The WE – Frequency Soup

I Love, Therefore I Am

I noticed of late the pull to be reclusive, again. I have lived with that in the background, and often enough in the foreground, for my entire life. What was also occurring during this time was that people that I love were coming to mind and, at moments, they left my mind and I instead felt them present in my experience. It was as if some essence of them was right here in me. As I contemplated this, I deliberately stopped “thinking” of them and simply invited them in. Over a period of days, dear friends and family seemed to be transiting through me. At times it felt like I was a mixture of myself and them, which I found quite easy to do. I felt their nudging energies blending into me, sometimes collectively. It is perhaps best imagined as being in pre-boiling water, considerable movement but warm and gently caressing.

What came to me was that the call towards reclusiveness might actually be the pull of the essential consciousness of each of these loved ones, acting collectively as a kind of magnified gravitational field. I might not be seeking to be solitary, but to be immersed within the many beloveds of my life.

At one point in that field, I let go and felt the rushing motion of moving into them, into that Many, and being joyously welcomed home. Moments later, I felt the Many rushing back into me and this core, this solid “I” was welcoming them back to the home that they were seeking. Back and forth We went.

In this moment it seems to me that all of the frequencies that I’ve been immersed in these many decades might just be the caresses of love in an infinite dance, leading and following, as the oscillations of I and We. This I/We is joy’d. Joy’d in the inhalation of love from the many and sharing that accumulated joy back into the ecosystem of the Many as the exhalation of this particular collective I/We. A natural breathing in and breathing out is taking over. It knows the way.

It certainly seems that I am the We of those I love and who love me, both the living and those who have passed on. I am sure that it extends beyond them but it certainly begins with those with whom I most naturally resonate. I am a fluid singular I that in some way is that We, as our resonances are always entwined. And yet often the collective energies that are present at a given moment are compacted and become experientially focused as a solid, individuated “I”. It is a matter of where and how attention is focused and it seems likely that this has always been so. I have newly conscious ways of perceiving. I can experience myself as a porous, loosely focused aspect of a blended We; as a compacted collective I – focused, lucid and distinct; or as an infinitely modulating dance between the two. It is clear that, whether in focused or unfocused form, without them I would not be. It appears, at least at the moment, that I exist only as some vortex of interrelationship, which oscillates between an expanded unfocused We and a compacted collective momentary I. I give back my gratitude, my appreciation and my love into the ecosystem of the Many when I experience myself on the leading, more uni-focused, side of the dance and I accept theirs in kind when invited to be the follower, to let go and be led. Bidirectional joy radiates at all times. This I/We is blended into the collective love that they are, in their web of loves, and we co-create ourselves in our joint oscillating resonances.

As we are joy’d by this inter-webbing, Being is joy’d in our recognition of, and active participation in, the ongoing joyful interplay of welcoming in and gifting out.

When I texted a friend with my thought of “Without those I love, I would not be,” his response was “So…..I love therefore I am?”. YES, that’s perfect.

I love, therefore I am

Appreciation and Gratitude

For all of my adult life, I’ve had an antipathy toward God, or “The Divine”, as people now tend to call it.

It started some time in elementary school, a Catholic institution, with what I considered the irrational notion that an “all loving” god would send someone to burn eternally in “hell” for a single transgression.

We were told that this was the end result of committing a “mortal sin” that we did not repent before death.

I’ll not go into the whole “divine rant” as to how this antipathy developed over the years, but eventually I ended up with the idea that in the grand scheme of things we are points of consciousness in a particular type of manifestation “downstream”, and within, eons of somehow intentional creative choices. We are a collection of those choices and the perspectives that they have transformed into. Those collections of perspectives can be experienced both as a collective – a WE – and also as a unified singular consciousness – an I – anywhere in that stream where some particular collection of perspectives coheres in a particular instant and then looks out upon “its” current chosen terrain.

The notion of “The Divine” infers that we are not part of that eternal continuum of consciousness, that we are distinct from it, and thus somehow not divine. From that perspective only our distinctness is acknowledged and not our unity with the entire stream – the ecosystem of consciousness, if you will. Energetically, I see no evidence that there is a demarcation line between this entity, currently named Justin, and anything. Thus the notion of some “higher” and separate god is, in a way, an impediment to the experience of Unity that is sought by so many. A belief that we are not divine will inhibit us from crossing that imaginary line into a Unity state since we have declared “it” as separate from “us”. It is all one flow so either everything is divine or nothing is. At some point, I’m saying, that declared barrier must be discarded. This will allow for the continuing flow of a particular “I” to commune with some vaster collective, a new WE, and then a transition will occur into its broader collective unity, our next momentary I. Each experience of WE or I is an aspect of divinity, if one wants to use that term for consciousness. It’s all arising in the same inescapable ecosystem. Now I do recognize that a star-sized WE would certainly feel like it was divine due to its size, but it’s really just a more inclusive I/WE. The entirety of all possible perspectives could be considered The Divine, but if that ultimate Unity were fully experienced, there would be no remaining distinct perspective to call it that.

