From an Upper Floor

An Advanced Form Of Thinking. . .

When the doctor stood at the door of the ward and worried and mourned the death of the newborns and their mothers,  he observed the young doctors moving from one bed to another.  He noted also they only wiped detritus from their hands with a dirty rag.  Could they be carrying something from one to the other?  And he instituted the washing of hands between patients.  And the babies stopped dying and so did their mothers.

He connected the dots.  He worried long and hard enough and came to conclusions.  Not all persons know enough to worry.  Worry is an advanced form of thinking.  It is impossible for some people because they simply do not know enough to see cause and effect.  Some see only their own position in a problem and do not know how to encircle the problem.  To achieve a rounded out human being who understands the fuller picture,  we have to introduce more levels of experience, which is a reason some know more and hence the worrier.

When this planet, our Earth, is called a classroom of high order,  it is because it is of advanced education, and has advanced classes.  One crisis after another is chosen to further our advancement of more chosen work.  When we complete a class,  we move on to another.  Not easy and we have the choicest planet.  It is with ultimate concern we who see the devastation of this natural classroom worry that future generations will not have it in their lifetimes.

It is with a sacred blush that we who have loved it to distraction ask that its inhabitants become worriers on purpose.  Study the behaviors that have led to these elements of crises before our beloved best school of thought is destroyed beyond repair.  Not everyone knows enough to worry.  Let us be the ones who are smart enough to do so.  And perhaps we who worry enough to do something,   will know that it is an advanced form of thinking that will save us all.

(excerpt from No Space To Grow Bread)

My Earth is in peril and
the classroom is in jeopardy.

There is no room and
our Earth is splitting its seams.
In good conscience,
no longer can we go forth and multiply.

There is no place and no space to grow bread.

Owning the experience. . .

He was just seven years old and hurt and  upset because his brothers and his dad questioned his knowledge. How do you know, they asked him, how do you know?  He stormed past the dining room table and shouted at them.  I know that I know!  And I heard an ancient head saying the same words and was amazed at this younger of mine.  Of course you do, I said, of course.  And I hugged him because when you know something and do not question yourself, you hold the oldest and first keys.  You had the best mentor and metaphysician and were loved greatly.

A reader wrote to me and said there is a great distinction between knowing and information. She was right and few people would be able to differentiate between the two words.  Many gather information and can quote others profusely.  They can say what others have said and use the same words.  But they cannot use their own words because the experience is not theirs.  It makes all the difference.

As long as the experience misses them they have not the words to describe it.  Only their God Within knows the footwork not done. Their language  consists of information and not their knowledge.  My seven year old spoke from an ancient knowledge.  To know you know means you own the knowledge.  And only you and your God Within knows of your footwork to own the experience.  And the cost of how many lifetimes. . .

Toward Greater Life. . .

The heart searches parameters
for openings unto worlds
not torn by those intent
on limiting knowledge. . .

always searching
for ones to willingly embrace
the differences challenging
the hesitant heart. . .

We look toward the union
of heart and mind
with the litigious veins
of knowledge, pushing like sludge
thickly through rock. . .

eager to consign edges
toward greater life. .
knowing always the
least demanding would be
the most sought for.
Even the tardy would give
evolution a jump start.

Never insulting the slower envoy,
always grateful for the god participants,
the larger reality scoops forever
the narrow focus. . .

giving eternity’s starters new life and hope.

photo by
Joseph Hallissey Sr.

The Confusion Of Crossed Signals. . .

A young psychologist family friend and I were talking about the many problems concerning the young returning veterans in  his practice.  And the many suicides among them.  Remember when I said there were many grave problems and one of the reasons why was they had mothers and grandmothers like me.  My generation of women learned because of a growing sensitivity or simply growth in ways that have eluded the males, knew that teaching their children and grandchildren to play nicely and to love one another would take hold of their charges.

