Conversations with Craig

Craig is a homeless man that hangs out in my home town. Folks call him Smiley, I guess because his demeanor is pleasant. He has challenges. I'm not sure what they are, but he's been around for as long as I've been here, some 16 years. He rides his bicycle around town, picking through the waste bins for returnable bottles and cans.

I had occasion to speak with Craig this morning. Although his thinking is hard to follow, his vocabulary is quite something. Being a word buff myself, I was intrigued. I listened to what seemed like random ramblings, searching for...not the "sense"...but the reason the words were coming out the way they did.

It seemed like Craig was embracing the flavor, texture, and contours of the words, connecting them together to create thought-forms that "felt right". The thought-forms would often blend from one to another, and I had a tough time following them all. Each one had some consonant or resonant appeal, not just in the sounds of the words, but in the sketch of their meanings. Often, he moved too fast for me, from one wisp of a thought to another, but I found that they were not just random babblings.

I spent about 20 minutes with him. In that 20 minutes, I reflected back to him my understandings of his thoughts, helped him finish some of his sentences, and witnessed someone playing with words the way I do sometimes. I enjoyed it, even if I didn't follow all of it. It was possible to follow, though, I perceived.

A couple of mysteriously profound utterances that I'm pondering even now:

"One is a metaphor for zero".

How does that work? Well, I hadn't really thought of it before, but suddenly I resonated with the following: For me, zero feels like the undivided whole, embracing both the material universe and the void, that place of emptiness and fullness, nothingness and unrestrained potential. The container of everything that is and that isn't yet.

One, on the other hand, is also an undivided whole, but a more tangible one. A kind of whole that we can experience in daily life.

"All that exists" is the unity of all that is, the unity of creation. 1. I can see it as metaphor for the true wholeness, which includes the container and that which is yet to be. 0.

Perhaps also 0 is also metaphor for 1.

Craig also said something like, "Embracing the plural is to abandon the singular..."

I followed this one quite well. Duality is an illusion, but it's a convenient and seductive one. Most of us think of our embracing the plural to be a matter of practical utility. But once you cross that threshold, it's tough to go back. And the abandonment of the singular is a tragedy we are living through every day.

I'm not sure what I think of Craig. He's probably a troubled fellow. He looks to be in reasonable health, peering through the grime and the tattered clothing. He'd be hard-pressed to hold a job, even if he wanted one

Is he crazy? Maybe. Probably, in at least one sense of the word

Is he interesting? Surely.

Our conversation today was filled with interesting currents and metaphysical abstractions. I plan to talk with him again. Beyond the cosmology, philosophy, and metaphysics, I'll be interested to see what humanity I discover there.

Dog: Remote Harmonic Sensing/Amplification Device

... or "Connoisseur of a Good Vibe"?

What is a dog?

I had a revelation about these characters when I was out in the back yard with a friend of mine Saturday evening. Lately, I've been contemplating quantum reality, field effects, and the nature of Qi. Contemplating the notion that we're all fields, radiating and absorbing energy.

So I've been primed for some unusual perceptions.

My friend and I were chatting about this esoterica in the cool of the early night. My wife let the dogs out, and they spotted us there in the dark, and rushed out in a tizzy, sounding the alarm. Until, of course, they got to us, and then there was the sniffing and circling and the soft tones to calm them down and smooth them out.

And I thought, "What the heck is really going on here?"

I had a sudden vision of the resonant field that was myself, and the one that was my friend; of the general resonant field of the back yard, and the fields of each of the three dogs. Each of us had a different field, of course, because we're all unique.

What I found fascinating was what the dogs were doing. They were immersing themselves in the fields, sensing for harmonious interaction or dissonance. Where there was harmony, they amplified it, and enjoyed it immensely. Where there was dissonance or conflict, they sensed it and really didn't like it.

Their first experience was of transitioning from the house field to the back yard field at night. "Feels great," they said, and immersed themselves in it...only to sense two unexpected fields within the field.

Because it was unexpected, it was dissonant. "ALARM! ALARM!", and then the next level of investigation.

When they reached us, they were testing for harmony. When we spoke to them in calming tones, we were attempting to demonstrate the compatibility of our fields with one another, with the back yard, and with theirs. Showing them how all those fields could fit harmoniously together, so to speak.

