop, drop, look" applies to thinking about what you want to build [in SL] too :)

2009.09.15 19:00 - Autopoietic Village

• In Autopoiesis and Cognition, Maturana and Varela basically end the book by saying that the driving force for a society is love.
• "The force that through the green fuse drives the flower" (Dylan Thomas)
• /me nods ... that does seem true ... that we could go about engineering all kinds of change ... but the only thing that "really" changes anything is real love ... born of wisdom, as I heard it put the other day.

• Maybe autopoiesis is a way to realize being.
• Does autopoiesis give you vocabulary for the 90 secs, for example?
• I think so, yes, although it is more conceptual than phenomenological I guess.
• I was wondering about the tie-in to experience, yes
• I like the way Varela talks about "realization of living" or "bringing forth the world." It's very poetic (and poietic).
• Appreciating being in suspension plays with who's bringing forth whom, or what.
• It seems intuitively right.