Dear Paul,
Thank you!
Here is how Roy (who is not a member of this list) responded to your comment:
"Paul's words certainly acknowledge the ground from which I gained initial insights regarding Soul and Spirit. But you might pass along to him that, though Hillman has no interest in a 'spirituality' grounded in his understandings, certain other do have that interest and have carried it forward. I speak especially of Thomas Moore and Robert Sardello, but there are others as well. It is in that ongoing journey that I join hands with you (Alan) in helping frame a metaphorical vision that continues to affirm the recursive limniscate nature of Soul-Spirit and Space-Form."
Warmest
Alan
----- Original Message -----
From: Paul Roberts
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Tuesday, June 01, 2010 5:28 PM
Subject: Re: Fw: Continuity and Discontinuity
Alan
I like your and Roy's distinction in the poem between the energy of spirit and the space of soul.
It reminds me in some ways of the way James Hillman differentiates between sprit and soul, though he does it mainly by a spatial metaphor of movement that the high driving spirit moves up to transcendence and finds its home in the peaks whilst the soul moves down through fantasy, dreams, reflections, paintings and reveries (and poetry) to the vales.
best wishes Paul
On 1 June 2010 10:43, Alan Rayner (BU) <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Dear All,
Further to this, below and attached is a short 'co-poem' by myself and Roy Reynolds.
To be taken metaphorically, of course!
Warmest
Alan
----------------------------------------
Soul-Full Re-Union
O to take One
From the Solitary Figure
The God of the Gap
Who proudly connects
All tied up as One
Complete Whole
In perfect, cold, crystalline Bondage
Ready to control or shatter
The many taken in
O to find welcome
In the Soul-Full Transfigural
Goddess as the Gap
Who silently slips
All lovingly into Infinite
Open Hole
Fluidly spiralling
Warm nectar of no-thing
Nestling each and all in togetherness
With arms held ready
Here and there in everywhere
Continuous
Receptive
Creative
Space
A Natural Communion
Within, without and throughout
Each and everyone
Everywhere
Birthing the energy of spirit
Bodily
Into the Space of Soul
As the space of soul
Rises
Radiantly aloft
In the Energy of Spirit
Mind lives in the receptivity of Heart
Heart loves in the responsiveness of Mind
Heart and Mind resonate
In the Body of Life and Soul
Where God and Goddess mutually influence
Fluid Communion
Let no Man Force Them Asunder
O Men!
Dear All,
I have been marking final year student essays for my 'life, environment and people' course, adressing the question:
"How, in your view, may perceptions of 'continuity' and 'discontinuity' influence understanding of our natural human neighbourhood?"
As in previous years, I have been struck by the depth, clarity and insightfulness of the essays. Here is a sample passage from one of them:
"When we perceive things in a continuous manner, we gain circumspection. Space is not an absence of presence, but rather a presence of absence (Rayner, 2010; pers comm.). Space is filled with 'the evanescent tendrils of yearning that every particle of matter has for all others' (Suzuki with McConnell, 2002). When we perceive continuity, space is where we search for the secrets, the energy that connects us all. Indeed, opening our minds to the continuity and the value of space has led to one of the greatest and most important discoveries of all time - gravity. The gravitational laws put forward by Newton may refer to objects but they, in effect, describe the power of capsules of receptive space interacting with other capsules of receptive space within receptive space.
When we open our mind to continuity, we observe space as a transporter and receptor of energy. Space is not what isolates us, but what pools us together. When we bring space into our perceptions, we bring infinity into our understanding (Rayner 2010; pers. comm.). "
As I read this I felt both delight in the depth, clarity and insight of the student's expression, and discomfort in the 'tendacity' of holistic 'tendrils of connectivity' to be confused with the continuity given by the omnipresence of space. I suggested that instead of writing ' Space is filled with 'the evanescent tendrils', it might be more apt to write 'Space includes and is energetically included in...'
I have had the same feelings reading many other essays, especially and ironically the most scholarly of them, which draw extensively upon the writings of holistic authors. The identification of 'continuity' with 'connectedness' is difficult to shake, notwithstanding my efforts to speak about continuity as a quality of space, not form alone (all one).
This leads me to try to spell out the difference between rationalistic and natural inclusional/transfigural understandings of continuity as follows:
1. In rationalistic thought, 'continuity' is equated with 'connectedness' because 'space' is regarded as 'void', a source of discontinuity or disruptive 'gap' between and around 'things' as 'discrete objects'. Hence the only way of deriving 'continuity' in this 'whole way of thinking', is either by totally excluding space and boundaries from form as a continuous line or network of widthless 'threads', or by totally conflating space with form in a 'seamless [boundary-less] whole'. Such exclusion or conflation - which is characteristic of 'holism' [which seeks by so doing to counter the fragmentation resulting from abstract reductionism], is neither consistent with evidence/experience nor does it make consistent sense. In a way, it is a product of intuitive 'wishful thinking' that seeks to eliminate rather than reconcile the occurence of natural distinctions, because these are seen as a source of disharmony. It is a reaction to the 'over-definition' of boundaries characteristic of analytical thought, which seeks to replace the latter with its antithesis instead of seeking the dynamic synthesis and balance that natural inclusionality/transfigurality provide.
2. In natural inclusional and transfigural thought, space is a continuous omnipresence that cannot be cut, confined or excluded, and form is dynamically continuous through its 'energetic inclusion of space in figure and figure in space'. Distinction and difference are hence accommodated in a natural fluid continuum, without contradiction. Local identity is recognised as a dynamic inclusion of non-local space in which all forms are pooled together (but not absolutely merged) in natural communion as flow-forms.
3. Hence natural inclusionality/transfigurality treats continuity in a very different way from abstract rationality. The treatment of continuity by abstract rationality as the same as 'connectedness', as exemplified in conventional calculus, is an idealized construct that is physically impossible.
I hope this might be helpful.
Warmest
Alan
--
Things are not what they seem, nor are they otherwise.
Las cosas no son como aparecen ni tampoco son de otra manera
http://livingandworkinginmexico.wordpress.com/
Dr Paul Roberts
Calle Independencia #32-2
Ciudad Guzmán
Jalisco
México
C.P. 49000
tel: +52 (341) 412 6940
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