sirguessalot

i enjoy reading your offerings, dww you may enjoy this simple artifact created this the other day...seems to be some kind of type of perspectival compass (edited to remove the art because i couldnt get it to work...but you can go to my website to see the art) i feel it relates to a number of your threads and musings bottomless pit, tupos...you tell me, i guess i offer it here as another example of a set of 4 "opposing impressions" ...perhaps to help give visual insight to insightful inquiry in art (and photography) such as the previous image (what i could call "some holographic enneagramical shadow paradox"), i have found that radical opposite images (direct inversions) are potentially equally true, good and beautiful ...such as how holding "reality" and "possibility" together provides a certain equilibrium ...as with pot and potter...object and subject...form and formless...one and zero or, as the above art quartet points out: ...potter, potters, pot, and pots ...subject, subjects, object, objects ...formless, formlesses, form, forms ...zero, zeros, one, ones as if our, three and two do all become one again while remaining wholly two three and four and so on make sense? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onomatopoeia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enneatype

hi geisha779 and all if i may, i would like to offer some comments and suggestions about this question in your byline: "Can something be true for you and not for me?" maybe they might even help the conversation ...who knows overall, i have found it helpful to clarify the different values of 'truth' and 'goodness' and 'beauty' ...not as different places or realities, but as different perspectives of the same occasion ...such as life in general Beauty, as revealed by the depths and spans and contours of our subjective perspective ("i", "me," "my" to "all of i," "all of me" and "all of my"). This is where meaning is found (or not). Goodness, as revealed by the depths and spans and contours of our inter-subjective perspective ("we," "ours," "us" to "all of we," "all of ours" and "all of us"). This is where meaning is shared and related (or not). Truthfulness, as revealed by the depths and spans and contours of our objective and interobjective perspectives ("it," "this," "he" to "all of it," "all of this," and "all of him"). Where reality is checked. so i would have to answer both "yes" and "no" to the question: "Can something be true for you and not for me?" "yes," because we may find our favorite stories about the truth to be more good or beautiful than others, both of which are subjective limits on how much truth is acceptible as true to me (or "my us"). "no," because ultimate truths are of the ultimate truth in spite of our limited perspectives of IT ALL, and language does not replace that which the language is often feebly pointing at. ... as all this relates to any religious or theological "in/tolerance" ... it seems to have to do with the true (actual/real) capacities, bounds and limits of our subjective perspectives (the good and/or beautiful) and what we can (or cannot) personally (or collectively) tolerate being there thanks for asking hope it make some sort of sense to someone maybe even help

this may sound positively odd ...or not but among other things...ive been a student of "the enneagram" for a number of years now...even longer than i was a student of twi mostly as an artist, but also in the context of hospice, palliative care, integral medicine, grief and rites of passage including its many histories, theories, theologies, psychologies, processes, arts, applications, traditions, yada yada not sure what all that means or not except that i could probably talk about it til the wee hours with whomever was interested ....and put everyone else to sleep and ...that i am having a helluva time composing something short enough to post here about it ...feels kinda like sitting on a pandora's box ...so not easy to summarize my experiences and opinions of it here and i dont want to disturb the thread either... but overall, i can recommend it ...though take your time with it and handle with care...as it seems easy as anything to misuse and abuse... and for better or worse, maybe be prepared...such inquiry may actually trigger some life transforming episode but do have fun...all that :B) btw, whether the authors consciously knew it or not seems a lot of great literature has been influenced by "the enneagram" ...such as Tolkien, Jim Henson, Charles Schultz....maybe even 1 Corinthians 12

yeah a moment to light all the candles a lifetime to open all the seals some whole holy bandwidth