The crossed signals of what they learned as children and what the military teaches or is their persuasion is that love of country is first.  The confusion,  though unconscious, is immense. As children they learned to love one another but when they joined the military, they learned killing was appropriate in times of war.   But that being a problem in itself is one thing.  The thing I stumbled on next drove me to my knees.

I had lost my enthusiasm and could find no reason either to keep at my work which had kept me diving into my slippers when my eyes opened, as I had all the days of my life.  Coming to mind was the poem I had written on Life Everlasting.  And one of the lines when I truly understood life everlasting, was that I became very tired.  If it is meaningful to you then the following will make sense.  If not,  one day it will.

That we make our own reason for being,  for living, which is why there are wars and more wars.  Because it seems  better to common thinking to be physically involved and die young than to look for a reason to live peacefully without the excitement of the not knowing if you will survive.  Better to live with that constancy of motion and agitation than to live with no reason.  And always throughout history men would go off looking for adventure, for worlds to conquer and leave the women and babies at home.

They go off to fight or look for work but what they are really looking for is a reason to keep living and breathing.  Because with no action, there is no life.  It is not the war itself that is meaningful,  but the adventure and the action that gives meaning to life.  It is not so much the ancients’ griefs but the griefs which give them reason to war.  And put a name to it to give it not meaning so much but to make it appropriate to the activity.

How much of all the stress syndrome is the condition understood in the young that they found reason  in war and coming home found no action and the excited state gone and no longer keeping them alive.   They have to acknowledge that war and the family of buddies whose lives depended on them and their lives on their buddies gave life meaning and they felt alive.  And the real conflict of crossed signals that they lived with as children to love each other and as veterans giving them permission to take lives has never been resolved.

(My psychologist friend said that his colleagues had difficulty understanding this very concept concerning their patients but that I grasped it totally.  My Teachers had comments to this which I will publish in my next post.  But I had to establish what I learned when malaise and disenchantment grasped me and how difficult was working out of it.)

A Truth . . .

I was told that
life is everlasting and everlasting
and everlasting.

And when my mind
and my heart
and the fabric of who I am
accepted this statement,

I found I was very tired.

Agile Thinking Makes Connections

No procedure is complicated if  allowed to draw itself from the boundaries which were once considered appropriate to it.  And any change necessary will be accommodated when proper procedures are instituted.

I wonder the comment a friend made when I said I learned a philosophical principle during my woodworking that stands as valid in relationships as well.  She could not see the connection.   When a wound is suspected in the wood,  it is best to clean it off and out or eventually it will mar the wood and destroy much work.  To try to cover the error means that too much time will be spent in working around it.  Far better to start with another clean piece or dig out the offense.   In any creative endeavor,  it is necessary to assess the problem and remedy the work.  It applies to human relations also.

One can deny or dismiss, or simply not discuss a problem,  in the hope that by not talking or giving it a name it will resolve itself and simply go away.  What happens it is that it will fester and smolder and erupt or implode the individual.  What could have been resolved at the time and talked through the hurt now, like the wound in the wood,  will at some time bleed through and cause untold damage.  Perhaps not in the same generation it occurred,  but generations later when excessive damage makes the wound irreparable.

It has taken me all these years to see how genetic and emotional connections can  be used by and of themselves.    The way things we feel are stifling us can be the very ones we draw strength from.   There is a continuity in all life,  not only in who we are but in what we do  and to draw on what we choose to be good for us takes a great deal of maturity.   We are apt to discard everything before we realize there are things of worth needing to be held onto.

The Victor

I would give you
a drink to sip,
ever so gingerly
but you would
gulp it down.

You would
in one fell swoop,
gargle your throat
and swallow
the liquid, unthinkingly,
I think.

But you don’t.
You take the worn cliches
and give them to an Other
as gems to be worn,
as diamonds turned to catch
the light on every facet.

This is what
I’ve learned from you;
that you have taken my best
and made it yours
and I am more
than what I Am.
And by doing this,

you are the victor.