It comes to all of us
I suppose
Who aspire
Perspire
Inspire
Expire
To be good
To do good
To feel good
In the eyes of our selves
In the eyes of others
In the eyes of mothers
Fathers
.
Only to flail
Slip and slither
To the base of a well
In our own private Hell
Where none can fathom
What depth there can be
Beneath what we see
Before where we started
And find in that place
A smidgeon of grace
Midst the vastness of space
Recalling us to life
…
For further exploration of the depth of ‘natural self-inclusion in neighbourhood’, please visit http://www.spanglefish.com/exploringnaturalinclusion
Evolution in Response to Receptive Invitation
Here, as in the above short video presentation, I want to ask a simple but ultimately deep and far-reaching question:-
“Who or what is your neighbourhood?”
Why do I ask this question? Why does it deserve your special attention when you are already so bombarded with so many other concerns in your modern everyday life? What difference could seeking an answer to it make to your life, my life, human life, life on Earth?
What thoughts, feelings, sensations and intuitions are aroused in you as you contemplate this question? Does it arouse your…
How we answer this question affects not only the way we understand life, but also the degree to which we hold ourselves responsible for what happens to us.
Here it may help us to take a step beyond our immediate human concerns and consider what a tree, for example can tell us about decision-making.
It’s a helpful example, because a tree actually records its life experience in its bodily form: its branching pattern, its leaf and bud scars, its growth rings, its healed and unhealed wounds.
When we examine this record, how do we interpret it?
Do we view it…
All arises from and all returns to silence.
All dynamically includes and is included within silence.
There can be no sound without silence.
Silence is in the depth of our souls and the tread of our soles.
Calling all into flow-formation
The everlasting grace of infinite, receptive space,
Ignored by Pride & Prejudice,
Adored by Sense & Sensibility*.
For further exploration of the silence within, throughout and all around us, please visit http://www.spanglefish.com/exploringnaturalinclusion
From Abstract Exclusion to Natural Inclusion
There’s nothing more upsetting
Than being ignored
When that receptive calling for what we need -
Food, water, knowledge, understanding, love -
To keep us alive
Dwelling in the seat of souls
Goes unheard
By blithe spirits
Certain of their prowess
Soaring above us all
With heads in the clouds
Excised from bodily belonging
In natural neighbourhood
.
Talking down to us
In superior tones
From outside
Like airy fairies
Lacking substance
While seeing only what’s made to measure
Unaware of how we feel and what we know inside
Our embodied inner vision
Which we could tell them if they…
When you hear someone call out in pain
Do you assume there’s something wrong with them
That needs to be put right?
.
A lack of resilience
A screw loose somewhere
A basic design fault
A deficient sense of humour
A failure to adapt,
Keep calm and carry on
Regardless
.
Or do you wonder
What’s gone wrong for them
That calls for attention?
.
A good slave
In a good slave-owner’s eyes
Is one who does what they are told
Without complaint
.
So, who’s wrong, what’s wrong
When a slave calls out in pain?
.
Is it the…
“No man is an island entire of it self” (John Donne)
I have never felt self-sufficient. Very far from it. I am acutely aware of my own fallibility and consequent need for trusting companionship with others who can help me out of a fix while I do the same for them. I am equally aware of my unique individual qualities, experience and skills and how these can contribute co-creatively with others’ to the common good. I feel pleasure and joy in making my contribution and benefiting from others’. I recognise that collectively combining complementary individual qualities is the essence of…
Life becomes a dreadful fright
When nobody can be trusted
Individually or collectively
To know or do what’s right
Least of all yourself
.
Is this what’s become of us
You and me
In this age of post-modernity
As we struggle to find our way clear
From complex entanglement
In webs of deceit
Constructed to entrap
Our minds, hearts and guts
In paralysed bodies
Awaiting consumption?
.
Is there really no way to know
What does and doesn’t make sense
As we wait in suspense
For who knows what
To ingest us as prey
In order to live
On what…
How can I, how can we
Escape those legacies of past pretence?
Those lofty aspirations
That distract us
From being as we are
Becoming what we can be:
Simply needful creatures
Looking for sustenance -
No more, no less
Than what keeps us alive
Our means to love and be loved
In our passing
From cradle to grave to cradle
In each other’s continual company
.
All these human inventions
That cut us adrift:
Money, property, status, certainty
And the fear of their loss
Through holes in our defences
Passing down generations
From what’s gone before
To what comes again
…
Alan Rayner
Alan Rayner is an evolutionary ecologist, writer and artist, who is pioneering the philosophy of natural inclusion
