Sunday, April 2, 2017

my two cents again

I have written several blogs with the title "my two cents again."  It all started with my friend, Burke Rogers. We would be eating lunch in the school cafeteria, and he would say, "If what I had to say would be lessened to by the administration, here is what I would say, " then he would say to me what was on his mind.  In the tradition of Burke and I, this blog will be "my two cents" worth.

Within our being, where our memories are the effects of our desires and wants, all under the whimsical control of our mind, we tend to neglect the primary aspects of our lives.  The most damaging neglect coming from not  being aware of our relationship with our Mother Earth and our bodies. These two, 'taken for granite' parts of our being, are essential, without which we would not have a habitable place to live or a place to live within.  We are familiar with our earth and our body, but we have not thought it necessary to create a deeper relationship. There is a saying, "familiarity breeds contempt," but even worse, is neglect.  With us, and the earth and our body, it is usually "a one way street."

When we think of  "me" we certainly include our body as "me," but although we place our experiences  and sense memories within our body we only think of our body as an archive.  This sense and experiential memory archive we use as a foundation for our survival.  The poet Delmore Schwartz, wrote a poem called, "The Heavy  Bear Who Goes With Me," This poem will give you an idea how, more then a few humans, view their bodies.

       "The heavy bear who goes with me,
        A manifold honey to smear his face,
        Clumsy and lumbering here and there,
        The central ton of every place,
        The hungry beating brutish one
        In love with candy, anger, and sleep,
        Crazy factotum, disheveling all,
        Boxes his brother in the hate-ridden city...
        ...The scrimmage of appetite everywhere."

Our body however, is the ultimate technological system manifested on our earth. Think about it!  Our body is an intricate, multi-associative, unity of operative systems and qualities, under the directive of evolution,  balance and survival, impregnated by multilevels of  mind, intelligence, senses, and emotions; a full package!  Think about its involuntary control systems.  What if we had to operate our own heart beat, blood flow, nervous system, digestion system, we would kill ourselves in no time.  Think about the zillions of cells, bacteria, that are all coordinated using their special qualities to maintain general health, and how about our organs and glands, muscles, tendons, ligaments, cartilage.  Our body is like  your dog, always happy to see you and to please you, regardless of any mistreatment on your part.  Our body works over time trying to bring health back to balance, when the unstable mind fixates on our negative obsessions and compulsive behaviors, it responds with wagging its tail.  Our problem is that we view the ingredients which make up our body as commodities, used to accommodate our whims and  not as an organic part of our life process.

It is not surprising, that given the limited quality of our current awareness we have a similar relationship to our body as we do with Mother Earth.  The reality is that our earth, our "space ship earth," is our home, and we have a mutual responsibility for the well-being of both of us.  Our commodity view of earth is enhanced in that we believe that earth's primary purpose is to furnish us with our material needs; again, a one way street approach.  All the ancient and contemporary masters and sages that walked the earth, taught that the entire kosmos is united by life, and that you cannot disturb  a flower without disturbing the stars.  Life permeates all; the organic and inorganic.  Our earth is a being, and within the kosmic unity of all beings there is a symbiosis.  We see this relationship clearly playing out within our present time. We humans are presently, fearful, paranoid, stressed, anxiety ridden, all this extreme, negative energy, is vibrationally affecting earth's behaviors.  Mother Earth is sensitive to our negative behaviors and positive behaviors, however when she acts-out, on  her affected behaviors they are on a more extreme scale: extreme climate and weather events, deluge of rain and snow, tornados, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, forest fires, mud slides, floods.  Therefore, if we could bring our minds under only a slight control of our negative thoughts and actions, Mother Earth would in equal parts limit her affected behaviors. 

The path towards harmonizing with our body and Mother Earth, is to become more aware in an experiential manner.  That is, to bring awareness not merely from an intellectual perceptive, but from an inner consciousness perceptive.  For instance, watch your breath, see how your breath changes its breathing pattern in relation to your slightest movements.  As you use your consciousness to experience your body you will become intimate with its operations, bringing you to a greater unity  and consciousness with your body.  The same consciousness approach in transforming your relationship with your body, will work with transforming your relationship with Mother Earth.  To begin, bring your consciousness to bare on the cosmic truth that you and Mother Earth are created out of the same "star stuff," the only difference is that you are the micro being and earth is the macro being. Therefore, you both were created out of the same "stuff," making you off-spring; brother and sister.  As your consciousness expands towards knowing your body and Mother Earth, you will fine that the new joy and stability that you will realize will be beyond anything you could have imagined.