Wondrously Blank
I received the following 7 paragraphs via a mailing list I'm on (see http://www.savebiogems.org/), and was compelled to comment....
My experience is that everything in the natural world is in a perfect state of equilibrium: You can learn to actually feel this as self evident reality if you spend enough time out in nature. Even if you're not yet able to tune in consciously to the balanced harmony of the natural world, I've observed (in the many people I've taken out into nature with me), that the bioelectrical system that is your human body actually adjusts to this, entering a deeper state of equilibrium itself while out in nature (even with physical and emotional healing effects), whether you're consciously aware of it or not.
Our artificial/developed/humanized world is generally very out of balance. The man-made world is also, relatively speaking, very ugly. I definitely do *feel* the difference, and do my best to spend at least one day a week out in the true beauty and balance of nature. Why devote 1/7 of my life to this...?
Otherwise, the "out of balance" state of the artificial/ developed/humanized world of steel and concrete and machines and noise and stress and ugliness and power plants and pollution and traffic and human dysfunction and paved-over Earth and pipes and poles and wires and billboards and commercials and human waste and garbage and all the different chemicals and electromagnetic fields and radiation from lights, electricity, cell phones, radio waves, microwaves, TV's, computers, etc. that stream through our bodies every second of every day become "the norm"...and I forget what *true* balance really feels like...and what *true* beauty is...and how each of us needs to be *truly* healthy in body, mind and soul.
Without undisturbed nature areas, I lose my reference point for "natural" and "normal" and "good" and "balanced" and "beautiful" and "healthy"....
It's been said that nature is "food for the soul." So, as we develop more and more of the few remaining blank spots on the map, drill or mine or pave over more and more of our pristine nature/wilderness areas, are we actually starving our own souls...? What happens when the mind of a species starves its own soul...? If we can't put a dollar sign or monetary price on the human soul, how do we know what it's worth or true value is...?
Furthermore, if there are no blank spots on the map, and we all become calibrated to the "out of balance" ugliness of the artificial/developed/humanized world, how will we even be able to even know/remember what true balance and true beauty feels like...? What happens when the knowledge of what true balance/beauty actually is is finally eradicated from all our maps and, thus, disappears from human existence and becomes extinct from human experience forever...? If we have neither a map nor reference point for genuine, unadulterated, harmonious beauty and balance, how will we ever be able to bring our artificial/developed/humanized world more into a state of harmonious balance and beauty...?
So, by developing the blank areas on the map are we actually starving our souls and exterminating true beauty and balance from our world forever?
There's one way to know for sure. I'd encourage every human being, as an utmost life priority, to GO TO a blank place on a map as a destination, while they still exist. Spend at least 3 or 4 days there, preferably in a wilderness area, and see how you feel, how it changes you.... See if it doesn't "reset" you back to your _natural_ state after "the city wears off"....
If you never do this, you may never know what your natural state really is...ie, what it feels like to be in the natural human state, what it feels like to be YOU in your natural, human state.... I assert that when you know and experience this for yourself, you will KNOW the truth of it, without a doubt. No "proof" will be required for you, as it will be so unavoidably and undeniably obvious to you.
In my experience, it usually takes 3-4 days for "the city to wear off." Yet, after it does, and your system is rebalanced--or "balanced" for perhaps the first time--there's a whole different experience of reality, a pristine clarity that emerges.... As all your artificial stress and worry slowly melts away, and all the incessant mental chatter begins to quiet, a dormant yet essential part of you awakens...and the world "comes alive" in new ways: Colors, smells, sounds, and tastes are more vibrant.... The infinite shapes, depths, and textures tweak your consciousness out of the mundane and relatively boring norm of the "straight lines, flat surfaces and mostly boxy shapes of Dead Things"...as everything around you begins to pulsate with Aliveness and three- (sometimes four-) dimensional beauty....
You remember "who you really are" (as opposed to "who you think you are" or "who society tells you you are"). Finally liberated from all the stress and worry and rushing around and non-stop distractions of "modern life in the developed world"...finally free of all the ubiquitous external messages about who you are and what you should hold as important (designed to keep you buying and surrendering your life energy to keep others in luxury and power)...you . . s l o w d o w n . . and reconnect with what's truly important in life...and with what's truly important to YOU....
