So yesterday I figured out how not to miss a post because of the hour difference between my time and the browser’s time.  As soon as I write these first several sentences, instead of just leaving them in a working form, I’ll post them.  It won’t be my complete post, I can and will edit and add to it later. But at least it will be in there listed on the intended day.  Interesting.  By doing something different earlier in the day, I’m gaining an extra hour later on in the day.  And who says time isn’t relative?

Taking a break from the article.  Hah.  Who would have thought that writing a blog would be taking a break?  I guess that’s relative, too.  Here’s another poem by The Elder, we haven’t had one for a while.  I Am A Scale  And now off to make dinner… a Philly Cheesesteak if I do it right.

Okay.  So I would have been kicked out of Pennsylvania, tasted nothing like the real thing.  But it was good, and filling, and with a little salad on the side almost nutritious.  Big day tomorrow… doctor’s appointment with a friend, hospice work, and more qp writing if I have the time.  And I can’t forget the blog.  So much to do.  So much fun.  How cool is that.

peace………ag

Bright and sunny outside today.  Big change from the drab, rainy days we’ve been having recently. Makes me want to breathe deeply and go do something out in the open air.  However, I had so many insights on where to go with my writing last night that I think I’ll just stand here in front of my computer, open the window, take that deep breath and get back to work.  Amazing how we can be affected by the environment.  Then, again, it might not be so amazing considering how we are all connected.

Here’s something I just cut from the qp article.   It seemed too good to just disappear.

In your mind visualize yourself in a future ‘now’ as the ‘I’ you most want to be. Don’t just wish it.  Feel it.  Be there.  Ask yourself how I got here from there…  there being now.  If the current continuum is not leading to that goal,  know that you are free to make a mid-course correction.

Hey.  That’s what this consciousness blog is all about, right?  Ever better.

peace……..ag

Had a fabulous insight today, while in the shower, on what to do with the qp article.  (It’s amazing where your mind can go when your outside world is running on autopilot.)  Anyway, I’m going to pivot the article on the concept of inside/outside.  I haven’t told you that one yet?  Well let me correct that right now.

Can you remember when you learned the concept of Inside and Outside? Was it a teacher in school, a parent at home, the little kid next door? How old were you? The idea is so spinal now it’s probably too hard to remember.

{Teacher – pointing to a box}: “This space is called ‘inside’; and this space is called ‘outside’.”

However, simply knowing the words ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ and being able to point to them doesn’t qualify. That‘s just remembering an authority figure at some time or other relating two sides of a box to their human construction names.  Even knowing how to use the box on the floor doesn’t really convey the experience of inside and outside.

{Me}: “If I put the ball inside the box, it stays; put the ball outside the box, it rolls away.”

Although using the box goes beyond definitions by requiring an understanding of certain simple laws of physics, everything is still taking place, experientially speaking, out there. It is only by being the box that the knowing becomes real.  In fact, experiencing the difference between inside and outside is what being a box is all about.

{Box}: “…facing one direction is my inside; facing the other direction is my outside.”

At least that’s what a box would experience if it had conscious self-awareness like we do. That and precious little more, for that is all a box is, after all, a separator of inside and outside. Unfold it, and it is no longer even a box, but merely hard-to-dispose-of garbage.

Yes. We are more than a box.  But understanding who ‘I’ am starts with that simple understanding… ‘inside’ me and ‘outside’ me… just like the box.

peace…….ag

Going back to the exercise you did yesterday, while it took you years to get from the being in the picture to whom you are now… physically,  it took you less than an instant to return to that being… mentally.  And once you were there, if you wanted to, you could have easily traced the steps and the decisions you made along the continuum that brought you from that earlier self to the ‘I’ you are now.

So here’s the bit.  It’s possible to use this The Evolution of Me technique to design “what happens next” in your life.  Really.

Level 3: In your mind visualize yourself in a future ‘now’ as the ‘I’ you most want to be.  Ask yourself how you got to that future ‘now’ from the old-time ‘now’ you are in today.  Look to see if the current continuum is leading to that goal and know that you are free to make mid-course corrections any time you want.

