“You must note the way … (writing assign. week 5)

“Now is the time to open to a new level of knowledge,one where inclusion is more natural than exclusion and synthesis is more creative than separation.”

Sacred Dimensions of Time and Space (xvi)

 Writing assignment: In daily activities, experience with a way of engaging your world that is more inclusive, more ready to synthesize than discriminate. How does this practice affect your experience?

Notes from my journal, 9 October 2013: I’m flummoxed as to how to do this: it’s the most difficult thing I’ve been asked to write. Whispering ‘inclusion’ and ‘synthesis’ at the back of my mind, like a mantra – observing what it invokes as I walk around in town, speak to people in shops, swim ten lengths, prepare a meal and write my notes. Walking around in the street; allowing it all to be there all at once; opening to let more and more of it be present. Seeing out of the crown of my head, through the soles of my feet, out of back, front sides (not just eyes). Gathering senses as a friendly family, united and cooperative. Letting everyone and everything else be there as they are, too – all those thoughts billowing out in waves into the daylight. I find myself more friendly; even more deeply aware of the details in people, the nuance in them, than usual. Talking to more people than usual in the street; savouring the diversity and idiosyncrasy, each a treasure house of history and expression.

Synthesizing as I write: I can see how this links directly with TSK Ex. 30: Subject Object Reversal.

More notes from my journal, 10 October 2013: The carpet, even the red and the blue pigments ‘knowing me’. Supported by all that I perceive (through all the senses) – the wardrobe, the chair, the chest of drawers. David Whyte says it beautifully: ‘you must note the way the soap dish enables you.’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ss1HuA1hIk

I found this in Love of Knowledge (page xli); it throws more light:  Conventionally understood, knowledge takes form by moving through the stages of observation, experi­ence, interpretation, understanding, and actualization. This step by step process widens the separation between knower and known, and easily turns knowledge in the direction of an intellectual process far removed from direct experience. The bond linking past and future to the present is severed, converting history into a lifeless abstraction and turning what has not yet happened into fantasy. The linear link between subject and object con­fines knowledge to a two-dimensional plane, leaving the depths of knowing unexplored. Even when experi­ence seems direct, these same patterns may continue to operate on a more subtle level.

Caroline