Today's warm up exercise ended up being "cute" so I'm including it here (with some formatting).
What is it even that the cow says to the moon?
"Oh moon, dear moon, why don't you come down and play in my field? I give you the space, the grass, the stream, for you to take and do as you will".
"They're mine already", says the moon, "everywhere I alight is seen, and blessed be me and my light".
"Ah, but", the cow says, "that may be so, and rightly so, but what about my mind, my heart? Do you see and bless those as well?"
"A mind? A heart?" says the moon. "Such things are not known to me at all; they're not things to be found under the dome of heaven I control. At night, in the deepest hours, I dredge existence from oblivion, and yet, in all my life, I've never seen such a mind, such a heart, as those you speak of".
"Well, they might not be much", says the cow. "I'm no great being like you, or brother sun, or the mighty two-legged, but to me, my mind, my heart-that's all there is".
Usually, my warm-up exercises don't end up being meaningful. More often than not, they consist of me just talking myself through the fact that I don't know how to start the day's post. But sometimes, like today, things flow a bit more freely, and something "with meaning" emerges.
Sometimes when we create something, when we get out of the way, it seems like we had absolutely no role in that thing's creation. That happened with the above dialogue. I felt like it was just flowing through me, through my fingers, and onto "The Page". I'm just an observer.
...
This idea that "all there is is our mind" is something that has been in the back of my mind (heh) for a long while. Like the cow in the little dialogue above, I can only really see myself. Things out there might be sacred, but they have no meaning except in relation to my perception of them.
But interestingly, the cow is not itself claiming that the moon doesn't exist (so it's not real solipsism). The relation is actually that the moon exists, but it is made sacred by the fact the cow thinks it is. That's what brings the cow to sing to it and invite it to come down and play.
The moon, on the other hand, is very much the materialist and believes only in what it can directly see, even though she herself is a higher being. She goes beyond what she can explain, given evidence of what she sees, and still she doubts (and cannot comprehend) the existence of the cow's heart and mind (and takes her own existence as a given and does not question it).
The cow sees the moon as sacred and reveres it, and it's really the cow that's making the moon sacred by relating to her in that way. As the moon gives the cow "her light", so does the cow give the moon "her sacredness".
There's also another layer identified by "the light". It is not really material or substantial, but it is that by which we see the world. Of specific interest is the phrase "At night, in the deepest hours, I dredge existence from oblivion". Light here is not just "the means of perception", but "perception" itself. And contrary to what the moon claims (but the cow affirms), she can really only see things that are not there (as filtered through her perceptions; there's no PURE perceiving without "contamination" from the perceiver).
...
It feels a bit silly to dissect this short story as if it were a dream or great work of philosophical dialogue. I guess I'm just doing what I felt like doing, and that's it. I don't want to seem like I'm putting on airs as a philosopher or anything like that (I know nothing about it, except for the basics).
...
Now on to what this means in practical terms.
It's easy, as humans, to believe that what we see (outside and inside) is "really real", but really it isn't. Not that there's not anything out there, but that we never really get to perceive it (independently of its existence). All that we see (and the only thing that we see) is our perception of it.
Think about it. You're happy with your spouse, and she's the most beautiful, blindingly radiant being in the whole firmament. But if you're upset with each other, then you can't even look at her. Scary she becomes, terrifying like the demons of the deepest pits of hell. (If you're not married, I'm sure you can find your own parallels for things in your daily life.)
Being conscious of this helps. We think that "how we see it", or, in other words, "how we feel it", is all there is, but the truth is that's not the case.
This ties in well with my last post about getting irritated by small things. My son is happy when he's jumping from one sofa to the other, while I am worried that he's going to break something. But does my "irritation" at my son make him less happy in his game? No, of course not. Nor does his happiness make me "less irritated/worried".
It's all relative.
Thoughts:
- I'm starting to think there really is no reason why these vomits are in a separate category from the main blog; after all, they're very much the same kind of post I used to do at the beginning, and I considered those part of the main blog.
- Not yet sure if I'll do it, but right now I strongly lean towards just having my "vomits" be part of the main blog feed (I'll still keep the vomits page/feed to avoid URL rot).
- I want to learn more about tarot cards and their meaning. I don't really believe that they can predict your future or love life or whatever, but I do think they can be an excellent tool to probe the subconscious. Similar to dreams and free writing, they provide symbols that bring certain psychic energies into consciousness for us to explore and, hopefully, integrate.
- I've actually wanted to do this for a long, long time. I've had a tarot spreads tab open on my browser for three months or so now.
- I'm sad I don't actually remember where I got this link from. It was a cool blog by someone who, for every update to their now page, also did a spread and its interpretation.