Friday, December 31, 2010

Electronic Catcombs?

"3 strands"  ~ watercoloour by me




Since Entering the Electronic Age, humanity has become closer knit and strangely more alienated. Whatever you believe about it I assure you though is largely irrelevant. Much like trains, cars, libraries, and sewage, this strange ethereal reality of electronica is our scaffold at this time in history.

Resistance may be futile, but due consideration is definately paramount. Meaning before the novelty wears off, or we realize this is not a demonic manifestation, it's importance as a tool must be seen.

Much like the plow-share, pipes, engines, and Dewey system, the computerized environment must be utilized.  We must make it our slave and not be a slave to it.

Just as the world became more mechanized just a few centuries ago, the machine is now electronic, so it's gears and cogs have evolved. The new machinery is not JUST the physical components though, they are largely "virtual" as well.  A better comparison might be the human brain, which after many years we still have much to learn about.

Given this environment we must allow for a certain learning curve and margin of error.

That being said, in our new global economy it seems that it is the countries, companies, groups, and individuals that have trimmed off the fat and can run with agility that will survive and make profits.

So the key is adaptability in the Technological Evolution.  This disposition not merely attitude and selective choosing, tends to favor youth and smallness, rather than the larger and older institutions. However, when these larger groups take the plunge and risk, they see results, and they are relieved or put back on top, faster and more sustainably than they were before.

One of the primary forms of this phase of growth in our economies is the change from teaching to training. A teacher passes on information, a trainer applies it.  So the next element is that of providing an interactive atmosphere for your goods and service. This is where those holding off to see where technology will go, are becoming Amish like at an alarming rate.

Now if they don't mind their dwindling profits or can afford the hit, fine. Most just simply can't, so they must start the process of education and doing their homework for coming into the new age and so meeting what has become the new requirements to doing effective business in it.

There are many examples of course of companies and individuals that have recieved a huge boon from just simply carving out their niche in this continuingly evolving landscape.  Many companies have seen how inexpensive internt advertising is on facebook or even just Meta tagging on a local community web site. This medium is where the "foot traffic" is these days, though traditional mediums do now have a certain novelty aspect and physicallity to them if they are chosen carefully and well done.

The largest group so far that has benefitted from the Electronic Age would have to be social causes, and that is where everybody should jump on board. Through Twitter, Facebook, and the host of other social media we are making strides for rights and assistance like no other time before.  The recent example of where a cable comedian was able to effect the vote for the 9/11 responders should effect a clarion call to any last doubters of how the world truly does business these days, and things really get done.
 

1: The Mirror ~ SignPost


In ancient days it's like they broke things down more to more reasonable parts. They had jobs, gods, and the old ways. But something got lost, their jobs became tyranical, as did their gods. The old ways become moldy and stale, and no longer retained life for the individual or extended out.

So we come to now. We have many forms of entertainment, many forms of pleasure, peace, and pursuit. Our modern struggle seems to be between the machine and the organism. Too oft the latter wins and so the humanity is lost in the drive for numbers and supposed efficiency.

We have been called disfunctional, and lost heart and soul. We have felt it, for maybe a very long time. Entrenched we seem unable to get the most from what pleasures we do see and try to enjoy as we go along more.

It's not enough to say we need to embrace our limitations and boundries.

We are at the place of Praxis, a turning or tipping point, or we will soon be. We know we must change our minds about some things, or maybe denial has really settled in.

I sense that there is only egotists and the exploited at times, and so many of us are just rockin back on forth on their ship.

This struggle for humity drives a inevitable singularity that is around the corner, or at least a further polarization. As art projects our hopes and fears, a terminator could be just around the corner. Humanity has reached some sort of apex, but at what cost, and some have wondered have we been here before?

the Embryo that happens

"Cock" ~ watercolour by me

Different societies and especially artists across history have delved into what sticks. Systems may have been built around their musings in the great divine river, but nevertheless the spirit was consistent. Little doubt also surrounds that there was an initiation point, it might be that we disagree whether that poiint was chaos, nothing, or a perfect garden.

It seems though the arguement is more of whether we are stationary or moving.

 For instance if you are an athiest, or can't be bothered with spirituality for the most part, you believe you are generally stationary. Even though to those of us who believe in movement, we think and feel you are moving too, even if it just be in reaction to other things, feelings, thoughts, people.

Movement then is immutable it would seem then.

The direction, form, and essence then leave to be decribed by the various thought streams.

Now it's also strange that those who want a certain course seem to not really want others to join them since the real requirments are left to time.

Time likes to injure belief, whether you feel we've lost our way, or need to work our way to it for the first time.

Wounding of this sort can take place in a creation myth or in apocolyptic battle, or any place in between. The truth of our alienation is always with us to one degree or another.

