anamnesis

I've been planning to explore another country. I've taken some reconnaissance trips and enjoyed what I've seen. I think I'll be commuting soon. I'm not talking about Ecuador. Although sometimes the outer reflects the inner. And vice-versa. Nope. I'm talking about a place inside. Or at least, it feels like I'm going inside to get there. I suspect it might connect to outside in some strange ways but dividing experience into inside and outside is problematic anyway. Once in this place, awareness of the body starts to fade. I may forget what position my arm or leg is in. I feel a sort of "condensation" or focus of my awareness from a little outside my head, behind me. And I repeat a mantra I learned long ago: "mind awake, body asleep" and the body starts to fall more and more away. My vision is only of blackness at first. I start thinking of scenes in a loose way, things I like to see. Nature, space, forms, colors. Not in any specific ...

process over goal enhanced through time but self sufficient to the moment and can always be realized now expansive experience, not description requires a degree of mindfulness a condition of freedom in this are clusters of words birds flitting on thermal currents of intersections centeredlightness of being stillness letting go sovereignty relaxation words about state about places roads between destinations time slows on the interstates does not matterneed not be in external pursuits, holding a quality of internal state more than the thing or happening the space it happens within mindful  cultivation of state less derailed by circumstance recenters more quickly still need daily reminders though not to mistake means for ends

The wars have receded, rebuilding the land, a few minor skirmishes to mop up. Before the next wars. Some preparation to do with the planning mind, but mostly it is about the spirit. Facing what is, adapting with resourcefulness and skill, utilizing experience. Knowing when to rest, be silent and consolidate for a moment before fiercely re-engaging. Keeping a clarity in the present to monitor traitorous thoughts and sabotaging emotion. Not in order to suppress or escape them, but to meet them head-on with acid inquiry: how are you beneficial? what purpose do you serve?  The minor harpies slink away from this scrutiny, they had nothing to offer but abrasions to the soul. The big ones, the gremlins, were once important, perhaps. But now they are old records with broken logic and tired solutions to problems that exist only in the past. They act as if they have paid their dues to stay, and I should be grateful for their insults and slander, and act betrayed when I lock them out in the c...

At one point in life, for a fairly long period, I thought I'd be a psychologist. It seemed so fundamental to understand the nature of the very fabric that we experience life with: our thoughts, emotions, memories, beliefs. Those curious about these areas learn quickly that we are far from a "blank slate" in respect to how we perceive reality. But what I kept running into, with rare exception, was that psychology was a very young "science"; it sycophantically fawned to be accepted as a rightful sibling to the harder sciences which were more "respectable" and received better funding. It tried to divorce itself from paradigms where mind was something other than a mechanism, where emotions couldn't be explained with limbic regions and neurochemistry. Hard sciences started pushing the edges of what our models were implying about the *nature* of reality, and started getting really weird with wild implications about parallel universes, the involvement o...

We only have moments in which to live. The future and past are just concepts, if we learn to inhabit now, the universe becomes our teacher. Very good talk by a guy that's changing modern medicine, among other things :-) Meditation. It's not what you think. Love after Love by Derek Walcott The time will come when, with elation, you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror and each smile at the other’s welcome, and say, sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was your self. Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you all your life, whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart. Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, the photographs, the desperate notes, peel your own image from the mirror. Sit. Feast on your life

Appling Southpark guys animating some talks by Alan Watts

[Warning. Rampant Philosophical Speculation] This article discusses, in part, a curious research finding in psychology that I've puzzled with off and on for several years. In the 70's a physiologist at the University of California named Benjamin Libet conducted one of those experiments that seems to be the norm in quantum physics these days; the kind that directly violates some of our most entrenched beliefs about the nature of reality. In this case however, it was the role our conscious mind plays in our behavior that's brought into question. A quote from the article will give you a flavor of the conundrum: "A bevy of experiments in recent years suggest that the conscious mind is like a monkey riding a tiger of subconscious decisions and actions in progress, frantically making up stories about being in control." One thing you should probably know about me, and the recommendation of this article, is that I'm pretty critical about ways most "experiments...