T-Bone...you wrote: sounds true... like... to first transcend and then embrace what has been transcended where rising above the whole situation is what enables us to "take it all in" in the first place because mere transcendance is not enough...necessary, but not sufficient to try and "deal with it head-on" without first "rising above" is not being whole...but being in part and leaves us "shadow-boxing" with truth fragments ... it seems we progress through stages of life and consciousness like that... where each step outside of our "sense of self" gives us a more whole view of who we are becoming in the first place until we no longer "see through a glass darkly" ...but see face-to-face ...in a clear bright mirror by way of a series of many small deaths and resurrections a full-spectrum dance of ascensions and descensions a marriage of masculine and feminine forms of divine love masculine = transcend/evolve feminine = embrace/include

i agree, but want to take it a few steps further by writing out what have been described to me by ritual elders as necessary elements of effective ritual: + Story. The ritual must help my personal story of meaning somehow connect to the larger story. + Community. The ritual helps reflect a mutual experience involving more than any single person. + Symbol. The ritual utilizes a metaphor to translate the ordinary into the sacred and transcendent. + Action. The ritual involves physical contact with the symbol and some sort of activity. + Space. The ritual takes place in an environment where time can be transcended. A ritual "space holder" creates a ritual "from scratch" that effectively include at least all of these elements. Here are a few more notes on ritual some of you may appreciate... - As normalcy decreases, the need for ritual increases. As normalcy returns, the need for ritual decreases. - Effective ritual must naturally emerge from a person's spirit and connect to symbols that are real and meaningful. - The role of "ritualizer" is to be a "mid-wife" or "threshold person." - Listen and accept the truth of another's experience before creating ritual. - Modernity has replaced ritual with ceremony. - Ritual has the power to move us from the inessential to the essential, from the peripheral to the center, and from the surface to the depth. - Its easier to know ritual more from its effect than its definition. - Ritual can be described as the art of translating the ordinary into the sacred. - Ritual moves us from a literal to a transcendent state. - Ritual moves us from "yes" to "no" to "yes" again. again...over-simplified and incomplete, but enough to help anyone understand some of the differences between empty routine and transformative ritual for times of change. All Love, +ODD

Hi Heather welcome to the cafe as far as i know, you are the first of the "last wave" vegas WOWs (beside myself) to post here (edited to add that "the other Todd" (from NH) has been mentioned around here b4) i sent you a private message..would love to chat some time Todd (from OR)

Belle...a deep thank you for this direct, non-loaded question. All of them, sadly. Birthing rites, male initiation rites, midlife rites, sage-ing and eldering rites, death rites, etc... But not that we've lost them entirely, just that the versions we have are much much less effective. Almost non. They dont functionally allow us to move through the natural stages of life. So we age, but dont age.And it doesnt help that most of our parents most likely missed the rites as well, and so simply did not know. We are indeed reeling from at least a century or so of radical cultural changes that we are not very aware of. And that our cultural inheritance is very rich in some ways actually works against us if it is very poor in others. So, in general, most are unable to fail with grace, unable to grieve without shame, unable to lose without vengeance, unable to connect, unable to age with grace, and are in extreme denial of our very mortality. The natural egocentricity of a toddler lasts far too long into adulthood, which contributes to extreme magical thinking and narcissism. The natural ethnocentricity of a child lasts far too long into adulthood, which contributes to cultic grouping and mythic fundamentalism (jewish, christian, muslim or other). Being hellbent on endless progress and endless growth is a sure sign of a teenage mind who missed a male initiation rite. As the ancients might say "Woe to the culture whose uninitiated boys also miss the rites of midlife." Because this is how we get victory-only minded leaders like Hitler. Or, at the risk of offending some...childish leaders like VPW or LCM. One good thing, is that hundred of thousands of years of evolutionary conditioning cannot be erased by a few centuries of neglect. In other words, it does not take centuries to relearn all this. Our intuitions are active, alive and well. Most all of what one might read and learn about rites of passage (and ritual) can tap into our deep memory and have us nodding our head and jumping back in the saddle quite easily. Re-cognition. Seems Saint Peter wrote much about such drawing latent wisdom from within others, rather than teaching them something new. Makes me wonder if Jesus and his contemporaries were involved in reviving ancient Jewish rites of passage in a culture that had forgotten. I wish i could sit and write more, as i feel i have left too much out and written overly simple. Maybe some day I'll win the space and time to write a bona-fide book on such things. Although there is no guarantee i will. Besides, I feel i do better talking than writing anyway. Here is another fair rites of passage link ... Abi, here is something I read from Thich Nhat Hanh's "Living Buddha, Living Christ" that seems to add to the overall topic of this thread. He is writing about insight into "inter-being." This reminded me of what it is to practice a "holy view" or "view of the whole."