A clear perspective on your life and the world that is both broader and higher than the perspectives that you were capable of accessing from within "civilization" emerges almost effortlessly. You begin to notice new ideas. Powerful, ingenious ways of seeing things that you somehow never thought of before. Untapped creativity and higher wisdom starts to become available to you...providing you with new and better solutions to the challenges and problems of the mundane and out-of-balance city life. (Einstein said, "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.")
Please do NOT believe me on this: Try this out for yourself and see if this (or something even better) is true for you....
(But, if you do, please leave your TV, radio, cell phone, video games, magazines, and gadgets behind. Leave at home any thing which will distract your attention from the present moment...and from the symphony of rich and pristine stimuli reaching your senses...and from the even more beautiful--yet so easily missed--SILENCE which provides the context for the symphony...and from connecting with the natural majesty, balance and wisdom before you.... Otherwise, you'll miss the opportunity to experience something truly new, refreshingly different and vitally important out there...and inside yourself....)
After spending several days in a genuine wilderness area, you may also experience a deeper calm, a brighter bliss, a more perspicacious wisdom and a higher high than you've ever experienced. I believe this to be the natural human state (high, calm, blissful, brilliant, in perfect balance/harmony) that gets occluded (without our even being aware of it) by the developed, mechanized, populated, artificial and "civilized" world in which most of us have lived nearly every day of our lives.
Reminds me of the science experiment with the frogs and boiling water. Throw a frog into boiling water and it will, of course, jump out immediately...and survive. The drastic change from a healthy environment to a hostile one is so obvious, and the frog reacts instinctively to liberate itself from the harmful environment.
Put a frog in water at room temperature, however, and slowly turn up the heat one degree at a time...and the frog eventually dies in the boiling water. The slower, subtle changes go unnoticed, as the frog continually recalibrates "normal" to equal the current state of the "only slightly more unhealthy that before" environment. In this process, the natural, internal, instinctual alarm which would tell the frog to jump out when the temperature starts getting critical, is repeatedly silenced, repeatedly repressed.
You are the frog, and the ever developing world is raising the temperature slowly, but steadily.... Are you aware, or have you silenced your inner alarm? How will you know for sure...?
If we have repressed our instinctual inner alarms, can we wake up to how we are re-calibrating "normal" to match our increasingly unhealthy artificial/mechanized/developed world, or will we die in the boiling water? What if we have no more reference points (blank spots on the map) of what non-boiling water even feels like? If we could get the frog to wake up to the slowly rising temperature, yet the whole ocean were boiling (no blank spots on the map), where would the frog jump to...?
Or, what if just a small minority of the frogs were more sensitive, and realized (in scalding pain and terror) both that the metaphorical temperature was critically high, and that the actions of other blissfully less sensitive frogs were rapidly removing the last few non-boiling places for any of them to jump to...?
How would the aware frogs awaken their brothers and sisters from their dreams of "more, bigger, faster" before it was too late for any of them...?
To quote Einstein again, "Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex and more violent. It takes a touch of genius--and a lot of courage--to move in the opposite direction."
But, how do millions (billions?) of intelligent fools awaken to a touch a genius (and a lot of courage)...?
Two of the most powerful ways I know are though Silence and time spent in the few Wondrously Blank and Silent places left on our maps.
How things play out on this planet may not be within your ultimate control (although it might!) Who You are amidst all of it definitely is, however....
Thought for Today: "Environment is stronger than willpower." How is yours shaping you?
FYI: Here's the latest on the fight to keep the Arctic Refuge Wondrously Blank:
http://www.nrdcactionfund.org/
WONDROUSLY BLANK: A PLEA FOR THE ARCTIC NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE by T. A. Barron
The world would be far poorer, Aldo Leopold famously observed, "without a blank spot on the map." Yet it wasn't long ago that U.S. Senator Frank Murkowski from Alaska stood in the Senate chamber and declared indignantly that the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was no more remarkable than a blank piece of paper.
