Subject: Sillyness

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 4 Oct 1996 14:55:13 -0400

Dan,

Now sillyness is something very worth while relating to, in my books.

Clearly, if I look back or forward seven generations and assume history may
be prologue; what I see is chaotic. The random actions of spiral forces
eddying within whatever may be governing overall flow yield spots of great
beauty and heartwarming ecstacies amidst the bleakness and blackness. The
density of interactions, much like increasing the density of atoms in a
brownian dance, has an effect somewhat akin to dealing with 16.7 million
colors now available on my computer monitor: who needs all that? And yet I
can make use of it in communicating with those who either can see or have a
screen replicating mine should a particular visioning suggest a nuance better
clarified by color number 15,497,324 than anything available from the 256
available on internet. Potential pure and simple.

Visioning, visualizing and imagining, speculating may have some specious
relationships. I would, personally, be willing to make some distinctions. I
used to try to teach a thing I called revisioning. Assumes that what
underlies the thoughts/actions of most folks comes more from beliefs than
knowledge. Boils down to looking at unexamined assumptions which too often
result in unintended consequences. Something which Dan Hemenway wrote a good
piece about not too long ago.

The Tibetans, with whom I have spent some time, have very precise paths to
visualizing as a means to visioning. My vision-quest friends and teachers are
looking for spirit guides, not dissimilar in some ways to devas which various
others find in plants, animals, rocks, and soils. Imagining and speculating
grounded in practice or enlightened by getting dirt under fingernails I see
as potentially valuable. Ungrounded speculations are knitting without wool,
as I see it.

I describe Kali, an Indian divinity with whom I will see Cynthia as
acquainted, as a friend. Ramakrishna and others have made her a focus of
their teachings. One of her great values, for me, is as someone who sees what
is seen and is quite willing to go by what is seen. I report on what I see
as, I assume, do you.

In doing alternative schools some years back, I was chagrined to find that an
essential variable missing from too many adults who wanted to teach was
adequate personal life experience to cope openly with the fresh vitality of
children. Too often, they fell back on rote or even less functional
activities as a cover for personal inadquacies. 

When you mention that you teach less partly as a reflection of your
unwillingness to cut back your curriculum design to two weeks rather than
three, I can empathize. I find myself less willing to be incomplete or
tentative in addressing practice questions. 

The distortion in your quotation about no time to rush was a deliberate one
to see if responses might come back as you did. Thanks. Helps to know you
better.

And, for sure, we don't have time to rush. Although rushing is what I
speculate most are doing.

Milo Clark