Commiserating on Snowmageddon of 2015

CC Jean Stimmell: 1/27/15

Wolf, Llama, and Fox hunker down 

on our kitchen windowsill

as the blizzard rages

outside

Chairs for Winter Solitude

Blue chair resting under hemlock
CC Jean Stimmell 1/26/15

Pursuing originality, the would-be creator works alone. 

In loneliness one assumes a responsibility for oneself 
that one cannot fulfill.

Meditating on Solitude
CC Jean Stimmell: 1/23/15

True solitude is found in the wild places,

where one is without human obligation.*

Red Chairs on Pleasant Pond
CC Jean Stimmell: 2/11/11

From the order of nature we return

to the order – and disorder –

of humanity.*

*The quotes above are from Wendell Berry's book of essays:

"What are People for."

Epiphany About Evolving Nature of Karma

This photograph and a version of the following essay 

was published in the Concord Monitor on 1/31/15

Twisted White Birch: Pierce Island, Portsmouth NH
–growing according to certain causes and conditions–
CC Jean Stimmell: 10/25/14

I had an epiphany late last night, bringing the notion of karma alive for me, while reading Einstein’s Dreams by Alan Lightman. In this novel, the author is writing  about various alternative worlds Einstein might have dreamed about:

In one scenario, a person is thrust back in time, without warning, to a particular event in his past. However, because he is coming back from the future, he is aware not only of his future story but thousands of alternative stories which could now be poised to unfold, the exact one depending on initial conditions: “the births of children, the movement of people on the streets, the songs of birds at certain moments, the precise positions of chairs, the wind…”^⁠1

Lightman writes that this “time traveler from the future…is agonized. For if he makes the slightest alteration in anything, he may destroy the future…He envies the people who live in their own time, who can act at will, oblivious of the future, ignorant of the effects of their actions.” ^⁠2

That’s when my epiphany struck! What if those of us living in our own times were not ignorant of the effects of our actions? What if rather than being oblivious to our future, we could foresee it.

If we could truly comprehend that each action we take has repercussions for the future, either negative or positive, we would realize that we are already, moment by moment, creating our future.

Yes, we give lip service to this idea in our everyday lives: positive actions beget positive actions while negative acts spawn further negativity. But, for most of us, that is about it.

Other cultures have taken karma more seriously. Native Americans really understood this concept, teaching that every decision, be it personal or tribal, must be made in light of how it will affect their descendants seven generations into the future. Perhaps that is why they were able to live in harmony with nature and not despoil the environment.

Buddhists celebrate karma as a first principle, believing that the law of moral causation is based on it. As I understand Buddhism, this is a revolutionary statement: Rather than moral laws being eternal and universal, decreed by an all-knowing power at the beginning of time, Buddhists view morality, like they do everything in human life, as arising from certain causes and conditions, evolving over time.

This notion of evolving laws of the universe coincides with recent theoretical breakthroughs in science: Emergent behavior^⁠3 and Morphic Resonance^⁠4 come to mind as examples of this.

According to these newer theories, universal, unchanging  laws of the universe don’t exist and never did; they are not static and eternal. According to Rupert Sheldrake and others, everything began with the big bang 15 billion years ago, creating conditions and laws that, like us, are constantly evolving over time.

“All atoms, molecules, stars, galaxies, crystals, planets, and forms of life have come into being. They have evolutionary histories. The universe now looks like a vast developing organism, not like an eternal machine slowly running out of steam.”^⁠5

If that is the case, the future of our world is indeed in our hands. Each of us are helping to create our common future with each action we take, no matter how small. The truth of this statement is easiest to see in regard to climate change.

But it applies to every arena of life. If we could become totally sensitized to the karmic consequences of our actions, the whole world would be transformed.

Starting with each of us in our daily life, treating our family and  friends with kindness and compassion – in the same manner we would like to be treated – would result in a positive glow that would naturally radiate outward into our civic lives and government.

