… precious hopes …

The buzz of web-traffic can be exhilarating, a universe of stimulation, stories, advice, facts and know-hows. We put our name out there, mingle with travellers, seek adventure, share our thoughts, fulfil a task, meet like minds, exchange or sell something, and hopefully find synchronicity, resonance – yet at times …

 

Nasrudin rode the train to work every day. One day, as usual, the train conductor came and asked him for his ticket. He begun fumbling around in his coat pockets, and his pant pockets, and then in other people’s pockets. He looked in his briefcase, in his bags, and then in other people’s bags.

Finally the train conductor said, ‘Nasrudin, I’m sure you have a ticket. Why don’t you look for it in your breast pocket? That is where most men keep it.’

‘Oh no,’ said Nadrudin, ‘I can’t look there. Why, if it wasn’t there, I would have no hope.’

*     *     *

‘Why, if it wasn’t there, I would have no hope.’ What spooked the legendary fool’s mind that day? What do you make of the story? What does the ticket symbolise/represent for you? A hope can be so deeply meaningful to us that we keep it hidden at times, even from ourselves. Then we look for affirmation elsewhere because we couldn’t stand having our faith dashed.

Yes, I have such days. Where is the ticket to your hopes and dreams to be found? Are you keeping it close to your heart, holding it there, to remind yourself of instances of inspiration, when grace happened in your life, so when grace visits again you can seize the moment?

*    *    *

I chose the particular version of this wisdom tale from a lovely book edited by Elisa Davy Pearmain, Doorways to the Soul. She calls the story The Lost Ticket. You find a link to Elisa’s website in my blog roll.

A classic collection of wisdom tales I treasure is in Caravan of Dreams, by Idris Shah.

… what’s your myth …

Do you paint your myth into clouds?

Do you find your myth on the ground?

Do you search for your myth in love?

Do you clean up writings on the wall because you weighed life on scales and found it wanting?

Is your myth in the process of being sculpted?

Are your myths about debunking clichés?

Are you shaping your myth into the future?

Are you the eternal traveller – like me?

This post was inspired by a writer friend I exchanged a few emails with. And I found myself expressing a thought in this vein … Writers and artists are like archaeologists; they dig, uncover and re-shape a personal myth until the myth takes wings and becomes universal, though many writers would deny this. And yet – think about it – the myths we live and re-shape give meaning to our lives and entice readers to explore theirs.

*    *    *

And who do we share our myths with?

A listener like this chap does wonders for one’s confidence

Re-posted at:

http://thirdsundaybc.com/2013/04/21/april-2013/

… a rare book – now on-line …

Following an eight-months labour of love, between my co-editors, the Archventures group, and contributing writers, a small edition of 250 beautiful copies of a book were published in 2010 – Heart of a Sufi – A prism of reflections on Fazal Inayat-Khan (1942 -1990.) As of now, the book is affordable on-line, see below.

Hand printed wood engraving by Susanne Harding inspired by Fazal’s signature.

The book contains stories, essays and poems written by those who were inspired by the controversial and innovative nature of Fazal’s work, or by the creative spirit that pervaded the place and people he left behind.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the way mystics talk about the right time, place, and the right people, Fazal offered a timely and challenging spiritual education that embraced wit and the complexities of modern life. During the 1970s – 80s he attracted people from many backgrounds and countries who had very little in common, other than being exiles from tradition and hungry for truth. The book gives a flavour of encounters, stories charting the edge of learning and unlearning, relationships with one’s self, the groups, the world, intense experiences, affecting deep peace and change, often achieved after games of orchestrated struggle and conflict, peaking in performances on the stage of a magical theatre – live and experience first, then reflect. Debriefings after workshops were sobering, humorous and mind-blowing events. And something ineffable was transmitted in these transformative setting, through music, through silence or through a glance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A short history:

In 1968, at the age of 26 Fazal Inayat-Khan became the head of the Sufi Movement founded by his grandfather, Hazrat Inayat Khan, accredited with introducing Sufism to the West. By 1982 Fazal embraced his personal style to honour his grandfather’s legacy of spiritual liberty by surrendered his leadership of the Movement and chart his own path. His approach to Sufism resembled Idris Shah’s, whose writings had perked my initial interest in Sufism as a timeless practice of wisdom pre-dating Islam, a teaching kept alive through adapting its essence to new times and people. Adaptation in many fields was called for during the 1960s – 80s. The psychological and scientific insights of that period were so radical their social assimilation has yet to happen.