What, really, is a blank spot on the map? What is its value? These questions are difficult to answer -- especially for a money-driven, mechanized society such as ours.
A blank spot, despite its lack of attention from mapmakers, is not empty. While it is devoid of cities, villages, roads, and monuments (as well as drill rigs, trash heaps, billboards, and wrecked vehicles) -- it may be full of other attractions. Such as scenic wonder. Or silence. Or wildlife in grand abundance.
And something else, as well. A blank spot on the map often contains precious opportunities for people to explore their outer world -- and their inner selves. For a blank spot implies no limits. It is a place of endless reach -- for the sunlit horizon, as well as for the human spirit.
No place on our planet is more richly, wondrously blank than the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Within its nearly twenty million acres of terrain lies the last stretch of protected coastline in Alaska, as well as the coastal plain -- the fragile tundra wetland that is America's premier birthing ground for arctic wildlife. Caribou migrate over 1,000 miles round trip every year to reach this place; migratory birds from every corner of the country seek refuge here.
This is the place that George Bush, Dick Cheney, and their supporters in the energy industry want to invade and cover with roads, drilling pads, and heavy machinery. To fill in the map. To darken one of the most pristine spots on Earth.
If they do succeed -- on the spurious claim that our nation absolutely must suck out whatever oil lurks beneath this land (even though the most inflated estimates show the Refuge providing only a tiny fraction of America's needs, and only delivering that a decade from now) -- they will, indeed, darken this spot. With the inevitable oil spills on the tundra. With the bodies of dead caribou calves. And, worst of all, with the shadows of a lost opportunity to protect a place that is truly sacred -- and wondrously blank.
My experience is that everything in the natural world is in a perfect state of equilibrium: You can learn to actually feel this as self evident reality if you spend enough time out in nature. Even if you're not yet able to tune in consciously to the balanced harmony of the natural world, I've observed (in the many people I've taken out into nature with me), that the bioelectrical system that is your human body actually adjusts to this, entering a deeper state of equilibrium itself while out in nature (even with physical and emotional healing effects), whether you're consciously aware of it or not.
Our artificial/developed/humanized world is generally very out of balance. The man-made world is also, relatively speaking, very ugly. I definitely do *feel* the difference, and do my best to spend at least one day a week out in the true beauty and balance of nature. Why devote 1/7 of my life to this...?
Otherwise, the "out of balance" state of the artificial/ developed/humanized world of steel and concrete and machines and noise and stress and ugliness and power plants and pollution and traffic and human dysfunction and paved-over Earth and pipes and poles and wires and billboards and commercials and human waste and garbage and all the different chemicals and electromagnetic fields and radiation from lights, electricity, cell phones, radio waves, microwaves, TV's, computers, etc. that stream through our bodies every second of every day become "the norm"...and I forget what *true* balance really feels like...and what *true* beauty is...and how each of us needs to be *truly* healthy in body, mind and soul.
Without undisturbed nature areas, I lose my reference point for "natural" and "normal" and "good" and "balanced" and "beautiful" and "healthy"....
It's been said that nature is "food for the soul." So, as we develop more and more of the few remaining blank spots on the map, drill or mine or pave over more and more of our pristine nature/wilderness areas, are we actually starving our own souls...? What happens when the mind of a species starves its own soul...? If we can't put a dollar sign or monetary price on the human soul, how do we know what it's worth or true value is...?
Furthermore, if there are no blank spots on the map, and we all become calibrated to the "out of balance" ugliness of the artificial/developed/humanized world, how will we even be able to even know/remember what true balance and true beauty feels like...? What happens when the knowledge of what true balance/beauty actually is is finally eradicated from all our maps and, thus, disappears from human existence and becomes extinct from human experience forever...? If we have neither a map nor reference point for genuine, unadulterated, harmonious beauty and balance, how will we ever be able to bring our artificial/developed/humanized world more into a state of harmonious balance and beauty...?
So, by developing the blank areas on the map are we actually starving our souls and exterminating true beauty and balance from our world forever?
