Dear Paul,
Thank you very much for this response!
"To really see the individual in this way means both seeing their uniqueness and simultaneously how that uniqueness relates to their personal history, the social and political history of the times in which that person has lived, and all the interrelationships and nexus from which that person has arrived."
YES!!!
"To be able to see and experience all this walking down the street or in a shopping mall with each individual would be demanding and potentially overwhelming."
Yes, actually to ENGAGE with every individual identity in this way would be overwhelming. But to be AWARE of the truth of this situation, and to translate this awareness into a general (inclusional) attitude of mind that influences the way we engage receptively, responsively and reflectively in our local dynamic relationships with our living space and its inhabitants is, I think, not overwhelming, but a source of deep wisdom and creativity. I think such awareness CAN be widely present in a mass society - indeed I think it IS implicitly already widely present, but drowned out by the way we have predominantly taught ourselves to think and communicate simplistically in abstract terms of complete material figures isolated from spatial ground. I think this awareness can be RELEASED through a living educational process that doesn't impose false limits on natural flow by definition. This is what I feel we should be working for as inclusional educators - but, of course, to do so we have to be liberated from false definition ourselves. Certainly a source of exhaustion (and sometimes overwhelming despair) for me in this 'lag phase prior to exponential growth' has been the requirement to work in depth 'with one or a few individuals at a time' to bring out their implicit inclusional awareness, only, very often, to see them back-track into the false security of what they have been taught in a non-inclusional culture.
"I think it requires either much discipline or meditative practice to experience these periods in a prolonged and regular way"
I think it actually 'comes naturally', if only we ALLOW it to, by relaxing (fluidizing) our habitual boundary definitions. The discipline and meditative practice are only required to overcome the way we have been entrained habitually to think in definitive terms. I believe Jack will shortly be able to circulate a video clip showing two stages in the fluidization and integration of formerly restrictive boundary definitions, which opened the way to a transformational conversation...
Warmest
Alan
----- Original Message -----
From: Paul Roberts
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2009 7:57 AM
Subject: Re: Tolerance, Intolerance, Sorrow and Indignation
Dear Alan
I'm not sure its as simple as you apparently write. I have occasionally experienced that sense of grace and flow in which things seem to effortlessly happen but I think it requires either much discipline or meditative practice to experience these periods in a prolonged and regular way
I think too the quote I sent is asking how in a mass society can we really appreciate each individual in their unique particularity, which I don't think means as another isolated being apart from their context or neighbourhood but as the embodiment of the local in a non local context. To really see the individual in this way means both seeing their uniqueness and simultaneously how that uniqueness relates to their personal history, the social and political history of the times in which that person has lived, and all the interrelationships and nexus from which that person has arrived. To be able to see and experience all this walking down the street or in a shopping mall with each individual would be demanding and potentially overwhelming.
best wishes Paul
2009/8/25 Alan Rayner (BU) <[log in to unmask]>
Dear Paul,
'Co-incidentally', I was preparing to write the attached poem, just as your message came in! I had been weeding the cracks between our patio slabs....
That quote from Tom Cheetham's book brought a smile to my face. The words 'constant state' in the discourse are revealing in terms of the seeming paradox at the end, showing the difficulty of reconciling fluid feeling with the fixed geometry of conventional Newtonian and quantum mechanics and relativity in which 'discrete things DO things to other things'.
In 'the humility of the valley' where one is continually receptive, responsive and reflective as a dynamic inclusion of the flow of all through all, there is no need to detach the 'figure' from 'the ground' in order to 'get things done'. One simply attunes receptively and responsively with the comings and goings, recognising that natural boundaries are fluid inner/outer (concave/convex) interfacings of somewhere (local) and everywhere (nonlocal) and hence provide a dynamic reference framing whereby microcosm reflects macrocosm and vice versa. It is only when we abstractly impose a definitive reference frame that the flow (apparently) collapses and we ask ourselves 'how to get things done'.
Hope this makes sense!
Warmest
Alan
----- Original Message -----
From: Paul Roberts
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Tuesday, August 25, 2009 10:15 AM
Subject: Re: Tolerance, Intolerance, Sorrow and Indignation
Alan
Thanks for making these comments by Roy available to this list. It is interesting to see the connections he is making.
In Tom Cheetham's book (p121) he makes the following point about changing the way we experience the world and what he, within the Sufi tradition, is referring to the Face of Beauty (which could be another way to think about the experience of "within-ness")
"But how are we to make ourselves susceptible to this rupture? How do we learn to see this face? Can one prepare for breaking the bonds of social life with all of its habits, rules, norms, and expectations. It is difficult to imagine being in a constant state of receptivity to the sheer particular humanity of others as individuals. You couldn't even walk down the street, let alone get anything done"
best wishes Paul
2009/8/25 Alan Rayner (BU) <[log in to unmask]>
Dear Roy,
Thank you.
Yes, it is the finding of this 'opening' (which I have also alluded to as the 'loophole' or 'eye of the needle' in 'Natural Inclusion': see http://www.newparadigmjournal.com/May2007/naturalinclusion.htm).
that I feel offers us the possibility to explore 'hope' for the co-creative sustainability and deep tolerance of humanity, instead of continually getting stuck in the battleground of 'expectation and indignation'.
