The Kingdoms of All!?!

Well, disregarding the preposterously pretentious title of this posting, I do have something to say, really worth saying.

Let's just get to it right off:

I've always thought Reincarnation sounded like an interesting idea, despite the fact that we live in a non-hierarchical culture these days, and some of the examplars of this 'new age' in thinking would have a hard time saying a dog is 'greater' than a bird, or a bird 'greater' than a worm, etc.  I however, do think there is a hierarchy, but a hierarchy that extends at least above, if not below, the animal kingdom as we know it on Earth.  Thus, depending how goof - I mean 'good' - of a person I am when I die, I will either go up or down - in other words, I will move up into the spiritual realm (Heaven), or I will be reincarnated as a rodent or something (reincarnation's 'Purgatory') or head straight-on down. I don't believe the spiritual realm is aswim with soft, equivalent figures living, in a murk of love, however 'nice' that sounds to some.  No, I believe that in the heavenly realms there is a hierarchy of angels that leads up to being very close to God:

GOD

Seraphim
Cherubim
Thrones
Dominions
Virtues
Powers
Principalities
Archangels
Angels

Humans

Mammals
Birds
Reptiles
Amphibians
Fishes
Echinoderms
Molluscs
Anthropods
Worms
Coelenterates
Sponges

Demons

SATAN


I'm not filling in the demon hierarchy because that would just be too cruel and too depressing (and I believe too few to mention are headed that far South).  But the list above gives the gist of it.  I  firmly believe the vast, vast majority of humans living today will be animals of the middle or lower classifications in their next lives.  It's just so easy and it just feels so darn good -  being cruel, cynical, and unconscionable, and lying (not just verbal lies, either - but behavioral lies, socioeconomic lies and just plain pretending you're something you're not for whatever reasons). A small handful will descend into Hell, but this sort of talk is too cruel and too depressing.

As Christ said, "Many are called, but few are chosen."  Those "few chosen", a statistical blip, will move on up the ladder to become Angels, most likely.  Doubtfully, but just maybe, there may be an Archangel in our midst - Kierkegaard's "Knight of Faith", so to speak, who will rub elbows with Gabriel  and Michael on a higher plane someday.


I don't know. Hehe.  It's FUN to be self-righteous and judgemental and really condemnatory once in a while, isn't it?

Cat's Breath

I have a small urn in my bedroom that contains the ashes of my 15 year old cat, Basho.

He seemed fine weeks before his death, but the end came suddenly and swooped in; after a couple nights at the vet hospital, well, during the second night, he died from kidney failure.  Nothing could be done.   It was a renal inevitability - the veterinarians can't currently do any thing about it.

It's 2 1/2 weeks since his passing, and the house doesn't feel as eerie or as empty as it supposedly should.  I don't know if he was ever very comfortable here.  He certainly was aloof, as cats should be, and feigned any sort of 'need' for us.  Though I loved him, I feel like he was just making do with the current arrangements, a best as he could.  I find prolonged emotions difficult to summon up now.  I take medication, maybe that's the 'difficulty', as I put it.  Maybe they block emotions, a common complaint amongst my fellow pill-poppers.  Maybe it's just me.

I'm left here.  But I plan on burying Basho soon.  There's a tree in the woods with a marker on it, oddly enough - a metal cut-out of a running cat, nailed maybe 10 ft. up a maple.  It looks like the fleeing ghost of a cat.  I think it will suit him, and I'll bury him at the tree's base.  I'll miss him. Hope his little white marker stays nailed where it is.  I'd hate it to be taken away, and lose him out there.

Blood from the Stars?

In the future, we may go to the store or shop online for a blood sample from a star; a movie star, music star, sports star.  A little taste of what it is like to be that person.  They boost up athletes all the time with samples of  blood that’s been doped with some or other drug, taken and stored, and then transfused later (i.e. the timely Mr. Armstrong).  But I think the idea's a little icky now – maybe hormones or some brain chemical might be used instead, something less messy.  Something from someone like Jim Carrey might be a blast – imagine if you could feel his manic energy for an hour or two?!  Now there’s a quadrillion dollar idea right there!?!?!

(p.s. Hey, I'm behind the times, if anything.  Deacades ago, Hunter S. Thompson would get serious kicks by tapping the adrenal glands of schizophrenics.)

A Grin without a Cat

I hope you're not totally unfamiliar with the story of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland".  You may know it was written by a thirty-something  Victorian mathematician by the name of  Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, (who used the pseudonym 'Lewis Carroll', as we all know).  There is a scene which sticks out to me in "Alice", that I'd like to share.  The Cheshire cat.  Alice runs into this character en route on her adventures.  He presents himself to her initially as simply a very wide grin, hovering in the air.  The rest of the cat's body arrives a little bit later.

