By the very nature of our capricious existence I think we are all uncertain and transient creatures. We live, we love, we elapse and sometimes we disappear altogether or die, but always we are fugitives of ephemeral and temporaral circumstance and our lives little more than a procession of fleeting moments of fugacious impermanence. That is the reality of being a single drop of evanescent life briefly distilled from an expansive ocean of potentiality rippling upon a ball of rock and iron called Earth hurtling at unprecedented speed through an unimaginably vast universe at the authoritative command of unseen and unknowable forces. I’ve no doubt that it is because we are as caught up within this unstable and flowing carnival of life as we are that few of us ever really find the opportunity to stop for long enough and reflect on the world and actually consider what it means to be a sentient human being persisting as the apex product of Nature’s evolution. In truth I’d go as far as to suggest that we are still just beginning to understand the miracle of living in a world already of an age that defies our comprehension, and evolutionary speaking, remain no more than needful infants still demanding sensationalism and gratification to supersede any degree of understanding and natural wisdom.
Of all the people we come to meet on our respective journeys through this constantly bewildering and contradictory life there are those in whom we find an immense feeling of brotherhood and deep spiritual connection that supports a totally agreeable and singularly unique outlook on the state of this temporal World. And more importantly, such a kinship is often revealed by the permanence and devotion of our endeavours to continually find a way to care about Life and the species we call Mankind who dwell upon our planet Earth. It is in our individual efforts to persist in our duty to better the world we share which becomes the common denominator existing between like-minded souls. We persist in the same way as they persist. Such people are blessed with inspired hearts and deeply feeling souls because they have been assigned a duty to help lead Mankind forward once more in the true spirit of freedom, towards an engagement with the imagination and a more honest expression of humankind’s true values and unlimited worth.
It takes a brave man to remain true to achieving such personalised goals, and a braver soul still to maintain buoyancy in the man who delivers such truth to a remorseless world currently doing its best to dilute the gift of Life through perfidy, manipulation, deceit, lies despair, scientific reductionism and cerebral dominance. All Warriors of Light who ride out to confront these anti-representational dogs of war, ride out together as a single voice under the one last remaining banner of freedom called Imagination that demands and promotes Creativity, Innovation, Ingenuity, Originality, Unorthodoxy, Nonconformity, and most important of all, Individuality and opportunity for uncensored Self-Expression. Without it humanity disappears under the veil of an imposed and wholly subjective appreciation of acceptability and artistic strangulation born from the despotic minds of the few with the power to dictate terms to the majority. Censorship must never fall foul to political ambition, financial prosperity, nor at the expense of silencing the voice of mankind’s consciousness. When Art is subordinate to the regimes that restrict it’s exhibition because it does not fit in with a governments agenda then realistically the last bastion of an individual’s right to freedom is removed with it. And that pretty much leaves only pay-by-the-hour taxation on the air we breathe and rental charges on the force of gravity.
I think there are thousands and thousands of Artists out there who have the mechanisms already in place by which to reach the wider world, and in utilising these widely available technological means just one man can reach in to the hearts, minds and souls of hundreds and thousands of other people and in so doing perpetuate the upsurge of positive change that has already started to gain weight and which will eventually lead mankind out of the darkness of his fading enlightenment and back in to the celestial spaces of his higher consciousness. Art has that power, as does Authorship, Photography, Illustration, Film and Animation, in fact ALL creative endeavours that express something about the human condition offer the opportunity to convey hugely powerful messages that can be easily absorbed and widely understood because they are archetypal and resonate within us all. Such outstandingly creative souls must do all they can to reach still further beyond the contrived conventions of our time in search of all possible means to depict an elusive future World called Earth that perpetually reminds civilization of the wonder of our once blessed innocence as it existed at the dawn of Mankind’s forgotten birth.