thanks for the warm welcome abi and belle and for the reflections though i'm not writing/posting much of anything anywhere these days i found this thread to be a bit too compelling to pass up but i do only have a few minutes to write ... as ive often written around here before effective rites of passage help mark the natural changes of life and serve to give us permission to move along...transform but without such effective rites, we continue to age, but do not transform which is why such a large percentage of adults today live like children and its becoming harder and harder for children to find wise elders for guidance i feel that if we can somehow begin to find and remember the important role of story and ritual and rites we can prepare this generation of children to become those wise elders we seem to lack today in part, by holding space for them to begin to peer into their own shadows to get used to a more whole view of "self" ... a few wikipedia links that seem to relate... Rite of Passage...universal to all the world's great wisdom traditions. Ritual. Of course its not enough just to learn traditional rituals. Learning the reasons and dynamics of ritual enable us to create ritual in times of joy and in times of sorrow, in times of peace and in times of trouble. Rituals help the participants step outside of "everyday time," giving us a fresh perspective of our experience. here are a few wikipedia articles on some luminaries whose lives seem to flow with the themes of this thread: Rabbi Zalman Schachter Shalomi. Has done much work with "eldering" and "saging." Father Richard Rohr. Worldwide, has done much work with rites of passage for men. Martin Buber. Especially known for his work on the "I-Thou" relationship. Victor Frankl. His book "Man's Search for Meaning" (first published in 1946) chronicles his experiences as a concentration camp inmate. Baal Shem Tov. Founder of Hasidic Judaism, and certainly a teacher of nondual panentheism. i hope there are some links in here that lead to info that might help you parents with the kids as well as perhaps stir our own memories, so that we look back and see where we missed a step space and grace... +ODD

hm seems twi/pfal may be a maze where one may become lost in all the many dead ends but this one life is already being on a labyrinth a single path with two primary directions ...coming and going

hi abi and all good thread a lot of good points thanks all while i havent read his book, and ive only googled the rabbi the many good points arising in this thread already seem very familiar to me ive talked with and heard from and practiced with and read a number of different rabbis in the years since twi many in the context of hospice, history, and medicine ...a lot of good stuff there i especially like the kind of rabbis who can talk and eat with catholics and buddhists and hindus and hopi and such...all monks and nuns ...as if the "kingdom of God" is some very elaborate bar joke and i have especially come to appreciate jewish wisdom and history for things such as: + the very vital roles of effective rites of passage and rituals in birthing, aging and dying and all the spiritual stages of life in between them + the critical distinctions between theology/theory and spiritually transforming practices/disciplines + a full body of spiritual practices... via breath, via the heart and breath, via dreams, via martial arts, via holy days, via song and dance and art, via diet, via contemplation, via envisioning, via the arts of dialogue, etc...the usual perennial suspects + and 4 millenia (or so) of profound interfaith and interreligious activity all around the globe to me, these elements are all integrated and very mutually supportive and resonate with the hundreds of very good points ive read in this thread i would even go as far as to say that they (rites, ritual, practice, dialogue, etc...) help "unfold" what one might call our "ethical line of development" ...which is also what invites those occasions of authentic interreligious and interdisciplinary and intergenerational dialogue in the first place then on to stimulating peace on earth, good will towards all humanity...yada yada yada ... to "be holy" is to "become whole" which is really about "becoming all together here now" by noticing and including all the various parts at play in your "self" ...parts we will find are simply already always here, hiding in shadows, waiting to feel the simplest light of our attention ... still flickering +ODD

