[Proposal] Cosmos Café - Six Ways to Go Meta

Commons Cosmos Café
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A Social Dream.

I am in a well lit room with a group of people. There is a large cat, the size of a leopard, but a dark, purple color, without any spots. She is a very beautiful cat and I am aware of her power. A stranger enters the room and is addressing the group and I feel the animal, who is on my right side, is ready to attack. This worries me as she is very lethal and could kill and I have no power over her. She is in a way trying to protect the group from the Stranger, who may not be benevolent. The big cat is calm and alert and remains next to me. I feel we are bonded.

I wake up and feel into the imagery of the dream, and especially love the powerful cat vibrations, which are amplified as I think about her. I walk in her body, feel her intelligence. She is a wiser predator than we humans are. We have much to learn from Big Cat.

This morning, as I sip coffee, I pick up a book where I left off. The book reads, and I quote," Jung saw one of the critical tasks of complex psychology as that of coming into a right relation with the animal…there could be no individuation without a new relation to animals. What was required was a balance of civilization and animality…the critical task of analysis was of ‘becoming animal’. One way to do this is through attending to animals in dreams."-From the book All the World an Icon

The Big Cat as I recall was on my right side. The book gives me a clear response to my dream. This kind of synchronicity is happening a lot lately, as I have been going ever deeper into a contemplative space, that has revealed the secret self, my own double, who lives in another, higher dimension, but can communicate with the me that is here in this world, this vale of sorrow…

Christ warns us not to throw pearls before swine. In another dream last night, I was dressing a little girl for a performance. I put her in a dress made of a shimmering, light green, fabric and a string of pearls. I decided against the string of pearls as it made her look too grown up. She looked beautiful without the pearls. She looked her age and she was also a very wise child…

I may or may not be at the Cafe tomorrow. I have a lot of work to catch up on and may need to stick to my schedule. If anyone has a coherent idea about tomorrow I would be delighted. At this time I don’t feel motivated one way or another to show up as I have a journey that I have to prepare for. I want to keep all my options open.

Have a great day and may the force be with you all.

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It would be great to catch up. I will be on for the first hour at least. I think we can work our way into a frame today and tomorrow… the meta-perception concept makes intuitive sense (though it has been removed from the suggested topic in this thread…what happened?). I just finished Erik Wargo’s TIme Loops and he suggests keeping a dream journal to tap into the precognitive and retrocausal dimensions of our dreams. I too have had many synchronic aspects of waking life with dreaming life. I do not feel the need to share these as they would lose an element of reality somehow.

Below is a few paragraphs from the book Tom C. references by Sonu S.hamdasani, Jung and the Making of Modern Psychology. I think it gives a little bit more insight into becoming animal.

Quote from The Making of Modern Psychology

The exclusion of the animal had its effects on man, as man had a certain amount of libido for relations with nature and other living beings. The modern custom of keeping pet animals was an attempt to satisfy this need. Once this libido was repressed into the unconscious, it took on more primitive forms. An example of this was the herd instinct of crowd psychology, which was aggravated by large numbers of people living together in cities. Large crowds constellated the animal, and large organizations were like beasts in search of prey. The loss of respect for “brother animal” generates the animal in us. A relation to animals was necessary for true humanness to be possible.

At the same time, the libido for relating to animals was still present in man, and produced symbols which appeared in dreams. As a consequence of this, the appearance of animals in dreams took on a particular significance. At the same time, dreams of flying or of swimming possibly contained“racial deposits”of the times which our animal ancestors spent in the sea.
From these remarks, it emerges that Jung regarded one of the critical cultural tasks as being that of coming into a right relation with the animal. In 1928, he contended that while an animal fulfilled the laws of its life [Lebensgesetz], men could lose themselves from their roots in “animal nature.” As the collective unconscious contained not only the residues of human evolution, but also of animal evolution, any attempt to come to terms with the collective unconscious necessitated a coming to terms with the animal. There could be no individuation without establishing a new relation to animals. What was required was a balance of civilization and animality: “Too much of the animal distorts the civilized man, too much civilization [Kultur] makes sick animals”. One way of coming into a correct relation to animals was through attending to the appearance of animals in dreams,and overcoming one’s prejudices in regard to animals. In his seminars on the interpretation of visions in 1930, he stated:

