This recording, on point without making a point to even introduce the topic 
, is quality listening (I chose the audio option). I listened twice and hardly took notes or noticed the passing in time as I was engrossed in the notes in some strange musical notation in the navi-directional embrace of the flow. Sea-jazz.
In your conversation you bring to life the aptitudes of the apt pupil of Nature; the bodies electric and capable; the navigators, the guides of these bodies and steer-folk of the crafts. Michael with the back pain, the deep interactive awareness with this brilliant other. He entered the dragon (there was a kung-fu spoof called “Enter the Fist”) and encountered the invisible other head on. Lisa speaks of “no one having her back” and then the turn-around once she altered metaphors and altered perception, the universe has her back. Marco Masi speaks truth to power when he bridges the gap between the self as being and the self as Being or the self as being a part of Being with other beings. The guidance towards the intuition and feeling behind the physical perception. We receive signals from Nature (our body seen and unseen). We use these as stars. They influence us. Metamorphosis. And we can influence the stars if intentions/intuitions align.
I was unable to attend as I had spent a week away from the ole laptop and had a backlog of responsibilities interfering. During this week away I went on a spontaneous sequence of outings in nature. From time with family in TN; a talk with Reighn and we decide, as the children spend a week with my parents, to go exploring. Brother suggests we borrow his kayaks. We sleep, eat, and find ourselves in the van-craft next morn’n, two kayaks strapped down, aiming the stern towards the high-lit stars on our Google map. Dale Hollow Lake, our destination, interacts with the Tennessee and Kentucky state line. I had assumed I had reserved a drive-in campsite but we ended up unable to access it. We decided to park the van-craft in an open-air, lined concrete docking facility and carry our kayaks to the water. Our landing site is paddle-in only. We are inexperienced with this craft but it is not a matter of survival so we paddle forth along the shoreline our campsite supposedly marked some mile or two on the other side of this inlet.
I am reminded of the fractal measuring of the coastline described by Kerri Welsh, in which one can have a big measurement from a distance but once you go in and measure the coastline with a ruler you will obtain an ever-larger circumference. Go in further and there will magically be more distance measured. We continued hugging the curves where the islet and the waters met and our perception of time dilated. In a similar but non-apocalyptic mode, we entered a Stalker-like zone. Our experience with nature fluctuated. We had no map; we had no guide; we did not know the territory from the trees. I soon learned to look up, look far, and use my imagination. I became a bird with my aerial view (a technique aided both by examining birds and examining 2-D electronic mappings) and perceived that we had much longer to go before we reached our campsite.
We eventually docked and stayed on the shore and were enchanted by nature. It is all around you. All the time. We were greeted by a butterfly. A tiger swallowtail. Slow. Its wings are not wings; moreso paper as this paper tiger wafts and oozes with ease. It led me to some fish bones and to this beautiful piece of driftwood.
We both, Reighn and I, identified this as a turtle. But I began to see a vulture head, a rodent, a brain. A modern duck-rabbit?
We went kayaking on multiple occasions, for multiple hours. I spent some of my activity seeking ur-phenomena. And some not seeking it. I came out of this brief journey with a movement. This art was created a few days after the event. Unfinished as most all of my attempts remain, there is a perceivable movement; perhaps even a piece of perceptible color schema tied into Goethe’s color theory.
We once spoke of the Polynesian sailors during our exploration of The Minor Gesture. The attuned sailor, as Johnny clarified when referring to the Polynesian sailor, feels the flux in his connection with the waters - craft - scrotum - vibrations within the body. Or from Lisa in “Before Speaking from Oneness, Feeling It”: “you just feel what needs to be done and do it without having to think about it. You let your consciousness merge with the sail, and you don’t even have to analyze all those signs, your body just responds to what the sail needs. You become one with the spinnaker.”There are courses available to learn to do as the Polynesians do. Studies of star charts; geography, mapping, triangulation techniques, seasonal changes. But nothing will substitute the immersive experience.
Immersion is the depth digger, the receiver of the depths of truth. Immersion may not be the exact word. Practice, training, repetition, deep reception. All of this is a good way to segue into that thing we call Nature. To nurture Nature.
I think “group memory” is a crucial component. When John asks Ed “what happened right before you asked the question ‘what kind of tree?’” (which John linked to an exercise in memory . . . it was over two weeks since the question was asked!) I would like to imagine everyone in the conversation transported themselves back into that time two weeks ago, the story, the question. John’s simple question about a question permitted us access to Ed’s delightful dialogue on trees and recent tree readings. Our small group has a delightful memory archive. I am thinking of the culture that we could create through this creative immersion.
Immersion involves a conscious awareness. What permits, allows, grants access to this connection with nature? Or discussed in Lisa’s CEL: how do we enact the integral?
When I was immersed in the activity here on Infinite Conversations (when I am immersed at my best) I am able to tune into others metaphors. I come up with my own. In 2017 I came as an undercover agent. I was playing the role of a social worker with extra office time to kill, spend, expand. I used this extra opportunity to go undercover. To see what was out there to better my time. In 2018, introduced to Erin Manning and The Minor Gesture reading I became an undercover agent uncovering agencement. In 2019 there was a decision to remove this undercover moniker and seek that which is present when fully surfaced. In 2020, the year of the viroidal life, I sought hibernation, exploring the internal realms, feeling time stop; feeling into the earth and the body and the non-rational minding. In 2021 I surface again into life, this wholeness of nature, seeing such life and Life all around me all around you. We only need to know where to look, or hear, or sense. How to navigate.
(remind me to ask next session . . . What exactly is nature (Nature)? What do we mean when we talk about or utter the word Nature? This I feel is important as we are talking about the wholeness of Nature (is it our nature, if not then whose; if not able to be claimed or possessed, then how? For how long? And why? What for?) questions for another time. . .)