Okay. This one you could actually play without having played the first two levels… but you’d get it all wrong.   You’d just be wishing and hoping instead of visualizing and manifesting. It’s all about the experience. Being, not doing.

peace………..ag

So I’m going to assume that you’ve read yesterday’s post and done yesterday’s little game of self reflection.  If you haven’t, do so before you read this.  As with any character based game, you have to earn your right to each level.  In fact, you really should read all these posts in order to get the full impact.  For example, if you just started reading with today’s post you wouldn’t even know that there are three of us writing this.  But I digress.  Back to The Evolution of Me.

Level 2:  Get a photograph of yourself as a child. Look closely at the person looking back. Without making value judgments, ask yourself what that person has in common with you and how that person differs from you.

Do the exercise, read this link…   Evolution of Me – Jan 15     …and then finish this post.

The farther back the photo, the greater the difference in inner reality between se and I. Ultimately, if I look at a photo of myself as an infant, I do not know how to care for myself, how to survive in the world. My inner reality is close to a blank, I do not even know my name. And in that picture of me in the hospital, wrinkled skin, eyes closed, held by the mother I so recently left, I may not even know I am a separate being. I may not even know there is an out there. I may not even know there is an in here. I may not even know I am.

That is where ‘I’ started this life. That was my first ‘now’ as a human, somewhere between an outer reality bombarding me with unintelligible, incoming data, and an inner reality that is either blank, or filled with feelings and knowings from a previous ‘now’ in a previous body. The current paradigm would say one thing, Integral Consciousness another. But that hardly matters, since both would agree that there is a point on the continuum between birth and ‘now’ where I both know that I am, and am able to express it.

And that is true not only for every individual ‘I’, but for humanity as a whole.

peace……….ag

Hospice day. The day I go out and sit with dying patients and their families.  Talk about putting a different perspective on reality.  Think about what is real and important in your life for a while.  I’ll see you later.

So I’m back.  I’ll bet you never even realized I was gone.  Time takes on completely different textures on either side of the printed word. Anyway, went back to writing the quantum physics article and thought about this game I came up a couple of years ago called The Evolution of Me.  It’s really simple and goes like this:

Level 1:  Walk over to a mirror. Look closely at the person looking back. Without making value judgments, ask yourself what that person has in common with you and how that person differs from you.

Do it. Really. Look at yourself in a mirror and answer those questions.  Maybe not right now if you don’t feel like getting up, but definitely before reading tomorrow’s post or the link I’m inserting here. Evolution of Me – Jan 14     We’re talking about the experiential.  By reading you may know about a subject but you will not know the subject. And there is a big difference between the two.

Oh.  By the way.  ‘Se’, pronounced “see” is a third person pronoun I’ve coined to refer to living beings where gender is either unknown, undecided, or unimportant.  ‘It’ is used for garbage and ‘he/she’ is lame. English is sorely lacking.

peace………..ag

Busy, busy morning.  Focusing on all those things that have to be done, so why not get them done now so I can focus on what I’d really like to do late on.  Right.

And now, with them out of the way… for now… we can bring you in on what’s really happening here…  On The Road To Higher Consciousness.

The three of us are trying to write this blog together.   It’s not the first time.  We tried writing together once before about ten years ago with a slightly different format… a blog where we would post and comment on each others postings.   And there was a slightly different cast of characters.  We called it The Roving’I’ and here’s what you’d see when you signed on…

The Roving ‘I’ is a collaboration of the four of us, three on this side of the words doing the writing,- Andrej Goosz, terminal optimist and holder of a totally useless PhD in the evolution of consciousness; ag, retired salesman with a wicked sense of humor and an active libido; and, David Silverman, nearly broke, pot smoking, out of work writer, with a wife who keeps reminding him of those facts. Then there’s you, on that side doing the reading. We assume you know who you are.