Continue reading Appreciation and Gratitude

Integrating the We*

Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.” – Walt Whitman

I recently noticed, when observing my internal monologue, that sometimes the pronoun “We” is used rather than “I”. Once noticed, I attempted to be aware of the frequency of this usage. My guess at the moment is that it is approximately twenty percent. Now, I have previously written about my observation that “my” identity seems to operate as an I/We, as it appears to be a collection of ever-shifting perspectives (We) but expresses itself as fixed and singular (I). It had not, however, come to my attention that “We” had snuck into my automated self-talk.

This new observation about the naturally arising plural pronoun became much more apparent in a recent seven-day meditation retreat with Jeff Carreira that I attended. The subtly nuanced undertones that lie beneath my monologues became easily distinguishable in that vast and quiet space, and certain centers of gravity became visible.

I have also said before that thoughts have a kind of gravity, which continues to exist in the surrounding energetic environs after their creation. Habitual thinking, like concentrated matter, has gravity commensurate with its mass, thus more focused thinking results in more gravity and that gravitational force will thereby more firmly hold our attention. It’s a bit of a trap, as our attention generates gravity and the gravity draws our attention. Our identity, whatever that is, will primarily dwell around these most frequented “centers of gravity”. Continue reading Integrating the We*

Who Are WE?

There is a practice in the Evolutionary Collective that is called a Mutual Awakening Practice (MAP). This is done weekly for about 8 weeks with a partner, randomly assigned, after which partners are changed. I typically do one or two additional practices each week with partners that I’ve had before or friends that I’ve introduced to it. It is a thirty minute exercise with each person answering the question “What is present?” followed by “What are we experiencing?”

In this practice my words often seem to arise of their own accord, without any intervening mental assessing occurring. The experience is very immediate. These resonances are often very deep and intimate. The energy of one space had “me” say “I can’t imagine anything more intimate than this”. It was exquisite.

It feels to me that the space we are transiting through/creating has something to say and we have chosen, by our commitment to each other and the practice, to allow it to have its say. As a listener, I feel the space from which the other’s words arise and deliberately allow my fluid self to become entwined in the energetic flow that is being offered. The words act as an invitation to find where our common path is leading us. We follow each other’s lead, in this back-and-forth, in a kind of playful dance. The dance that we “are” seems to delight in the space that is being generated and also in the pleasure of having a partner with which to enjoy it.

Continue reading Who Are WE?

The Fluid Borders of I and We

I’ve long been clear that since all frequencies are moving – and my experience outside of that flux is extremely rare – whatever is experienced as “I” in a given moment is, in some way, also moving. But everything that comes out of my mouth is coming from a perspective – a particular flow – and “I” am clearly not any one perspective. Yet any given perspective often feels to be a result of other perspectives coming together in some kind of revealed frequency. At first I thought that the disparate frequencies merged into a concentrated form that blinded “me” to their former experiential distinctness but it seems that it’s a bit more complex than that. The more I observed the process the more it seemed as if there is a given moment in which a transformation occurs. It appeared that the perspectives were vying for the attention of an observer, that was allowing each to have their say, and at some point the observer enters the space and the noise is quelled by its presence. There then is a separate and distinct place from which a description arises adjacent to that relative silence, like a commentator at a sporting event, and that description defines the boarders of a new distinction.

Experientially, the many perspectives were converted from distinct particles (many transiting perspectives) to one very long wavelength (a singular perception) and was then articulated by an “I”, which I always and only describe as “me”. So it appears that there is a process from experiencing a collection of perspectives, to an observer and an assessor, which in a way declares the resulting point of view. Yet again, where focused attention lies is what determines how I experience myself at any given moment.

Continue reading The Fluid Borders of I and We

Surrender and Polarity

The word surrender is bandied about in spiritual circles as the necessary active ingredient to the growth of one’s consciousness awareness. Though I will not dispute the accuracy of what is pointed to, I do have my own take on it.

I have long had a resistance to the use of the word “surrender” when it comes to spiritual work. The inference is that there is something that one is surrendering to. If you believe in a form of a second person God – and I am well aware of Wilber’s articulation of first, second and third person pronouns and their ramifications– then that makes sense. I am not arguing against the existence of aspects of “other” – some collection of a We – that are experienceable on levels at which our depths cohabitate with “them”. I am also not disputing that the deeper one reaches into those depths, one might understandably experience the many – in some collective I/We – and view one collective of that relative singularity as divine. I do, in fact, believe that communing with all aspects of our depths is a necessary component of the growth cycle. What I am saying is that there is an experiential difference between surrendering in the form of “you know better than I so lead me” and “This moment’s focused “I” is releasing its grip on the present view to experience the more subtle – the next moment’s We”.

