((Non)Self)

I am barely beginning to understand a lesson from several weeks ago. There has been a long digestive break during which I chewed on, and exploratorily moved to, the notion of:

 Voluminous hip joints vs. delicate Kreutzbein (German “crossleg”) joint (at the intersection of back (up/down spinal river) and cadera (Spanish “hips”; horizontal and circling springs (of movement, energy, flow etc.). Both elements are crucial to a body’s centreline (i.e. balance). I continue to awaken to the acetabulum-ilium-ischium-pubo-sacral complex in new ways, thus triggering transformational body-consciousness and self-awareness. Of course, this is true of other areas of the body constantly on my mind as well. However, I’m not, at the moment, chasing those notions with the same devotion. I am clearly preoccupied with the whole body* all the time.

*I wanted to include the word mind. But I’ve come to the following conclusion:
Given that even the elusive mind must have a biological, a physical manifestation (the nervous system perhaps? though this is a perceptive system not entirely unlike other anatomical phenomena), the mind is body.

Am contemplating so many things, all the time. Thank God for Philosophy Sunday! I guard everyone’s sleep while I think in peace. Joy overcomes my wretched spirit. I listen to music and move words and body. Today I rest gratefully on my bed as I write. Had a bad night. The 48 hours of strong non-stop bleeding, the height of the bloody period, are upon me. This means probably two nights of interrupted sleep due to getting up every couple of hours to empty my menstrual cup, or change the tampon, pad, or rag.

I hate it when two notions cross like rivers confusing the mental landscape. It happens to me with languages, too. I get stuck searching for a word, an expression, a thought. Sometimes it is lost forever. Brain technology, what can I say? Totally organic. Thus, orgasmic. Thus, unpredictable and fleeting… There I go again losing track.

1. Surely bleeding females have had interesting ways of dealing with the moonthly flow of death all across herstory dating back eons. Before all the industry we know today there was fur. A useful piece of absorbent, washable animal fur cut small between the legs or larger underneath the hips overnight, or while sitting cutting stones; or, grass bound together, biodegradable; an other plants and natural fabrics assisted in cathing the unstoppable flow of female blood.

2. Sunday, Sabbath. A day of doing nothing.  On the seventh day: rest. A day for contemplation, for God to go beyond the binds of physics. Some believe that even flipping a light switch is too much work for a Sunday. Pray to God in darkness instead! A day to rest. Resting is a basic human necessity. This, humans have known for eons. Embedded even in patriarchal old testaments is wisdom true. Women must have come up with that. Anyone who cares for the young knows that hunger and fatigue greatly affect a child’s mood. It’s true for gown-ups, too. Nurture and rest are inescapable terrestrial necessities. It’s also what every woman requires at least once a month during the days of dying.

Two thoughts that now flow together separately.

At the same time that Father Richard (Rohr) was sending reflections about living with paradox, I was experiencing a lot of paradox of my own. Many more rivers of contemplation flow through my being simultaneously. I’ve been preoccupied with Siddhartha Gotama Buddha again, for example. A German book** which revisits the Buddha’s story as it’s told, makes it clear that Siddhartha had a singular goal of becoming enlightened. A singular goal of shedding, of overcoming all the suffering in the world, of living lightly*** to never incarnate again. But Buddha my love, you live on incarnate in me! And in the next flesh who thinks about you, too. Will you help us not suffer? Except, I know that he can’t. I must do it all by myself with my own pained effort, until it pains no more. Siddhartha took the physically hard paths of yoga and ascetism. He acquired countless techniques in terms of taming or regulating the body, nearly killing himself through starvation. And yet, all that rigor and near-death did prepare him for the sitting of his lifetime. He was able to endure the Asana that freed him. His body, breath, and endurance were trained. He performed the greatest art of perception ever. He attained something that is attainable to all. At what cost? At the cost of suffering.

On the dawn of my birthday, while being in a state between asleep and awake, I had the most singular sensation of non-self. I felt fully (my) non-selfness. It was the most beautiful, peaceful and happy (non)sensation I’ve ever felt. It was fleeting. It was a gift. And all I desire is to experience it again. But how? Following the Buddha’s searching path? 

Thus, I’ve been preoccupied with the notions of self and/or non-self. I am curious about the nature of a human species self. An individual self, or a singular creature, is already so very complex. But it is as complex as other individuals, or creatures, like it. And it is complex in very similar ways to yet other creatures that seem different. Thus, a collective kind of self must exist beyond the individual self, which is rendered non-self by that larger reality.

