Still reading this, but I am finding so much resonance in the journey I have been travelling the last year and the illusions of individuality, and I have also been thinking about things in a mything framework. Can I ask you about e name Burnt Eliot?
Thank you for writing to share your thoughts and feelings about the post.
I chose the name in recognition of T.S. Eliot after reading Burnt Umber. I could not resist such the name. His poetry matches my thoughts and feelings about reality.
I studied Eliot’s Four Quartets in great depth and live by his ‘still points.’ Your post reminded me of that and led me to revisit another poem, which I am just writing about. Thank you for the reminder and the inspiration. It was beautiful.
Thanks for pointing out the tag and asking those valuable questions
You are always extremely insightful and I’m happy we’re both finding this quite enchanting
I think of you ask a neurologist they will say it’s probably mirror neurons at work syncing our brains, literally putting us on the same wavelength
If you ask a physicist they will probably refer to the quantum field that our brains tab into and find a collective field of consciousness where we share and discover meanings
It is an intoxicating narrative. It grants significance where there may be none.
You claim the original desire was “to know and remember all possible experiences.” Look honestly at the world. Look at famine, war, violation, decay. Look at the despair of lives spent in helplessness and pain. Are we to believe that some primordial self desired this? That the shattered child, the dying refugee, the agonized woman, the forgotten innocent prisoner are merely fulfilling a cosmic curiosity? Whatever He may be, if He really exists, He is NOT a god, nor an emanation of God, nor sanctioned by the primary God. He, too, is part of a natural system.
Thank you. You ask very good and thoughtful questions:
“Are we to believe that some primordial self desired this? That the shattered child, the dying refugee, the agonized woman, the forgotten innocent prisoner are merely fulfilling a cosmic curiosity?”
Not cosmic curiosity, but cosmic creation. Not an actor, but the self-aware theater wherein creation occurs.
When I look honestly and carefully, I see that everything is made of memory; there is nowhere that I look where I see anything other than memories rearranging and refining one another (we call this ‘re-cognition’). When I look at memory, I see the whole of it without the physical-emotional misery of its incessant creation (i.e., of its continuous birth). When I look honestly and thoroughly at my own life, which has not been short on miseries, I know that I would readily live it all again in exactly the same way (as I would any other life as well!), to see once again ‘near the end of it’ (i.e., at awareness of what death is and is not!) how unimaginably beautiful everything is in infinite memory.
As the Buddhists say, “the world IS suffering,” it is “a nightmare of daytime.” I simply noticed one day that I was actually much larger than this one life among others; I was the place where it occurred and also the reason it occurred, and I was every moment and every being within it.
Still reading this, but I am finding so much resonance in the journey I have been travelling the last year and the illusions of individuality, and I have also been thinking about things in a mything framework. Can I ask you about e name Burnt Eliot?
*the
Thank you for writing to share your thoughts and feelings about the post.
I chose the name in recognition of T.S. Eliot after reading Burnt Umber. I could not resist such the name. His poetry matches my thoughts and feelings about reality.
I studied Eliot’s Four Quartets in great depth and live by his ‘still points.’ Your post reminded me of that and led me to revisit another poem, which I am just writing about. Thank you for the reminder and the inspiration. It was beautiful.
So beautiful & deep thankyou ☆
I am very happy you liked it, Sue.
Thank you, Lyrics and Fire, for restacking.
substack.com/@lyricsandfire
Thank you, Cris, for quoting and restacking.
substack.com/@beatingheart1
Thanks for pointing out the tag and asking those valuable questions
You are always extremely insightful and I’m happy we’re both finding this quite enchanting
I think of you ask a neurologist they will say it’s probably mirror neurons at work syncing our brains, literally putting us on the same wavelength
If you ask a physicist they will probably refer to the quantum field that our brains tab into and find a collective field of consciousness where we share and discover meanings
Thank you, Marwa, for the wonderful comment. I really do get a lot of inspiration reading your pages and notes.
Thank you I always get inspired by our discussions too
It is an intoxicating narrative. It grants significance where there may be none.
You claim the original desire was “to know and remember all possible experiences.” Look honestly at the world. Look at famine, war, violation, decay. Look at the despair of lives spent in helplessness and pain. Are we to believe that some primordial self desired this? That the shattered child, the dying refugee, the agonized woman, the forgotten innocent prisoner are merely fulfilling a cosmic curiosity? Whatever He may be, if He really exists, He is NOT a god, nor an emanation of God, nor sanctioned by the primary God. He, too, is part of a natural system.
We will never know if God exists or not.
Thank you. You ask very good and thoughtful questions:
“Are we to believe that some primordial self desired this? That the shattered child, the dying refugee, the agonized woman, the forgotten innocent prisoner are merely fulfilling a cosmic curiosity?”
Not cosmic curiosity, but cosmic creation. Not an actor, but the self-aware theater wherein creation occurs.
When I look honestly and carefully, I see that everything is made of memory; there is nowhere that I look where I see anything other than memories rearranging and refining one another (we call this ‘re-cognition’). When I look at memory, I see the whole of it without the physical-emotional misery of its incessant creation (i.e., of its continuous birth). When I look honestly and thoroughly at my own life, which has not been short on miseries, I know that I would readily live it all again in exactly the same way (as I would any other life as well!), to see once again ‘near the end of it’ (i.e., at awareness of what death is and is not!) how unimaginably beautiful everything is in infinite memory.
As the Buddhists say, “the world IS suffering,” it is “a nightmare of daytime.” I simply noticed one day that I was actually much larger than this one life among others; I was the place where it occurred and also the reason it occurred, and I was every moment and every being within it.