Conceiving of a book that offered a window to Fazal’s work, the editors had wondered if anyone would be brave enough to come forward and share their interactions with this passionate man, the groups and the tumultuous conflicts worked out during that period. We thank again those who contributed. And there must be many more stories of regret, pain, delight, disillusionment, new found coherence, inspiration, and significant life-changes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The rights for Fazal’s hundreds of talks, poetry and musical tunings rests with the present leadership of Sufi Way. Our book contains some of Fazal’s quotes and the extraordinary poem – Qalandar – but the purpose of Heart of a Sufi is to show the potent seeds of love this remarkable man placed into the hearts of people he touched, seeds now unfolding in new settings for generations to come.

 

 

 

Archventures are pleased to offer Heart of a Sufi as e-book, making it affordable:

http://www.troubador.co.uk/book_info.asp?bookid=2180

On amazon you can peek into some of its pages: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Heart-Sufi-InayatKhanReflectionsebook/dp/B00BFUO0T6/ref=sr_1_22?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1363426951&sr=1-2

 

*    *    *

Relevant links can be followed up from the e-book.

… surfing the virtual waves …

I first accessed the internet while doing a sabbatical film degree as a mature student in the 1990’s.

Struggling with basics, feeling the fool among bright young computer literates, I typed surrealism into the search engine, a subject that rhymed with my passion for transpersonal psychology and fascinated me. Take yourself out of your familiar environment, lose the original context into which your identity had been projected, then gaze and ponder. I had done precisely that. During my first year on the film course I felt displaced and, like my son at a stopover, did a trawling assessment of the oracular unknown.

I was going to write an essay, on how Freud’s work influenced art and film during the 20^th century, a glittering subject that led me into a dreamlike maze. Each follow-up link on the screen led to another site – another artist, philosopher, writer, page after page, world after world opened until I was afloat in a sea of rich associations. Gripped by Alice in Wonderland sensations, I thought – unless I stick to the context of my essay, the web will suck me into a whirlpool. Exploring the unconscious for its potentiality and its poetic combustion via dis-identification  was of course the surrealists’ impulse, to the ends of tricking the rational mind by using trance to break out of trance – which may well be the ultimate purpose of the internet.

One of the lies would make it out that nothing

ever presents itself before us twice.

Where would we be at last if that were so?

Our very life depends on everything’s

recurring till we answer from within.

The thousandth time may prove the charm.      – From ‘Snow,’ by Robert Frost

I had worked as photographer on film-sets in a former career, so I grabbed the opportunity to study the ultimate trance in its historical context, and play with it. Manipulated by high-angles, close-ups, masking, dissolves, and cross-cutting during editing, underscored by sound, images could be displaced, speeded, up, slowed down or distorted. The surrealists were among the first to love fluid images, using them to disrupt unconscious processes of identification at the same time scientists’ deconstructed particles, and time, and space in good measure. The search within, long pursued in the east, was taking hold in the west. 

Deconstruction is the prelude to creation. Having learned that we are conscious of only a tiny island of our psyche, much like we can only see the tip of an iceberg, had affirmed my lifelong desire of seeking what is behind the mirror of appearances. In that vein, I recall feeling an awesome sense of responsibility when I first held my new-born son, imagining that my every gesture, my every tone of voice, and even my very thoughts might subliminally influence his pristine being. I was quickly grounded, adapting to the routine of being present to my little one’s basic needs, and soon realised that he had brought along his own world from another sphere, and that beyond my stimulating mirror, he would shape his own destiny.

