Alert & Relaxed: an ongoing mutual learning of deepening a Robust Sensitivity that responds to defensive- reactive states of each other out of a growing quality of Resilience? Practice itself is a Creation within each of Us ,I have come to accept as a healing within my own practice. Thank U All for being unique Dancing,Wrestling & Conversational Partners…Let’s Play!!!
3 Likes
And play can be a very serious practice!
3 Likes
Yes. ANd just want to chime up for sound-gestures/tones/rhythms conveying similar knowledge of another being’s state and intentions, et al. I have honed that aspect, andknow how much is carried in the voice, even over long distances, changing forms a few times, vibrating through different materials at slightly different times…and STILL it happens. Clarity of the medium makes an important difference, yes, but since sound/hearing is often ignored in favor of light/sight, I find myself cultivating and “speaking up for” that mode, along side the others.
I also feel that what is left out is often as important as what is included. Have some discomfort around making everything public, too. That is an aspect of what I did not like about commercial “social media” and discussion platforms. Some conversations deserve to remain private or limited, don’t they? Otherwise, there are conversations that won’t happen…will be self-censured?
4 Likes
Yes! And thank YOU, Michael.
2 Likes
So many interesting thoughts, John, in your post—but this one stands out for me. This is very helpful. I keep imagining an other‚ but another part of me is aware that every other is another version of myself, and I am another version of someone other.
Technology is yet another other.
Every artist, I believe, has to develop some kind of symbiotic relationship with their technology. Do we have a media soul through these extensions of ourselves?
Where does spirit end and matter begin?
I feel it’s good that we’re taking the time to chunk down/slow. I know I personally need more time and space to digest everything that’s going on in our little cosmos.
Let’s see what we can do from the inside out to improve the overall Café experience. There is always room for improvement in production values; ideally, we would be arriving at some form of telepresence, where the sensorium is more richly approximated to make up for its virtuality. However, I am hearing various voices say that the shared intention, attention, and affective (aesthetic) quality of the interactions matters first of all.
I am listening, and reading—even if I cannot always find the bandwidth to articulate an immediate response.
4 Likes
I agree, the most profound “work” we are called to, is play. Maybe in the sense of playing along with Lila??
2 Likes
Certainly. And I have conversations that will go with me to my grave. And I have visions that I must share or my life becomes a torment. It is that area in between visionary and conventional that are fraught with peril.
Adequate translation creates conditions for transformations. We need all of our senses, including the transphysical ones, to pull this off. I love the Night! Visions happen at night with eyes closed, and in the day with eyes open. We need the different polyphasic styles of discourse.
A little girl once said she liked listening to radio, rather than watching TV, because the pictures looked better. That is what I call synesthesia. And when I am listening at my best…I am listening less to what the voice says…but where the voice is coming from…from the inside… the outside…does it have a size or shape?..and voices are full of color, texture and strange loops…and so are faces…I see the child they were, the mature adult, and the ancient one(s) they were before they were born…all at the same time…
2 Likes
How would you know if we have a media soul? Who would decide?
That reminds me of a story I heard about a young man who saw a corpse in the middle of a road and that no one stopped their car.
Perhaps the dead man had been too far out all his life, and not waving but drowning?
2 Likes
I believe we do! But I cannot decide this. It is a working hypothesis and creative premise.
That reminds me of a scene from a movie…
2 Likes
A vetaran actress was asked about the audience. There was the mechanic, the home maker, the lawyer, the doctor in the audience…who do you play to? She said, simply," I play to the most intelligent person in the audience."
This echos that great Sybil, Ursula Le Quin, when she counseled the author to trust the story, trust the self, and trust the audience.
This is also true of what happens in the Cafe at our best…
4 Likes
I love that you name her Sybil and yes, she is! Devoted to realities obscure (to our culture) and most powerful, but never to “fame”, which is one of the afflictions. A grounded, embodied spiritual take on reality was publically obscure when she began to write from that…it’s just a bit more culturally visible now, eg, with the evolution power of beauty beginning to infiltrate biological evolution, and Richard Powers winning a Pulitzer for a book devoted to Trees.