When the wings of an imaginative mind can carry a man on a flight out beyond the edges of visible Space to imagine brave new worlds thriving in infant galaxies, and when that same mind can then look back with tear filled eyes and realise what the shining green and blue stone of planet Earth really is: a beautiful heavenly body undifferentiated in its loving creation by disparity, inequality, inequity, or pain, and supporting an abundance of unique life forms, of which Humankind is but one temporary life force occupying its surface, then I truly believe from the bottom of my heart that the self-imposed structures of Life that we design, implement, naively encourage, and which we are born in to and so foolishly perpetuate on Earth would not even exist at all. Instead of the violence, hatred, bloodshed, and immense suppression of our species we would still be living in Milton’s lost paradise and already be journeying to other world’s by the power of just our own minds. After all, it is not the physical body that needs to move through time and space to arrive on the surface of a distant star, it is only our mind. And in much the same way, it is not our physical body which needs to change to accommodate a fresh new perspective on life either, it is also only our collective mind.
Michael Collins, the pilot of the Apollo mission carrying Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the surface of the Moon is one of the few men to have seen such a beautiful sight. He had this to say:
“I really believe that if the political leaders of the world could see their planet from space, say from a distance of 100,000 miles above its surface, their outlook would be fundamentally changed. That all-important border would be invisible, that noisy argument silenced. The tiny globe would continue to turn, serenely ignoring its subdivisions, presenting a unified façade that would cry out for unified understanding, for homogeneous treatment. The Earth must become as it appears: blue and white, not Capitalist or Communist; blue and white, not rich or poor; blue and white, not envious or envied.”
Coming from a man who has actually journeyed to another world, I find these words very powerful, and certainly humbling, and I think for anyone with the ability to hold onto a more positive vision of mankind’s future, such words should be spoken daily in reverence of who and what we all could be, and in shame and disgrace at what we have unwittingly become: a self-satisfying and parasitic species destroying our planet by inflating our bodies and our ego’s on convenience living, lust, greed, sloth, and easy virtue, and shrinking our minds by accepting so readily a never ending stream of imposed concepts, beliefs and contrived teachings that on many occasions form the basis of indoctrination and control of the masses. Michael Collins message longs to be disseminated amongst the World’s Powers as a reminder of just how small and intellectually wanting we truly are and how foolish our species is to remain so fixated on our base desires when in truth our supressed higher faculties could ultimately deliver us all from such unnecessary self-imposed bondage. When as a species we can be so insidiously manipulated into allowing our children to feel excited by the prospect of signing their name on the warheads of bombs and rockets that are destined to be dropped on other people’s children, then mankind has well and truly fallen from the grace of Love and there is literally no further we can descend in to depravity and moral wickedness. No other species on our planet is as gifted as human beings are gifted, no other species has the potential to influence and change this wondrous world and yet we are the only species on this one and only planet that chooses without guilt or remorse to accept the command of others to kill in the insidious name of personal wealth, lust and greed.
Millions of years ago, it was just one ‘seed of light’ that came forth from a sea of potential to create the One universe of Man. And just one Seed of Light can again be all that is needed to open up a fissure in the hearts and minds of our collective consciousness that is big enough for the superlative brilliance of mankind’s artistic imagination and creativity to burst through and offer a prophetic vision of hope and a certainty for the return of a state of balance, respect, and honour in our world which would be far more effective than any amount of Political hot air and contrived nonsense would ever be in ensuring the transformation of our human race. In carrying out such a vastly responsible undertaking, one imagines the Artists, Writers, Poets, Visionaries, and Seers unified as a single voice, marching together and carrying their craftsman’s tools like Staff’s of Redemption with the intention of heralding in a more beautifully inspired New World: one based on Beauty, Harmony, Spirituality, Compassion, Empathy, Feeling, Emotion, Equity, Equipoise, Equality, and most importantly Love. It would indeed be the greatest miracle in the world.
DN – 17/03/14
dewinnefol.wordpress.com 
Love your thoughts!
