Post by Francis on Feb 9, 2009 8:51:26 GMT -1
Hi Steffan
Well I agree with you. Now would be a good time for us to be forthcoming, or at least more explicitly clear, about our specific beliefs as individuals.
We take a certain pride in ourselves here in that we’re less accepting of any old ‘spiritual’ nonsense - unlike the typical hippies who’ve confused the Spirit of 1967’s Summer of Love with a religious path they call druidry. I don’t think you’ve been lambasted, you’ve just had your thinking and beliefs scrutinised by your peers! It’s no different than submitting a paper to a scientific journal – the beautiful baby of your ideas gets prodded and poked, and the focus of the discussion is mostly on its flaws. It’s not personal, though it can be uncomfortable – and it is almost always valuable, focussing and productive in the end.
So I’d say we should try and move away from worrying, as you suggest, that it’s a brave move to present our individual beliefs openly here – I think we need to try and see it as an opportunity for each of us to get some valuable input from a group of people we have a decent regard for. We may find we have more or less in common than we expect, but let’s see where that might take us anyway…..
That said doing this is often easier face to face than over the net, and I think a brief explicit statement of our individual beliefs (not hidden behind ‘jargon’) once around the circle would be a useful opening for our next gathering.
For what it’s worth and as briefly as possible my path is based on the tension between the wild and the domestic. Between the wildwood and the domestication of farmed land.
Wildwood I see as the fullest expression of the land herself (we don’t have any truly wildwood left in Britain – but the nearest we have is the nearest there is to that land willed expression). The farmed landscape (I’m talking about less intensively farmed here – intensively is sometimes closer to townscape in terms of potential for relationship) holds the stories of tribe and ancestor and is the cauldron of the gods. The cauldron of both their own genesis, there creating and, for those I work with, their expression and relationship with humankind. I see the gods as being at one end of a spectrum with lesser spirits of place at the other. I don’t know of a qualitative difference between the two.
(Crucially to me the 'anthropomorphic gods' are fundamentally part of the domestic landscape)
As I have poorly and briefly described elsewhere the ‘consciousness’ of Spirits of place, I believe, may derive in a similar way to our own consciousness - not from the neural networks brains like ours, but from the networks of interactions between all the life of a place. (i.e. replace a brains nerve cell with a rabbit, plant or bacterium – and replace the chemical interactions between our brains nerve cells with the interactions between rabbit and plant etc.)
Towards the end of the spectrum that many would describe as gods the network of interaction includes less tangible factors such as the stories, myths and histories of our tribes. i.e. human beliefs that shape the landscape, like beliefs that leave holly in hedges and the shape that has on the ‘neural network’ of the spirit of place. A contemporary view would be farmers belief in badgers and T.B.-if badgers are removed from a place then that creates a change in the web. More obvious changes in the web of landscape that the gods arise out of are our cultural beliefs and legends – these shape the web and our human relationship with it.
The above is irrelevant to relationship in many ways. I don’t interact with people on the basis of my belief that their consciousness arises out of a neural network in their brain – and I don’t relate to spirits of place thinking of ‘neural network models’ either. But it is part of the explanation I offer when I talk of the consciousness of these entites and the theoretical framework I have for what I believe is possible.
I’m not a dualist. I believe spirit comes out of the physical in the way I describe above. To me this means spirit is mortal and can change. But most importantly it isn’t an entity – it derives from a process. This allows for the possibility of many wonderful things – in particular for the centre of consciousness to move and be moved- journeying if you like. When I say spirit isn’t an entity, that doesn’t detract from its existence in anyway – I mean it in exactly the same way as saying that your own consciousness isn’t an entity, but a process. It makes your own consciousness no less real, have no less identity and the potential for relationship with it no less meaningful.
Relationship is everything.
Sorry this is so long- yet trying to keep it as short as this cuts out so much stuff, that it almost leaves it non-sensical and nearly useless.
Hopefully Steffan you’ll see that as my head stuck up above the parapet now to be shot at as well!