There's one way to know for sure. I'd encourage every human being, as an utmost life priority, to GO TO a blank place on a map as a destination, while they still exist. Spend at least 3 or 4 days there, preferably in a wilderness area, and see how you feel, how it changes you.... See if it doesn't "reset" you back to your _natural_ state after "the city wears off"....
If you never do this, you may never know what your natural state really is...ie, what it feels like to be in the natural human state, what it feels like to be YOU in your natural, human state.... I assert that when you know and experience this for yourself, you will KNOW the truth of it, without a doubt. No "proof" will be required for you, as it will be so unavoidably and undeniably obvious to you.
In my experience, it usually takes 3-4 days for "the city to wear off." Yet, after it does, and your system is rebalanced--or "balanced" for perhaps the first time--there's a whole different experience of reality, a pristine clarity that emerges.... As all your artificial stress and worry slowly melts away, and all the incessant mental chatter begins to quiet, a dormant yet essential part of you awakens...and the world "comes alive" in new ways: Colors, smells, sounds, and tastes are more vibrant.... The infinite shapes, depths, and textures tweak your consciousness out of the mundane and relatively boring norm of the "straight lines, flat surfaces and mostly boxy shapes of Dead Things"...as everything around you begins to pulsate with Aliveness and three- (sometimes four-) dimensional beauty....
You remember "who you really are" (as opposed to "who you think you are" or "who society tells you you are"). Finally liberated from all the stress and worry and rushing around and non-stop distractions of "modern life in the developed world"...finally free of all the ubiquitous external messages about who you are and what you should hold as important (designed to keep you buying and surrendering your life energy to keep others in luxury and power)...you . . s l o w d o w n . . and reconnect with what's truly important in life...and with what's truly important to YOU....
A clear perspective on your life and the world that is both broader and higher than the perspectives that you were capable of accessing from within "civilization" emerges almost effortlessly. You begin to notice new ideas. Powerful, ingenious ways of seeing things that you somehow never thought of before. Untapped creativity and higher wisdom starts to become available to you...providing you with new and better solutions to the challenges and problems of the mundane and out-of-balance city life. (Einstein said, "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.")
Please do NOT believe me on this: Try this out for yourself and see if this (or something even better) is true for you....
(But, if you do, please leave your TV, radio, cell phone, video games, magazines, and gadgets behind. Leave at home any thing which will distract your attention from the present moment...and from the symphony of rich and pristine stimuli reaching your senses...and from the even more beautiful--yet so easily missed--SILENCE which provides the context for the symphony...and from connecting with the natural majesty, balance and wisdom before you.... Otherwise, you'll miss the opportunity to experience something truly new, refreshingly different and vitally important out there...and inside yourself....)
After spending several days in a genuine wilderness area, you may also experience a deeper calm, a brighter bliss, a more perspicacious wisdom and a higher high than you've ever experienced. I believe this to be the natural human state (high, calm, blissful, brilliant, in perfect balance/harmony) that gets occluded (without our even being aware of it) by the developed, mechanized, populated, artificial and "civilized" world in which most of us have lived nearly every day of our lives.
Reminds me of the science experiment with the frogs and boiling water. Throw a frog into boiling water and it will, of course, jump out immediately...and survive. The drastic change from a healthy environment to a hostile one is so obvious, and the frog reacts instinctively to liberate itself from the harmful environment.
Put a frog in water at room temperature, however, and slowly turn up the heat one degree at a time...and the frog eventually dies in the boiling water. The slower, subtle changes go unnoticed, as the frog continually recalibrates "normal" to equal the current state of the "only slightly more unhealthy that before" environment. In this process, the natural, internal, instinctual alarm which would tell the frog to jump out when the temperature starts getting critical, is repeatedly silenced, repeatedly repressed.
You are the frog, and the ever developing world is raising the temperature slowly, but steadily.... Are you aware, or have you silenced your inner alarm? How will you know for sure...?
If we have repressed our instinctual inner alarms, can we wake up to how we are re-calibrating "normal" to match our increasingly unhealthy artificial/mechanized/developed world, or will we die in the boiling water? What if we have no more reference points (blank spots on the map) of what non-boiling water even feels like? If we could get the frog to wake up to the slowly rising temperature, yet the whole ocean were boiling (no blank spots on the map), where would the frog jump to...?
