18. A School of Fish, A Gaggle of Geese...
A Miracle of Molecules
Every little experience, together with its emotional content, its sensory components, and its relationship to our beliefs and expectations is registered in our subconscious in molecular form. Fear for instance, is immediately available, though we may go about our business for any length of time without feeling the slightest twinge. Where does fear go when not in use? The same place memories go when they are not being recalled.
Every nuance of this moment exists in combination as a unique blend of atomic frequencies – the matter that forms Reality but on a more basic level. Although we are in the midst of this immense pattern, we cannot possibly perceive it all consciously, and so quite naturally, we shine the spotlight of our attention, only on the parts that suggest some relationship to our lives. The way we see ourselves, our world and life itself determines which details we'll examine, and how we'll look at them this time. But a lot of other information exists in each twinkling instant, and much of it is consigned to a subconscious level because it seems to have no purpose in our lives, nothing helpful to convey, and no pleasure to offer.
As soon as we concentrate on a particular thought (memory, emotion, object) or emotional state, everything else must recede, if only to the next place in line just beyond our focused attention. If my thoughts and feelings have converged on some irritating episode, for instance, I am not thinking specifically about the driver who let me into traffic or about a co-worker’s kind words (and I’m certainly not allotting it as much of my energy, as I am to the thought-most-conscious).
If I am feeling peaceful, I am not feeling angry. If I am intent on watching the sparrows in the birdbath, I might not notice the blue jay in the tree behind me. However, if I scan—and try to take full notice of everything around me—I may see a moment of both, or I might just as easily see neither.
- Choice and what we perceive as chance come together as experience.
- What we choose to view and how we choose to perceive it begin to form “future” combinations of choice and chance.
When a memory is no longer being recalled, or when an emotion passes, that particular combination of molecules collapses or breaks apart. Some molecules disconnect completely into their basic constituents: atomic elements, whereupon they regroup with other elements, to become new molecular manifestations such as the flavouring of another emotion, or the construction of a blood or stem cell or such. Others retain their molecular form, but all are transforming, moving, changing, and becoming this moment's pattern. At any given instant, many elements can be called into service to reassert a pattern, or to form an entirely new one.
When we daydream, our mental spotlight on the details of the external world is diffused, as illumination is increased on a broader field: the stuff of our subconscious mind. Although we can remain acutely aware of our surroundings, and alert to changes in our environment, our thoughts become less specific. Here, at an unconscious level, all aspects of reality exist simultaneously.
Obviously, we cannot examine or express all-thought-at-the-same-time, for we exist in a tangible, time-bound dimension. The best we can do is to choose which thoughts are worthy of our conscious contemplation and expression.
Once we concentrate our energy, or will or focus, back onto the present world, we are often unable to decide what the main thrust of our daydream was. If someone comes along and asks what we were thinking, we might clutch at one tiny part of our meditation (though we know that it doesn't truly represent the whole) or we may not be able to retrieve a single word, picture, or idea, and assume that our mind was blank. [See: Right Hemisphere]
Although the experience at Trooper Lake (Post #17) wound up in some variation of that daydream-like state, it had not begun that way. Rather than shutting out the external world, I had been focusing on it. Smelling and feeling the sweet fresh breeze, listening to the soft whir of hummingbird wings, and the hollow tapping of a distant woodpecker, gazing upon the profusion of wildflowers that had changed through the season: all my senses were fully engaged. I was thinking only of how unutterably splendid my natural surroundings were, and how very lucky I was to be in the midst of them.
As the sensation began to subside, I walked across the deck, moving as automatically as I could to avoid landing on any particular thought. When I had kept a dream journal many years earlier, I had found that if I considered a dream before writing it down, my focus would change and much of it would slip away. The words would flow however, if I simply let myself write without conscious censure or interference. So I slipped inside the cottage, grabbed a notebook, and without awareness or intention, found myself writing the words: Breaking the Faith Barrier.
posted by Winter Child @ 9:27 a.m.
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1 Comments:
wow! interesting blog
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