"The eyes are the portals of sight, but the experience is lived across the wholeness of bodily-being." I totally feel this! All our senses are openings, gateways of reception. Emphasizing "reception" rather than perception. Which as you pointed out feels more objective. Takes on a non-participatory, outsider looking in feel. For me it does travel and reside within my being to the point that I question, where do I end and where does nature begin. And now arriving at a post I am working on for this coming week, they are not two, but one.
What grabbed me immediately in reading your comment is "I *feel* this!" The experience lives in the feeling tone--yes. That you 'feel' this does not surprise me, given what you share in Liminal Walker Musings and here. The reception is an opening our intention to this participatory (!) perceptual flux between self and world, world and self, being and body, and so on. I borrow participatory from you, and the paradox is that in this participatory openness between being and world, the boundaries blur.
I hear a sound. Is it out there? Is it in here? Is it that it simply is?
It could be said that Zen koans are offered from the domain of pure perceptivity.
Thank you, Julie. And I look forward to reading your "not two, but one" post later in the week.
Might we say that the 'field of awareness' is the 'cosmic consciousness' that perceives all things all at once'? In other words, are these two phrases representing one and the same 'phenomenon'? This assumes that you and I agree on what consciousness is. Let's say it is awareness.
And if this one and the same is true, and we participate in this field of awareness by opening to our perceptive capacities, might we say that 'proof' is gathered form within?
(I ask this question because we tend to rely on the empirical method for 'proof'. )
A bit of Socratic inquiry you've offered here. Thank you. What say ye?
i realized, i suggested the idea may be a proof of itself, (after i posted the comment), so really appreciate your considered reply. i think we agree on a theory of consciousness in most ways. the exciting connection your article sparked in my perception was the use of the word awareness. my own thoughts on perception and reality never quite acknowledged it that way. my thoughts on the subject have been stuck on the word experience for a number of years, and - Eureka! what i experience is my awareness of things.
“He believed all life is imbued with a vital force that enlivens and precedes it. For Aristotle, soul came forth with expressive capacity through life itself. It is originary, primordial.” This sentence is reason to pause enough, but then you continue to breathe new life into me with the notion that perception is soul. I can only speak from my own experience but, for example, when I exercise my senses (especially through synesthesia, bypassing my conditioning) for the In Defense Of series, I feel most connected to a voice that straddles inner and outer, micro and macro. There’s a settling of the habitual awareness and an opening to something more subtle, surprising and enlivening, leaving me with an “aha” that far surpasses anything my mind could conjure. Perhaps this is what you’re speaking about?
This synesthetic (undifferentiated embodied perceptual awareness) way of being in the world is primordial. We can see it in the most 'primitive' expressions of life.
As you so well understand through "exercising" this perceptual capacity, necessarily "bypassing conditioning," it opens us in a moment to the purity of being: to our own aliveness and the everywhere flickering aliveness of the world. For that moment, we're in wonderland! (I see the recent image of yours with your hand reaching toward the toadstool.) What your In Defense of series so beautifully offers is just this quality of being in the world, in *life* (!). You do not permit us to take for granted the taken-for-grantedness of beige or bitter, etc as "the way it is," i.e, not allowing us to be conditioned by conditioning! You wake us up!
And it is here in the 'aha' (notice that this sound is an in and out breath in one motion) that life imprints upon us in a way that "far surprasses anything my mind could conjure." The mind comes on board and *reflects* on the experience.
Thank you for your In Defense of series, and as always, for reading these letters so closely.
Yes, I believe perception is the physiology of the soul (I love that you put it that way!) Without conscious intention our perception, and therefore our soul and our entire operating system, is imprinted with concepts and ideas that are not ours. They come from our upbringing, community, culture and what we allow to distract us - affecting us at a deeper level than we can imagine. I look forward to reading more, Renee, as you take us in the direction of our increased awareness.