One of My fav movies of all time is “waking life” ,I’ve proberly seen it 20-30 times and My blog is mostly inspired by that movie
Came to think of a scene when I read your post ..Will quote
Creation seems to come out of imperfection. It seems to come out of a striving and a frustration. And this is where I think language came from. I mean, it came from our desire to transcend our isolation and have some sort of connection with one another. And it had to be easy when it was just simple survival. Like, you know, “water.” We came up with a sound for that. Or “Saber-toothed tiger right behind you.” We came up with a sound for that. But when it gets really interesting, I think, is when we use that same system of symbols to communicate all the abstract and intangible things that we’re experiencing. What is, like, frustration? Or what is anger or love? When I say “love,” the sound comes out of my mouth and it hits the other person’s ear, travels through this Byzantine conduit in their brain, you know, through their memories of love or lack of love, and they register what I’m saying and they say yes, they understand. But how do I know they understand? Because words are inert. They’re just symbols. They’re dead, you know? And so much of our experience is intangible. So much of what we perceive cannot be expressed. It’s unspeakable. And yet, you know, when we communicate with one another, and we feel that we’ve connected, and we think that we’re understood, I think we have a feeling of almost spiritual communion. And that feeling might be transient, but I think it’s what we live for.
Hey Simon, a big thank you for such an inspiring consideration of my post. You and I seem to speak the same language even whilst existing in different time-zones. But there in lies the wonder of how thoughts, ideas and free-thinking minds can connect via the written word over distances of 1000’s of miles. Just imagine how effective it would be therefore for two people to embrace a commonality of tongues when sharing the same piece of Earth.
I found the quote from Waking Life tremendously exhilarating. It directs a person’s thinking very powerfully to consider their own, and hence humankind’s, fantastically unique place in the web of life and of the deeply spiritual connection we have to all things, particularly another human being. Mechanisms and vehicles of expressing ideas between people are numerous and multi-faceted, but at their heart lies the transcendent power of symbols: one could write a thesis on a depiction of a ‘circle’ yet in reality for those that would ponder its significance, words will never supersede feeling. It is the same with the power of words, language is a gift to allow for the transmission of ideas, and through the delivery of words man has been impelled to do great things and achieve great feats. That words also have the power to be misunderstood, manipulated, and argued over is a double-edged sword: one wants the mind to be individually perceptive and to subjectively interpret words, yet one always hopes that clarity and truth will prevail when a heart is pure and does not see with eyes blinded by fear, doubt, illusion or uncertainty.
It could be argued that all life was born from the same cloud of start-dust and all life will finally return to being much the same (Dust in the Wind)…and to what destination the cloud then flows is unknowable…I believe that my flowing, ephemeral and deeply spiritual romance with the universe will always remain and that my ‘prima material’ will be the building blocks of a perpetual cycle of existence for eternity. I may die but my molecules live on. For those that seek answers outside of themselves to the immensely important self-determining questions that slowly awake and emerge in the mind (and we all ask them when we return to innocence and face ‘God’ at some point in our lives), those souls will in instances remain subordinate to man’s premeditated ideas, such as predestination, which deny the imagination access to further insight. The mind is like a garden, cultivate it well and it blossoms, mistreat it by neglect or use of the wrong soil and weeds take over. It therefore becomes an absolute necessity and the principle moral duty of those that permit the imagination to flourish and allow truth, beauty and self-determination to prevail who owe it to the rest of the world’s people to present there exquisite world by any medium they can that reaches out to touch the widest audience. Existentialism will always offer more hope than predestination, because it gives us a reason to try to change things in the here and now, and that most obviously includes opening the eyes of the souls of those living an unawaken life.
Did whatever force that brought Man in to existence do so with the intention of being able to look out and reflect upon the wonder of its own creation through his own eyes?
Viva la Imagination!
Powerfull words and I fully agree 🙂 ,Will respond with another quote from the same movie ,would love to hear your reflections on that
There are two kinds of sufferers in this world: those who suffer from a lack of life and those who suffer from an overabundance of life. I’ve always found myself in the second category. When you come to think of it, almost all human behavior and activity is not essentially any different from animal behavior. The most advanced technologies and craftsmanship bring us, at best, up to the super-chimpanzee level. Actually, the gap between, say, Plato or Nietzsche and the average human is greater than the gap between that chimpanzee and the average human. The realm of the real spirit, the true artist, the saint, the philosopher, is rarely achieved.
Why so few? Why is world history and evolution not stories of progress but rather this endless and futile addition of zeroes. No greater values have developed. Hell, the Greeks 3,000 years ago were just as advanced as we are. So what are these barriers that keep people from reaching anywhere near their real potential? The answer to that can be found in another question, and that’s this: Which is the most universal human characteristic – fear or laziness?