So here was a kind of baby – an essay on surrealism. To deal with the mass of on-line leads, I took capacious notes, plundered the college library, and relied on intuition to guide me through the process of writing, allowing the essay its own agenda. It was when I first acknowledged that my sixth sense made writing a pleasure. Years later, starting my first novel, responding to subtle influences became the only way I could write, trusting that the unconscious – rather like a digital binary system – condenses and displaces material that can re-emerge with the right prompts.

Spending several months co-editing a beautiful book of reminiscence about a remarkable teacher, printed as a limited edition (also available in E-PUB soon), I started my second novel, and forayed into the on-line publishing world. Armed with the intention of finding a publisher my trust deserted me. I felt suffocated by the genre jungle, the flood of how-to-does and the racing schemes offering self-publishing. I scolded myself for procrastinating, being lazy, not believing in my work, but nevertheless stubbornly held back. Having ordered a few print-on-demand publications by friends I made on a writer’s site, who had got their act together, I was disappointed by the poor presentation of most books – cheap paper, cramped layout, narrow margins and too small fonts. Is this how small publishers and self-pub schemes treat writers who spent years on composing their epic? My heart sunk. I observed my frustration, took stock and decided to relax and wait for a beacon.

In any case, I had been fooling myself, betting on the wrong horse. Being a published author has its perks, but what truly matters to me is the actual process of writing, which is alchemy, a sculpting of feelings, a release, being other than what is familiar, uncovering myths and creating new ones, digging for treasure, a journey into the unknown that reveals horizon upon horizon.   A metaphor for my life, about the how, about the journey inside with my others, relationships woven from layers of experience into something new, each time, and time again … life writes its stories through us.

Apart from receiving vague out-of-the-blue proposals offering dubious contracts, I had two chance-encounters with publishers who welcomed a read of my MS, encounters resulting from surfing the web on the crest of my interests, often as unsubstantial as a keyword from a dream. It’s no different from how I live my live. Not exactly a structured approach, I sometimes scold myself. But for better or worse I don’t attach myself to goals, only to transitional containers, which could be an object, a character, a dream image or a place, and the rest follows. My stories emerge from kernels lying in wait, and they pursue their own agenda. I let them, and trust they will find a readership.

Like Stan Brakhage, one of the early experiential film-makers, I think of the deeply personal as universal and conceive of the real world as invisible ‘… thus in the physical or spiritual or light world all forms are beings – stones, trees, stars, streams, men, flames and turds are really facts of invisible presences. Mineral, wood, fire, water, flesh are terms of dense soulful sense.’

In this way, rather than going nuts, as I feared when first exploring the global mirror of the internet, I’ve made peace with it, relating to it as a spacious, time-freed being that interconnects all our stories and projections and offers its content according to the container I bring to it.

… prayer …

When I hear of colleagues and friends who are having a stressful time, I usually exit my often self-defeating stream of thoughts and clear my mind – so my well-wishes can broadcast clearly. What works for me is tuning into thankfulness and often a little prayer or song comes to mind.

An image transformed during a rare attempt to be adventurous with photoshop.

 

Who or what are my little prayers addressed to?                                                                                                                       The One in me I’m not ready to manifest and therefore bow to.

 

Below is a German song that came to me just now.

The text misses two dots above the ‘o’ in the word ‘schonen.’ I’d be grateful if someone could point me to a source for dots.

 

Dank Dir fur jeden schonen Morgen

Dank Dir fur jeden neuen Tag

Dank Dir dass ich all meine Sorgen

Auf Dich legen mag.

Very freely translated: Thank you, for every lovely morning, thank you for every novel day. Thank you, that I may leave my sorrows in your wisdom’s way.

Some time ago I shared my favourite prayer, also a song, with words by Hazrat Inayat Khan: …http://courseofmirrors.wordpress.com/2011/05/08/my-favourite-prayer/

… global vision & synchronicity …

     Less than 80 years ago, across the world, only about 200 televisions sets were in use. Today, a simulated reality confronts us with our collective mind. A click away, we sample the zeitgeist and witness some disturbing trends, like the continuous robbery of world resources.

