I am really happy I did not fall for the idea that I should somehow be captain of my soul. My life is so far from anything I could have planned. Every time I bring some new venture into my path it seems that everything changes. I have often said in one or another context that I am on the cutting edge of my own life. I basically am not competent to run it because I have never been here before. There are some roadmaps and guidelines available. There are principles that I have chosen to follow, but these don’t really tell me what to do on this day to day basis I might be able to really use. So I have to go by rules of thumb, some dead reckoning, and take suggestions as they arise. It is in this context that yesterday’s post was offered.
I quite literally can’t do worse if I flip a coin. I have in fact run my life on coin flips before. Actually, there is a system that offers a formal treatment, a ritual that encloses coins and the random nature of things. It is very old in its oldest form and is widespread now. I Ching. I have worked with that ancient Chinese wisdom system since 1969. It started in a fascination and led to serious study.
At one point, I returned to school and took my BA degree using my work in I Ching to figure in about half of the 28 credits I needed to graduate. Astrology figured in the other half, but also systems theory and other aspects of philosophy and psychology, and more than a little interconnection with quantum mechanics and cosmology. Astrology and I Ching are legitimate subjects of college level learning when they are classed as metaphysical systems and treated formally in that way. Also, Astrology has been used in psychological settings as my colleague and I did. Both Astrology and I Ching reveal aspects of psychology, arising as they do out of the human psyche and can be used then as investigative tools to plumb that psyche.
See? This actually works, but I was up to that time, 1981, the only student to receive credit in metaphysics as a branch of philosophy in the prior learning experience program that I went through. Others tried unsuccessfully. The year after I was awarded my degree, they reconstructed the format of the program, and I believe what I did became impossible to do in the new format. I think it means I have been the only student in that program to do something like that. It took me two years, but the first year was burned up trying wrong directions before I settled on this practicum I produced.
Here is another example of that sequence I wrote about yesterday...that I must make the gesture first, knowing I have little chance of actually getting it right, in order to get my world to reply or respond to me, guide me into the actual workable path.
Flipping coins to decide my fate…why not?
Field Theory
I took you from fields,
brought you into my home state,
expected your blooms
and the scent of you
to change my life forever.
That is what happened
but in a surprise
move, you pried my hands free
of their hold on you.
Sailing off on winds
that I could not understand,
you gave me myself.
February 27, 2009 2:24 PM
Contraction
1 week ago
Oh...you just did it again.
ReplyDeleteThat's what I need to do now....
Do the next thing so that the universe can get it right for me ....
done!
:)
When i read your poem, which is written beautifully, i feel scared to hold on to anything, i know my hands could be pried loose suddenly. And as i too i live on the edge.... In your last line, I read, we will fly either way, always receiving ourselves or as Gangaji wrote today: Opening to whatever is present can be a heartbreaking business. But let the heart break, for your breaking heart only reveals a core of love unbroken.
ReplyDeletePerhaps Jozien has a very strong point, Michelle. The heart must be broken to reveal the core of love within. Once broken, it must stay easily breakable if not stay broken. Only then can the world respond in like kind. This is a prerequisite for the dialogue to clarify things.
ReplyDeleteI was talking about the gesture.....
ReplyDeleteMine has been broken my whole damn life, one way or another....and yeah, it stays that way.
If we don't risk then we don't gain.
I believe.....some might say I'm a fool....let 'em.
Perfect, Michelle. It hurts like hell unless you engage the dance get out ahead of the music. You need to lead in this way, as the deep dream dancer does. There is ever the way the music changes and it would without your participation, even though it is your music. The band is in charge of that, but if you take the lead then the band follows gratefully. You see? They cannot do otherwise when the dancer is most excellent. Then you all make love together, both bright and dark as is right for the time.
ReplyDeleteWhen you lead the dance with your broken heart then the whole thing turns out very different even though it is still the same music, and the band whispers high praise, grateful for your gracious* lead, and everyone is lighter and brighter, even though the music may be the saddest, the darkest you have ever known. All is filled with meaning. All becomes manna in the desert.
This is called sometimes "dancing to your own tune" but the band may become an orchestra where it once was a trio, a duo, and you will know you are not, decidedly not, alone. This is the sacred power.
Your Wiccan friend knows this.
Recently, Cherie, Butterfly Dreamer posted on dancing. Yes. Just as you have brought it up and teased yourself. This is the outer mirror of the broken heart. The tribes carry the dance beyond our earliest known history all the way back.
*gracious - here is the doorway. You really must allow the inspiration, the main reason for the broken heart. There is no crone, wise woman, priestess, Mother without this. If you try the price will eat you alive. This is what killed my wife. It is common, though not always so clearly fatal. More common are those who refuse the call. Life flails them or not according to their fate.
(Very often we alcoholics, among others, try for the power without the price. We think somehow the spirits pay the price for us. At the least this is humiliation. More often many pay the price along with us at our lead. Thus the necessity of the restitution steps.)
Wow...I will need to read that a few times I think. I have just posted an hour ago and I would like you to read it. I cannot for the life of me figure out where my head is at right now. Whether I am coming from my heart or my arse....
ReplyDeleteI think I am digging deep here and that it may be getting pretty real, but then I am prone to fantasy too. I just want real. I am tired of all this mincing around, I want to dance. Am I already dancing?
I am confused.
My teeth hurt and I am getting angry....
Why must pain be the inspiration?
Okay, I am going now.
ReplyDeleteI understand the Call....I believe I am following that...I am not clear on how to lead the music...I 'get it' in my head, but my feet want to follow.....do you mean my dance makes my music?
ReplyDeleteThe 'dance' I am doing is dictating the tune that is playing? I think I almost have it...I have to dance the music....so, in essence, I am creating the music by the act of my dancing to it even though it isn't quite playing yet?
God, I think I know what I mean :)
I think so too, but gratefully, you don't have to understand so much as to hold intention with humility, and a sense of irony helps as I will comment in my next post.
ReplyDeletePhew!
ReplyDelete:)
Wow! :)
ReplyDeleteI am fully in support of coin flips to make decisions, because sometimes that's just how it needs to be. Or tarot spreads, for that matter. Or runes, or I Ching, or astrology... whatever works. But also, there's the idea that we're not entrusting ourselves to fate, rather we're using tools to draw out the inner power we can't wield ourselves. Um. That's all I have to say about that, plus, I enjoyed the poem quite. ^_^
ReplyDeleteJoseph my friend, of course. These metaphysical systems that permit the manifestation of meaning through manipulations of various kinds are dialogues with mystery. They are not directives, as in a superior giving orders to inferiors, though perhaps at times of emergency the messages may approach that, but they are more like suggestions and discussion between equals. At least I have found it so. Astrology is never in my experience that firm, but then I don't come from event centered basis. I never had that gift, nor that interest. I am not good at being told what to do.
ReplyDeleteTarot has a heaviness that is spooky at times for me. I spent some time with it and got clear that it led me into places I didn't really want to go as a practice. Works fine as an occasional thing.
I don't think I like calling metaphysical systems tools. They are world views, not made for a purpose but because they are fundamental in some spiritual way. They are not primarily utilitarian though they can be used in revelatory ways. They require reverence to be trustworthy. And unlike tools, when used properly they do not ever wear out. Instead, they may increase in utility with use when used properly.