a pinch of the imperfect (an imperfect channelling)

*

"If the entire human species were a single individual, that person would long ago have been declared mad. The insanity would not lie in the anger and darkness of the human mind—though it can be a black and raging place indeed. And it certainly wouldn't lie in the transcendent goodness of that mind—one so sublime, we fold it into a larger "soul." The madness would lie instead in the fact that both of those qualities, the savage and the splendid, can exist in one creature, one person, often in one instant."  (Jeffrey Kugler, "What Makes Us Moral?" Time Magazine 3 March 2007)

This is a difficult concept to grasp,

that we are two in one,

we, the human occupying the human 

body

are two in one --

we each contain the 

ability

to be good

to be bad

all at the same time,

we 

all

are 

two, and the two we contain

are the imitation 

of the part of God

that became manifest

as the moment of the splitting,

the splitting being

the physical act God

had to produce

             in order

to be able to reproduce

Himself.

God had to split

in half, into

the negative and the positive,

in order to see:

                 the positive

                       is what She saw,

the glorious, succulent

material present

( ishs.org )

that is what God saw:

the visual, the 

aural, the

tactile,

the

sensual, the

aromatic,

all that IS

is what God saw:

all that IS

is good is bad

is what God saw

 ( howstuffworks )

So . . . . .  .

 

if God saw the all that he created,

and it was good,

what in heaven's name was doing the seeing?

WHAT saw it all,

and WHAT was glad?

 

What did the seeing was always that

which could not be seen,

the negative,

the negative -

the negative !

the other side of the 

dichotomy,

in Derridean terms:

MALE                     FEMALE

positive                  negative

light                    dark

day                       night

spoken                           silent

visible                        invisible

 

 We live in the realm of the visible,

of the male,

but it was our opposite -

that was there

but not there

to view the creation

and to be amazed by it.

( wikipedia: michelangelo )

Ever since the onset of the Renaissance

(when Makropoulos was 

born,

by the way)

that glorious time

when the mind had evolved to a more mature

level of being able to reproduce

itself,

ever since then, 

the trend 

has been to focus

on the male:

the physical manifestion

that god produced in order to be able

to see Herself --

and hey

wouldn't you want to fixate

on that for awhile?

wouldn't you want to fixate on that

fabulous something

that you created

in order to see

yourself?

Imagine it:

here you are, 

you are invisible and

undivisable,

and you just created

something visibly 

you,

you gave yourself 

the opportunity to see

yourself

in the mirror

wouldn't you want

to look at it

for a thousand years

or so?

Wouldn't you want to see it,

just turn it over and over

in your hands

and adore it?

( geekology )

It would be

your perfect opposite,

your mythic soulmate:

there you'd be

and you would be so amazed

at the beauty of it,

you would gaze into it,

get lost in it.

(Mirrors have been the replacement for

the absence of the Others;

they've been here to keep us

company, and to let us know

what we look like, so

when we see our other halves,

we'll recognize them.)

So that was the moment

of splitting,

the moment

of making visible

ourselves,

that was it - the first act that all 

creation has been doomed

ever since

to repeat and represent.

Every physical entity on earth

contains within it an imitation

of that moment of splitting

 

The sperm (the physical

projectile born

of the desire to

see and be with the 

Other

                (so completely),

yes the sperm is

the physical imitation of the desire

to enter into

the engulfing presence

of the engenderer.

(if you can figure that one out,

you get a gold star---)

 

* * *

 

because the Other to the physical creation

is so Beautiful

that the physical creation

wants, immediately

to penetrate and become

part of it again.

Something like that.

)

( pixabella )

Every physical entity on earth

contains within it an imitation

of that moment of splitting

Indeed, that includes

the human,

the creature doomed

to strut and fret

our time upon this stage,

we, our body-avatars,

and the trinity 

of liquidity

we each contain

are all the imitation

of what god produced and saw

at that moment of dividing

in half,

              but the problem,

              as Isaac Luria helps us see,

was that the creation

of the duplication

of God produced

such a force

[the power of God]

made manifest

         at the moment

              of this production,

there was such an explosion,

( baylor )

like fireworks,

 That

 

is the manifestation

of the power

of 

GOD

 

 

 

( 2005 Cosmic Explosion - NASA)

I'm serious.

( space.com )

 . . . . and at the moment of the bang,

everything

became visible

physical,

ie:

it was created.

(It's that simple!)

 

 (Space.com2 ) 

 

 So, anyway,

at that mment of explosion and 

production,

the negative,              the positive

the unseen,                     the seen,

the unheard                        the heard

the unfelt,                 the felt

came to be.

it's that simple, 

those concepts

and all they signify

came to be

be 

cause

of creation

and the creative urge.

So we live in the physical realm, because that's the

half of God we

occupy,

but 

that doesn't preclude

the existence of the

non existent.

It's just there,

and all that it (the non-existent) contains

is the negative

of the totality

that is the manifest

in

the physical.

(That's a hard concept to grasp

when you live in the physical.)

But as I said,

the problem

                        and the beauty

                 of it all

is that each of us

contains

an imitation

of that doubling

to one extent or the other.