Around the time of Lewis Carroll and Alice Liddell and the Cheshire cat, a philosopher was cooking up a rather revolutionary idea.  Simply put, and just as it was with the Cheshire cat, the grin comes first - - then  everything else.  This philosopher's name was William James and he believed precisely that - that when we smile, the grin comes first and the happiness second.  Now this sounds a little like nonsense, probably.  Victorian, Carroll-esque nonsense.  But James was convinced that when we're talking about emotions and their physical expression, we smile first and our smiling face tells our brain that we are smiling, and as it knows smiling means happiness, our brain makes us happy.  Common sensically, it's always the other way around.  Namely, we feel happiness and then we smile because we are happy.  The emotion precedes the physical response.  James thought the opposite.  I don't know, unfortunately, which side won out.  In the historical scheme of things, William James isn't too well known, so we might assume that at least in a popular sense, common sense prevailed.

Nevertheless, I don't quite buy that James was wrong.  Why? I remember reading something written quite some time after James, something  by C.S. Lewis (of "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" fame) --  a book called "Mere Christianity".  (Now, don't get scared off because some religion is entering the fray.  It isn't.)  Mr. Lewis states at one point that if you're feeling down, turn the frown upside down literally, and keep it there for several minutes and you'll become happy!  This sounds maudlin, but it's true.  I've tried it.  And it works.  Curiouser and curiouser!

James was right, only his theory takes longer to manifest itself.  I would agree that when one is happy, we smile as a response to that.  But I also believe if we are to put a smile on our face - and it needn't be a Cheshire-cat-sized super-grin, even a slight smile will work - within several minutes we will start to feel better and even get a little happy.

I like outsiders like William James because he, like Lewis Carroll, were rebels and chose to look at things differently.  I also like C.S. Lewis for saying something, years and years after James, that is still basic biological truth.

So, if it moves thee, flip a frown around and get a little happier, however nonsensical that may sound.

:) Cheers!

In the Spirit of Things

The definition of ANIMISM:

 

1

: a doctrine that the vital principle of organic development is immaterial spirit

2

: attribution of conscious life to objects in and phenomena of nature or to inanimate objects

3

: belief in the existence of spirits separable from bodies 

                                                   - according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary 

(As animism has been around for a while, well predating the time of Jesus Christ, it may vex the blog-reader to find this blog-entry to start things off on such a familiar and ancient note.  But I think it needs a reiteration.)

There may be a time in our lifetimes when apologizing to a tea-kettle after absent-mindedly complaining about its boiling too slowly, will be a norm.  Why, pray tell would we be animistically apologizing to inanimate objects someday?  For one, practice.  It will be a big pile of hooey, but some people will justify such behavior by saying 'we are just practicing to be good and loving with everything, including our kitchen appliances'.  These objects might even be imagined to possess some rudimentary level of consciousness.  Subjectivity will reign.  The idea of the metaphor will probably squeezed out of existence, as every object viewed will be an extension of oneself.  We will see ourselves in everything.  Much the same way we identify with heroes (or villains) in the movies.  They are someone we want to be, they are someone we could possibly be - they are us!!  The act of looking at a movie and making these kinds of assumptions will similarly be held in daily life.  Just as movies also animate objects  - such as in an animated feature like "Beauty and the Beast" or some such - so too will we see our daily objects as quiet, stunned animals.  Some mystic taxidermy summoning porcelain from a vulcanic pit to preserve the pre-being; now, 'object'-ified.  Animals preserved in formaldehyde bottles, as much as live animals, would be tantamount to a cup of tea with your favorite friend, your tea cup.

I'm reminded also of Buddhism.  I once had the chance to see Buddhist monks in action on the news, gingerly removing the worms from a newly dug hole, preserving them and keeping them from some sort of misplaced and cruel death.  They believe in reincarnation of course.  But oddly, they have nothing against self-immolation, such as was practiced to demonstrate against the Vietnam War.  So a worm's life is more valuable than one's own.  And, so too, I think objects will come to mean and carry more 'life', more 'spirit' in them than some of us, so that a car, a diamond ring, a gun, and so on will be treated and held in popular and major esteem higher than the spirit of a man or woman.   

Of course, animism might never take hold of people as I'm guessing it will.  And it shouldn't be too harmful if we attribute human characteristics to inanimate objects, especially if this is helping people be kinder and more humane to each other, as I suggested above.  The real worry comes when the opposite comes true in tandem with the animism - the accompanying belief that we humans don't actually possess souls; that souls don't exist.  Especially when the self-assured smugness of a tea-kettle that boils too slowly seems to focus on you regularly --  its inferior now, in many ways, -- and makes one see in the void of its spout, as Auden put it, "a lane to the land of the dead".