truly sorry Lindy cant help but notice i didnt respond to your opening post very well anyway besides...thats quite a tall order for the gsc, imo i dont even think the various authors of the books in the bible canon shared the same views about God, sex, death, reality, etc... and i tell ya...aside from life's other tugs im personally getting weary of written public conversation such as these especially regarding the most important kinds of things (god, sex, death, etc...) and how the same conflicts and polarizations are predictable i still dont think we are very good with all this ...some worse at it than others for one we oversimplify speak too soon go too fast too far put the cart before the horse yada yada not to mention in all my years here most no one ever refers to any doctrines whatsoever anyway the mountains of doctrinal taboos present here make looking at the whole of art and literature about god sex and death a view through a pinhole as if we have become so insular and self-assured as to be quite blind to anything remotely close to authentic wholesome spiritual indoctrination with any sort of historical or demonstrable benefit to one's self and the world at large we reject the lion's share of valid info and we mostly lack the social skills and environs to come close to the deep experienced ways of non-violent communication required for shared doctrinal depth ...we go round and round in our same disfunctional sit-com series of misunderstandings and confusion...from the get-go like we always blow it on steps one through three or so and any final ultimate once and-for-all doctrinal conclusions made from these kinds of discourses are still going to be temporary ... i guess im trying to say that we are in need of new tongues for this stuff if we want to have doctrinal conversations of any significant depth or degree i feel my contributions are, at best...desperate splatterings on a crumbling wall

hi again eyes just wanted to write to say sorry i didnt respond to your post my life has taken a turn, so my priorities have shifted a bit peace all

hi eyes not sure how this kind of adjustment might change meanings you have found in the passages but it seems to me that the writer is clearly not referring to Israel for one...given that Israel has not been around "from the creation of the world" and i would venture to say given the cosmopolitan nature of that part of the world as well as the radically universal nature of Christ (not Jesus, per se) that that writer was probably familiar with the perennial notion of an "unmanifest Godhead" that preceded Israel ...a perennial wisdom that was discovered by individuals from many cultures during the era Abraham discovered it ...which was a big part of how it was recognized by some as being universal i think that perhaps it was these discoverers being referred to ... that said.... i have found the "dangers of homosexuality" have a lot more to do with the division and imbalance of any masculine and feminine "ways of being" and that one of the deeper meanings behind the great old warnings had a lot more to do with making sure that the masculine and feminine approaches to life where "married" and that neither individuals nor cultures were partial to one or the other because masculine attitudes alone are trouble (war, slavery, conquest, etc...) just as are feminine alone (surrender, s/mothering, "idiot compassion", etc...) which has little to nothing to do with mere physical gender but masculine and feminine "attitudes" or "directions" or "roles" ascending (masculine) and descending (feminine) or interior and exterior or evolving and involving or competition and cooperation or "seeking the one" and "being the many" btw...there are even buddhist and hindu fundamentalisms that regard physical homosexuality as sinful ... as usual ..i left a lot out

hi nandon i'll stick my neck out a bit here while i havent read the entire book, i am familiar with some of it, as well as with many related philosophies and practices ...and am especially interested in integral yoga (Sri Aurobindo's version) although i dont even know how to begin writing about such things in detail here in a thread ... at the gsc doctrinal forum but, i will say this... in general... it seems that one of the most important differences between what one might call "authentic religion" and "inauthentic religion" (or perhaps better..."more effectively transforming religious doctrine" and "mostly non-transforming religious doctrine")...is the importance placed on actual spiritual PRACTICE one is more about possessing a permenant idea of truth the other is more about engaging an actual transformational process most all mainstream religions/spiritualities today rely more heavily on theology, dogma, concept and myth than on any sort of actual demonstrable spiritual discipline, method, technique, or behavior not that one cant have a profound spiritual experience without practice (even suffering illness and death can stimulate such things...life itself provides profound experiences worth being called spiritual) ...or that simply having a practice is some guarantee of authentic transformation (even new age cults (such as TWI was, imo) have certain degrees of practices...which is perhaps why historic spiritual lineage counts for a lot) but lacking a practice (such as a yoga, or a meditation, or a contemplative practice) seems a sure sign of mere mythical, or mere translative, or mere interpretive form of religion..."all talk, no walk" as they say in other words...a theology or doctrine without a corresponding practice cannot be very sound ("faith without works is dead," etc..) and by "sound," i mean "integrative"...or "whole"... or involved in developing an "integrity of self" "sound" doctrine + "sound" practice = authentic transformational "religion"

any thoughts on a topic, paw? like...if i may ask...what spurred this invite today?