"We are prejudiced in regard to the animal. People don’t understand when I tell them they should become acquainted with their animals or assimilate their animals. They think the animal is always jumping over walls and raising hell all over town. Yet in nature the animal is a well-behaved citizen. It is pious, it follows the path with great regularity, it does nothing extravagant. Only man is extravagant. So if you assimilate the character of the animal you become a peculiarly law-abiding citizen, you go very slowly, and you become very reasonable in your ways, in as much as you can afford it. "

Thus we see that Jung identified animals with drives or instincts. The animal in man would correspond to his animal nature, and animals in dreams were generally interpreted as representing the instincts. A critical task of analysis was that of “becoming animal.”

The animal is a well behaved citizen in its natural environment. It is a tightrope walk as we put one foot out into the world and the other foot tapping about in the dark, searching for its animal roots.

The unconscious within is overlapped with animal instincts, animal drives, animal reflexes and animal powers and perfections. The Big Cat is a calm, alert killer of all humans that remain “unconscious” to the inner vibrating animal. If you cannot attend tomorrow I will be imagining you “on your way to glory”, slashing through the Big City’s vale of sorrow as a Big Cat.

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Good luck, Mr Undercover Guy. The deadline for a frame was Friday. I am less interested in frame, just a bit of air freshener sprayed around the room would be nice…or a bit of sage…

Micro-perception would have to be prepared for. I am not interested in flying spaghetti monsters crashing into walls…

I think my interests are way too esoteric for this fly by the seat of your pants kind of whatever pops up is fine dynamic. I find this kind of thing a bore. The attention is so scattered I prefer to stay away. I have enough chaos in my life already.

Another dream from last night. I am in a tableau, viewed in a mirror, of Jewish persons, dressed up like clowns and cabaret performers, to hide from the Nazi regime. We stare into the mirror at our costumes and painted faces and I feel the tensions of this massive distortion between Self and Society…

And a Big Cat and a girl in green and a Jewish circus act frozen in the reflections of a Mirror during a Nazi regime …

Welcome to the Inter-world…the price of admission is high…if you have something better to do you may want to do that…I am no longer willing to sit on the Cosmic egg and wait for the sound of the first crack…let some one else do it!

I am taking off my clown makeup…and enjoying a cold shower and search for some more local offline coherent adventures. Ta!Ta! Bon Voyage…

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May Blessings of Laughter & Fire in the Belly Be with Your New York State of Meta, my Social Dreaming Friend. I take my Seat where-ever I move,it seems to Be attached.

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I listened to Bonnitta’s presentation on ‘6 Ways of Going Meta’. That would have been plenty to talk about, assuming whoever showed up wanted to respond to the content, style, or any other aspect of that presentation—go meta on going meta—then perhaps try out some of our own meta moves.

I wondered about the role of perception in meta-cognition, since questions of ‘what size’ and ‘what shape’ ‘when meta’ were introduced. However, I had not listened to the presentation yet when I edited the title of this topic. Admittedly, it was 1 am, I was still catching up with multiple open threads, and I was out of gas.

I’ve done a lot going meta over the years and thought we might able to bring the meta down to earth by putting it relation with embodied perception (which is part of one of the moves that Bonnitta describes as holistic participation).

I am guessing the fact that the topic didn’t gel by Friday means none of really wanted to go meta, which is fine with me—I am much more attracted to becoming animal than going meta. That said, it’s obvious one can only become animal if one has already gone meta—on the animal, as well as on the human and the self.

As a matter of protocol, perhaps in the future we should leave suggestion threads open, so they can wind their way where we need to go—then, start a new, clean thread for the actual topic of the scheduled Café. This might help avoid confusion and coordinate clean action.

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I was wrong able being able to attend. A slim chance I can be there for the second hour. So much for undercover work…! Ill try again next week.

Should be able to clean up things a bit this week and next, with posting recordings to Vimeo/Youtube, etc.