This time, I’m still me, as you already know… once a Silverman always a Silverman.  The original ag dropped out along the way and Andrej liked his sign-in, so he started using the initials ag.  So we’ve got the same letters but a different person.  And you already read how The Elder joined up.   You’re still you,I guess, although that’s really a stupid assumption now that I think about it.  Who doesn’t change over a ten year period.

peace………..ag

At yoga today the teacher gave us a choice to do shoulder stand with a chair or feet up the wall.  “You can go right into either pose if you know it,” she said.  “I’ll demonstrate the legs up the wall,” she added and  turned to me, “and you show the shoulder stand, okay?”  I nodded.  “And would you explain what you’re doing as you do it?”  I shook my head.  “No.”  For some reason I didn’t mind having people watch what I was doing, I just didn’t feel right putting it into words.

Strange, I thought, as I balanced, my shoulders on the bolster, arms under the seat of the chair holding onto its back legs, my legs straight up in the air. Why didn’t I want to describe what I was doing as I was doing it?  Isn’t that what I am doing here every day?  Was I afraid I would say something wrong?  I don’t think so.

I think it was more that by speaking I would be focusing on the words and not on the pose.  The connection between me and the new students in the class would take place between them and my words.  By not speaking the connection would be between them and my actions.  It just seemed more pure.

That said, forgive my words on this blog.  There doesn’t seem to be any other way to do this.  However, when it comes to studying consciousness, as with yoga,  the experiences speak much more loudly than words.  Try watching yourself.  Then watch yourself watching yourself.  It’s amazing what you will see.

And do check out this link that builds off the last two and gives a little more background on ag, Silverman, and The Elder.   Silverman Here – Jan12     It might explain a lot as we head down the road.

Slept late today.  Don’t tell me there is no advantage to being retired and not having to get up bright and early on a Monday morning to go to work.  Got a lot of work done before brunch.  Planning promotion for the April workshop and dealing with the insurance company about getting our car fixed. Not everything one does is earth shattering.  Sometimes it’s only fender shattering.   We were hit while we were parked, by the way.

Back onto the quantum physics article.  Exciting.  Behind me, on her computer, my wife is checking out snorkeling equipment on line.  We’re going to St. Croix for a couple of weeks at the end of February.  Also exciting.   Three hours later, have a snorkel in my gym bag to try out at the pool.  Just thinking of them earlier today.  Now have one within my reach.  Ever better.

But enough about me.  I told you yesterday that there are actually three of us writing this.  Well, it’s true. So here’s a little bit more about us.  Silverman Here – Jan 11  Yes, it gets a little complicated. But so is life.  As far as The Roving ‘I’ we’re talking about, that’s the title of the book we’re working on.  You’ll see.  You’re part of making it a reality.

peace……ag

Officiated this afternoon at a memorial service for a woman who had been a patient for almost a year. It’s really amazing,  meeting someone at the end of their lives.  You can get to know them as they are, but you never really get to know them as they were.  As different friends and family members stood to talk about one I knew as a sweet, smiling, lady with dementia, I learned about a great neighbor, a fantastic gardener, a political activist, a radio reporter, a homeless advocate , all these different people who had lived inside this sweet little lady with dementia.  How many people live inside each one of us?

OMG.

Did I really just write that?  I had that very thought just yesterday and almost put it in my post.  It must be a sign from the universe to get it out on the table… usually I get three signs and then the opportunity is gone.  I like to act on the second.  Then you have some slack if something happens to get in the way.  So here goes.  There are actually three of us writing this.  Me. ag. and The Elder,  You should probably know a little bit about us, so I’ve added this link to something I wrote for something else.  Works here, too. Silverman Here  So there.  Now you know.

Anyway, that’s enough for tonight.  Been a long and fruitful day.  Also saw an NFL kicker knock his team out of the playoffs by missing a chip shot. Three feet off to the left with 14 seconds left to go. People will forget that he scored the only other points his team got.   One quick moment in space and time, here and now.  What a difference it will make in his life, thoughts, memories, and self esteem years down the road.  Or not.  It’s up to him.

peace………ag