The friend yesterday indicated that I should write down a description of the vision that compels me to stir as I do.
At first, I couldn’t imagine undertaking such a task in the context of perceived urgency, but it didn’t take long for the realization of that absurdity to dawn in my eyes. Charles says that I have, in writing, found my voice; I guess these preamble are example of that.
There is a connection here; the intention to state something fairly objective, some clear, coherent, and concise description of a perceived condition, and the subjective voice, a unit of expression of boundless experience channeled through the pen of just one person.
Just one pen, just one person, just one moment, nested expressions of subjective identity, each and all contextualized in the next and dissolving in some underlying transcendence of contexts, some fundamental nature beyond language and ideas of truth.
“The Tao that can be spoken is not the Tao that can be known.”
Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu.
I speak to write, and write to share, to reflect, but I make no certifications that these words become the thing. To continue the theme of eastern mystical thought: these words should not be taken as concrete descriptions of truth, reality, vision, plan, or anything quite so blue-printed and instructive. These words are merely one humble gesture, eyes gleaming, a finger pointing to a moon, so beautiful in the eyes of this beholder.
Today I will, at least, attempt to lay out some sense of narrative roadmap, I may not say the whole thing (then again, perhaps I will say enough), but I will endeavor to craft the outline which may then be filled in through coming additions.
Indeed that thing, that object that moves me, that expression that lives inside and longs to be free of the cage of this little fleshy self, possesses a sovereignty all its own, is not some artifact of thought, some sculpted value bounded and frozen in time, it is a living being. It does not belong to me, indeed, while I am its vessel for now, I can see it being born in countless places beyond me and know that I am but one gesture of its evolving life path.
All that simply to say that these words are more invitation to reflect than steps to instruct or even guide. Let us begin…
The gesture I want to make is towards a possible future state (not too far I hope) for this ecosphere we call home. This future state expresses a new octave of harmony; a more eco-bio-logical process of self evolution, a greater enlightenment of holistic interdependence and care.
I am not speaking to some grand theory of ideological unity, but rather seeking to understand the metaphoric of mycelial threads that might facilitate a balanced flow of well-being throughout the total forest of this living Earth.
This gesture consists of a map of understanding, a cosmology that lives in me, drawn from many wisdom sources and perceptually intelligent perspectives that have shaped Kabir over time. I have worked, and continue to work, to polish away the reactive qualities of self protective identity, in service to the prayer that I might arise as clear a prism as I may, that the light of love that fills my soul like a river from heaven can find its way into the world as a rainbow of care and generosity for all living beings.
Be that as it may, I cannot overstress the degree to which this is merely meant as an expression of art, a dance of poetry in the face of Majesty, an invitation to the beauty that lives in others to come forth and weave our way together onto the canvas of this little world turning through space and time, a rose releasing its scent into the garden of eternity.
My intention is to move, to weave and flow from the reflective state of awestruck glow through to the expression of lightning clear and pointed action, and back again and again and again, learning and loving and living together as we go.
Let me name a polarity. On one hand, that we live in a state of dire decomposition and destruction; on the other, that we stand perfectly where we belong, a rich history of messy organic playful, and deadly serious evolution stretching out behind us in time, and poised for even more beauty and grace than we have ever before imagined.
I will speak from both of these perspectives as we proceed.
In the interest of design integrity, I wish to understand and make plain to the viewer my tools. The nature of my brush and inks and canvas, the eyes and other living senses of the artist and imagined audience. And so we begin from nothing.
I wish to acknowledge the many scientific and rational perspectives that point out for us that evolution did not shape humanity, or any other species we know, to perceive an unvarnished reality, but rather to embody perceptual capacities that serve a utility of growth, adaptation, survival, and procreation, an evolutionary persistence.
In essence, our minds do not so much perceive the world, as they do perceive a map of potential success for the creative inquiry that evolution makes through each of us individually and all of us together.
What does this mean? In this context I put this forward to assert my own and our collective innocence in “knowing,” “seeing,” or “understanding” in any empirical sense. I put this forward to advocate a stance of existential humility in the face of longing and efforts to care.
Perhaps said perfectly well in Chapter 2, verse 47 of the Bhagavad Gita, as translated by Paramahansa Yogananda:
"Your right is to perform your duties only, but never to lay claim to their results. Do not be motivated by the fruits of action, and never develop an attachment to inaction."
I am a humble state of perspective. My actions transcend all perception on my part. I intend love and then gesture in surrender. Let come what comes, may all beings be well and happy.
If we endeavor in service to the aforementioned vision of a thriving well-being for the whole of the biosphere, let us begin in clear effacement to the majestic humility of our lens. That all we perceive is not “reality” as such, but merely a reflection of our prayers in the form of our subjective search for beauty.
A concise intention statement might read as follows: to initiate and steward a generative and dynamic conversational process that grows as a vine through humanity and time, engagements like leaves to metabolize nutrient, sprouting actions like flowers to seed and generate new productive initiative throughout the human journey in this world and beyond.
This generative process exists, by nature, as an open-source and transparent expression, intentionally increasing and refining its surface area so that more and more perspectives, wider intelligences, and deeper wisdom can be felt into the dance.
This is not a concrete project, though it has those qualities. This is not a subtle ideological enterprise, though it draws on those elements of the environment. This is a gesture of our collective human awareness, coming to know itself more wholly (more holy) as one song, one verse, at home as a living flower of the universe itself.
How do we define the boundaries of such a journey? How do we garden so that it might take root in the world as it is? How do we tend that it might begin to metabolize, softening the hard earth and returning the evaporated moisture of value, currently orbiting in clouds of finance economics, as rain across all the land to be reabsorbed for a new spring on planet Earth?
From what patterns of observation, from what intuitions do we infer our path forward?
Wisdom is depth and intimacy of knowledge of place. To proceed wisely, we must know ourselves, we must know our place, we must design accordingly.
A deeper dive into this inquiry might look something like this:
The nature of the mystery.
The nature of awareness and mind.
Consciousness (or Awakened Awareness) as a spectrum of being.
The human collective mind as a color within that spectrum.
The nature of light.
Light and movement across the canvas of being.
When that journey awakens to itself; qualities of awakening.
Celebrating as the river, playful improv on the stage of life.
Designing structures in service to the game.
In the words of a wise man I know, To be continued…
Very fine ✔️☑️🌈