all well said, rhino very much to consider thanks again

to add... it seems to me that the writers of the infamous revelation had some inkling of such perennial stages of life imagine the 4 horsemen as the "engines" that drive our first four stages of life ...each introduced when "a seal is broken" ...indicating some sort of irreversible change the white horse ..the conquerer...represents a single selfish seeker and the birth of the ego...a first person perspective the red horse...the warmaker...represents the clash of in-group versus in-group...a second person perspective the black horse...the enslaver...represents the controls of science and industry...a third person perspective the grey horse...death...represents the dissolution of everything we thought we were...a fourth person perspective not as though the writers believed in the imminent arrival of four actual horsemen but as with many pre-rational expressions...the archetypes served to vividly remind us of real living wisdom extra-ordinary wisdom...and not magically supernatural ... ok, sorry...im done

again...a universal compassion which builds on a capacity for objectivity (a 3rd person perspective) by adding a capacity for inter-objectivity (a 4th person perspective) and we eventually come to realize that there is simply too much going on in the universe for us to have a rational explanation for everything and we are kind of stuck with increasing expressions of ambiguity ... which bothers us less and less we dont even know how much we dont know and we begin to see the frail and limited nature of language itself there are too many experiences that make no sense to us ...we find ourselves lacking words and definitions and too many people who we do not understand why they do what they do we may come up with what we think is a rational answer...but oftetimes...we simply do not know "its all simply a bunch of bullsh!t" is not a rational response to ignorance the limits of rational thought are found whenever we can admit..."i know of no logical reason" not that we default to a "it must be supernatural" but that we simply dont know...and need information we may not even ever have and so a way we accept all this craziness is when our hearts break wide open and finally...our ego really begins to lose control and we begin to discover how thought, feeling, dream are all also bodily events which are interior realities...actual interior structures that are made of real "stuff" with actual locations which is how this stage seems to prepare us for things like aging and death we are more interested in the radical transformation of our perspectives than possessing some permenant interpretations of reality we begin to see the value of simply hearing the stories of our lives without needing to judge them for merit this is certainly NOT the same as fundamentalist religion

thanks for taking the time to write all this, Bill

no, nothing like that rhino...but thanks for asking i am never surprised when someone at our ex-cult site suspects or implies such...big laughs or not i think if i were to list the names, books, organizations, philosophies, and other google-worthy phrases...it would probably take me days to compile but i hesitate to invest the energy because of the patterns of overreaction and misunderstanding to such things that i see at the gsc especially if i only post a few from some category...there seems a tendency on the part of some here to assume that the slice i present is somehow the entirety of my new cult well..that aint ever gonna happen to this kid again my overall expressed position comes from my own personal synthesis of a wide variety of fields and disciplines some of which are very very old, and some of which are very very new..and all points in between but when it comes to developmental and stage theories, there are about a dozen different pioneers and researchers from the past century or so that i appreciate although many of them specialize in different aspects of development/evolution/growth...whatever some specialize in ego development some specialize in cognitive development some specialize in moral development some specialize in cultural development some specialize in psychological development some specialize in emotional development some specialize in faith development some specialize in sexual development yada yada etc... and i have come to appreciate where all their maps and models overlap as much as where they do not but even sequential stage development (as ive been limiting much of my posting to) is really but one factor in psychological, cultural, social or other system growth there are also many horizontal (and non-sequential) personality typologies i feel are as important, valid and revealing as stage development (if often wondered if such topics might be easier on the ears) as well as many wilder altered states of consciousness that do not follow any sort of sequential growth of course, then there are actual practices...as theories and theologies are just that...concepts which are quite empty without some real world application now im guessing that is not quite what you were looking for but that is all i got at the moment ... ya know geo...im quite ok with with how different our brains minds work and i actually do enjoy these times that we seem to try to understand each other for a spell but you may be right...it just may not be possible even when i look at your last post...it just seems like a lot of work to unravel all the misunderstandings its all good as they say

for what its worth, geo i not only consider you fundamentally an equal human animal albeit quite a bit older than me...which is what it is in its own right and with your own range of experiences, talents and skills and such i can assume you have many capacities that i will most likely never reach in my entire life like ive told you before...if i could, i'd even sit in the boat with your grumpy self until you keeled over the edge but ... if you dont actually comprehend much of what ive written why (and how) should i even respond to your questions? im quite sure you would feel the same if i were challenging you by asking stuff about construction i mean....you would know better than i if i was even following along or not? for one... how the heck, in your worldview, do you equate "social democracy, free information, caring communities, universal human rights, journalism and dialogue" with "embracing nonsense?" i ask in all fairness...where did i write that one grows beyond rational "by embracing nonsense?" and what exactly does "embracing nonsense" mean to you, anyway? i promise to continue to try and respond directly to your questions if you can respond more directly to what i wrote