There is an idiosyncratic self (i.e. genetic body variation; individual experience; and so on). There is also a non-self, the reality of non-idiosyncratic biological (and particular) collective existence (species, material universe, and so on). What lies beyond that?

I’ve experienced another kind of non-self as a mother. I’m not sure what to call it. Co-self? Double-self?

Perhaps the self and non-self are kind of the same. There can only be a non-self (or any other variation thereof) given a self. For, what is not, cannot be denied. What can be transcended must exist. In this sense, to what extent can the idiosyncratic self transcend a collective, or species self, or a beyond or non-self? To what extent does non-self transcend idiosyncrasies?

Indeed, what is the nature of our shared humanity embedded in the biological and technological connections of a material universe? Who are we humans as a species?

Philosophy Sunday has run out for now. Worldly duties and other desires abound. There was more I wanted to write. Of course, hundreds of pages of notes hang in the making. My philosophical compulsions never cease. I’ll end with a note of gratitude. 

God bless the living! For, Nexistentialism enjoys great company. I get to experience some of my favourite contemporary philosophers live, for they are my teachers! The beautiful, intelligent, experienced, independent, and compassionate minds of great thinkers with loving hearts. Yes, philosophy is alive and well in the world. Of course it is! It always was. But more on that another time.

Image: "Calavera cósmica en el espacio exterior"
 de warzinx

** "Ein Mann Namens Buddha - Sein Weg und Seine Lehre" von Samuel Bercholz und Sherab Chödin (1994).

***to not suffer, for suffering is heavy and hard

Nexistentielle Krise / Nexistential Crisis / Crisis Nexistencial 1

Apheida: Ich zweifle an der Philosophie.
Ruphus: Wie?

Apheida: Auch sie kann nicht DIE Antwort, DIE Wahrheit sein. Gibt es das überhaupt, eine Wahrheit?

Ruphus: Die Philosophie ist nicht die Antwort auf eine Frage, sondern die Erforschung von mehreren Antworten auf die gleiche Frage.

______________________

Apheida: I have my doubts about philosophy.
Ruphus: Why?
Apheida: Because neither can it be THE answer, THE truth. Does that even exist, one truth?

Ruphus: Philosophy is not the answer to a question, but the exploration of several answers to the same question.

______________________

Afeida: Dudo de la filosofía.

Rufo: ¿Porqué?

Afeida: Porque tampoco ella no puede tener LA respuesta, LA verdad. ¿Acaso existe una verdad?

Rufo: La filosofía no trata la respuesta a una pregunta, más bien trata la exploración de varias respuestas a la misma pregunta.

Femmeoldhoe Formaldehyde (1)

“What’s your name?” he asked. “Femmeoldhoe Formaldehyde,” she said. “What?” He retorted with big eyes. But really all he wanted to know was, “How much?” “Seventy-five and up,” she said. “Look at you!” he protested, “You’re all wrinkled and ...”

She jabbed him in the face before he could continue insulting her. And followed it up immediately with an upper cut to the diaphragm. He doubled over incredulously. She was not in the mood for ingratitude. But she refrained from kicking him in the balls in case she was still gonna fuck him.

Oldhoe knew this kind of man all too well. Too pussy for a real relationship. Not man enough to admit to his weaknesses and work on himself. Putting down whoever would let him. She remained silent as he painfully turned up his head. Looked like he had tears in his eyes. Maybe rage? But she knew that anger was just another veil for suffering. Deeply buried within she felt compassion, which she promptly blocked out. Ironically, her hidden human compassion had kept her going on the streets all these years. A compassion she had come to understand as a curse.

“Still gonna get it up or what?” she challenged him, as she took off her dress, exposing two large breasts, only held up by the uncomfortable wire of a thin red lace brassiere. Breasts saggy and dense enough to slap the hell out of his cheeks if she wanted to. Like the woman on the tv-screen smashing beer cans with her big bad balloons. Femmeoldhoe had been around the block a few times and seen some things. She knew how to handle the sorry pieces of ass, that called themselves men, willing to pay the price of a both cheap and costly fuck.

Old Whore / Alte Hure / Vieja Ramera

Giving an authentic, passive grimace
To the mirror,
While applying some make-up,
She knew,
It was not about how she looked,
But about what she could do.
/
Authentisch und passiv ist die Grimasse,
Die sie dem Spiegel schenkt,
Als sie etwas Schminke auf ihr Gesicht schmiert,
Und denkt,
Das Aussehen muss ihr nichts gönnen,
Es geht nur um ihr Können.
/
Un gesto auténtico y pasivo
De una anciana mirada en el espejo
Poniéndose algo de maquillaje,
Le confirma su reflejo,
No se trata de como se ve,
Solo importa lo que sabe hacer.

