So I see my post flushed two interlocutors out of the tall grass. Great! If that’s who’s here, then that’s who I’ll talk to. My wife participates in a forum here in Budapest that’s made up of about eighteen women, with a hard core of about ten who post daily. They are united by the fact that they are all mothers of young children, and they are all Hungarian (there is a participant who lives in Germany and one in Austria). One of the advantages they have is that they also communicate by phone sometimes, and also occasionally invite the other women (with their children) to get together at their house. It’s an amazing, tight, loving, mutually supporting group. I admire them. This has been going on for more than a year now. It’s a totally private forum. It isn’t listed anywhere. Their posts run into the multiple pages a day.
Beyond the fact that we on this forum can’t really get together and meet (though I’d love to meet some of you sometime) the lesson I have learned from watching the dynamic group of women my wife interacts with is that the power of their forum comes from its interactiveness. They really talk to one another, and they really get into important issues.
So I have two interlocutors. Let’s talk!
Hai dozo, Faye-chan! I reckon a martial arts practitioner like yourself recognizes the invitation from another warrior to train together. I trained in aikido for nine years, and was a teacher for several of them. I had a student for a short while whose main discipline was Bujinkan (Ninjutsu). She came to me for cross-training. Then she brought her teacher to my class. I was humbled. He was a far more accomplished martial artist than me, but it spoke volumes about his character that he would be willing to bow into my class and take instruction from me. I was also amazed at the similarities between the two “styles”.
But all that is far behind me. I moved to Budapest in 1992 to follow my destiny. I checked out the first aikido class I could find here, but just didn’t like the way they trained (kind of on the macho side). Then I realized I just didn’t have the time to be an aikidoka and be serious about other pursuits. Martial arts are very time intensive. It’s still an important element of my character. I know I am a very different person than I would have been without those years on the mat. I still do T’ai Chi exercises every morning before I meditate.
The pineal gland. Well, I don’t want to come off all wise and knowledgeable about something I’m just learning about. There are umpteen websites where you can find information about this gland just by typing it into a search engine, both of a scientific/anatomical nature, and of a mystical nature. I guess it’s been referred to as “the mind’s eye”, and indeed, the anatomical literature says it’s intricately bound together - in ways that modern science still doesn’t understand – with the nerves and brain centers associated with sight. In some lower vertebrates it still functions as a light sensor. And, yes, its hormonal secretions are linked to the amount/duration of sunlight we get.
I guess I’m not giving away the family jewels to say that the pineal gland plays a central role in psychic perception, which is why some say it is the “third eye” of occult lore. I can attest to the fact that when one focuses energy on it, noticeable things happen.
As to the software this forum runs on, I think it’s probably the best Frater Serafine could get for free, or without a major time investment to learn how to run another forum. I have always tended to compose my posts on a text editor and then cut and paste them into the forum. That way I can spell check it and re-read it at my leisure.
Gruntal: I still don’t quite know how to take you (which is how I think you want to be taken). I read your posting wondering if you’re just being intentionally obtuse, or if you are making subtle commentary on my post.
Dad issues: My father wasn’t born too much later than yours (1928) and it seems there might be a few parallels. He was a highly intelligent young man who got a position as an assistant professor back when it was easy to get jobs like that, and then stagnated the rest of his life while being overwhelmed by the reality that he was the father of three. He “lost it” somewhere along the line, too. He serves me as an object lesson in what happens when you stop believing there’s a point to life and you just go through the motions and do your best to stay intellectually entertained. There’s a big difference between being entertained and being happy.
There are lots of parents who think education is the key to happiness. Unfortunately that’s only partially true. Nowadays (and to a certain extent ever since the industrial revolution) education is very narrowly conceived as that complex of knowledge and skills that make an individual useful to the economy. The more useful you are to the economy, the more you are rewarded by the economy.
That’s why my children go to Waldorf school. Rudolf Steiner, the creator of Waldorf education (and one of the most influential mystics of the 20th century) designed a way of teaching children based on a mystical understanding of what a human being is, in terms of our place in the grand scheme of the universe. The goal of Waldorf education is not to prepare you for a profession, but to make you prepared for life. If you are a well-adjusted individual with deep self-knowledge, there is no limit to the things you can master, including the profession of your choice.
