Some time ago now ;-) some one wrote to me privately this.
"Most of the time I read your contributions and cry. < > I can just
promise you all my attention"
My pledges
Sung in a voice
Like that of a jay;
Even when I cry
You do not lend an ear
Kishidori no
Tsutanaki koe ga
Kudokedomo
Nakedemo kimi no
Mimi ni tomenu wa
Oya no Urazumi
C 1755 Japan
I have above my writing desk a photograph of Walt Whitman 'taken' after he
had written his most celebrated works under the collective heading, 'Leaves
of Grass'. His eyes have the soft and open gaze of the "waling encyclopedia".
WHAT?
WHACK!
Type into Microsoft Word ('98) the term "savant" then swipe and check the
thesaurus facility, the last entry you will find is the first one I gave you.
Now, that is perhaps for 'reasons' none of us will ever know a 'kind' of
miracle.
How very beautiful then that Mnr. At de Lange ;-) writes to us all about the
careful art of 'crying'. Thank you At for the genius of your synchronicity
today;-)
In her beautiful book Nancy Kline writes movingly of an episode wherein a
child is abused of the 'right to cry' by his very own mother. ("Time to
Think" Nancy Kline by Ward Lock ISBN 0-0763-7745-1) Nancy Kline states with
a gentle authority that the oft' heard remark 'pull yourself together' aimed
at adult and child alike is a 'gentle binding' that keeps us, the very
observer to the scene 'in control', so that when one is upset one is
encouraged to isolate oneself and move off (dislocated) to another place
where, unseen and unheard we repress our legitimate feelings into ourselves
once again so that we may return to the embrace of the enfolding arms.
Kline's thesis is that if we are allowed then to 'cry' we discover that we
soon think better(well) again.
To do this she says we have to 'pay attention'. I like that phrase. It
implies 'giving up' by the beholder of the attention, a minor 'creative
collapse'?
I have a very powerful personal story to tell in the face of such pain, but I
prefer to keep it, not having the participant's permission to share it today.
Kline's advice I quote, " When people are trying to think for themselves,
they just occasionally might cry or get angry or say they are frightened. Do
not stop them. Be with them. Pay respectful attention to them.
Hand them a tissue. (Soft and fragrant if possible) They will stop. Sooner
rather than later. And they will think more clearly."
That is a very sane philosophy.
Now some of you might think you see a reciprocity in At' gentle wisdom.
You would be right.
He and she are joined up in the face of the 'slip-streaming of tears'.
Here is a simple 'knowing in doing and doing in knowing' a la Maturana and
me;-)
Type in the word "tears" and you will get a string of words via your
thesaurus, one will be "wailing"
Now get the antonyms via the thesaurus and you may be enlightened.
Now type in the same word and locate other meanings as per pronunciation as
opposed to spelling and you get "divisions", and "fissures".
Opposites joined by the very same word.
How strange! Or is it?
I want to try and join these thoughts with connectivity of time, thought and
emotion via memory for you.
'Time loses no time."
- It is more than any 'diagrams' drawn in the dust.
Memory ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~a loosest coupling
"Andrew, The same memory contains also the affections of my mind. It contains
them not in the manner in which the mind itself experiences them at their
time, but in another very different way, by virtue of a power peculiar to
memory. For without being joyful I remember myself to have experienced joy,
and without being sad I call to mind my past sadness; without fear I remember
that of which I was once afraid, and without desire I recall a former desire.
Indeed at times the present and recalled emotions are opposites: when joyful
I remember my past sadness, and when sad I remember my joy. This would not be
remarkable if memories were only of the body: for the mind is one thing and
the body another, and it would not be so strange a thing if my mind's
happiness was unaffected by recalling some past bodily pain. But the mind and
the memory are not two separate things. When we tell another to remember
something we say: 'See that you bear it in mind'; when we forget something we
say: 'It did not enter my mind,' and 'It slipped from my mind,' in these ways
calling memory itself 'mind'. Given this, how does it happen that when I am
joyful and remember my past sorrow, the mind has joy and the memory sorrow?
While the mind is joyful from the joy that is in it, how is it that the
memory, from the sadness that is in it, is not sad? Surely no one will say
that the memory does not belong to the mind? In truth the memory is, so to
say, the stomach of the mind. When they are entrusted to the memory, joy and
sadness, like sweet and bitter food entrusted to the stomach, is retained but
has no taste. It is ridiculous of course to figure (my italics) this in such
terms - and yet the resemblance is real.
-Also, it is from out of my memory that I draw when I affirm that there are
four perturbations of the mind - desire, joy, fear and sorrow. Whatever I may
be able to say in discussion of these, by dividing each into particular cases
according to type and genus and by defining it, it is in memory that I find
what I have to say. Yet I am not disturbed by any of these perturbations
when, by remembering them, I call them to mind. And before I recollected and
reviewed them they were yet there, which is why by remembrance they could be
brought forth from memory's store. Perhaps, then, even as food is brought
from the stomach in the process of rumination, so also by recollection these
things are brought up from the memory. But if that is the case why is not the
sweetness of the joy or the bitterness of the sorrow felt in the 'mouth' of
the man who thus remembers them? Is this the unlikeness which makes the
resemblance incomplete? Indeed who would willingly discourse on these
subjects if, as often as we were to name sorrow or fear, we should be
compelled to be sorrowful and fearful? And yet we could never speak of them
if we did not find in our memory not merely the sounds of their names,
according to the images imprinted on it by the senses of the body, but the
notions of the things themselves.
We did not ever receive these notions through any door of the flesh: rather
the mind itself, recognizing them from the experience of its own passions,
entrusted them to the memory; alternatively, it may be that the memory itself
retained them without their being actively entrusted to it."
Name forgetfulness.
See anew numberless and nameless, one tear inwardly to an ocean's tumbled
eternity.
I HAVE (italicized) named and credited the one author for fear of public
censure from the publisher or author or my peers alike.
I NEED (italicized) not name the other author since he is a saint and I have
his joyous permission and he does not claim what is not his.
I WANT (italicized) in patient good faith to end with Walt Whitman.
" These are the thoughts of all men in all ages and all lands, they
are not original with me,
If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing or next to nothing,
If they do not enclose everything they are next to nothing,
If they are not the riddle and the untying of the riddle they are
nothing.
If they are not just as close as they are distant they are
nothing.
This is the common grass that grows wherever the land is and the water
Is,
This is the common air that bathes the globe."
Remember? If you have little children please kiss them on the
~~~~~forehead~~~~~~ for us who having none, have NOTHING
Love,
Andrew Campbell
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