Often insights appear out of intimate relating to another. The expression of those experiences with others in open and honest exploration using the written word further enables the gathering of thoughts and reflecting of them. There is a playful creating and formulating of words and concepts that occurs in this exchange. It arises out of the urge to capture these experiences and related perceptions and to share them with another and often what is shared by another in intimate communication influences what is experienced for me.
The biggest changes that I have experienced over the past few years is that there has been a lessening of attachment to words and to beliefs and what is thought to be certain and permanent. Ironically I have more of an appreciation and love for the written word being the avid reader that I am. Maybe it is more that it comes from a shift in the realization of what words, concepts and beliefs truly are and an awareness of some of the consequences of an absolute reliance on them as a way of understsnding. There is more of an acceptance that there is no way to transfer my deepest experiences to another through the use of words. There can be an artful use of words and other mediums to express the experience and it is quite possible that others will share similar experiences and recognize the commonality in that expression. But words are limited in expressing that experience and any experience for that matter.
An intuitive awareness and connection and sharing of energy among humans and other beings on this planet is something that is being discussed more openly and often these days. Language is used in communicating with other humans but there is more to this exchange than is captured through the use of language and how unfortunate it is that these other ways have been largely ignored with the expansion of human dependence on verbal dialogue.
The letting go of belief is certainly connected to my newly emerging understanding of language and as well it is a result of a lessening of an attachment to former ideas of what I considered “Me” or “Myself” to be. These new ways of seeing things involves something more of an intuitive sense; an energy that is something similar to what I refered to in the last paragraph that has always been a part of me, more than I once enabled it to be. Although this energy is not something that is measurable by conventional standards, in presence I am aware of it in myself as I am aware of many things that do not offer proof to the outside world. Past habits of being fixated on acquiring security through knowing, are less indulged. There is more awareness of the emptiness of the claims to know things that can not be known through conventional means, those claims based on a refined use of words.
It is good enough that my new-found awareness leads me to a more authentic experience of relating to others and to life. Through that experience of relating there is a knowing. The authenticity, openness and honesty with which I pursue understanding leads me to a more internal functioning and of finding my place and my fit in the midst of all else. I know nothing for sure yet there is more reliance and trust in exploring “being” in presence as a way of life as it unfolds from that. The kind of curiosity and creativity we commonly think to be traits of children as well have come to be aspects of presence that play an increasing role in living for me even at the ripe age of sixty years.
Gord, you refer in this article to a “chapter”, as if what is written on this site will form part (or perhps all) of a book; is that correct?
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No Hariod. That isnt something that I have thought about. I find it a very difficult topic to write about and I spend much time editing what I write often on line after it has been posted. I think about your book and wonder how much you must of invested in organizing it. You did a great job and I dont think that I could ever organoize my thoughts especially in relation to presence.
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Thank you Gord; it certainly took a lot of sustained concentration to write, edit and proof-read the book all by myself. Actually, the proof-reading is quite a monumental task because the brain doesn’t ‘see’ typos a lot of the time.
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