I finished reading ‘Bob Knows’ and turned in for bed, the words to sincere to sit and chew on at that hour.
It’s quite amazing how one reads someone else’s words, and just how wonderful, and intuitive they can be in idealising the state of another’s mind. Bob knew. Yes he really knew. We talk of Fear, and I’ve awoken feeling quite melancholy, my mind still lingering on the subject of Love. It’s a huge word. Defined by a myriad of thoughts and feelings that slip and slide and twist and turn like a catch of eels and all whilst teasing and testing and pushing and pulling the mind in so many ways it feels almost bewitched by the enchanting Sorceress who wields her power so forcefully. I wish my Sorceress were not so hidden behind the ashen walls of her elevated retreat but really here with me. I miss her so much.
Perhaps it is Love, and the expression of Love as an emotion existing between human beings that have always been the eternal dilemma. By Love, I do not just mean sexual attraction, which one might suggest is the initial allure, but rather the deep feelings of Friendship. In words taken from one of my posts: Love, Empathy and Compassion are the greatest of all human affections, and Friendship the noblest and most refined improvement of Love. It matters not in which order they flow. By Friendship I mean the greatest Love and the greatest usefulness, and the most open communication, and the noblest sufferings, and the heartiest counsel and the greatest union of mind and spirit of which two souls are capable. At its heart lies Intimacy, for when we are intimate with someone we are simultaneously being intimate with ourselves. What emerges from this exquisite seduction is the Elegance, Grace and Splendour of a flowering radiant red Rose. And I think it is the blossoming red Rose that is a true symbol of God’s utopian dream: a dream that began life as pure consciousness at the moment when our universe came in to being and that always exists deep within our hearts and will ultimately impel mankind to repair his fractured world…that is of course once the dark veil of clouds lift from our down-turned eyes.
Is Love what is missing from people’s lives that they have no understanding of the other deeper emotions in life? Perhaps if Love once existed within the wider world it did so amongst the smaller communities that existed before civilization condensed itself into city and town living, and was the cohesive force that kept life and lives bound to the single vision. Over time that cohesive force has been replaced by thousands of years of insidious lies proffered by those with vested interests in promoting reductionist philosophies and capitalist-driven ideologies born from perfidy, and enslaving us with religious perspectives that fabricate an illusion of inclusion but practice a state of near-absolute exclusion. These are the Grand Architects of division who continually put in place and establish differences between people as barriers to any truly effective and progressive form of social and global integration, and who persist even further to eradicate an individual’s sense of freedom, personal identity and true worth by contrived political agendas that go under many names but which do nothing other than build further division and myopia in the hearts and minds of people and lead the masses further and further away from the truth of who and what they are and who they could become. We are all Star-men, Time travellers, recording devices of human consciousness, and we are exemplary as wonders of creation. All of us have equal priority and equal rights to maintaining our freedoms of existence on this one Earth as anybody else. It can never be right for the few to have control over the many; that is not Love but more representative of slavery, tyranny and exploitation. Love is about inclusion, compassion and empathy. It is about a true acceptance of mankind’s differences, thoughts, ideas, dreams, and aspirations. If not for Patriarchal domination of the Church and of Politics, and male ascension through Royal lineage – ruler-ship through fear, threat, violence and bloodshed to sustain wealth and power – love would have already established numerous common denominators between the world’s people large enough to be called global objectives. Love would never determine whether a nation was deemed Progressive, or Economically viable based on such variables as ‘economic output’, ‘relative value of its monetary currency’ or ‘average salary’. These are little more than insignificant constructs used to hide the ugliness and reality of a world that turns on an axis of fool’s gold. Why not instead determine the nature of a countries ‘health’ by such factors as: Rate or instance of Child Poverty? Rate or instance of Homeless People? Rate or instance of Teenage Pregnancy? Rate or instance of Crime? Rate or instance of Educational Achievement? Or even Rate of Expenditure on the Arts?