thanks indeed waysider to add... having had the honor of meeting and studying and practicing with a world-class group of music thanatologists in the context of hospice and hospital history and being a lifelong musician ...i was pleased to see this article in the mainstream ive seen and experienced music thanatology demonstrated in relationship to diatonic scale and such for one thing seems to seem to me that as we invoke the known range of modes, or moods, of music, we are also evoking the same range of emotions, thoughts, intuitions, memories, dreams, etc.. and our organs and juices and systems squish and squirm inside of us flinching, flexing and flowing in corresondance to this range which i feel points to perhaps why every animal on earth creates and dances to music ...humans, included because we FEEL sound and not just with our ears but in our very bones i see you music lovers out there nodding your head :B) anyway seems religion as music thanatology (not to mention the counterpart...midwifery) is as old as cave painting not only are the histories of the biblical psalms "soaking wet" with it but every musical history seems to have discovered/developed full ranges of musical moods and modes significant ranges of applications i highly recommend it ... anyway ..a personal note ..a few weeks ago i was invited to fill the role of chaplain for my wife's grandmother and family and playing music and singing familiar songs together played a significant role at times singing while crying laughing cussing hoping praying grieving and such while saying goodbye helped heal things in everyone in spite of the loss ... thanks again WS

hi Geo no, im not surprised im guessing its not for lack of smarts...but perhaps lack of interest so no guarantee what i am about to write will help much...but i'll try maybe someone else will get something out of my response to you ... yeah, it does seem just a stop "along the way" rational is characterized by capitalistic democracy, meritocracy, materialism, science, physics, etc... stuff that is off-limits to mythic fundamentalism but like ive written...keep in mind that when we grow through a stage, we do well to take the best qualities of that stage with us. subsequent worldviews do well to build on the gains of previous worldviews, and discard the limits for example, how objective thought requires cooperation (peer-reviewed studies, etc)....and so retains the value of working as a group ...but no longer considers the group's shared myth as the superior mode of knowing (as in mythic fundamentalism) in other words...moving beyond rational does not mean one is no longer rational...but that rational thought is no longer the primary mode of knowing stuff ...but we keep a nice shiny skeptic in our pocket but if we grow beyond rational and completely discard rational thinking (for some reason)...there will be a "hole," or a "shadow," if you will...and our later stage will have a serious limp of course, there is almost always some temporary form of rejecting the stage we just left...most simply because our new stage developed in response to some limitation of the previous...which is often a painful experience of loss ... and i can imagine why "growth" would be a "supposed," geo most people have not experienced much of it all in life rational thought could have formed in us as individuals around 9-14 years old and if we cleaved to mythic fundamentalism all the way into early and late adulthood...it seems a miracle that we grew beyond it at all also...there is not much growth evident in mainstream society, either but, of course, even rational thought is limited to the data we look at ... beyond rational (but best if rational is included) is characterized by social democracy, free information, caring communities, universal human rights, journalism and dialogue and like i mentioned about the "limp" above....i dont think its hard to see how much trouble is caused when and where rational thought is being rejected in these fields this worldview is possible at about 15-21 years or so...though obviously, there is no guarantee we grow to here at this age but rational is a bit too concerned with successes and accomplishments to have such universal values ...a bit too concerned with proving the truth of things before seeing any other kinds of values in them (such as goodness or beauty) and rational tends to dismiss the interior dimension of life (not just talking about brain cells, either..but the subjective and inter-subjective arts) and so any mode of knowing that comes from deeper interpersonal activity is likely to be dismissed as more of the same ole religion ...when, like rational, this stage is simply building yet again upon the power of cooperation ... there are other stages beyond this, of course involving things like integrating all the previous perspectives, consciousness, aging, dying, etc... ...and the redemptive values on the other side of failure, loss, etc...