How do we filter the mass of information? Do we shout treason when we see the failure of economic systems that allow 1 % of the population to own 40 % of global wealth, or when we discover that certain corporations privatise water –  even rainwater  -  in underdeveloped countries? Traversing from one patch of light to another, do we make connections that apply to our scope of action? Or, lacking a meaningful context, are we hypnotised by this enlarged mega-screen, the global vision of a world that can mirror our inner fragmented states  -  a world where every viewpoint exists simultaneously, that over-exposes so-called reality and blinds us? Are we ourselves living inside the screen-myth, as extras, freed into bits, a reservoir of data?

As writers, what in-forms us, what material do we disseminate? And what is it that makes choices, switches from one networks of influence to another? What guides us through the data jungle? Are there perceptions beyond our wilful personalities that determine, agencies that operate through us from beyond time and space? I’m weary of the term God. For me this agency is a consciousness composed of past, present and future intelligences, a light-wave that echoes different signals according to the receptivity and needs of each animated vessel. Humans can be dense, but a calm mind recognises clear signals of this wave, since they chime with a joyous feeling of connectedness, a larger symphony, maybe even the sense of a destined purpose.

In my experience, this consciousness operates through synchronicity. There exist conceptual similarities between the behaviour of sub-atomic particles and archetypal images, (C G Jung and Wolfgang Pauli discussed such similarities in the context of synchronicity), a striking link between mind and matter that has been largely ignored. It implies that mind and matter connect, relate, mirror each other, and reciprocate. The process is given life in the realm of the psyche as imagination, not structured by time and space, but through layers of meaning illuminated by consciousness. Psyche is the changing room between cosmos and pneuma.

Jung thought of archetypes not as fixed, but as changing predispositions, universal patterns inherent in the human psyche, images that comprise our collective past and future unconscious. A pattern stirred into activity by an emotionally charged event in our lives, brings home related experiences, often through meaningful coincidences in a non-linear and a-causal way.

Such synchronicities draw on a deeper life-sap, as if an eternal intelligence were at work.

David Bohm proposed that subatomic particles remain in contact with one another regardless of the distance separating them, and that their separateness is an illusion. Here a facet of his thinking – a short first part of a 5 part series  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGyDVF8GrLk                                                                                              A great and humble man I greatly admire. He has beautiful hands  :)

A dream, for example, can attract an outer event, a meaningful coincidence, that powerfully substantiates a message from the unconscious, often accompanied by a numinous quality. In my own life, synchronistic events have challenged my narrow reasoning at certain crossroads towards seemingly irrational decisions. Exploring a hunch, while not attaching to the outcome, often clarifies a situation for me. Consequently, I respect the unconscious, and heed my intuitions.

‘The universe does not exist, out there, independent of all acts of observation. Instead, it is in some strange sense a participatory universe.’ - John Wheeler

Just as scientist are branching out from traditional imperatives that divide the world into subjects and objects, so we all, presented with a global vision, must modify some of the archetypal imperatives, images and ideas that have outlived their use, and look for symbols that carry a fresh mystery.

While sun and moon are forever formative and feed our imagination, they are no more our only lights.

With new associations from science come fresh symbols and exciting probabilities, in that we can question assumptions about time and progress, about the relationship between matter and mind, about our view of social units, and even the meaning we give to gender.

‘It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards’. The White Queen says to Alice.

*    *    *

Many of my posts here touch upon similar themes, but maybe pattern-which-connect in particular: http://courseofmirrors.wordpress.com/2012/05/25/pattern-which-connects/

… snow and silence …

Snow is a miracle that touches a deep silence in me, a silence I cannot speak of well – words seem wanting. And still I try, as many of us continue doing in various ways.

We may share the banter of our lives, our witty observations, our advice, our humour, our existential pain, or we may reach out with a warm hand of reconciliation. I do all these things, at times, but underlying my often competing voices, I tend to channel my experiences into the roaming eye of future becoming. If friends misread me, I like to console myself with this Ralph Waldo Emerson’s quote –

‘Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.’ 