Zen of the Day

First things first - "The Flower Sermon"

 The beginning of Zen can be traced to a brief but important incident, when the Buddha had gathered his monks together for a “Dharma talk”.  The Buddha sat in front of the monks, not saying a word.  The monks were worried. At length, he reached down and plucked a small flower, possibly a daisy,  and twirled it in his fingers --

... — Hold you here, root and all,
in my hand, Little flower—
but if I could understand
What you are, root and all,
and all in all,        5
I should know what God and man is.


(From "FLOWER in the crannied wall" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson)

The monks offered several interpretations of what the flower meant, but were all wrong. One monk, Mahākāśyapa, understood, however, and laughed.  The Buddha knew then that this monk had achieved enlightenment. How did he know?  Because Buddhism until then had been about words and writing and speaking.  When the Buddha twirled the flower, he was demonstrating the religion become experiential, free from verbal explanations.  The flower was the flower itself. How can one explain or interpret a flower.  It simply “is”.  Buddhism was itself, as well.  It should need no explanation or interpretation. It is as free as the flower -- “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin” (Matthew 6:28):

 "ZenOfTheDay"

2500 years later, I came across a wonderful app -  "ZenOfTheDay" - on ITunes.

Essentially, each day you get a quote.  There is Japanese music in the background.  Also, nicely, there is a brief animation at the beginning which plays like "The Flower Sermon", appropriately enough. In the animation, the Buddha glides along but trips -- a lotus flower tucked behind his ear plops into a bowl of water he is holding.  This gives the Buddha great joy, for he realizes that one can stumble accidentally into Enlightenment.  A Zen nun seated in the background, perhaps here meant to represent Mahākāśyapa, also smiles broadly, and then offers to us her wisdom, offering her bowl as a symbol of the Buddha’s bowl.  

 The bowl is empty but from the emptiness arises wise words much the way Zen monks pass onto their students “koans” (sayings which are meant to be contemplated and meditated on, before the answer is finally found and there is enlightenment).  This is one of the ways Zen Buddhism goes - each patriarch (enlightened monk in the line of monks extending from Buddha to the present day) passes his/her wisdom along.  "In the beginning, there was the Word," much as there is in the early stages of Buddhism, when one begins to travel the path from initiate to enlightened person.  In "ZenOfTheDay" We are offered quotes which, like koans, serve to introduce us to wisdom and the road to enlightenment. 

And there is fun in trying to figure out what the koans/quotes mean, as well.  There is happiness when koans/quotes strike a chord of familiarity, crystallizing something known but never fully defined in the mind of the reader. A spark goes off; the other quotes, less familiar, can be savored  over, can be thought about, til one finds the truth in them.  Each morning, another flower of wisdom appears for one to consider throughout the day.  It’s a nice touch. A nice app.  Happy as a big, ponderous Buddha, I happily recommend "ZenOfTheDay". 

All the World's a Stage

New Year's Eve 2011 is but a day away.  There were a lot of political things that happened this year, things which set the drummer's drumming in their paper spinning rooms.  Inklings of tomorrow's work already staining their hands, and yet always new and different, even to them.  Industry, ho!!

I wanted to touch a little on a phenomenon which has been going on for a long while and will continue to happen in an unexpected way into the future.

Evolutionary stages.  Big, boggy words there.  Going back to the "Big Bang", forward through time towards us, there are a string of ever-shrinking evolutionary stages.  The first stage, way, way back, was several billion years long. The next, very long as well, but shorter.

Follow the stages along up to the appearance of earliest humans, 2 million years ago.  After this appeared the various stages of man.  Off this diagram, then, are the stages closer to our own time.  Anyone in anyway familiar with anthropology and human history will know modern, "civilized" humans have only been around for the last several thousand years.  There have been evolutionary stages as well since the beginning of civilization, not only at geological and biological levels, but also socially/culturally -- a clock melting and waning sweetly away.  In the last several hundred years have been increasingly smaller  and smaller evolutionary periods.  In the last half century evolutionary stages are short enough in duration to happen within an individual's lifetime.  These stages continue shrinking.  Where does this lead?

Mayan Cosmogenesis.  December, 2012.  The increasingly shrinking evolutionary periods will reach a point - a point at which shrinkage will no longer be possible, and then "flip".  Evolutionary periods will start to slowly - slowly, but Shirley - start growing in size.  It will be as if a higher being held a mirror to our history and reflected in that mirror our future. Slowly, our evolutionary stages will take longer and longer.  I imagine some of us who live long enough will eventually find evolutionary periods extending past a lifetime's length.

Most noticeably, this change will influence the speed of progress, the incessant hammering away of technology with its insistent, feverish pitch of capitalistic innovation. I think the harried pace of life in general will slow. We may look back on our lives of this past century, and wonder how we handled the frenzied buzz of everyday life.

No doubt, I could be wrong. I have nothing to prove anything I have to say.  It is just a hunch, a hunch which I am loathe to admit I have not entirely a total faith in.  So, it can come across as dinner table banter, or some such, and will have to go that way:

"Oh, look, we've said our part -- How time flies!"