Catharsis I

Catharsis is an asymmetrical existential balancing act. It appears to be intimately linked with the act of art. Are catharsis and art inseparable?

“Catharsis” is an ancient Greek word. Like “parthenogenesis” *, which means virgin creation (parthenos = virgin, genesis = creation), a form of asexual reproduction, a lone birth. Catharsis means “purification” or “cleansing”. I’ve always associated the word with the act of emotional release in art. An artist’s emotional experience finding expression in a performance, for example, or the emotional release of an audience moved to laughter, anger, or tears. I wonder, is to practice (any) art, to swim in the unpredictable ocean of emotions? Or is art a way to tame feelings altogether? But can an ocean really be tamed?

Evolutionary art in the human body.

Can muscles move however they want, in theory? Or are they inherently encompassed by the shape they take? Can they conceptually move anyhow, or are they constricted by form? What has lead to specific anatomical formations to begin with? And where can they go from here? 

Asymmetrical Balancing Act
Malabarismo Asimétrico
Asymmetrischer Balanceakt

How many human and other organic experiences are embedded within an individual body? How many lives lived by countless ancestors? How many countless experiences lived by an individual body alive today? We carry the lessons of our forebears in our bodies. Of course, we also carry our own.  We are already all fathers, mothers and kin, gods and goddesses who exist in solidarity with the divine (a perpetually present beyond). Who exist within the limitations and possibilities given to a terrestrial species enwombed in a planet whose condition is a delicate cosmic balancing act of light, movement, darkness, and matter.

Countless? Not necessarily, according to ancestral mathematics. Have you seen the meme that reads as follows?

"Ancestral Mathematics

2 parents

4 grandparents

8 great-grandparents

16 second great-grandparents

32 third great-grandparents

64 fourth great-grandparents

128 fifth great-grandparents

256 sixth great-grandparents

512 seventh great-grandparents

1,024 eigth great-grandparents

2,048 ninth great-grandparents

For you to be born today from 12 previous generations, you needed a total of 4, 094 ancestors over the last 400 years.

Think for a moment - How many struggles? How many battles? How many difficulties? How much sadness? How much happiness? How many stories? How many expressions of hope for the future? - did your ancestors have to undergo for you to exist in this present moment..."

Misses and Mister Goenka meditating.

The calculation is only for 400 years. Imagine millions of years and more! Vipassana Meditation Master S.N. Goenka said, as did Gautama Buddha, that the likelihood of being reborn as a human is like popping out of a ring in the middle of the ocean. It is rare to become human. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to use the present life to seek enlightenment and achieve liberation through rigorous meditation. 

Techniques abound. Vipassana meditation, as the Gautama Buddha himself is said to have practiced it, is only one technique, albeit a very effective one. 

Master Thich Nhat Hanh revealed that meditation is possible in every moment, no matter how fleeting and benign. Because mediation is merely the ability to be consciously and completely present in the moment. In a world full of distractions (within and without), being completely present in a given moment is easier said than done. Being present involves the practice of becoming an ever more detached observer of life's flow without losing touch with it.

Besides life, we all share the phenomenon of death, which precedes and follows us as well. How many ancestors have died? All that lived. And they were released (temporarily) from the bonds of becoming (organic), except for the ties left in the progeny of the species, or variations thereof. Individual, idiosyncratic will does affect the collective. But to what extent can it be transformative of an entire species? What constitutes the will of a species? In the vast existential ocean of inter-being, who moves the tides of becoming?

Alone or not alone? To bear or not to bear? Who knows? Do you?

*Parthenogenesis

Human creature,
Give birth to yourself!
And breastfeed yourself!

Whose arms will catch you,
when you fall into the world,
who knows?

Whose hands will touch you,
when you slither onto X scene,
who knows?

Parthenogenesis

Human creature,

Give birth to yourself!
And breastfeed yourself!

Whose arms will catch you,
when you fall into the world,
who knows?

Whose hands will touch you,
when you slither onto X scene,
who knows?

Partenogénesis

Criatura humana,
¡Da luz a ti misma!
¡Y amamántate sola!

¿Qué brazos te cogerán
cuando caigas al mundo,
quién sabe?

¿Qué manos te tocarán
cuando te resbales sobre X escena,
quién sabe?

Parthenogenese

Menschengestalt,
Gebäre dich selbst!
Stille dich selbst!

Wessen Arme werden dich fangen,
wenn du in die Welt fällst,
wer weiss?

Wessen Hände werden dich berühren,
wenn du in die Xte Epoche gleitest,

wer weiss?