The pleausre/pain/god/godess/god solution doesn't really solve this as much as give us structure, and this has always truly begun in what is sacred to us personally and collectively as a peer group.

It may be a matter of heridity, taste, novelty, or something that builds from so many different components, but the vital relation of the sacred is with us, time to affirm it somehow right?

Make a law, a religion, book, piece of art, or just be a rebel or hero, do something.
Isn't that where the Wound is though?

Whether a saviour had thorns in her side or meshed in his head, was cut down in the heat of battle, decapitated in a serene posture, or ripped from our lives, minds and hearts, we feel it, if we have lived at all, the alienation.

This distance we get from ourselves. The numbness we can know. The resolution and lostness we sense in it that spreads like a cancer or comforts like a holy ghost.

It can be difficult to pick up a weapon or an offering to this thing that we only know on a deeper level, but yet so in touch with it's effects.

No doubt should be that there is death in this place. The cemetery of our minds and hearts echo a silence more deafening the a thousand other disembodied souls you would think.

Is our fascination with horror and spirits a search to embrace the suppressed resonation of the soul here?

The spirals comfort and threaten, so we erect our superstitions. Beyond this unholy law of causation can there be a hope or a plan, a unifying field, or better yet, a Unity.

We see in beauty the hues and details of something better and more. This is not the song, the dance, or the lying down of contentment. It may be part of the fun and pleasure, but doesn't there have to be more explanation than that?

Can We Sacred Evolve?




There are concepts with each unselfish spirituality that generally agree, that of a certain detatchment. It gives perspective and takes the sting out of the object or practice. The reality of your imagination flows in such a way that finding triggers is the proximity you more often need, rather than ritual or direct visualization. Here to relish, to focus, and doing those things that truly allow us to breathe into our creativity and natural evolving thought actions make the meaning.

The right thing then becomes part of a grander scheme, or lends itself to it. You see a truly divine plan must have more than the sum of it's qualities, it must sing. The trust we have in one thing, the security in a smile, a monetary amount, or the stability of a stationary object, whether it be a house or a toy, begins with the relation and awareness we let out of it.

Many writers inject attributes and character from other things to show us that detatchement we were thinking about, we can do the same, yes at possibly a cost.  We can then ask was it worth it, did we get enough out of that, were we relieved, comforted, consoled, excited, feel pressure and horror.

Are we not anchored in spirit when we know that we are known, understood, played with, and settled down with? The fun and pleasure of sacred things is not just what is derived in the sensory, emotional, or intellectual though, is it?

Is it really a matter of do we trust ourselves, others, these things, to hold us, or to hold on to? Doesn't it really come down to a place where we are completed or finished. There's something to instant gratification, as much as there is in the waiting around for the better thing, but where is that middle earth we've been looking for?

A lot of talk talk goes on about journeys and destinations, but the fray of planning the trip, and the tension of not looking out of the periphery makes this ghost story of our lives seem hardly worth it if it is just the machine or the action movie.

We exist in a state of resistance. Choices step up to our brain, we fall back, we grab on, we're cowards or captains of our fates supposedly. When we invest in stage props and accessories, either people or material matter, situations, or events, we find that we are working through more than using them.

Some might say we are grand escapists, fielding the illusory with usury, and it's not that complicated really. That lulls us with platitudes and  gives too easy answers. They apply little cloth stickers to our mental soutures in hopes we won't remember the schism that exists. Is it any wonder how we applaud denial in our cultures.

To get "help" we must believe that it is to be had. We've forgotten that balance that lies in the evolution of humanity, to not be overly self reliant or reliant on others. We do have a set or pattern of little steps to make though.

Like a person that gets out of bed, we must bring our arsonal and artillory for our games. If you like better, our gifts and costumes.

Weaving in and out of circumstance we create our fight and dance, instead of merely drowning in the sea of seemingness. To have deeper connections means risk, but also means float.

After our deaths it is said that junk will survive us, but what can we make of our legacy in this our times. So arranging our unripeness comes down to how we spare our continuation of certain ideas and spread the feel of space for better ones.

It could be said that negatively adversarial forces take root in a mind that is not at home with more optimal things. So it's paramount that the language of our souls are aligned with nobler and not merely raw and less subtle things.

To more fully realize the primary archetypal relations of our humanity, we can let dawn on our thoughts the better mother and father images that can be there, then son, daughter, and extending out to friends and neighbors, even enemies.

Observing nature we see the playing out of these principles as well, so that the laws of physics and physiology bleed and give more understanding and reason to our sacred evolution.

Just let it Go?

How does Obesity go through the roof while the economy goes down the tubes?

A "nice" mantra I've heard is just let it go. Or you could get so intense about it you have an aneurysm?

How do we have a balanced sense of urgency when it comes to what we know has to change?


