In Praise of Confetti

The British monarchy is getting a lot of kicks lately: Simon Schama, the historian, Martin Amis the novelist, and others are taking this season of celebrating egg resources (yes I refer to the wedding of William and Kate here, simply at the functional level of heredity) as a time to highlight the bovine intelligence of royalty. Thereby they merely draw attention to the mechanical intellect's own lack of insight: were human intelligence so important there would be more of it in the cosmos. Because the whole, cannot be comprehended by a linear intellect which assumes the verbal mind can draw sufficient conclusions about the greater whole of which we are apart. Since this is not the function of the mechanical intellect, the success of those verbal points are not even in question. The academics assume those who disagree with their assessment are limited, rather than looking upon the possible limitations of their own mechanical summaries. An interesting lesson to be drawn is that the limitations of mechanical thought never even occur to such Oxford luminaries. Pondering the function of spectacle, and the triumph of the so-called mediocre, pondering objectively, is a possible path to greater insight. 

This is not about reliquaries as physical equivalents of verbal reality

A book review of  Holy Bones, Holy Dust, (by Charles Freeman) which examines the medieval fascination with relics, grabbed my thoughts. Though I just read the review, it had some amazing facts, like that:

In 1239, King Louis IX of France bought the Crown of Thorns (as worn by Jesus at the Crucifixion) from Venice for 135,000 livres – more than half the king’s annual budget. Venice had got it, and some other relics of Christ’s Passion such as the Holy Lance and the Holy Sponge, from the ruler of Byzantium as surety for a loan of 13,134 gold pieces. And when Louis had acquired all of these relics, he constructed the Sainte Chapelle in Paris – the most sumptuous building of its kind in Europe – to hold them.

The review mentions that one function of the relics was they encouraged folk to go on pilgrimages to view these wonders for themselves. Which gave me a perspective of the difference in the greater machinery of life, then, compared to now. In the 13th century roads were bad, horses were only for rich people, and I have read (elsewhere) that most people lived their whole lives within  the sound of their own village church bells.

Nowaday viruses and people encircle the whole globe in hours. And in this comparison we can see perhaps the greater machinery functioning: in 1300 the need was to make sure people literally moved MORE, an issue arugably of the circulatory system of humanity. The need was for people to literally move physically, more. Voila, pilgrimages, and the rusty machinery is moved slowly but surely around a unsuspected (by most) crankshaft. Well, they would have called the crankshaft god. Another story.

Anyway, today with our slippery ways, the need for the machinery, getting larger, is for the bolts in the machinery, (in places) to be tightened, to allow the greater movement of the whole machinery, but a stable movement, so we have a different perspective. Now the machinery needs tightening in some places, perhaps as a stand for this growth. And what do we have--the internet, and of course this serves many purposes, but one---is to keep those bolts snug, by sitting our seats longer in one place. The opposite of the 13th century. Well not the opposite, but that's also another story. Our chairs before the flickering screen of apparent life, are a way to slow certain aspects of the machinery. All interbalanced of course, this machinery, and my views are just to open up a perspective for thinking of it all. 

One thought resultant from this speculation is that the differences between the 13th century and the 21st, are not those commonly assumed. Not religion versus science, but issues of circulation, stability, and the growth of Humanity. 

Sycamore pods fill the air

Sycamore pods fill the air.

The single wing is born by the wind and twirls so that it really looks like a winged insect. Whole vistas can be filled with these ambitious sprigs. The wind moves them in an upward direction and an unseen determination to make the most of this chance can be deduced.  This spring phenomenon is proof of the sycamore's desire to fill the planet, and for a quiet moment each spring you can believe in that massive whole leafed effort to turn the world into sycamore.

Same with everything really, you just notice it in spring, this drive for abundance. Only by attempting to exceed a reasonable target, can any target be accomplished at all. So there are breeding cats, cardinals, bees 

When Jan Cox said that cause and effect was an illusion, that everything was really just "mushed together," (sorry for the technical language) he might have been glancing at my point here. 