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Becoming%20Animal

Does this resource work Marco as reference to Your interest? I 've consumed both of his books awhile back (The Spell of the Sensuous),he was also in the same Parabola issues with Peter Kingsley.

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That book looks great, Michael! And our library has a copy so I will check it out. :slight_smile:

I will skip the Café today because I have a big chunk of work to do on an important (time-bound) project—and it’s up to me to put flesh on the bones, about now.

Let’s keep this thread open for next week? I would like to continue showing up for the Café, but every week is a strain for me. I need to inhale and exhale. We are not clocks or pistons running on fossil fuels or silicon, but carbon- and breath-based beings who consume materialized sunlight and excrete compost!

(Let us not demonize Carbon, btw. Whose agenda would that serve?)

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EXCELLENT Refocusing…

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walking thread…

images(2) …Meta is always waiting for a viewer or two…seems to this viewer of ?

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Here’s some music to feel into our animal ancient voices vital life energy:

Galactic-Earth%20Citizen

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The only way out is spiritual, intellectual, and emotional revolution in which, finally, we learn to experience first hand the interloping connections between person and person, organism and organism, action and consequence.

Gregory Bateson

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One suggestion I have for the Café is that we do some repeating types of events, which could shake up our intellectual/visionary focus and weave in other modes of relationship.

For example, what if once a month, we hosted a “Welcome Café” which is strictly about getting to know new participants or members?

I believe the Café should also focus on questions of cooperation and the cooperative movement in general—since Cosmos IS at least aspiring to be a Co-op, and there’s a lot to discuss about that. The Café could provide a nice format in some respects.

What if once a month we do something longer-form, like a book chapter? We could read Staying with the Trouble or The Patterning Instinct in a Café setting, but slowly over a number of months, with other topics in between. For me this would be better than scheduling additional meeting times—my schedule is near maxed out.

Speaking of meeting times, another suggestion is to maybe mix it up. Alternate with later starting times so folks who work during the day can participate—yet we remain friendly to those across the Atlantic

What about for next Tuesday? 10/15. Who will be there?

John left an excellent list of topics at the top of our last event: Cosmos Café [2019/10/01] – Ancient Philosophy and the Mystery of Our Senses.

Let’s pick one. Our ship of death sails…

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After a long hiatus, I plan on showing up. As I’ve been pretty much out of touch, I’m up for anything anyone else is up for but don’t feel up-to-speed enough to take the helm.

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Going Meta.

And what happens right before going meta? And what happens after?

I watched a conversation on Youtube that captured some of my own dilemmas about our current struggling ensembles of discourse practitioners. It goes like this. There is a Group A, represented by Trump, who creates trust/betrayal dynamics, for his own gain. As this dynamic depends upon the kindness of others, it will be short lived rise, followed by a crash.

We know this dynamic well, as most of us, have reached our maturity, working in such a social system, and have noticed this boom/bust cycle in our social worlds. This would be a Group B appreciation for paradox, dilemma, impasse, conflict created by Group A kinds of discourse.

Group B can sponsor a radical openness and trust, and Group A can mimic this and intrude upon Group B’s discourse. If enough members of Group B are alert they can detect this tendency to manipulate attention for narcissistic gains, both in themselves and in the Other. This is not pointing fingers and condemning others but developing skill in detecting the double bind patterns and pointing out the pattern.

As we transition between Group A to Group B we should expect to be high jacked on occassion and perhaps even snuffed out, but we will eventually, once again, arise from the ashes, if enough of us can embrace the death space that our current civilization is heading rapidly towards.

And so I am grateful to the Cafe for giving me a chance to develop relational skills in a new communication medium, which no one seems to understand very well. There is much to celebrate and I am ever hopeful that new individuals ( both the young and elderly) will continue to share attention and intentions in the next wave…

Today, I have made other plans and will not meet at the Cafe. I am engaged on the ground, in creating a local coherence, here in a very messed up Manhattan. We have a lot of work to do here as we have suffered a great deal of intrusion by nefarious forces.

So, whoever shows up for the Cafe, I salute you, and wish you well. I fully expect that those who have given their best to these Cafe events have been rewarded by that participation and for those who have decided to watch at a distance have learned something, too.

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