Donna, you get to the heart of it here apropos the concepts and ideas that override awareness, along with our conditioning: upbringing, community, culture, and what we allow to distract us. A question the lives in all of us, I believe, is this one about living with "conscious intention." I hope this series underscores the value of that intention to live close to direct experience. Thank you, as always, Donna.
I would imagine as a collective we get caught up in 'sensation' portion within personal stimulation processing. It's hard to open up to that 'allowance into perception' if a stimulus is overwhelming the entirety of the perceptual senses. Blockading the conceptual relationship that could occur...
I think this tunes into the idea of 'coasting along in life' without that "We are aware that we are alive" perception that extends to the deepening of our contact with our world...
We ( "I" ) tend to 'go along with the motions' until some-thing halters us - typically an overstimulating moment... myself generally a culling from symptoms - yet for others I am sure is the results of burnout from the long-term disconnect from Being-in-the-Body...
Ignorance? or, perhaps we as a social structure have integrated this bodily disconnect - as we tend to limit our 'grasp' to 'that-which-helps-us-survive' by the day to day... until some fate forces a life-flow-break... only then have I heard of others returning to the aspects of care... then One can truly listen to the 'ignored sensation' that underlined the 'break' (all learning in hindsight, eh?) - allowing then that opening into an unbordered perception for a holistic response of 'well-Being'.
(I know this is a lot of conjecture..., yet)... it bears to mind that as we are afflicted by grandiose moments of these 'physical breaks' - I think (in modernity) that these 'grandiose sensations' do allow One to enter certain states of noticing the more abundant sensations from Nature that surrounds (and enters) Us. Ie. Breathe, Heartbeat, Mobility... these direct connective stimuli, always pervading our inner world - guiding our connect to responsiveness as they are influenced by our Outer Stimulus.
All this to say : That we (as a collective) need to be thrown into the 'volume' of our life - of our body - in order to 'respond' to the day-to-day subtleties that create Us.
Crafting a tenderness to the subtle life... through subtle response (?)
Your comment is rich and compels reflection on our human condition . . . and conditioning. You reflection at the end poignantly touches at why we would endeavor to get close to perception (and is profoundly at the heart of these Beyond the Comfort Zone letters) "that we . . . need to be thrown into the 'volume' of our life--of our body--in order to 'respond' to the day-to-day subtleties that create us" . . . with "tenderness to the subtle life . . . through subtle response"
We are 'thrown' into the world, said Heidegger in Being and Time. How high must the volume be to bring us to the richness of being? That richness has subtle and excruciating moments of pain, met no less, with moments exquisite in wonder, awe, beauty, praise, and even joy. How much of the subtleties we miss by running from the intensities. . . . Do I gather that you are pointing this way?
You use the word, collective, several times. And I wonder if you are intimating the collective (and do you mean conditioning or collective subconscious or . . .) role in that something that 'halters' us?
"How much of the subtleties we miss by running from the intensities" - when you say it like that - Yes! That seems to be the direction I was headed.
In using the term 'Collective' - I could say that I am recognizing the impact of the whole that impacts the 'whole of Us' - whether that be a collective conditioning or that collective subconscious - yet wouldn't both be able to impact one another?
On a deeper scale - there is a propensity in myself that aims to be an imitational representative voice of 'Our Entirety'. A voiced-connection-weaved through shared experience.
Thank you Renée for sharing. I've been contemplating meaning making a lot lately, in terms of a tragic accident my family and I witnessed last year. In January, I wrote in my sketchbook, "There is no meaning I can make of this...yet." Months later, the community and I are creating meaning by organizing a memorial and dedication event to provide space to grieve and heal together. Perspective and perception certainly play a role in this, as do how we choose to respond to events and make meaning of them. 💖
"The eyes are the portals of sight, but the experience is lived across the wholeness of bodily-being." I totally feel this! All our senses are openings, gateways of reception. Emphasizing "reception" rather than perception. Which as you pointed out feels more objective. Takes on a non-participatory, outsider looking in feel. For me it does travel and reside within my being to the point that I question, where do I end and where does nature begin. And now arriving at a post I am working on for this coming week, they are not two, but one.
