Emerging from the Pleroma
That which wishes to be written...
Out of everything that is happening in the world these days; an out-picturing of the inner state of the species, we can see that our collective activity is having an impact. I went walking yesterday through the National Mall down near the Capitol. Taking in the view from the East Wing of the National Gallery’s open terrace facing Pennsylvania Avenue, I opened my camera to take in the Passing Show. I mused into the microphone as I walked from there out to the Hirshhorn Gallery and then made my way through the gardens. I pondered how all of our activities over the course of history have gotten us to where we are now.
This morning, I wrapped up an article that I started yesterday:
Inspired as it was by the photographs of a recent trip to Williamsburg by a former Historic Trades Carpenter, Mark Berninghausen, it took me back to my roots; the soil from which I gained my sustenance. They say that life is a continuous series of losses. I take comfort in that. Having had and lost is better than not having had at all. Up out of the Pleroma, the Morning Raga of Ravi Shankar has just emerged:
For those of you who are frequent readers of Harrowings, this leap will come as no surprise. These essays, as personal journeys into the Pleroma; forays to harvest the goodies that our culture has sprinkled in abundance into the noosphere, are simply offerings to whatever it is that inhabits us; the primate species labelled “Homo Sapiens.”
I was commenting yesterday that it could be that we simply smart housing for our gut bacteria - along with all those other species upon which we depend for our existence. I’m thinking about this often as I make my way from dawn to dusk and back again.
I’m now thinking of the many people that I will encounter. Smiling warmly, genuinely interested in helping my fellow human beings get through the experience of being here now, that’s what I intend to be doing and I’m looking forward to it. All of us are but brief flashes on the surface of eternity after all. Each of us is a precious instance of our species, born into the world into the arms of expectant parents or simply thrown into existence, caught by the hands of obstetricians often, or midwives.
I’m reflecting on the Facts of Life again and listening to the Morning Raga coming out of the speakers on this MacBook Pro. I’m reflecting on how fortunate we all are to be here at all, considering the odds against our being. Now what shall we do with the rest of our lives?
This is the question that goes up into that from which we have all emerged and back into which we will return, ultimately. “Nobody knows what happens when (we) die. Believe what you like, it doesn’t mean you’re right.” While life goes on, the world in which I was a part will end when I do, I think. If you survive me, the world in which you are a part, continues. Different people sees different worlds and this thought brings me to Emmet Fox:
Different People See Different Worlds
“What we experience is our own concept of things. That is why no two people see quite the same world, and why, in many cases, different people see such different worlds. To put it in another way, we make our own world by the way in which we think; for we really do live in a world of our own thoughts. It follows from this that if our thinking is faulty, our conditions must be faulty too until our thinking is corrected; and that it is useless to try to improve outer things if we leave our own mentality unchanged.
We see inharmony because of a spiritual lack within ourselves. As we gain greater spiritual understanding, the true Nature of Being opens up. As long as we move from one place to another in search of harmony, or try to bring it about by changing outer things, we won’t succeed.” - Emmet Fox
So the answers are within each of us, for each of us. This begs the question of whether there is a fundamental ground of truth upon which to build or if everything is in flux. If it is all matter and everything is exactly as it ought to be here and now, I can say “Yes” to the world as it presents itself.
Thoughts compete for expression now. They demand entry and the more they demand, the more they are hindered so I must simply listen to the Morning Raga and pause while they settle down. That which ought to be written will be written. I trust that. Up out of the Pleroma, this emerges:
On February 2, 2002, I found myself in Girona. This was by design. I had been told, the previous November, that Girona was one of the best preserved medieval towns in Catalonia. That was at a conference in Gargnano, Italy hosted by the TransAlpine Chapter of the Society for Technical Communication with whom I was networking. The person who suggested it was Jang Graat of the Netherlands who I am happy to count as a friend every since. He didn’t steer me wrong.
At the time, I was working for a small web content management software firm called Web500 A/S. I was the technical editor of their documentation team and was, with one other writer, John Swymer, completing a context-sensitive single-sourced online help system for the first Web Content Management System built on the new Microsoft .NET framework. The code was being written in C# under the leadership of our Chief Technology Officer, Erik Dibbern.
Erik had taken a chance on hiring me in 2000 after we connected on sixdegrees.com. I had found reason to want to be in Copenhagen through the use of this same system some year or so early when I struck up a conversation with the then manager of the Copenhagen Sinfonietta, Athelas. She had come over to the US to visit me in July 2000 and, on my return visit to her in September of the same year, I met with Erik and the founders of Web500, interviewed with them and then met with their lawyers to get a work visa walked through the Danish Foreign Ministry. Within five weeks, the visa was in hand. On December 1, 2000, I moved there with three suitcases, the company having found a flat for me at 13 Lauridskausgade st.th., Copenhagen N.
Events like this have led me to believe in “pronoia” in no uncertain terms. The universe does seem to be a conspiracy in our favor. If we tune our eyes to see things this way, I believe that we can accept even the worst events with equanimity. As time is drawing short, let me allow Emerson to speak to this concept from the conclusion of his essay on Compensation:
Up and onward for evermore!’ We cannot stay amid the ruins. Neither will we rely on the new; and so we walk ever with reverted eyes, like those monsters who look backwards.
And yet the compensations of calamity are made apparent to the understanding also, after long intervals of time. A fever, a mutilation, a cruel disappointment, a loss of wealth, a loss of friends, seems at the moment unpaid loss, and unpayable. But the sure years reveal the deep remedial force that underlies all facts. The death of a dear friend, wife, brother, lover, which seemed nothing but privation, somewhat later assumes the aspect of a guide or genius; for it commonly operates revolutions in our way of life, terminates an epoch of infancy or of youth which was waiting to be closed, breaks up a wonted occupation, or a household, or style of living, and allows the formation of new ones more friendly to the growth of character. It permits or constrains the formation of new acquaintances, and the reception of new influences that prove of the first importance to the next years; and the man or woman who would have remained a sunny garden-flower, with no room for its roots and too much sunshine for its head, by the falling of the walls and the neglect of the gardener, is made the banian of the forest, yielding shade and fruit to wide neighbourhoods of men.
Up and…
Onward!
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