So Luria helps me say: god created

the imitation of

god, male and female

so they could see

themselves,

but the energy produced at that 

moment

was too great

for the illusion,

the representation

to remain while,

so it exploded and shattered

into pieces

and the pieces 

got the unenviable job

of picking up the pieces

and having to put them back

together 

again.

And that's what we've been doing

for millenia,

and god

in Her distant place, delighted

at the delightful games

of Her children BUT

got disturbed if the Boys

got too rough

*

please think semiotically

*

ANYWAY,

all species also imitate

the duality and the moment

of creation

and the Desire

to Reproduce,

over and over because

that desire

and compulsion

has maintained

our existence

giving us

time

to evolve

our minds,

our souls,

our spirits

our goods and our evils,

all the intangible

invisible

entities that

the frail human body

was appointed

to contain and sustain in

the delicate cases

we encase:

our brains,

our hearts,

our solar plexus,

our stomachs, which provide

the protective shield for containing

the unprotectable.

( science-nationalgeographic )

Our fingers,

our ears,

our eyes 

represent

the fingers,

ears,

eyes

of God

 made manifest

at the moment when We

confronted

our eact opposites, 

those which contains

our good and our bad,

we,

who contain

God's essences

     imitate

that moment of looking, too,

which also includes the moment

of being disappointed

because our Other

our Creation

isn't perfect,

wasn't perfect,

won't be perfect,

won't be Us

completely

because if God's

Other Half

was perfect,

God wouldn't be able to see it,

because He would be it.

 

that's right :

we wouldn't have to divide ourselves

in an attempt to see

ourselves

if we didn't contain 

a pinch

of the imperfect.

Oh, now you,

dear reader who dared

to make it this far,

you wonder:

where the hell is this going?

As I sit and read this,

I know what it says.

It says:

I even I

with my changeable moods,

my unchartable soul,

my angry temper

my fits of elation

and tearful, lonely evenings

I contain 

an imitation

of God at the moemnt

tHEy

(male and female)

let the pinch of imperfection

influence itself and deicde

to divide 

so it could see itself

I imitate that moment

of god's self-consciousness,

and imitate

the entity he saw,

the entity that was 

too great

to be whole,

so it exploded

and became 

the scattered remnants

of the visible

             reproduction of God--

and the shattering, glimmering parts of the fractured god 

regrouped

 - so to speak -

and became

planets and stars

and plants and animals

all 

species,

all with our different task,

as we have worked together over the ages,

striving to reproduce the whole,

and humans had the job

of building the connections ,

and over time we have evolved

and we have reached

a

near perfect

connection

I can sit in my living room and see and talk to 

in real time

a friend of mine

in Singapore.

We're so close to being the complete unity

we're supposed to be

but we have 

one problem:

 

we each still feel we're different from each other.

We are at a cusp.

We each have to recognize

that in our individual selves

though we reproduce both parts of god,

still,

within our individual selves

we can really only contain 

half,

and somewhere there

is the Other 

half of us

with whom,

when we're together

we produce a melting

into One, just One

 

 

this applies equally to 

individuals,

families,

states,

nations,

worlds. . . .

*

And you see we each

have to recognize

and admit

that in containing 

the parts of god, we must

also contain god's opposite,

which is 

evil

because evil is something 

God created, 

so we would all know good.

God is all,

and so are we,

but we

just happen to be

fractured all,

the physical part of God

that God produced

when God felt the desire

to see

the self.

( tikkun )

Do we want to See God

in our time?

Well, you know,

the only way we can do that

is to act like the gods

we were born to be,

which means

we need to recognize

that the man and the woman

the most opposite

of ourselves

is one essential piece

in the visible puzzle

of the perfect picture

of the product of god.

We need

to forgive ourselves

our faults

and forgive our

brothers their faults

and forgive the Others:

the dark,

the female,

the strange,

the silent,

as they must do

unto us.

It's that flippin' easy.

Jesus said it too,

but he was rendered a sound bite.

Still,

his message 

never changed.

The most essential part

of this simple task is

that we must be honest

with ourselves

first,

and see our flaws,

and once we honestly

acknowledge

the wrong we ourselves

have committed or contemplated,

we can also look past

what we view

as the wrongs in others.

I'm not saying we should get rid 

of our negative impulses.

We can't.

But we should acknowledge

them,

live with them,

find 

an arena in which we can

act on them 

so no one gets hurt

and get on with the task

of saving our earth,

that is,

if we do indeed enjoy this joy ride we've been on

enough

to want to see it survive beyond

the next step

in our evolution.

 

Panorama of Grand Canyon Village Lookout supplied by Panoramic Earth

 

 (panaromic earth)

 

The Logic of The Language of the Mind of Human-Kind, Part Three

(from the Church of Panyia tis Skripous near Orchomenos, Greece

photo by me )

1.

With regards to the NPR broadcast about symbolic thought (see link a couple entries below),

a friend said this to me:

"I thought just thinking is symbolic thought!"

Quite frankly, it is, if thinking involves taking something unsaid

and making it said.