Or, what if just a small minority of the frogs were more sensitive, and realized (in scalding pain and terror) both that the metaphorical temperature was critically high, and that the actions of other blissfully less sensitive frogs were rapidly removing the last few non-boiling places for any of them to jump to...?
How would the aware frogs awaken their brothers and sisters from their dreams of "more, bigger, faster" before it was too late for any of them...?
To quote Einstein again, "Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex and more violent. It takes a touch of genius--and a lot of courage--to move in the opposite direction."
But, how do millions (billions?) of intelligent fools awaken to a touch a genius (and a lot of courage)...?
Two of the most powerful ways I know are though Silence and time spent in the few Wondrously Blank and Silent places left on our maps.
How things play out on this planet may not be within your ultimate control (although it might!) Who You are amidst all of it definitely is, however....
Thought for Today: "Environment is stronger than willpower." How is yours shaping you?
FYI: Here's the latest on the fight to keep the Arctic Refuge Wondrously Blank:
http://www.nrdcactionfund.org/
posted by Rich at 1:05 PM
1 Comments:
I hate to play devils advocate but I feel I have to with the blank spot on the map and give it another perspective or point of view.
From the blog/comment/article my take from it is an emotional plea for saving a past from where we all once came. To preserve, protect, and hold on to as a balance of equilibrium or healing of one's soul. The premise of the article or key theme is "balance of nature". The question was, "where else will we get this balance?" In my humble opinion the answer is everywhere around us. It's in the stars in the sky, in the cities we live in, in the people you see everyday at work, in your neighborhoods, at the stores we shop, concerts, libraries, school, parties, social events, etc. The balance is us. We are ever evolving beings. For some reason, we are now in control of this planet and will continue to expand. While we are here, we have limited resources, a finite state of land, oil, food, housing, etc on this planet. Logic would indicate we are going to eventually use up all our resources someday on this planet. We will eventually populate this entire planet....if things continue in this process....including the oceans. Depleting if of all life. Every inch of this planet someday might be covered with cities and everything that goes with living in them. For better or worse, this seems to be our destiny. Our need for expansion is so strong, it's in our core for existence. This would include the need to elimate/drain all our natural resources. I feel once this is done on the process, we will start to look for alternative resources. It's seems we only look for alternatives when we have no other choices. My base/core premise in response to “the balance of nature” is this balance a relative term/perspective. The circle indicates the preservation of nature and its nature resources and to really learn of balance one must live or reside is in nature for a length of time. However, if this is the case, the very argument/premise would indicate we are selves are in a state of nature with a few small changes. We have upset this circle by conforming and changing our environment. We have made an artificial environment to suit our needs for our own existence and to flourish within it. Hence, we have created a balance to survive. I would ask you to look beyond this planet and many many years from now and ask your self a question, where will we be as a people/race five to ten thousand years from now? I thoughts are we will be branching out to inhabit other planets. Our destiny is to expand and populate the cosmos itself. While in this process, someday we might evolve to beings not needing natural resources. However, in this process, I foresee us striping other worlds from their resources. I envision a time we will be in harmony with the cosmos around us and even ourselves and the very universe we reside in. However, I will be long gone by then.
In feel it is a necessary evil that man must learn from mistakes. Much like that frog analogy, we are the type of beings that must burn their mistakes. Our hands must get burned by a fire before learning fire is hot. This doesn't mean everyone learns this way. You can image back in time, a band of cave dwelling pre-historic man first finding out about fire. And one placing a hand only to burn his/her hands on the fire the first time they touched it. Perhaps two or three others felt compelled to feel it for themselves, while others saw the effects, reactions of their clansmen and didn't or wouldn’t touch the fire. Hence, learning from effects it had on the ones touching the fire. However, this process was magnified and repeated over hundreds of tribes. You would like to think we have evolved far from this wouldn’t you, but slow down and really think and ask yourself another question, have we really?
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