The average parent’s intentions are honorable, even if short-sighted: they just don’t want their children to end up poor and suffering from being at the bottom of the economic totem pole. Unfortunately, the push for as much education as possible as early as possible produces people with lots of earning power and no spiritual compass. Great! I have a big house, two shiny cars and vacations in Tahiti, but now what do I do?
It too embarressing to be intimate in this forum so I disguise myself as the cosmic clown. Besides I was in danger of losing my sense of humor anyways. So I learned three dimensional Calculas and can't even figure out how to play with Samantha (the dog). What a waste!
You talk of communicating and the written efforts and poetic prose and death bed confessions. I dont know the martial arts invitations. I am being taught to read Samantha (the dog's) signs she wants to play. Nobody will come up to you and say "I am ready". A megaphone would not help. Samantha rarely if ever even barks at me. Her amber eyes are more imporatant to watch, her emotions singularily honest if beyond my abillity to fathom at this time.
Some of the most distant people may only be a heartbeat away; a shared joke would break down the barriors instantly: the time and place may NEVER come to pass to do so. An opportunity lost because it was never recognized.
Sometimes I would like to be like the Doctor in the BBC television series. I remember a classic dialog between two captors of the Doctor questioning the Doctor at gunpoint and only getting rediculous answeres. One said "I dont think he is really that dumb" to which the other captor said "I dont think anybody could be that dumb". They were right!
If you had a choice would you value a communication from the smartest person or the "slowest" or most culturely distant? Which would be the greatest challenge? The biggest reward?
And to think I dont even like dogs ........
>gruntcake
Ah, my dear Gruntal. You ask: “If you had a choice would you value a communication from the smartest person or the ‘slowest’ or most culturally distant? Which would be the greatest challenge? The biggest reward?”
I’m not so sure I’m left with a real choice here. Why are you lumping the “slowest” and “the most culturally distant” together? I can hardly think of anyone more culturally distant than Hungarians. I’ve lived here for twelve years now, and I still can’t figure out how these people think, or what motivates them. But they are anything other than slow. Frighteningly bright is more like it. But in a really impractical way. You have a nation that’s full of people like Szilard and Teller and von Neumann, and they can’t make the railroads run on time or even organize a picnic.
I guess a partial answer to your question is that I highly value communication with those who are culturally distant from myself. That’s why I live abroad. I also don’t discount the opinions of someone who hasn’t had a lot of formal education. That’s what mysticism is all about. (This is a mysticism site, after all.) We all have the same Cosmic Intelligence operating deep down underneath all the denser layers. That goes for Samantha, too. (I can just see Samantha reading over your shoulder while you type and thinking to herself, “Who’s he callin’ slow?”
You also say, “Some of the most distant people may only be a heartbeat away.” Ain’t that the unvarnished truth? I’m sittin’ here in Budapest, lookin’ out my office window at various styles of old architecture that you’ve never seen, and I can hear office mates in the hall speaking in foreign tongues, but my mind is focused on a man half the globe away who’s dealing with the contemplations one goes through when packing up a house filled with years’ worth of detritus. Sometimes the latter is more real to me than the former.
It cold here and miserable 'cuz there no heat in house and I want my Samanmtha and where my Thanksgiving feast with double portions of pecan pie ?! I guess this isnt my year to party. Me friend might volunteer giving out dinners at the local "Rescue Mission" to the "slow and culturely distant" meaning skid row bums or worst. I doubt if she talks much to them but that how it goes. She confides in me as I do to her even if I cant talk to our familes about things.
Sometimes family is the hardest ones to talk to. Manners and civillity win out over honesty. You learn to live with someone and get along at the price of sponteanity. You get desparate and do the "beggars banquent" thingie only to discover there are so many souls you have nothing on common with, least of all a shared language. Even the moral underpinning can go haywire: what a waste to even try to convince the world why you act the way you do. They dont get it .....
I am more interesting in tales and what people think is important; or how much they are willing to give or bend: the way they spin these things out betrays their belifes and values. And to briefly touch on the subject of another post here: sometimes you come to a point in your life where you feel duty bound to sacrifice yourself as proof positive of your commitment. And again: some people will never understand this. They are culturely distant to the point of being unreachible. I dont think loyalty is funny.
I hope I can construct the fence in time so Samantha cant get out and get squished by a bus I hope I hope. Even if technically she isnt even me dog.
>gruntchop (do I have food on my mind?)