Artists, and Poets in particular are the most courageous of souls. They have to be that way to enable them to feel the rawness of life – both its beauty and its ugliness – and to express that in symbolic form using conventions, like words and marks on a piece of paper. One could argue that journalistic Photographers and Photographic reporters who are constantly engaged in front-line duties are subject to a similar experience of emotional brutality and sustained psychological attack. But whatever mask the creative individual wears, they are always walking through life in shock and awe, and in bliss and tranquillity, and see life in a very unique and experiential way. To an artist who sits in view of a tree with paintbrush in hand, the experience of the tree is paramount in understanding the experience they have of it. Realism can only really be derived from an association with an object on the fundamental level. One must feel it, become like it, and understand its relationship with the wider world. How might a poet using reductionist language describe the essence of flight if not for a notion of what it feels like to fly? Yet being grounded by gravity, what mechanism are they able to employ to write what they do? What Magic overcomes them to enable the words they write to resonate within us and elevate our thoughts? And by whose hand do they attribute the words that are plucked from the air and used to mark the paper? Personally speaking, I believe all creative people are nothing more than channels through which the message of God is transmitted to man. I find it hard to disbelieve, and therefore readily accept that Artists, Poets, Writers, in fact all who witness and record for posterity moments in life via the transmission of thought and feeling and use of necessary apparatus walk as Prophets, Seers, and Visionaries amongst us. And that is why I firmly believe that such people must be given special regard for in the unfolding drama that constitutes their unique existence they have the power flowing within them to bring forth a vision of the future.
Fear is the most de-motivating emotion that an individual succumbs to. So deep are the beliefs and philosophies that one has been immersed within during their lifetime, and especially during their formative years, that letting go to embrace something altogether unknown and alien is tremendously difficult, and mostly unwanted. People have been indoctrinated for so long by immersion in their respective cultures that cutting the threads that bind the mind to a finite world and hence letting go of a particular state of being might possibly feel like losing body parts, or going insane. There are vast numbers of people who believe they have happiness and contentment in their lives, and who am I to argue otherwise or judge them for coming to this decision. But equally, perhaps even amongst some of that number, there will be those who are found wanting in inspiration and individuality and who remain blindly content living out a disquietingly isolated life amongst the larger majority and who unwittingly hold on to a conviction in their own sense of (limited) happiness because they fear change. There are those who wouldn’t even pick up a pen and write a letter to themselves under the heading: What is Freedom? And if one can’t face with honesty the truth that lies within then what hope is there of embracing something so completely different and fundamentally abstract either? Fear is truly what prohibits the majority of people from walking into the darkness of their own mind, and yet to not do so, and to not engage with the mysteries of the subconscious leaves one perpetually living in the structured, reliable and hugely overbearing world of all that is permanent, concretised, solid, and unmoveable. This is the realm of scientific reductionism, of only accepting empirical proof for the nature of one’s being. There is no room for the numinous, the imaginary, the supernatural, or even the divine to move let alone flourish. But, for the Artist (and hence for all creative people) what separates them from the majority is their ability to walk with total faith in to the darkness of the unconscious mind and to time and time again seek out the one golden seed of light that can be nurtured, and cared for and when ready be made manifest in reality. Theirs is not a fear of the dark, or of walking alone where even angels fear to follow, but of arriving in the blackened space and not finding a seed of light by which to get home. Some might argue that it is foolish to dwell in such dark and boundless spaces, but surely it is far better to reach beyond the veil to grasp at the unfathomable than to never dare try at all.
With regard to the Waking Life quote about the emergence of ‘new values’, perhaps that suggests that in dismissing the immense value to be found in what once constituted our Golden Age we might in fact be dismissing something that would be of great importance in our ‘modern’ world as well. If one looks to the not-so-distant future, to a time when mankind reaches towards the stars in a bid to leave Earth, one wonders what values they will be taking with them that encapsulate the term Human Being. One wonders what our species looks like if seen from above the Earth; certainly it would have to be from a great height to avoid the poisonous dispersal of toxic gases, the missiles and bombs sprayed on another under the banner of democracy and freedom, and certainly higher still to avoid the space hardware, spy satellites, and who knows what other covert weapons mass destruction that might already be waiting there. One wonder’s as well, how science will try to determine and shape the future of our species. Genetic engineering and technological singularities sound wonderfully exciting words, yet with no clear intention or objective in pursuing them, it seems that such knowledge places mankind either on the crest of an abyss, or on the launch-pad of trans-global ascendancy. But whichever way it pans out, I sincerely hope human beings have firmly established principles, morals, ethics and reasoning already in place, and the ingrained and acceptable spiritual maturity needed to accommodate the prospects of new world’s and potential new life forms long before the very first integrated human/machine ever takes one small step for an android and one giant leap forward for mankind.
