On inclusive attention, crying, and homecoming
Your body is the harp of your soul,
And it is yours to bring forth sweet music from it or confused sounds.
And now you ask in your heart, “How shall we distinguish that which is good in pleasure from that which is not good?”
Go to your fields and your gardens, and you shall learn that it is the pleasure of the bee to gather honey of the flower,
But it is also the pleasure of the flower to yield its honey to the bee.
For to the bee a flower is a fountain of life,
And to the flower a bee is a messenger of love,
And to both, bee and flower, the giving and the receiving of pleasure is a need and an ecstasy.
People of Orphalese, be in your pleasures like the flowers and the bees.
The above is an excerpt from the chapter On Pleasure in Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet. How might this passage apply not just to pleasure, but to health and (eco)systems generally?
The more we treat a part as though it is separate from the larger whole (consciously or unconsciously), the more we move toward pain or dysfunction.
The better we come to know the relatedness of the parts of the whole (while honoring the individuation of those parts), the more we move toward health, grace, and coherence.
To clarify:
It is possible to bring one part of the whole into focus while still including the whole in embodied awareness.
Each whole is a part of a larger whole.
There is an art in the continuous process of orienting and attuning to the salient whole in a given circumstance.
I used to cry a lot as a kid. I wasn’t particularly sad most of the time, I would just often get overwhelmed and fall apart, especially in public spaces. I was the crier in school.
I remember the feeling of tears coming on. I couldn’t stop it. My vision would go fuzzy as I disconnected from whatever was happening at the time. The mortification would set in and I’d want nothing more than to just disappear. This happened maybe once or twice a week through the end of middle school or so.
I never really ‘grew out of it’ in healthy way, I never learned to be with and hold myself in the fear and the overwhelm. I just learned to loathe myself for it. To the degree that I could, I forced it down. I made myself smaller. I built protective armor and sharpened knives. To the degree that I could, I separated from that part of myself.
These days, I consider the process of coming back into contact and conscious relation with that part of myself - seeing him, picking him up gently, and including him in the larger whole - as one of the great endeavors of my life.
It’s something like a homecoming. Both a coming into myself, and a related coming into the world. It’s a process that’s been ongoing for years, and I imagine will continue on for a lifetime.
In certain moments of grace, which sometimes include the tears I once loathed, I feel this homecoming deeply.
I believe these are moments where a more integrated whole, with all its individuated parts, comes into being.
Go to your fields and your gardens
Dear Reader,
I found this note helpful and clarifying to write. Thanks for reading.
I had hoped to include an audio clip from a process I had with Thomas Hübl during a retreat this past October that felt particularly relevant and instructive in the context of this note. Upon reaching out to the Timeless Wisdom Training support team, I learned it is their policy that trainees do not share any audio or transcripts from the training. I’m currently seeing if it’s possible to make an exception, though I imagine it’s unlikely.
While I’m admittedly disappointed, I respect the policy, and I ultimately see this moment as an opportunity to learn how to walk forward in integrity.
For now,
Jason