Slowly such actions, repeated daily around the world would make the world a more harmonious, peaceful and compassionate place.

Pie in the Sky? Not if we think of the Seventh Generation first – rather than ourselves.

XXX

¹ Einstein’s Dreams, a novel by Alan Lightman, Warner books, pp. 15-16.

² Ibid. p 16

³ Synchronicity: Nature and Psyche in an Interconnected Universe by Dr. Joseph Cambray PhD.

⁴ Morphic Resonance: The nature of formative causation by Rupert Sheldrake

⁵ Ibid. p xii

A vertical dimension in a sadly horizonal world

A Vertical Dimension in a Sadly Horizontal World
CC Jean Stimmell: Portsmouth NH, 1/9/15

Automated machines may soon care for the sick... 

so blares today's headline in the New York Times.

This raises many fundamental questions.

Can they make moral choices?

Can they show empathy? 

And, how will human beings, replaced by robots,

earn a living and find meaning in their lives?

See my earlier post: Earthly Beings or Soulless Slaves.

Artifical Intelligence: Being absorbed by a giant Amoeba

Ice forming in a mud puddle: Stylized
CC Jean Stimmell: 11/23/14

Here’s an addendum to my December 16^th post, which warned of the dangers stemming from our increasing reliance on artificial intelligence. I concluded that post by saying that the choice is clear: “either we return to our biological and spiritual home – reconnecting to our bodies, our communities, our sense of place, and Mother Earth – or become soulless slaves to the machine.”

Here’s another take on this by Susan Blackmore who has been called “The Queen of Consciousness.” She compares what is happening to us to being absorbed by a giant digital amoeba.  In her own words,

“We’ve sort of let slip out control. I compare  what’s happening with the theory of endosymbiosis put forth by Lynn Margulis, in which the mitochondria, which power the cells, wee originally free-floating bacteria that were absorbed into the cells, and both benefited. I propose that that is what is going on with us. We are being absorbed into this thing as its power produces – becoming mitochondria for the great machine.”

“We are giving up our independence, and control over ourselves, our children, our relationships, and the planet, without realizing what we’re doing.” *

Ice forming in rivelet on Mt. Major
CC Jean Stimmell: 1/1/15

xxx

* Queen of Consciousness from Psychology Today, February 2015, pp. 29-31.

Faith: full engagement in this strange and shimmering world

CC Jean Stimmell

Walking along the southern end of Hampton Beach on Christmas day, I spied a young girl standing on a windswept sand dune, silhouetted against the dramatic sky. Just as I took this photograph, hair flying, she jumped off the back side of the dune.

The ethereal sky, pounding surf, howling wind and spite-like apparition of the girl combined to produce an other-worldly, spiritual moment, perfectly captured by the following quote from The Accidental Universe by Alan Lightman:

"Faith is the willingness to give ourselves over, at times, to things we do not fully understand... Faith is the ability to honor stillness at some moments and at others to ride the passion and exuberance that is the artistic impulse, the flight of the imagination, the full engagement with this strange and shimmering world." 

When we enter solitude, we lose loneliness…

Christmas Solitude
Hampton Beach: 12/25/14
CC Jean Stimmell

Why are Americans terrified of being alone, a question I left hanging in my 12/7post.  The answer is, I think, because most of us equate being alone with being cast into a lonely abyss, cut off not only from human contact but the consumer stimulation we are addicted to.

My hero, Maria Popova, provides an answer, both profound and elusive, like a Zen koan by quoting from Wendell Berry’s new book, What Are People For?  Contrary to what we think, by entering into solitude, we lose loneliness…

True solitude is found in the wild places, where one is without human obligation. One’s inner voices become audible. One feels the attraction of one’s most intimate sources. In consequence, one responds more clearly to other lives. The more coherent one becomes within oneself as a creature, the more fully one enters into the communion of all creatures.