So I got the sense that dogs were really like mobile sensing devices. They can go out into the world and register what's going on. If you have a good relationship with your dogs, they'll report back to you. If you have a great relationship with your dogs, they'll report back, quite specifically, on whether or not what they're sensing is harmonious with the things and people you care about. Of course, you ALSO have to have a well-developed field sensor, in order to understand what they're saying...

This line of thought also gave me new insight into how powerful a dog can be for a hunter. Very sharp remote sensing device, sending telemetry information back to the command center. In this case, there is significant value in the structure of the communication back to command. An average snout with a very sophisticated communication system is, I posit, much more valuable than a great snout with poor communication skills.

I think the communication skills that dogs develop are integrated with their vibe sensing and amplification skills. I suspect that may be how they communicate with us. They shape the carrier wave of our mutual communications to create a "vibe" that we can understand. They're not saying, "There's a rabbit over there!" Instead, I think they're saying, "I'm sensing a field of fear that is capable of moving very fast, emanating from that direction." Of course, it's informed by all their senses, including their spectacular olfactory system. But I think they're cognitive process is naturally inclined to the vibe, not the object.

Now, it's interesting to contemplate how our original relationship with dogs developed. Think of the evolving vibe, from the earliest interactions of curiosity (wolves considering humans and the smell of roasting meet around a fire) to the relationship of hunting pals to the modern relationship of family companion. Dogs have evolved along with us to become full participants in our family "field". They have quite a role, when you think of it this way. And thinking of it this way, one gets the sense of why some breeds are better for certain kinds of families, and other breeds are better for others. It depends on your family vibe, and whether you really want their help to amplify family harmony, or whether you want them to focus more on the remote sensing of incompatible fields that might threaten it. (Or, if you want a more utilitarian sensor to help you identify remote fields that you might want to eat...)

The big realization for me, I guess, is that dogs really like harmony. I'm starting to think of them as the ultimate connoisseurs of a good vibe. They can sense one, they enjoy one, and they totally are willing to contribute and amplify one.

They may be the best in the world at sensing and amplifying (and enjoying) a good vibe.

What do you think?

The Dance and The Music

Listen...It's a Love Song!

They dance together under a starlit sky.

He is entranced by her. Radiant, resplendent in amazing gold, he moves, but barely, so mesmerized is he by her beauty and grace as he gently leads her around in their dance. Humming an energetic song, gregarious, effusive, and powerful, his voice fill the space around them, touches others, nearly creates the party itself. But his focus is on her, for she is the most alive, the most beautiful, the most vivacious at this party.

She is dressed in majestic blues and emerald greens, with touches of divine white, obscuring and revealing rich flesh tones, here pale, there rich ochre, and through light and shadow, everything in between. Long ago in her youth, she dressed more startlingly - more flesh, more black, more fiery red and arresting orange. Now, we have to look closely to see that fiery sparkle, still there but sparingly, even demurely applied. She seems coquettish and coy, pulling away from him even as she is attracted to him. He compels her so, it's as if she knows she must restrain herself, to let the cosmic winds dance between them, lest she collapse herself into their union and disappear. So even as she loves him and is attracted to him, she tugs resolutely away. He loves her all the more for it.

Slowly they dance, he gently guiding her around. Look! She's tilted her countenance just so. As they dance, what she shows to him about herself changes with the passing rhythms. His song so tantalizes, so tickles her, she too begins to sing. She sings a song that draws its energy from his, and adds to it her own inventions. Her lilting, complex melody to his enchanting bass, the two of them creating magic. And she so loves the feeling of his song against her body that she twirls herself around and around, capturing the feeling of his song on every part of her, again and again. She fairly giggles with delight, her laughter creating life all around her.

And we reflect the magic of their dance - from him, the source of the song - the deep abiding source, the warmth of the sun. From the tilt of her countenance and the swirl of their dance we hear the song of the seasons. From her delighted twirling, our rhythm of night and day.

Through the gentle filter of her song, we experience his song. Through all of us in attendance, through one another, each affected by the turning of the seasons, the daily experience of light and dark, the flush of spring, the strength of summer, the harvest and release of autumn, and the sleep of winter, we hear her song. We sing her song. We are her song.

Sing well, my brothers and sisters. In harmony with the rocks, the waves, the trees, the birds, the flowers, and our own lively creations, sing along.

All the world's our stage, and life is it's grand performance. Sing well.