Catholic Maid

She never dusted the places she fucked on. Why wouldn’t she dust precisely those sacred places she fucked on? Because they were full of sin. And sin deserves to be dusty, she thought. But she knew she thought too much.

Sirvienta Católica

Nunca desempolvaba los lugares sobre los que cogía. ¿Porqué no desempolvaría precisamente aquellos lugares sagrados sobre los que cogía? Porque estaban llenos de pecado. Y el pecado merece estar lleno de polvo, pensó. Pero sabía que pensaba demasiado.

Katholische Putzfrau

Sie staubte nie die Stellen ab auf denen sie fickte. Warum würde sie genau diese heiligen Stellen auf denen sie fickte nicht abstauben? Weil diese voller Sünde waren. Und die Sünde darf staubig sein, dachte sie. Aber sie wusste, dass sie zu viel nachdachte.

Gender Fluid

Humans are by nature gender fluid. Consider the following.

Given the existential formula: [structure of meaning = concept <~> form] The structure of meaning has the nature of a concept-form relationship.

Meaning is the characteristic of storytelling exhibited exceptionally creatively (individually and collectively) in human expressions such as art, technology, community, civilization et cetera. Of course, every organism has a story to tell and expresses it in colorful and creative ways. In fact, nature’s creativity is expressed in a language that we can all understand. An existential (abstract, shared and vital) language we can call physics or genetics, amongst other things.

I Iove seeing all the dads and grandpas around the children's schools. They volunteer as crossing guards or tutors. They bring and pick up their little ones from school daily. They show up to read and tell stories. This was hardly so before the pandemic of 2020. I saw mostly mothers and women participating in the school community, civilization's educational branch. Now there are many more men. And it feels balanced and right. It makes for a happy heart to witness a loving equilibrium in the dance between yin and yang.

Fathers and men are inherently just as caring and nurturing as mothers and women are. When did we lose sight of this in society? When did patriarchy begin to fail men? When we were dictating clear cut, separate, and limiting roles for both women and men? Did patriarchy fail all of us then?

Fathers have as much to do in the rearing of the young as mothers do. They have equal responsibility, and they feel the same kind of primal parental love. Fathers and mothers are conceptually as interchangeable as women and men.Thus, gender is fluid. Gender is not a rigid construction. Gender is as fluid as human expression, as human creativity is (from genes (biology) to jeans (culture)). Thus, even a “woman” can be a father, and a “man” can be a mother. Of course, the conceptual list can be expanded in names (we are dealing with meaningful non-constructible sets). The non-constructible set for “mother” and “father” could look as follows. Keep in mind, that possibilities are (theoretically) infinite.

“mother”, ”father” = {woman, man, lesbian, gay, bisexual , transgender, queer, asexual, intersexual, LGBTQAI+, homosexual, heterosexual, transsexual, binary, non-binary, gender fluid . . .}

We are a large human community of billions of people, who each are composed of communities of trillions (70-700?) of cells. You better believe it, that there will be variations! Gender cannot by all logic be strictly binary, even if sex (in terms of reproductive health or quality of life) may appear to be.

(TIP- Though In Progress) ____________________________________________

Androgynous

Our forebears created gardens. Now we call it botany. They cultivated fields. Now we call it agriculture. They crafted tools. We call it technology. Our forebears materialized spirit. Now we call it art.

Andrógin@

Nuestr@s ancetr@s crearon jardines. Hoy lo llamamos botánica. Cultivaron la tierra. Hoy lo llamamos agricultura. Fabricaron herramientas. Lo llamamos tecnología. Nuestr@s ancetr@s le dieron forma al espíritu. Lo llamamos arte.

Androgyn

Unsere Vorfahren schufen Gärten. Heute heisst es Pflanzenkunde. Sie bewirtschafteten die Felder. Heute nennen wir es Landwirtschaft. Sie fertigten Werkzeuge. Wir nennen es Technologie. Unsere Vorfahren gaben dem Geist Gestalt. Wir nennen es Kunst.

Full Moon in Aries

Yoga teaches mindful rearrangement of anatomical and perceptive relations throughout the entire existential body down to its subtlest particularities, through breath pattern exploration, and potentially breath surfing to other perceptive dimensions. Breath (specific existential movement patterns) is characteristic of all formed (form) and forming (concept) phenomena, all embedded into a specific web of perception (diverse ecosystems, species variation).