Tao had a interesting post on our experience of time. Rather than fill up his comment space with something that may take it on a tangent, I thought I'd post some personal observations here. This is just an exploration. It seems time accelerates for two major reasons and there is one way to slow it down that most of us know but few of us practice. One reason it seems to accelerate may be that the relative ratio of any unit of time gets smaller as we get older. When we're 4, a summer is 1/16th of our entire life and goes on forever. By the time we hit 30, the same summer is only 1/120th of our life so far. A much smaller fraction. And since time seems to be more about our subjective experience than the wall clock, the context of this accumulated experience seems to carry greater and greater weight. But not just because of its quantity. Another factor, one more insidious, is our habits. The other day at a restaurant I watched two three year olds from different tables dashing arou...

Well, it's all quiet in bloggerville, and fall is almost upon us ---my favorite time of the year. I like the cool nights after a hot summer, the crisp air, the sounds of autumn insects; it's always seemed like a great time for new beginnings. Probably should have been born in Australia, I guess. But I got no complaints. Bright-eyes is off blogging in another language, the chilipeppers are back to their school routines and I'm slowly waking up from my summer hibernation and getting ready to tackle new projects. And this is where you come in, dear readers. I spent much of today crafting a special experience using brain entrainment frequencies. Patterns of sound that alter your state of mind. The experiment was to create a sequence that would sweep through ranges from the somnambulistic to the mystically ecstatic. It's designed to counteract ruts of thinking and stimulate a type of freshness and pleasure that revitalizes the mind, and I was pleased with the results. You ca...

OK, this is way cool! Ever put something down and then, when you go to get it later, it is nowhere to be found? I used to tell people that the time-being takes this stuff. You know, when you set it down for the time being...well, sometimes it takes it. And sometimes it puts it back in the same place, a little while later. It's onery that way. But it happened to me (again) tonight and it was driving me nuts. I don't think it was the time-being and I knew it was probably staring me right in the face but I searched two rooms from corner to corner, over and over, and it was no where to be found. Argggg! But then I remembered (at least) my secret weapon, pictured on the left. And I'll show you something that may save your sanity in these cases. So I've got this fancy pendulum I bought in a rock shop on our trip to the Southwest (along with some cool little magnetic metal balls that you separate slightly in your hands and throw in the air and they'll clang together making...

This may turn into one of those "tomes" a certain nephew gripes about, so bewarned. I started this about a week ago. It was triggered by a random impulse to explore how ADD may be an adaptive mechanism for coping with an increasingly complex and stimuli rich world. But I got distracted into researching more about ADD, couldn't get organized enough to finish it, put it off, then forgot about it for a while. Incidently, in Oklahoma City, the survey form they give family, friends and teachers to fill out to try to identify ADD looks for 5 indicators: Impulsive Distracted easily Lack of organization Procrastination Forgetfulness If you can't sit still, they throw an H in for Hyperactive, so you get ADHD. First a disclaimer: I ain't a professional psychologist. Even though at work it seems sometimes that's all I do. And I do have the 45 hours of all the requirements of undergraduate and graduate coursework for a masters in clinical psych, I just couldn...

Advertising is a billion dollar industry and I think they know something that most people don't. Most people think that advertising is about selling "things" or "services." But what they really sell are feelings. Or rather, the expectation of feelings. (And sometimes, the hope for avoidance of particular feelings, like guilt, shame, embarassment or fear.) Buy this product and you are smart, safe, cool, individual, etc. They've tapped into what really motivates people. Feelings. For example, our goals are not usually about the particular thing itself, whether it's an achievement, a possession, a certain financial mark, a promotion or whatever; it's really about what we think we're going to feel as a result of having this or that or doing x or y. Successful, secure, happy, loved, good look'in and admired: you name it, the feelings people are after are as unique as they are ---and the means they use to get them are often mistaken for the ends. A...

