Maybe I Should Forget The Internet
I make art
IDK.
What does it mean?
I don’t know.
If you don’t know, then why did you type it?
I don’t know.
Why won’t you just tell me what it means?
I did.
You said “I don’t know.” Are you teasing me?
No I’m not teasing you. I don’t know.
It took a long text conversation with my granddaughter to figure out this one. She finally got it through my thick head that she was telling me all along. IDK means “I don’t know” DOH!
I am obviously, Lou Costello character while my Granddaughter is Abbot. But this is not the only time I feel frustrated, out of the loop, in Modernia.
Digital is not my natural language. My spidey sense is proximal, feelio.
I Art. I respond. I am Yin. In life, we have input and response. Input is yang and response is yin.
Balance is Zhen. The In-between. What has happened to Balance in Modernia? Simple…. Too much Input creates too much emotional response. Everybody’s doing it!
Too much Yang. Too many ideas, not enough practice. Too many words, not enough experience. Too many thoughts, not enough touch.
True communication is touch. We need to touch each other. Blend the auras.
The message is delivered in the wind. As the breeze brushes your hair. As the hurricane rips your house apart. We respond to the messages that come to us, wordless, tactile.
The bad taste in your mouth. The ringing in your ears. Yin. Experience. Feeling.
Yin responds to all this digital input with an accelerating force of emotional extremism. The violence we are experiencing is not from violent people. It is from extreme loss of touching flesh and spirit.
Language is specific to the cultural era in which it exists. In days of yore, when we did not write stuff down, we memorized the stories of our parents and grandparents with specific accuracy and appropriate emotional context. We sang the songs of the ancestors and spoke their rituals as we lived their routines.
Today we live as children, each one inventing its very own world. Brand new, because we are young and just discovering the wonders of life. The wonders that are not new to the experienced elders.
Brain; Modernia’s Favorite Toy
We have this lovely toy; the brain. It is especially fun to use this left side of it! This yang side of the brain selects, dissects and names things. The down side of it is not so apparent. It only sees the parts. Yang knows a tree, but doesn’t understand about Forests.
Digital brain doesn’t just ignore the Forest, no. Left brain doesn’t know that Forest exists. It doesn’t understand how the Tree must have a variety of influences to survive and thrive. Left doesn’t know that Right exists.
Left brain is a monotheist who believes entirely in its own divinity.
Novelty comes in the form of new words. Remember how hard it was to understand Old English? We speak English, and yet Elizabethan is a different language for us Modernians.
Words are placeholders for experience. We have learned to prefer words over face to face, heart to heart interactions, we are divorced from reality. We talk our feelings and logic our wants. We are away from ourselves.
Art brings us into ourselves. Not just looking at it, though that is great for inspiration.
The last century has brought us fully into the Yang Brain with Science, Technology, Engineering, Math as the New Religion. We do our best to get the babies to talk early, to walk early, to be smarter than the other babies, sooner. This disease of the Left brain is killing the Forest of our collective Soul.
Left Brain Sez …
“Take music and art and drama from the classrooms. They are silly.”
“Why do we sleep? Such a waste! Can we stop doing that and just be awake all the time?”
“You are upset about your life? You must be crazy. We did a study. Here’s a pill we made to numb your unnecessary feels, you weakling.”
We are trained young, to dissect every act as if it exists alone, without context. I am sad about this. I want to hug you in person. I want to rub shoulders and complete a project together. So that’s what I did this past month!
I joined a theater group. We put on a play! A variety show of local talent. I wrote and recited two poems and introduced the acts. We did this together.
The arts are for everyone. The art of living requires a bunch of trees inside a forest or in this case, 2,240 suction cups, under the sea.
My Spirit Animal - The Octopus Mother
Listening Does Not Constitute Agreement
Can you listen with something other than your ears?
Eyes? Fingers? Heart?My spirit animal is the Octopus Mother.
She listens with with 2,240 suction cup feet on 8 arms.
She touches to know. … She embodies the role …..like a method actor.
Her intelligence comes from millions of years of grokking the creatures of her world.
Grok means total understanding of another being; on all the levels.
Imagine that you could hear someone else’s feelings ….
Or Smell their intentions?
If you could grok a rock, or a crab, would you still be you or part rock or crab?
My Octopus mother can imitate anything and yet remain an octopus
And so can we all
Before I Understood my Spirit Animal I feared that I may become you if I listened to you because …
I thought that listening to you could betray my identity.
Ironic though, because my true identity IS the ability to FEEL you.
I am a feeler. We all are, to some degree.I am a tactile impressionist, like my octopus mother.
My Spirit Animal showed me that she was always herself and so am i.
When she performs an object, she doesn’t transform into it. — No.
She listens to it with her whole body and then demonstrates it for you to see.
Her tentacle ears listen to your ancestral puzzleshe mimics
The patterns and precedents that made you or the rock
She Touches gently to Understand qualities of rocks.
She listens openly, knowing that rock is rock and she is she a mimic
When I understand, grok you…..
It is both wonderful and terrible
The wonder delights me … the terrible is my own shadow
I never wanted to admit my flaws, but when I did,I was freed from them.
The Ocean makes The Sweetest Sounds
We sway together tasting the salty flavor of our different souls … dancing
We move together …. A tilted hip ….. A Raised hand ….. A Pirouette,
And Then we flow … Into The texture of time
Where sound tastes like chocolate and red sings out loud
Where the octopus mother touches to listen with her 8 arms
Together, We merge into the moment