Le Guin had a trickster voice, laced with irreverent humor, I miss her!
4 Likes
Douggins, I am totally impressed by this improv/experiment!
So glad you mentioned “directions” and our sense of them eroding maybe largely due to Google Maps, but other cultural things, too…
Having worked with blind, deaf, and otherly sensoried people, I can say it appears to be true that subtracting a mode, increases depth and bandwidth in the other senses. But this takes practice and time like everything else. However the brain begins to alter within only about ten or 15 minutes at the level of neurons.
I love your questions, Douggins and Michael!
Around trust: learning how to trust our own senses after trauma is such a rich vein to explore.
And also how to trust our perception of trustworthiness re: others. How much can aspects of voice tell us? How do auditory clues compare to visual in regard
Like a phonecall? Yes, can’t see many differences, unless it’s the implicit knowing that you can use your sight at any moment if you choose, vs by phone, no choices! Phonecall conference is or feels much more private than Youtube video format.
Johnny, I very much relate to the kind of situaiton you’re in right now, something you care about being torn apart…in real time…without your consent.
Michael: touch is the primoridial sense? I agree. Narrowing the channels or leaving out one of them increases power of those remaining? I know hydrologically that’s true… Darkness experiments in your home: I do that too! Never turn on light after going to bed. Several reasons. Affects melatonin secretion but makes seeing capacity more flexible . It’s good training in expanding our perceptual worlds. Plural.
Don’t turn on the lights, as First defence, I love it. Lesson in Equanimity training…
Sensory sensitivity involves increased vulnerability, yes.
My own eyesight is maybe 20% less than it was during most of my life, and coincidentally or not, my hearing definition has improved by at least that much or more.
Re: phone group: there are many ways to create order,: can use Clock Form, or " Directions" eg, but crosstalk isn’t a problem usually, When you are In meditative mode and pay a lot of attention, you usually feel when to speak and when to be silent and wait.
You can lie down in the dark and listen—can’t do that with video! Ad then combine meditation and listening/speaking, which is one of my favorite forms of meditation. Yes, even thoughts become more graceful and deeper, too.
“Voices have more quality…focus on “how” you are saying things…” Yes!
The Wisdom of Anxiety (Cheryl Paul?) : as exquisite sensitivity. How to learn to re-frame anxiety into an opportunity “flare” in which you can learn and/or discover something new.
Child’s nervous system from baby to about ten (some kids its older, some younger) get easily overwhemed and learn to “modulate excess” and see how to make good use of it.
Re: child-raising, noticing non-verbal communication subtleties. Tones of voice are like sonic gestures, and non-verbal, too, yes?
Culture tends to label sensitivity as anxiety and/or “a problem”., then we try to get rid of, Instead of intelligently cultivating it.
Cannot describe how much I love this Cafe!!!
Time perception: takes place in a different “place”, ie more embodied! Yes, eros is sensual not just sexual, a way we know certain aspects of beauty, such as gracefulness, merging, highly defined sensitivities, connections… Eros is a quality of any or all senssory channels. Without sight, we sense more inside and around our bodies, including space itself. So BOTH space and time are changed by leaving out sight. “Arousal” as coming to attention…
Michale: Eroticism of natural world experiences, with or without hallucinagenic substances. “Infinity inside our finiteness” Eternity in a grain of sand. Infinity in a flower… versions multiplying! Slowing down time…expands space.
Befriending anxieties, intensities, et al rather than numbing or even killing them in ourselves.
Spiritual practice is exactly this, isn’t it?
The structures we carefully choose, create space in which to express freely, as limits release us from constant vigilance and allow magnification of focus (energy).
This was a Cafe where I could slip right in as a salmon slips into her home stream.
Maybe we could try a phone conference version/variation of this sometime, somehow?
In any case, thank you so very much, you two!
PS: was a sign language interpreter for awhile, forgot most of it, but that’s another universe and another conversation. Btw, there IS a sign language for those who are both blind and deaf, it uses…TOUCH.
3 Likes
Thank U Ariadine
2 Likes