Think about it this way:

our brain is just a murky cauldron of impulses

and frequencies,

and in that sense it is a bit like the universe itself.

Once we suffer the desire

to articulate some little part of that murk,

and once we produce a 

receptacle - any kind of receptacle -

to contain the meaning we intend to convey,

we are entering the realm of symbolic representation.

Thus,

1. a ring or a bead is a receptacle to symbolize our union

and promise to another person

2. a cross is a receptacle to represent a certain branch

of religious belief

3.  painting a wall blue is an attempt to symbolize -

and hopefully produce - calm.

4.  wearing a John Lennon t-shirt signifies one's alliance to what

he has come to represent.

5.  a sigh, too, can be significant, if uttered

in the presence of others, with the intent

that it be heard

6. words, like these words I write to you,

contain a vast number of impulses

that my sad poor brain 

feels a need to articulate

7. something like a stop sign is a complex

symbolic representation, as it combines a shape 

(that shape alone has come to signify Stop!);

a color, red, which suggests urgency;

and a word.

The most challenging form of symbolic representation is words, because

words assign physical sounds,

and arrange those sounds in a number of ways, to

signify specific concepts.  Those concepts

can be either 

concrete or abstract--

table what I write upon, is concrete--

love what I feel for you, is abstract

If you think in words, then thought is symbolic representation.

But it's a higher order of symbol than a bead.

By higher order, I mean, 

more evolved.

(babypicturesphotos)

2.

The question I think is fascinating,

and the question broached by that NPR piece,

is

at what point did the human animal begin

to assign various combinations

of sounds and intonations

to both concrete and abstract concepts?

Furthermore,

at what point and how

did we begin to represent those physical utterances

as symbols - ie: in writing?

I can imagine

as with some animals and human babies,

the first attempt to produce

sound with discrete meaning

is probably the isolated sound

"ma."

(For how many cultures does some form of "ma" mean mother?)

As has been said

by Freud, Lacan,

and countless other scholars,

the beginning of language

is desire.

But there's something 

more subtle and significant than that,

where language is concerned.

Yes,

DESIRE is the 

beginning

of everything,

period.  Desire

for another, 

for the act of coupling

for the act of transcending 

our isolated bodies, 

and the byproduct

often

whether planned or not

is another,

a new, single entity.

For the first year or so 

that baby human is no more than

the human animal.

She has human needs and desires

linked to survival and satisfying

her body's needs,

and those needs are continually fulfilled,

usually

by 

ma.

True, the baby does not start saying "ma" right away.

It screams,

as an animal screams.

At the beginning of life,

the baby human animal is convinced 

that he and ma are

one entity, and 

if ma's not there,

there's something wrong in 

babyland.

The baby begins to suspect pretty early

it might be alone,

and it screams.

It screams for the sake of survival,

though ironically

in much of the animal world,

a screaming abandoned baby

often expedites its own death.

Anyway --

The point at which the baby decides to just say

"ma",

indeed,

the point at which the baby 

decides to start imitating the sounds

made by its parents

coincides with the moment at which

the baby becomes resigned

to the idea of being alone,

of being an entity separate from its mom.

Lacan calls this the Mirror Stage,

the moment at which the baby looks in the mirror

and recognizes itself as a complete being,

and at that point the baby begins

its excursion into symbolic representation,

and socialization.

As Ferdinand de Saussure said,

the symbol represents anything that is not present;

it stands in the place of that which is

missing,

lost,

yet to be found.

When the mom is missing,

you say "mom."

When your cat is missing,

you post a sign on a telephone pole.

When you sense in your gut that

there's something greater than you,

but you haven't seen it,

you say "God."

The question becomes,

when we move this theory and equation 

into the history of humanity,

at what point did the human species

evolve from the screaming, impulsive animal 

it probably was

to creatures that developed a complex system of representing thought?

(tvrecappers)

I would say it came at about the same time someone ate an apple.

Very shortly after the moment of eating an apple,

the first signifying act produced by humans

recorded in written human history occurred:

it was a leaf on the genitals,

an attempt to hide the fact

that those two naughty kids  could suddenly see

that each of them were 

single,

alone,

and different

Up to that point, they thought they were 

one and the same,

with each other and with God.

If you really want to go far with this,

perhaps

the story of Adam and Eve is an allegory,

but a fairly realistic one, at that,

that tells us 

the story of evolution

including

the precise moment at which

the human animal

entered the realm of symbolic representation

(thereby, making them

social,

civilized,

god-less

human beings).

NPR does Semiotics

(recipes)

While I was eating my dinner tonight,

I heard this on the radio --

National Public Radio, to be exact:

Mentally Modern

I'm kind of sad that I can't make a more illustrated link to this story.

It discusses Evolution

(oh, one of my favorite topics)

and how symbolic language

is one of the key things

that distinguishes us from animals.

I don't agree with everything she says --

she's very beholden to Ferdinand de Saussure

and other standard semiotic theories,

and an entry I want to write this week

(hopefully today or tomorrow)

addresses some of Saussure's concepts

directly.

But I just think it's thrilling that 

they're talking about this stuff

on the radio.

I love the radio.