MindChangingHypnosis.Com is the website of Kyle Varner a Clinical Hypnotherapist certified by the National Guild of Hypnotists and the American Council of Hypnotist Examiners whose own powerful life experiences with hypnosis lead him into the practice. On his site, he has eleven free hypnosis downloads. I've listed six of them here along with direct links to the MP3 downloads. Although clicking on the links will allow the MP3s to play immediately, for proper use, its best to right click on the MP3 and "save link" to save it for later use. Finding Your Inner Athlete : This is a self-hypnosis recording based on the script “Finding Your Inner Athlete”. This self-hypnosis recording can help you to develop the motivation and mindset necessary to achieve your fitness goals. Please do not listen to this hypnosis recording while driving, or in any situation where you may need to maintain alertness. Download the MP3 here. Reflection Pool of Potential (Weight Loss): This is a ...

I almost never watch the news, or TV for that matter. I don't read newspapers. But I do like to read through the blogs of family and friends to see what sparks their interest of late. Having a very ---uhm--- eclectic bunch, there are usually some surprises. Some laughs, news, research, things to ponder, nostalgia or just frivolous musings. It's all good. Often their thoughts trigger thoughts of my own about a topic, like Marbella's this morning (in my timezone) about reality and maps. General semantics is a discipline that is all about this and, in the area of self-examination, it is a jewel because it talks about the water that we fishies swim in. Things that influence our perceptions even before we start introspection. And it's hard to build a basis of self knowledge on a shaky foundation, or one we don't examine, so I'm going to poke around a little here in case it may be of value to other intrepid explorers of the clan. The core observation of general se...

When the influence of Descarte split the mind from the body, the subjective from objective, it allowed science to focus strictly on the physical, but left the mechanims of mind fallow. This was convenient for allowing our understanding of physical nature to blossom, and with all the rapid advances of practical technologies, science began to question the utility of having a "mind" at all. Early behavioral psychologists, like B.F. Skinner, thought that fabricating a mind wasn't necessary to explain human behavior. Simple conditioned responses to stimuli would suffice. The mind in early science was just a source of subjective errors in observation of data that had to be culled from empirical research or it would invalidate the findings. But things change. Our understanding changes. As science drilled down into the very fabric of matter in quantum physics, looking for the ultimate building blocks of nature, it ran head-on into some very disconcerting findings. Consciousness s...

Our unconscious controls most of our physical functions. This is fortunate; if left to our conscious mind, there are some days we'd probably forget to breathe. And our hearts would stop beating when we went to sleep. The unconscious is vastly intelligent, controlling virtually billions of simultaneous processes in our body. It's not very good with words, instead it uses images and sensations for communication with consciousness and hormones, nerve impulses and neuropeptides for communication down to cellular levels. The pictures we make in our heads cause it to react in various ways, as if they were real. It's said the unconscious doesn't really know the difference between something we vividly imagine and something we are experiencing. Imagine, if you will, slicing a nice bright yellow lemon with a sharp knife, the tangy smell of citrus hits your nose and you bring a half to your mouth and bite into it, feel the tactile tearing of the lemon with your teeth and most li...

Like Tao, I'm having some wee problems getting engaged with work this morning. I have a brief haitus after completing a year long project before diving into the next one. With about 2 years to go in this job, I'm having to struggle against short-timer's syndrome too. Which brings me to this odd hobby. I have a bunch of "hobbies" (which evidently comes from those stick riding horses and is a statement about some activity that doesn't go anywhere. WTF? That'll teach me to lookup the meaning of words #@$%) My hobbies go places. Even though I tend to do them in spurts, I've realized these are actually more like the cycles of a spiral and I've learned stuff in between that brings them to the next level. Stick horse. Bleh. Anyway (don'cha just love blogramble?) last night, after reading for a few hours, my mind was buzzing like I wouldn't be able to sleep for a while. So I started a "noticing" game I hadn't done in months. I don...