Julie,
What grabbed me immediately in reading your comment is "I *feel* this!" The experience lives in the feeling tone--yes. That you 'feel' this does not surprise me, given what you share in Liminal Walker Musings and here. The reception is an opening our intention to this participatory (!) perceptual flux between self and world, world and self, being and body, and so on. I borrow participatory from you, and the paradox is that in this participatory openness between being and world, the boundaries blur.
I hear a sound. Is it out there? Is it in here? Is it that it simply is?
It could be said that Zen koans are offered from the domain of pure perceptivity.
Thank you, Julie. And I look forward to reading your "not two, but one" post later in the week.
" It lives in the field of awareness itself. "
i wonder if this, 'field of awareness', may be a proof of a cosmic consciousness that perceives all things and all time at once. ?
Your question is a good one, onecloud.
Might we say that the 'field of awareness' is the 'cosmic consciousness' that perceives all things all at once'? In other words, are these two phrases representing one and the same 'phenomenon'? This assumes that you and I agree on what consciousness is. Let's say it is awareness.
And if this one and the same is true, and we participate in this field of awareness by opening to our perceptive capacities, might we say that 'proof' is gathered form within?
(I ask this question because we tend to rely on the empirical method for 'proof'. )
A bit of Socratic inquiry you've offered here. Thank you. What say ye?
i realized, i suggested the idea may be a proof of itself, (after i posted the comment), so really appreciate your considered reply. i think we agree on a theory of consciousness in most ways. the exciting connection your article sparked in my perception was the use of the word awareness. my own thoughts on perception and reality never quite acknowledged it that way. my thoughts on the subject have been stuck on the word experience for a number of years, and - Eureka! what i experience is my awareness of things.
“He believed all life is imbued with a vital force that enlivens and precedes it. For Aristotle, soul came forth with expressive capacity through life itself. It is originary, primordial.” This sentence is reason to pause enough, but then you continue to breathe new life into me with the notion that perception is soul. I can only speak from my own experience but, for example, when I exercise my senses (especially through synesthesia, bypassing my conditioning) for the In Defense Of series, I feel most connected to a voice that straddles inner and outer, micro and macro. There’s a settling of the habitual awareness and an opening to something more subtle, surprising and enlivening, leaving me with an “aha” that far surpasses anything my mind could conjure. Perhaps this is what you’re speaking about?
Kimberly,
Yes.
This synesthetic (undifferentiated embodied perceptual awareness) way of being in the world is primordial. We can see it in the most 'primitive' expressions of life.
As you so well understand through "exercising" this perceptual capacity, necessarily "bypassing conditioning," it opens us in a moment to the purity of being: to our own aliveness and the everywhere flickering aliveness of the world. For that moment, we're in wonderland! (I see the recent image of yours with your hand reaching toward the toadstool.) What your In Defense of series so beautifully offers is just this quality of being in the world, in *life* (!). You do not permit us to take for granted the taken-for-grantedness of beige or bitter, etc as "the way it is," i.e, not allowing us to be conditioned by conditioning! You wake us up!
And it is here in the 'aha' (notice that this sound is an in and out breath in one motion) that life imprints upon us in a way that "far surprasses anything my mind could conjure." The mind comes on board and *reflects* on the experience.
Thank you for your In Defense of series, and as always, for reading these letters so closely.
Yes, I believe perception is the physiology of the soul (I love that you put it that way!) Without conscious intention our perception, and therefore our soul and our entire operating system, is imprinted with concepts and ideas that are not ours. They come from our upbringing, community, culture and what we allow to distract us - affecting us at a deeper level than we can imagine. I look forward to reading more, Renee, as you take us in the direction of our increased awareness.