The quotation from Waking Life highlights the animalistic behaviour of man, maintained no doubt by the need to procreate our species, and sped on and influenced by an endless wash of media drivel that promotes idealised views of sexuality, champions the legitimacy of non-marital sexual encounters, and seeks to fill our life with acceptable images of pornography deemed suitable for T.V and Film. That a whole industry has been born to manage our state of mind around ensuring such base desires remain evident in most facets of life, has been very successful in desensitizing us to it. Why isn’t sex promoted with the same intensity of feeling and regard for understanding it as a sensual, tender and intimate act that is at once a necessity to create life and a cornerstone of a well balanced partnership between people. The emphasis is on sensationalism and not on maintaining personal responsibility whilst engaging in it. Why is it that sensationalism, personal gratification, fulfilment of lust and desires, and the insidious propensity towards an acquisition of them all defining our world so readily? Are people that emotionally strangled that the only thing left in life is a return to base desires and animalism? I think many people live life demonstrating a more animalistic approach because patriarchal ascendancy and male sexuality has always been promoted in our history far more readily and with greater fervour than the concept of the Divine Feminine. And yet, it is my belief that only a woman can ever know and understand the mysteries of life that lay as a truth at the heart of existence. Only a woman is blessed with the ability to bear a child. Only a woman is gifted with the faculties of feeling to sense the divine spark of life flowing through her, which gives rise to that life. And only a woman can understand the union of opposing forces that establish unity and balance in all things, and which were present when life was conceived. And only a woman has a womb in which to hold the growing foetus, protect it, nourish and feed it. And therefore only a woman can be feeling what the Creator must have felt when the universe came in to being. And only the fairer sex can truly appreciate the sexual urge for what it should be.
So what of laziness and apathy? Surely mankind has risen above sloth? Perhaps if it exists it does so because our governments provide all we think we need in order to have a rich and fulfilling life, and few have the interest, desire, or need to question the validity of what is served up on a plate for them? In effect people have forgotten how to think for themselves. Most of our daily activities are pretty much planned out for us anyway, and for everything else we have invented ‘convenience’ living, which is little more than subservience to efficiency and choice and therefore far easier for those that supply, service or provide for our needs to manage the delivery of their product, and hence far easier for the rest of us to go back to doing nothing other than being overwhelmed by the diversity of product and choice being offered. Marketing, product promotion, media intrusion, and immersion in a life nurtured by profiteers and pirates.
Simon, I’m not sure I’ve got anywhere near answering your question…perhaps I’ll have another go at another time. My head and my heart just aren’t finding the same groove right now. One is beating to the pulse of a distant star, and the other just melting. There are ghosts sitting with me tonight. I see them flickering on the walls, glimpse them move and slide from the corner of my eye. Maybe they’ve always been here and this is just the first time I’ve noticed. But somehow they are beginning to feel like friends.
Loved reading through this post Dewin which you shared, so pleased you did,.. Yes Water is the Giver of Life literally and coming from the background of a Derbyshire Village I was brought up in the art of Well-Dressings.. And would be allowed to decorate the well dressings with flower petals on the boarders.. If you googls Stoney Middleton Well Dressings I am sure you will find some images..
I was also pleased to see how this article also touched on how Water is affected by our thoughts/ words, Sounds etc.. I did a post oh some years back now about Dr Emoto’s study and how words changed its structure.. I will have to see if I can go find, as I included some amazing photo’s of water crystals before and after..
So is it any wonder as we Humans are made up mainly of water how our emotional bodies are affected and how we damage our own health via our thought process.. not to mention what we ingest ..
The Hopi Native American Indians see how we have polluted nearly all our waterways now.. Once upon a time we could drink pure water from the streams..
Many thanks for your comments and for your enlightening posts..
Sue