Maybe you have a new years resolution to lose weight to make Ken and Barbie Happier that their ethos is still intact.  But where are the honest goals, you know the ones for moderation, being content, living on less, enjoying deeper things more, stopping and smelling the roses as it were?

Honestly, what defines us? Where can we cut corners to help us and those around us be people of more character, meaning, so they leave more of a legacy. 

If you really are bent on seeing ourselves in abject poverty and real times of sacrifice instead of just maybe we need to not be so spoilt and whiney and get leaner, then looking at what you have and get maybe a really good start.

First of all, seriously look at what you have. I mean How Much junk do you have?  Do you even use the stuff in the dining room?  Get rid of as much "ornamental" as you can, and this is the perfect time as you're taking down the holiday decorations.

Next keep or place things with more intention, meaning find a meaning for what you have and where you put it. I was amazed when I visited a sitcom set some years back at how much of the so average looking living room was so very much placed down to the detail. Since then i'll look at what's on the walls or floors in my favorit shows. Why don't we have that kind of attention to detail?  If you find yourself asking yourself what the hell are you doing, or that you find yourself in mindless routines, this could be trick.

I mean we may spend hours, days even, organizing our finances, fixing things around the house or office, and not spend one iota on a picture or painting, or placement of a memento.

As we lose the details of our lives in the crowds of information and drama, these touchstones can bring us back, even ground us.  It's stupid to think this is just idle and novel, or worse merely bored womens work.  Our culture as it leaves the empty shell like religious practices of it's past can enact and affirm a depth still, with itself, it's past and it's hopes. This is what rituals are about right?

The beginning of new cycles are about intention, and it's definately something that we can build on before we get to Spring Cleaning, that next shift we can climb on board to continue what we do now.

Maybe you can at the very least intend on being a fat lazy boring jerk... then if you achieve it, you've accomplished a goal, and if you don't, you just might be a bit better person or worser (but still closer to your goal)

Wonderful Spectacle vs. Disaster

You get a to a point where Natural Disasters become so common place, we start to actually not see them.

Now I don't mean we don't look at them, but there's a difference between looking and really seeing of course.

In fact if I may say, to see something you have to be able to reflect on it, and nowadays we don't simply have the time, or do we?

Why can we only seem to take soundbytes and give 60 second business presentations, and get together on video webinars?

Is this why the media bombards us with a cacophany of "news" mantras, and they get through more than serious thought?  Reason seems to get lost, and it becomes ever difficult to step back and not feel like you're just escaping.

It doesn't help that we in the West have a long history of polorizing knowledge, truth and feeling, way before we were accused of the 24/7 news cycle. Is it generaly true that we can't handle the truth and we are easier to blame than take ownership too?

As we careen off the precipice of our self made hysteria, and deal with it in ever increasing pressures do we wonder about the scaffold of ethics we personally let them be built on?

The WWW gives us so many of the answers, but what are the real questions? and isn't that really the problem. We're not asking the right ones.

Nature reflects a mirror upto the collective soul as more than one philosopher has stated over the eons. Excrement Happens is another one that has been bandied too.  Our part to play in the Mess and the Fix, can we really be bothered to take a serious look at, and break down into bite size pieces?

In the ancient East they said that you can't put things in compartments so easily. Quantum Physics has said very much the same thing about things ~ we have more of a tendancy to be here than there. Even Wave and Particle Theory have changed our perception of time and place, knowing that something is changed merely by our act of viewing.

So as we look upon the mistakes we've made, and the flaws of both ourselves and our societies, can we still say that it's not a matter of bad and good, but rather having the humilty to say ripe or unripe qualities abound where-ever you go, and we need to have courage and compassion to face them in ourselves and extend that.

Not So Much a New Sort of Thing, as Settling In

We all know the words by now, whether it's a Long Long Time ago, or Once Upon a Time. As the years fade into the backdrop we call life we keep making them, promises, resolutions, new beginnings.

Hopefully we can look back more than with sentiment. We conclude, we surmise, reflect.  Life is changing and staying the same, and that's a good and bad thing.

A question was posed recently about what if the little boy me asked the now me what had happened, what was I to be like. Would I say it's complicated?

I took this picture up in Northern Arizona a few years ago through a shop window, it represented something to me ~ that life is primative against the stars. We can go around like we own the whole place, expect others to revolve around us and our schedules and agendas, but there is a simplicity we are missing.

As I was looking through various pictures to capture the energies and archetypes tommorow and the next few weeks express this one stands alone, much as we may feel.  Maybe you have many who support and you are there for, maybe it's not as quite as deep as you like then, or hopefully it is.

Comfort comes in many forms, but the great thing about this time is it's not about that. For once it's really about becoming and confrontation, who we are, who we've been, and who we should be. This is the wonder of first steps, or second steps, or this phase we enter into.