Stephen
Well I agree with you. Now would be a good time for us to be forthcoming, or at least more explicitly clear, about our specific beliefs as individuals.
We take a certain pride in ourselves here in that we’re less accepting of any old ‘spiritual’ nonsense - unlike the typical hippies who’ve confused the Spirit of 1967’s Summer of Love with a religious path they call druidry. I don’t think you’ve been lambasted, you’ve just had your thinking and beliefs scrutinised by your peers! It’s no different than submitting a paper to a scientific journal – the beautiful baby of your ideas gets prodded and poked, and the focus of the discussion is mostly on its flaws. It’s not personal, though it can be uncomfortable – and it is almost always valuable, focussing and productive in the end.
So I’d say we should try and move away from worrying, as you suggest, that it’s a brave move to present our individual beliefs openly here – I think we need to try and see it as an opportunity for each of us to get some valuable input from a group of people we have a decent regard for. We may find we have more or less in common than we expect, but let’s see where that might take us anyway…..
That said doing this is often easier face to face than over the net, and I think a brief explicit statement of our individual beliefs (not hidden behind ‘jargon’) once around the circle would be a useful opening for our next gathering.
For what it’s worth and as briefly as possible my path is based on the tension between the wild and the domestic. Between the wildwood and the domestication of farmed land.
Wildwood I see as the fullest expression of the land herself (we don’t have any truly wildwood left in Britain – but the nearest we have is the nearest there is to that land willed expression). The farmed landscape (I’m talking about less intensively farmed here – intensively is sometimes closer to townscape in terms of potential for relationship) holds the stories of tribe and ancestor and is the cauldron of the gods. The cauldron of both their own genesis, there creating and, for those I work with, their expression and relationship with humankind. I see the gods as being at one end of a spectrum with lesser spirits of place at the other. I don’t know of a qualitative difference between the two.
(Crucially to me the 'anthropomorphic gods' are fundamentally part of the domestic landscape)
As I have poorly and briefly described elsewhere the ‘consciousness’ of Spirits of place, I believe, may derive in a similar way to our own consciousness - not from the neural networks brains like ours, but from the networks of interactions between all the life of a place. (i.e. replace a brains nerve cell with a rabbit, plant or bacterium – and replace the chemical interactions between our brains nerve cells with the interactions between rabbit and plant etc.)
Towards the end of the spectrum that many would describe as gods the network of interaction includes less tangible factors such as the stories, myths and histories of our tribes. i.e. human beliefs that shape the landscape, like beliefs that leave holly in hedges and the shape that has on the ‘neural network’ of the spirit of place. A contemporary view would be farmers belief in badgers and T.B.-if badgers are removed from a place then that creates a change in the web. More obvious changes in the web of landscape that the gods arise out of are our cultural beliefs and legends – these shape the web and our human relationship with it.
The above is irrelevant to relationship in many ways. I don’t interact with people on the basis of my belief that their consciousness arises out of a neural network in their brain – and I don’t relate to spirits of place thinking of ‘neural network models’ either. But it is part of the explanation I offer when I talk of the consciousness of these entites and the theoretical framework I have for what I believe is possible.
I’m not a dualist. I believe spirit comes out of the physical in the way I describe above. To me this means spirit is mortal and can change. But most importantly it isn’t an entity – it derives from a process. This allows for the possibility of many wonderful things – in particular for the centre of consciousness to move and be moved- journeying if you like. When I say spirit isn’t an entity, that doesn’t detract from its existence in anyway – I mean it in exactly the same way as saying that your own consciousness isn’t an entity, but a process. It makes your own consciousness no less real, have no less identity and the potential for relationship with it no less meaningful.
Relationship is everything.
Sorry this is so long- yet trying to keep it as short as this cuts out so much stuff, that it almost leaves it non-sensical and nearly useless.
Hopefully Steffan you’ll see that as my head stuck up above the parapet now to be shot at as well!
Stephen