Just a couple of points of clarification:-
1. The concept of 'the edge of fluidity' arose in a conversation with Graham van Tuyl, at Jack's house on Monday 18th August 2008, and became the basis for Graham's PhD thesis. Based on my original interest in 'dynamic boundaries', it moves on from the complexity theory concept of 'the edge of chaos', through the natural inclusion of receptive space in the flow dynamic. Correspondingly, it entails the transfiguration from 'hard-line logic' into 'fluid-line logic' ('cold logic' into 'warm logic'; 'rationalistic logic' into 'poetic logic'). I think it is an evocative term, which could provide a very helpful 'opening' into the 'within-ness' of transfigural inclusionality from which 'hope', freed from the burden of unrealistic 'expectation' (associated with hard-line logic) is sustained in creative potential. It is important to acknowledge Graham's role in the development and explication of this concept.
2. I suspect you, and several others who I copied this note to, are not members of the 'practitioner-researcher' list, in which case it may not have got through to Paul Roberts or any other members of that list. I am therefore copying this on to the list. Should you wish to join it, details of how to do so can be found at www.actionresearch.net.
3. In the list below, I see the possible makings of a 'natural inclusion' labyrinth ['natural inclusion' being the least tongue-twisting 'umbrella' term I can think of for us to use in our wider communications].
Love
Alan
----- Original Message -----
From: roy reynolds
To: 'Alan Rayner (BU)' ; 'Practitioner-Researcher'
Cc: 'Lere Shakunle' ; 'Ian Glendinning' ; 'Lynne Feldman' ; [log in to unmask]
Sent: Monday, August 24, 2009 8:05 PM
Subject: RE: Tolerance, Intolerance, Sorrow and Indignation
Alan,
Not only is this a moving conversation, it also illuminates various sources that (for me) are converging. I see parallel patterns. That’s the aspect I wish to speak to just now, though I am likewise drawn emotionally to the ethical and feeling side of the conversation. Since I am more “in my head” right now, I will speak to the confluence of patterns that this fine group of dialogue partners has brought together for me.
Paul Roberts’ insights took me (in my thoughts) to the archetypal psychologists and phenomenologists of whom I have previously mentioned. The Sufi tradition is one of those contexts within which Spirit and Soul mutually interact as co-creative partners. The way I think of it (and I think Alan and Lere think similarly) is that Soul can be thought of as the dark yet luminous local and non-local receptive-reflective-responsive space of nature. Spirit can be thought of as the illuminating love and light “informational-energy” as variably viscous flow-forms in nature. In other words, Spirit is “figure” and Soul is “ground.” There is a realm – poetically/imaginally articulated – that goes by different names, and I hazard the hypothesis that they are largely the same realm. This is the realm of which I see a confluence of patters whether one is speaking of Inclusionality, Transfigural Mathematics, Phenomenology, Spirituality, and the list can (no doubt) go on.
The names of this liminal space (or its “region”) include the following:
“The Edge of Fluidity” – Alan Rayner
“The Zeroid” – Lere Shakunle
“Breathing Point” – Lere Shakunle
“The Chiasm” – Maurice Merleau-Ponty
“The Flesh of the World” – Merleau-Ponty
“The I” – Robert Sardello
”Silence” – Robert Sardello
“The I” – Christopher Alexander
“The Living Field” – Christopher Alexander
“Final Participation” – Owen Barfield
“The Urphenomenon” – Goethe
“The Resonant Interval” – Marshall McLuhan
“The Ungrund” – Jacob Boehme
“Primary Knowing” – Eleanor Rosch
“Presence” – Peter Senge, Otto Scharmer, et al
“Soul of the World” – James Hillman, Robert Sardello, Thomas Moore, et al
“Love” – Hosea, Jesus of Nazereth, Rumi, Ibn Arabi (and certain other Sufi mystics), et al
“Luminous Darkness” – Howard Thurman
I am currently exploring the notion that all of these understandings represent openings to the “within-ness of life.”
I welcome your thoughts, Alan, as well as anyone in this network.
Love and warmth,
Rev. Roy Reynolds
PS. It is from the “within-ness” that we gain what you (Alan) call “deep tolerance.”
--
"La paciencia es amarga, pero sus frutos son dulces."
"Patience is bitter but its fruits are sweet"
Have you visited my blog recently?
http://livingandworkinginmexico.wordpress.com/
Dr Paul Roberts
Calle Independencia #32-2
Ciudad Guzmán
Jalisco
México
C.P. 49000
tel: +52 (341) 412 6940
cel: 044 (341) 102 0774
--
"La paciencia es amarga, pero sus frutos son dulces."
"Patience is bitter but its fruits are sweet"
Have you visited my blog recently?
http://livingandworkinginmexico.wordpress.com/
Dr Paul Roberts
Calle Independencia #32-2
Ciudad Guzmán
Jalisco
México
C.P. 49000
tel: +52 (341) 412 6940
cel: 044 (341) 102 0774
