---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <curtisdeltablues@...> wrote :
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <awoelflebater@...> wrote : Curtis, I may be wrong and I may be presumptuous in saying so but my sense, in reading your recent posts, is that in the last year - maybe through the experiences with your aging father, maybe not - that you have learned some very useful and revelatory things about life and about yourself. I can relate to much of what you say in this post, especially your last paragraph. C: I appreciate the feel of your post Ann. The crushing confrontation with not only mortality, but the ungraceful way in which are capacities diminish before death has been going on for years with my Dad. Although each year sucks more, I'm not sure this is a cause for anything you are noticing in my writing. I'm not sure either but having witnessed the slow degradation and ultimate death of both of my parents to cancer as well as having lost (not lost really, she drowned) my older sister at far too young an age (for her and for me) back in 1986 I know how impending slow death and shocking sudden cessation of life can really peel back some layers. The rawness and unrelenting emotions associated with both types of experiences changes one. I changed for the better because what gets peeled back is the outer facade of who we like to think we are or, at least, present ourselves as. And underneath all of that is a rawness, a bloodiness that starts to become the real thing. Maybe what I'm sensing in some of your posts is some aspect of this rawness and what comes out is something almost tentative and open. I would hope that each year brings me a batch of revelatory things about my life and hope the same for you. I've been doing more classroom gigs where I get deeper into poor kid's lives this last year. Confronting the reality of how little I can do in the face of their environment at home has certainly added a few more wrinkles of concern on my face and caused me to ruminate about some of the things I said in my post. These kids hate school vacations, imagine that! Less food, more chaos, fewer encouraging words at home, so what is good about Spring break? I grew up loving the freedom of any break from school, so it is a real wake up call about how different my life is with that background. Fascinating. I had not thought of how that could possibly be, to dread home life - the loss of a kind of order and sanity that most likely can not exist amidst poverty or addiction or need. So I'm not sure if what you are seeing is just another side of me that is coming out in what I choose to write about lately, or something different in me, but your paying any attention to that detail is kind in itself and thanks for that. It is how you are saying things and what you are writing, both, that I noticed. Some of it just seems softer, more tentative. But I don't want to get all gushy and embarrass you so let's just say I see something different and it seems good. Some sort of edge seems missing in your posts and it becomes you. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <curtisdeltablues@...> wrote : ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <steve.sundur@...> wrote : ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <turquoiseb@...> wrote : From: Share Long <sharelong60@...> As for God, that too may simply be a word that ancients came up with to describe a certain kind of neurological experience. I find that a fascinating possibility for research as the ability to measure such becomes better. I agree, although I don't see science ever being able to measure all of what subjectively registers as spiritual experience. I do believe that much of it, however, will be found to be due to neurological brain farts -- neither "higher" or "lower," neither "good" nor "bad," and certainly not due to any experience of or intervention by a God. S: I think the growth of wisdom is a desirable thing, and something that takes place over a lifetime. C: I like this connection of wisdom with aging because for me, most of what I thought I could get through meditation just came with growing up and then older. I am not sure how long a list of things I would consider as "wisdom" would be. I might sum it up with knowing which battles to pick and which to ignore, and not expecting people to act differently than they do. I might throw in learning that you really can't tell a book by its cover with people, so you have to give someone a shot to show up as their best selves. But if they don't the next time it is on me, not them cuz people suck at changing even when they want to. I have learned that the older I get the older the people I need to give a break for being "young" gets. Right now I am up to "kids" in their 30's power zone. I appreciate that they are feeling their oats a bit and feel so much smarter than they were in their 20's that they believe they are "wise" now. Full of piss and vinegar! They cannot know what they don't know yet. I suspect people in their 80's view me this way which cracks me up. I don't know if I could connect any of these revelations with any meditation. I believe that meditation can slow you down a bit so you might notice these things, but any connection between a state of mind from meditation and what I would consider wisdom seem like a stretch. It is such a basic assumptions in spiritual traditions that this connections exists. For me it all happens in the experiences of being humbled through living that has had the biggest effect on me giving my fellow man a break for acting according to their nature. After a decades of pissing into the wind you learn to turn around first. Saves on the dry cleaning bills. Curtis, I may be wrong and I may be presumptuous in saying so but my sense, in reading your recent posts, is that in the last year - maybe through the experiences with your aging father, maybe not - that you have learned some very useful and revelatory things about life and about yourself. I can relate to much of what you say in this post, especially your last paragraph. I would call it the growth of spirituality. There may be instances of "flash", or maybe not. I really don't have a problem putting such experiences in the "good" column, and rating that higher than a life spent with no self reflection. YMMV