Words too, they bounce up and down on the wind, determine to reach some far shore, to cover everything, to take over. Like leaves they give it their all, before descent and dust. Some wonder if words can't have unforeseen consequences, injurious angles. That is only a matter for concern if your perspective is not big enough. 

All the historians and scientists need to start a trek to amazing reality

Normally this blog, designed to enhance and extend the reputation of the 20th century mystic and philosoper Jan Cox, does not quote him in large chunks, feeling, as the author does, such is available elsewhere. And a central technique was not repeating anything you heard, -- anything you heard inside or externally. You had to see for yourself what he called the psychological (internal) and the cosmological (external.) Still----always--his words are superior, and, his silences unimitatable. And so we have this, written before he died. What if it is true?

The feeling that man must be "saved" from something coincided with the appearance
of his thinking...which coincided with the disappearance of something else.
And now -- periodically -- he has the sensation of a loss of such significance that
he indeed feels as though he may be in danger of premature destruction, from which
he needs be saved.

Note: There is available, for all purely "human problems, a direct, uncomplicated cure –
the abandonment of the refusal to see what's going on in the human mind.

Swaying in the wind

It must be men-on-ladders day. High on a billboard they are adjusting ropes and ladders, while on a platform. And simultaneously around a few corners, a man on a two story ladder, one resting atop a truck,  is changing light bulbs in shopping center street lamps. The view from these heights, not like the ones the car drivers glance into, is sure to be different than most people in traffic have. Further, with tree tops below you....

And, like those who patiently pursue an inner discipline, intended to gain the heights of objectivity, there is a genetic element. Not speaking for sure of the guys I saw today, but apparently the window washers of skyscrapers are often indians who may have a squirrel like disdain to considers the narrowness of high perches. Jan Cox said there was an inherited talent, tendency for those attracted to what he sometimes called, This Kind of Thing----this need to be free. 

It wasn't snakes that got kicked out of the garden

It was not snakes that got kicked out of the garden. Yet people act as
if hacking them up will allow the killer back into a certain garden.
Nobody talks about the declining snake population, not even
scientists, yet it is part of the shrinking population of reptiles.
And we desperately need snakes. Without snakes rodents increase in
population, and the two legged types will buy poison to get rid of
what snakes will get rid of without polluting everybody's gardens and
rivers. Leave that wood pile alone. Keep some parts of your yard
unmowed. If you are personally afraid of snakes, keep a walking stick
to poke ahead in your path. Snakes only want to avoid your presence. I
will not mention keeping snakes confined as pets. Nobody that would
read my blogs would do something so contemptible.

And P.S. --just like mysticism is the skeleton of literature, snakes
are the skeleton of man's real awareness.

P.P.S--of course if you live in Belize, ie, already in the garden,
different guidelines might apply.

What is ignorance

What is ignorance, is a question most would not find interesting, yet
it may be at the heart of a spiritual anthropology.

Most would not find this question interesting because they assume they
know what ignorance is. Here is the typical view of personal
ignorance. All mature persons at some point assume that ignorance is a
measurable commodity.

The idea that ignorance is a measurable commodity, or perhaps,
unquestioned, working assumption that ignorance is a measurable
commodity, explains a lot. From the pathetic, 'I have learned from my
mistakes,' to the spit in the wind, 'our reactors meet all the safety
requirements, ' a picture of operant assumptions about man's ignorance
can be sketched. The boxcar beyond the horizon is big enough to
contain all that we do not know, both as individuals or as a society,
is a metaphor of this working view of ignorance. Or---. If knowledge
is a gumball machine, then ignorance is just one of the gumballs that
is still heaped in the glass dome---that is the view of human
knowledge and ignorance prevalent in society, from university
presidents, to the bottom of the middle class.

Step back though---how could it be that ignorance is something one can
factor in? Does that not assume that we know what we say we do not.
And--Real Ignorance is extant. Real ignorance surrounds,
interpenetrates, and pricks out the horizon, of ---- our thoughts. The
man intent on figuring out wtf is going on, is given in this essay a
big hint, on how to proceed.

If one could examine, and test, one's own ignorance and ideas of it,
one would be on the path to ---someplace interesting.