Donna, you get to the heart of it here apropos the concepts and ideas that override awareness, along with our conditioning: upbringing, community, culture, and what we allow to distract us. A question the lives in all of us, I believe, is this one about living with "conscious intention." I hope this series underscores the value of that intention to live close to direct experience. Thank you, as always, Donna.
Thank you! (A lot of thought-work coming...)
I would imagine as a collective we get caught up in 'sensation' portion within personal stimulation processing. It's hard to open up to that 'allowance into perception' if a stimulus is overwhelming the entirety of the perceptual senses. Blockading the conceptual relationship that could occur...
I think this tunes into the idea of 'coasting along in life' without that "We are aware that we are alive" perception that extends to the deepening of our contact with our world...
We ( "I" ) tend to 'go along with the motions' until some-thing halters us - typically an overstimulating moment... myself generally a culling from symptoms - yet for others I am sure is the results of burnout from the long-term disconnect from Being-in-the-Body...
Ignorance? or, perhaps we as a social structure have integrated this bodily disconnect - as we tend to limit our 'grasp' to 'that-which-helps-us-survive' by the day to day... until some fate forces a life-flow-break... only then have I heard of others returning to the aspects of care... then One can truly listen to the 'ignored sensation' that underlined the 'break' (all learning in hindsight, eh?) - allowing then that opening into an unbordered perception for a holistic response of 'well-Being'.
(I know this is a lot of conjecture..., yet)... it bears to mind that as we are afflicted by grandiose moments of these 'physical breaks' - I think (in modernity) that these 'grandiose sensations' do allow One to enter certain states of noticing the more abundant sensations from Nature that surrounds (and enters) Us. Ie. Breathe, Heartbeat, Mobility... these direct connective stimuli, always pervading our inner world - guiding our connect to responsiveness as they are influenced by our Outer Stimulus.
All this to say : That we (as a collective) need to be thrown into the 'volume' of our life - of our body - in order to 'respond' to the day-to-day subtleties that create Us.
Crafting a tenderness to the subtle life... through subtle response (?)
Jacob,
Your comment is rich and compels reflection on our human condition . . . and conditioning. You reflection at the end poignantly touches at why we would endeavor to get close to perception (and is profoundly at the heart of these Beyond the Comfort Zone letters) "that we . . . need to be thrown into the 'volume' of our life--of our body--in order to 'respond' to the day-to-day subtleties that create us" . . . with "tenderness to the subtle life . . . through subtle response"
We are 'thrown' into the world, said Heidegger in Being and Time. How high must the volume be to bring us to the richness of being? That richness has subtle and excruciating moments of pain, met no less, with moments exquisite in wonder, awe, beauty, praise, and even joy. How much of the subtleties we miss by running from the intensities. . . . Do I gather that you are pointing this way?
You use the word, collective, several times. And I wonder if you are intimating the collective (and do you mean conditioning or collective subconscious or . . .) role in that something that 'halters' us?
Thank you for this thoughtful reflection, Jacob.
"How much of the subtleties we miss by running from the intensities" - when you say it like that - Yes! That seems to be the direction I was headed.
In using the term 'Collective' - I could say that I am recognizing the impact of the whole that impacts the 'whole of Us' - whether that be a collective conditioning or that collective subconscious - yet wouldn't both be able to impact one another?
On a deeper scale - there is a propensity in myself that aims to be an imitational representative voice of 'Our Entirety'. A voiced-connection-weaved through shared experience.
Thank you Renée for sharing. I've been contemplating meaning making a lot lately, in terms of a tragic accident my family and I witnessed last year. In January, I wrote in my sketchbook, "There is no meaning I can make of this...yet." Months later, the community and I are creating meaning by organizing a memorial and dedication event to provide space to grieve and heal together. Perspective and perception certainly play a role in this, as do how we choose to respond to events and make meaning of them. 💖