Subject:
Re: Masked Man Identity...
Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1999
From: Diane Haugen
Hi,
I got the your tape today and really enjoyed hearing your voice and listening to you explain where you're coming from with only a sprinkling or two of academese. :>
You use the term chrysalis, and while you talk about the transformation involved in the morphing from worm to winged creature, you haven't really admitted that the butterfly has historically represented transformation in many cultures.
That isn't a criticism, but rather a wondering how you can begin talking about what you do and somehow draw on that rich culture so your imagery becomes more three-dimentional and, in essence, more like the abstractions Denise talked about.
Communicating by words with language makes forces us to look from within to without. In essence, we turned away from our knowing from within when we culturally trained ourselves to see as real only that which can be described sequentially.
You said on the tape:
Denise [Bessarat] said "humanity is now poised on the verge of abstractions that it cannot even imagine today..."
Unless we can also go within and relearn the ability to think in multilayered abstractions, we will be stuck where we are. I don't think it's the abstractions per se that we cannot imagine, but rather the bigger picture, that we can think in multilayered abstractions and telepath them without having to unravel them into sequential hit or miss strings of descriptive words.
Word imagery helps, but it's a pale substitute for the multilayered imagery of which we as humans are capable of thinking with. The only place we deal with this kind of imagery now is in our dreams. Think about your dreams, Jamie. How many times are they filled with imagery that becomes so rich in layers that you lose the image for trying to put it into words. That's the tip of the iceberg Denise is talking about, it seems to me.
I don't know how much you study your dreams, but it's a way to begin to retrain ourselves to think in these terms, to get a feel for what is possible, and while the real world tends to get all Freudian about them, they miss the point, to my mind. Consider the notion that many dream
images are the tips of the hollograms to other worlds, other dimensions. Our minds are not trained to grab those instantaneous shards and expand them into what they could be. In a way, is seems to me that systems theory is stuck on this plane for the very reason that it the either/or mantality of the scientific method prevents those practicing it to see beyond the
glint of the shard.
Your bio in two sentences? A quiet observer of our human potential as we morph into beings who can handle right-brain and left-brain thinking with graceful aplomb. :>
Can you tell me more about Denise and her language studies.
Diane
===============2 Feb 1999
Diane,
ummmmm, so did you like the tape or not, Ms Finicky? :-> I know, I know.
I didn't mention the pan-cultural aspect because it was my moot assumption, as I spoke. But like you point out, we tend to regard it - part with identifying ourselves as transforming creatures also, in
different situations, but also as distanced observers of the process. I know that most of my life I've taken a detached view of 'metamorphosis', understanding that its a real process, but knowing it in my
comprehension rather than in my gut.
And I assumed most other people were in their heads about it rather than in their hearts, also.
Which ... is why I wrote the NUC Bulletins piece, and why I spoke of it on the Resilient Communities tape. Tribulations and tensions that happen - as associations and relationships change - are metamorphic events. The thing is, they are intangible, invisible, experiential - not observable as if they were physical objects morphing and visibly changing. So we don't think of them as "real entities" ... but I'd say that they absolutely are.
So I wanted to raise the awareness level ... expand it. Have people appreciate that process and change .. as uncomfortable as it might seem in some situations .. is the felt participation of meta- forming the "structure of processes we exist in and as". This can be personal, social, political, what- ever. It can be as gossamer and subtle as the whispy trailing long tail of some elegant fish species; it can be as omboverous as changes in forms of government, state pomp and social circumstance.
Changes of relationship are the "real" of life. Everything else - specific art, specific beliefs, cultural traditions and values, guides rules and civility, 'forms' of social order, music, games, and poetry,
architecture science and academics, economics dance and humor, all and more, are the anchors which remind us, keep us on course in matters of communication and life transactions, of how to do and what to do ... to maintain the relationships with people and life and the world which we are sharers of.
That's why 'values' are intrinsic, are shared across cultural enclaves, even ones that want to bash each other's brains out. We all have 'values', a place within our social order. We have our cosmic location - in the streaming histories of time and place called Universe.
And when we're asked to change that "place", re-work or re-form our relationships, eh!, sometimes a creature balks. The old place had become comfortable (typically). But, whether it's a desired change or not, we feel-the-changes. We feel the morphing and transforming. And sometimes, it can be a downright scary thing. Until someone comes along and shines a light on the darkness, says, "Yeh, pretty unnerving, I know. But take a look. Things are going to happen that are out of your
control. But things are only going to happen if you say so. Either by silently letting them, or by coming forward in your own true sure voice and saying, 'Ok, but let's do it this way. I want this and that relationship. This is the next place where I can be, and keep on being part of it all. I can design a good part of my place in the world.' ... where "I" am me, my family, my community, my global family, my Gaia-Earth."
Denise Schmandt-Besserat ... spoke at the ISSS meeting. She's a cultural anthropologist. Sci.Am 238 (1978):51-58. The Sciences 20 (1987)):44-48 .
Want to laugh ... you know that I met Michel Cabanac at an ASSC consciousness conf some years ago and really admire his work (Genre). Falk, too. Wrote about her in several places including the Beijing paper. Last summer, I hear Denise - who was unknown to me before - and was ecstaticly impressed.
Well, I go get another library copy of Falk's book Braindance so I can scan pictures and quote exact text for putting up at the CI site. And I flip through the pages, and who is she writing about also????Michel, in other physiological work he had done umpteen years ago, was seminal in supporting evidence to confirm Dean Falk's theses! AND, she writes extensively about Denise and the relation of brain adaptations to language symbolizing and speech!!!!! Talk about confluences! Synchrony! It's another, "ok,don't think about it. Just sit back and enjoy the 'rightness' and let your face and soul smile.". That's about all I can do.
I don't have anything more specific, but I'm sure a web-search will get you to her. You ought to write her, Diane (!).
As far as me, using the rich tabula of metaphors, that's a tough call. I've doubted my skills at it for so long. But, I know that's the right road, and I will do it. A couple of fingers in the ribs certainly helps, I can say. :->
Jamie