Each one of us has unique perceptions, and there is enormous inspiration and joy in our differences.

So much for the still sphere snow touches in me. The other miracle about snow is that it draws my attention to the surreal nature of reality, highly sensuous, yet stripped of  bright colours and removed from habitual seeing – to the bones of shapes, to deeper gestures and essences. For me, a snow-covered scene is a metaphor of restraint that slows down or speeds up time to alien levels of dimension. It occasions one of those time-independent spheres, where I make pattern-connections and create new meaning.

A simple poem follows my thoughts on the miracle of snow.  I tried to limit myself to  5/7/5  Haiku count, and hope it delights:

in silvery vaults

an angel ruffles her wings –

a leisurely shrug –

the sparkle begins –

slipping from her hand as a

powdery shower

of crystalline downs –

feathery light on the silence

hidden between breaths –

fine gauze swirls and drifts

across the tired features

of a dreaming land

to drape every

plane and angular slope in

white geometry

My appreciation for the geometry of life resonates with my love for black & white photography, see two posts back:

http://courseofmirrors.wordpress.com/2012/12/31/the-inner-silence-of-henri-cartier-bresson/

There are other pleasures to be had from snow, as my enthusiastic and capable son demonstrated in 1982 Somerset, and as the adorable puppy of a friend of mine discovered in Dorset yesterday.

… the inner silence of Henri Cartier-Bresson …

The Mind’s Eye – writings on Photography and Photographers, by Henri Cartier-Bresson, is a lovely book I received for Christmas from a dear friend. I was reminded how H C B inspired my photographic work with its poetry and Golden Mean, and still inspires other creative areas, including my writing.

For H C B photography led on to include painting & drawing. For me photography led on to include writing, in the way H C B said: ‘The writer has time to reflect. He can accept and reject, accept again; and before committing his thoughts to paper he is able to tie the several relevant elements together. There is also a period when his brain ‘forgets,’ and his subconscious works on classifying his thoughts. But for the photographer, what has gone is gone forever.’

The impact of H C B’s images is hard to define. They exemplify what many photographers aspire to but can’t name. Not only do most of his shots surprise by capturing the essence of a fugitive moment, a magical decisive one, they are framed in a way that touches all the elements of motion in a dynamic balance.

‘My passion has never been for photography ‘in itself,’ but for the possibility – through forgetting yourself – of recording in a fraction of a second the emotion of the subject, and the beauty of the form; that is, a geometry awakened by what’s offered.’

‘I hope I’ll never see the day when photo shops sell little schema grills to clamp onto our viewfinder; the Golden Rule will never be found etched on our ground glass.’

 

 

 

 

 

 

I let Henry Cartier-Bresson talk for himself:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MW7I3GBdsBw

Inner Silence

H C B speaks in relation to portrait-photography of looking for the silence in the person. I guess he was looking for the silence behind everything. This silence was most likely what he was attentive to. I conjure that this silence lies between each breath, from which all phenomena emerge from second to second – from that timeless soul-garden within us – which we can tune into.

What I am saying is – H C B could not have captured these decisive moments without having experienced the silence within him. From this timeless state we glimpse the joie de vivre with its awesome sense of wonder generated and re-generated from eternity that makes life worthwhile and meaningful. It’s probably this glimpse, the ethic of this silent sphere that drives all anarchist artists.

Why Black and White and not Colour?

In 1952 colour film emulsion was not well developed. H C B said then: ‘I am half afraid that this complex new element may tend to prejudice the achievement of the life and movement which is often caught by black and white.’

He was concerned that  composition would suffer and be overpowered by colour. I remember when colour TV was first introduced, I intensely disliked the busy business cramped into a small frame. Colour can however be used as a language, and I am certain H C B would have cottoned on to this had he lived on.