The first example relinquishes choice to someone or some otherness, inferring that the “I” that chooses is not responsible for its choices, which to me is never the case. This momentary I may receive intuition or insight but must then always choose to accept, alter or decline that insight based on the current relevant circumstances in which it finds itself. The current I is always the master of its choices.

I perceive the second example as recognition that some aspect of this self is stuck on one of its created “I” positions, and is “letting go” – my preferred term – in order to release its current gravitational constraints and drift upstream, where a deeper aspect of “I” peers out from its relatively longer range of waveforms. The “I” in those ranges will more clearly observe the long-range alignment or misalignment of the choices occurring in the frequency neighborhoods that “my” downstream point of focused attention is dwelling on. Surrendering my current declarations and certainties will, in essence, discharge agency of its creative intent for a while and allow attention to drift towards the natural gravity of Being.

shutterstock_414846625 Up and down the entire spectrum of consciousness, the experience of the many (We) and the singularity (I) will always be accessible. There is a natural flow between the two. They are, metaphorically, two sides of the same coin. It is only a matter of focus. There is, in my view, an ongoing flip-flop between collections of my variable “I/We” and the associated perspectives.

I find it amusing, sometimes, that each perspective that I flow through, at any give moment, tends to resist every other at some level. In a manner of speaking, in order to be a perspective, the boundary that identifies its distinctness must exclude otherness in order to have form. That, I think, is the source of my sometimes knee-jerk resistance to many sorts of exclusionary declarations, even though I am aware that it is built into very nature of the I/We polarity. Energetically, the very existence of the I/We interplay depends upon the natural resistance that polarities exhibit. Without that multidimensional interplay, we’d have no playground. We’d be a singularity back at the beginning planning to generate another. Some version of will “I” want to go out and play again.

Some Thoughts on Love, Sadness and We-space

“Falling in love” does, in fact, have a sense of motion associated with it, which is why this term exists. It’s like our depths are naturally in resonance with the depths of another and our normal experiential range feels that deep gravitational pull. Since our own depths underpin all of our daily conscious experiences, all of those experiences feel that deep resonance. The motion we rightfully call “falling” seems to bubble up through every experience we have and the normal solidity of our sense of self becomes more transparent and we “fall” through its dissolving support into the newly revealed depths.

I felt that instantly when I first met my wife. I just knew that we were related. We “fell” for many years and at some point long ago, energetically reached an equilibrium. As I see it, our depths are no longer experientially deep. Rather they are very present for us in our every day lives – as we are in orbit around each other like binary stars. That feel of falling is no longer experienced since we are in proximity and there is no longer a distance over which to travel, or “fall”. We are in communion and that communion provides the solidity of being close; we are a “We”.

Continue reading Some Thoughts on Love, Sadness and We-space

I Am Alone, or Not

We come into this world as infants who surely seem more merged with deeper aspects of Being, or whatever you’d like to call it, than those who have been here a while. It takes time for us to train our attention consistently to this particular physical environment. Somewhere during that process we achieve a benchmark level of, at least perceived, separation.

When I was 6 my we moved into a larger house in a new neighborhood closer to the university where my father worked. It was full of children. After a week or so, I don’t really remember, I went to my mother and said “I don’t think that there is anyone in the neighborhood my age”. She said, “Well, Christine Daley is about your age”. In that instant I realized that she’d known that there was no one my age and had kept that from me. In my little mind I thought that if I couldn’t trust her to be honest with me, I was really alone in the world. That declaration, in that silent moment, made it effectively so. Many decades later I remembered this event at some Landmark course where they were specifically looking for such a “break in belonging”. I went to share what I’d seen with my mother and before I was even done she said, “I remember that. I regretted it the moment that I said it but it was too late”. Even she saw the impact that it had on me and remembered it all those years later.

It seems to me that at least one component of the process of being trained to be in this physical world comes in some form of a declaration that “I am alone”. It may be “nobody loves me, I’m not good enough, I don’t fit in” but is something along those lines. The “I”, in that moment of declared separateness, realizes that it must take responsibility for its choices as a solitary individuated entity. If it is going to survive in this world – to get what it needs and wants – it’s got to take charge and make it happen since it cannot guarantee the same resolve from anyone else. Given that on some level that each of us does have to make our own way, it makes sense that we do have to come to that declared state at some point.

Continue reading I Am Alone, or Not