In terms of pranayama (breathing techniques), which is more helpful on the path to liberation through practice? To manipulate the breath consciously, imposing its karma (consequences) onto the physiological structure (for example, cat-cow breath/body patterns)? Or, to merely observe the breath as it is in meditation, as in Vipassana (Buddha), and allow for the physiological structure to sort itself out by not intervening at all? And, which is the greater act of faith on the path to liberation? What if liberation is merely matter of perception, and indeed available in every moment? What are we experiencing while suffering? But a passing phenomenon? Then liberation is not suffering. But joy is also a passing phenomenon. Thus, liberation is not joy? What lies beyond sorrow and joy? Peace of mind? What a blissful residence indeed must be a peaceful mind (physiology) to a sadaka’s (seeker) soul. If it were so easy as to slip into any moment at the moment, then why is yoga so complex? And like it, other arts demanding study, practice and dedication. Is liberation an act of art (the mastering of a technique that gives structure to creative expression, form to spirit)? Liberation, a magic trick, learned through trials, that makes the woes of humanhood disappear? That liberates consciousness of its own games of folly? Games that humans share amongst each other, not unlike germs, for better or worse.

Dionysius III

She: I’m working a new project.

He: Yes?

She: An anti-memory Memoirystery, where the gaps get filled in with sex scenes.

He: You’re not going to describe your sex with him!?

She: Not anymore than I would describe your sex with her.

Silent stoic stare.

She: Please don’t suppress my creative impulse!

He: You mean sexual impulse.

She: Sex is a vital part of being human and deserves mindful attention.

He: Like sexual healing?

She: Sex . . .

A glare of conviction.

She: Sex is a matter of philosophy.

Half Moon (in Capricorn)

Am recognizing past misconceptions about the spine, amongst other things. Samskaras? Habit patterns? Am attempting to rearrange, ever so subtly, lumbar* and thoracic** relations. It’s taken over two years of conscious study, practical effort, and countless lessons with great masters to arrive at this juncture. And this only after having crossed many more minor and major physiophilosophical junctures. These experiences are often nameless, the are only felt (in body, mind and spirit). Nameless because I feel a concept without form. Forms being words, symbols, language, structures etc.(in terms of anatomy (body maps) and beyond). Nameless because I feel what is formed without conscious conceptio. Body sensations manifesting in the flesh I never conceived to my knowledge. The question is, how to perceive one's own existential form? How to perceive what lies beyond (either way outwardly or inwardly)? A conceptual relationship of the self with an extensive manifest reality (nature) exists. And a formal relationship with "reality" exists also. Bound by biology, physics and ecosystems, forms inter-are. ____________________________________________

*lumbar axis exhale breath pattern (half-cow); pelvic floor, lower torso musculature "awakening"; hold inhale form (**) during cow bottom consciousness

**thoracic axis inhale breath pattern (half-cat) (inflated rib cage, expansion towards the back, upper torso musculature "awakening"); hold exhale form (*) during cat top consciousness _____________________________________________

Take a teacher’s lesson and find a way to study it - through questioning, contemplation, practice etc.

Dancers are philosophers. 


 Anyone who moves is, Anyone who makes of movement art.

The biological vessel has peculiar responses to the experiences it is subjected to, as well as phenomena surrounding it. This dynamic merits more examination. But there is so mucho going on all the time, that is is difficult to keep track of it all.

Every time he steps into the room I seem to lose my balance. How do I stay balanced even in his nerve racking presence? How do I not get turned on and distracted from the spiritual quest of liberation? Is existence indeed only composed of nature (i.e. hormones, biological structures, the manifest universe (formed conceptializations?))? Or does something lie beyond? And what is that like? Must conceptualize, must give form. Why? To live, to survive? What if what lies beyond is formless and deceptualized? How can it be understood from a place of form (beig alive, in a body, on a planet, a part of the physical universe etc.)? All that is not known remains a mystery. No mystery can be eternal, can it? Form conceptualized... formless concepts ... unconpetualized formlessness ... mysteries that can be solved?

Sometimes a teacher’s brilliance is realized in the repercussions of the lessons given, the effects these have over time, not necessarily in the moment of instruction. What carries over to the context outside of the classroom? What remains in consciousness, what travels through the unconscious? All input requires digestion. All effort (spirit) demands rest (organic limitations).

Are other spirtiaul scriptures around the world, in structure similar to the Bible in terms of being a collection of writings realized over time by countless authors and even more countless storytellers? Or do traditions with an unfiltered core exist, that have been carried over faithfully, consistently, obstinately from generation to generation?

Grauzahn Wilderbart (Märchenfigur) Greytooth Wilderbeard (Fairy-tale figure)

Prämens / premenstrual: cramps, heightened sensitivity, grumpiness, sore breasts, bloating, less energy, biological low (biolow/Biotief)