Here a sample of my own to illustrate colour’s use.  http://500px.com/photo/6913693?from=set/266780

In 1974, together with other freelance photographers, Henri Cartier-Bresson founded Magnum Photos. See also: http://www.henricartierbresson.org/pres/home_en.htm

H C B’s second wife, the Belgian-born Martine Franck, was an inspired photographer in her own right: http://www.theworld.org/2012/08/remembering-celebrated-photographer-martine-franck/

I am wishing all my readers and visitors a wonderful creative New Year …. 

… ground of poetry …

‘Ground of Poetry’ is a poem inspired by the bagpipe playing of a Scottish friend, Colin, during a recent gathering in memory of another friend, Aranth. See an earlier post on ‘receiving.’  The sound of the bagpipe opened the sky and vast landscapes, across which the drone carried the glories tunes into a kind of homecoming. The drone of a musical instrument, I thought, is like the backdrop sound of the universe into which every manifestation dissolves, and from which every manifestation returns.

… in the beginning was the word … the leaves in my garden reminded me of words.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

thousand-and-one words fall to the ground

jewelling the story of seasons’ rounds

they’ll twirl anew to the drone

of each new sound arising

from beyond the ever-

open silence

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

open silence

from beyond the ever

of each new sound arising

they’ll twirl anew to the drone

jewelling the story of seasons’ rounds

thousand-and-one words swell from the ground

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For anyone not that familiar with bagpipes, here are a few words and tunes:

http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/scotlandssongs/about/instruments/bagpipes/index.asp

… memory and place …

I never thought I would live in one place for 23 years, and tend a garden. Its visiting creatures provide inspiration and amusement. I cast tendrils of attachment to secret corners, the changing patches of colours and textures. I observe the cherry and apple blossoms turning into carpets on the lawn, the tulips, blue bells and peonies bursting open in spring, wild strawberries, the abundance of clematis, roses and geraniums during summer, or phlox and fruits in autumn. The space is breathed through by the seasons’ moods and muses. On rare and perfect summer days, when the sun plays through the branches, I love spending time in my hammock, reading and editing, or share the space with friends – bliss.

Yet I can count such days on the fingers of my hands. And not just because of the UK weather.

This paradise is surrounded on four sides by hedgerows, has 5 mature fruit trees and a shed and studio smothered by ivy. Those of you who have gardens with sizable plants will understand the dedication it takes to merely keep annual growth under control.

Is the effort worth it?

Twice a year I need assistance. After the heavy rain and excessive growth we had during spring and summer, my neighbour recently helped transporting two transit vans stuffed full with cuttings to the recycling dump. The excess jungle weighs on my mind each year, but once trimmed and sculpted, the cleared shapes feel like newly decorated living rooms. 

What is it about places we care for? How come we spend so much time and energy looking after them? What we experience through our senses can be fleeting, but where repetition is involves, it becomes fixed and saturated in our imagination. There is nothing as deeply impressive as living in one place through cycles of seasons. We call it home.

In these tumultuous times, a great number of people around the world are forced to leave their homes. Either they have no say in the matter, or they must leave for sheer survival, escaping adverse weather conditions or politics that undermine human dignity. But wherever we land, we inherit the history of a room, a house, a plot, a community, and in turn we leave traces, an influence.

The place survives us. Do we bless it?

Do our personal experiences – including those associated with ambivalent feelings about places and people – survive beyond the brain’s switchboard activity that ties associations into a framework of meaning and memory? My intuition tells me yes, there are spaces in many dimension, floating as in a kind of hologram, which can live on through a strong memory laid down in our imagination, like the next chapter of a story.

In the way of habituation, these subtle forms must remain in some way in the collective psyche, accessible to minds and hearts who tune into their feeling pattern. This could happen via a kind of grid of finer matter (see Eccles: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Carew_Eccles) that interact with the denser neural network of our brains.

There are these unanswered questions: is consciousness an emergent phenomenon of matter, or is matter an emergent phenomenon of some finer, spiritual substance?

Either way, if one were to assume that we create the world hereafter by the repetitive strength of our experience, be it with places, people or the passion for a sport, craft, art, music, science,  it bears us well to find something we can love, care for, and empower with our imagination.