On Reflection… part 2

There have been times when it has seemed appropriate to appeal to the metaphor of a snake shedding its skin. This last year brings to mind a different serpentine behavior, stupor induced by the effort to digest an enormous meal. An Anaconda at these times can be mistaken for a fallen tree trunk….

“Now the wind exceeding the sail is beautiful.”

Jeff Shampnois wrote the following as a response to “It’s not a process.” My comments are interleaved within… You rang my tuning fork with this. We seem to enter the territory beyond the precipice through a natural negation, a letting go of conclusions, of static structures. Maybe that wind dismantling the meaning of words is

Coherence is not reasonable.

This statement demands clarification. Coherence it is not a synonym for reason, reasoned, reasonable. Neither is incoherence: unreason, unreasonable, unreasoned. The key to understanding coherence lies at the root of these distinctions. I’ve found this talk given by Anthony McCann valuable in illuminating this distinction. Anthony uses language centered around what he calls Gentleness. His

Coherent Action, from unintended consequences to catalytic response.

We struggle with unintended consequences. In frustration we turn to chasing after power to force our will to prevail. We enter a spiral of increasing suffering and greater dislocation as the violence this process unleashes destroys every remaining scrap of coherent life. Blinded to our delusion by delusion, we increase our efforts. We twist and

Religion, Mental Proprioception, and the Implicate Order.

JMG has repeatedly pointed out that a religious impulse is always at work. There are many avenues for this impulse to work through. There are many places it can hide in plain sight, as it does in civic religions. As it does in our belief in science/technology, distinct from the practice of science. There are

Where is the break with our past most apparent?

“Forever.” When I read this simple word no matter where, it gives me pause. There was a time when forever had a tangible solid ring. Today? No more. There are countless assumptions that were once seemingly reasonable, that ring hollow today. It is a symptom of the end of an era. In this situation the

Misplaced Hygienes

So many of our self-inflicted disasters and catastrophes are the result of misplaced hygiene. A series of instances, and whole segments of our habitual hygienic responses, are wrong. Our inability, unwillingness more like, to see this and adjust is perhaps the final layer of catastrophe, the route to the true Enormity of what we are

Space at the end of the year

The close of this year has me once again in a curious form of free-fall, as if the inertia of past impetus is losing to the sheer force of gravity. I tend to welcome these periods. Without the chance to notice the tug of futility it’s easy to get caught-up in enthusiasms that might entertain,

On Originality

I just encountered this quote from Krishnamurti. It goes right to the heart of the question of authority. He was asked if he claimed anything new in his writing.

“Sentimentality is the superstructure erected upon brutality…”

Sentiment takes any criticism, real or only inferred, and turns it into an excuse for a reaction, anything to return the focus where we demand it belongs.

Psychopathic Thought

That list of enemies keeps getting longer, now they are waging war on the dark. Waging war on the absence of electric lights to light up faces that look just like theirs, not faces, uniforms. They don’t see people, just “forces.” And these scare them.

Vulnerability, Ultimate Realism?

Realism is another fraught word. Let’s imagine for a moment that it meant having a perspective on the world that was the best possible match for the conditions we face. To paraphrase John Lennon, “It might be easy if we try.” If we did have such a viewpoint it just struck me that the most