Posted by john on June 10, 2002 at 06:39:42:
In Reply to: reaquanting with enchantment posted by jonvon on June 08, 2002 at 15:25:04:
I understand what you are saying. I think the energy, or majik is there. I've spent the better part of my adult life searching for it. But it is truly an uphill battle. At every turn there is something restricting it, squashing it. and most of it unnecessarilly, or in ignorance. Some may be content to feel any chi that comes up from the ground through polluted earth while taking deep breaths of poison air. But if you do those exercises in the pure earth, far from the things of detructive man, the chi is magnified exponentially. I mean you don't even have to do exercises to get the level of chi you described, it just comes by existing. I have tried to practice proper breathing at work and in town, but every breath is stifled by the noxious fumes of exhaust and dust, and the only sounds to reach my ears are the devil's chords generated by the beastly trucks and machinery.
Stil I have been able to find the small slivers of hope and majik that persist there. Just as Bill said I've been able to see the wilderness inside the urban. But my question is are we going to be content with the candle flickers? Are we going to huddle around the tiny flames when we could experience the absolute conflagration? I am not content with any less. I don't understand how people can find this mutilated shred of hope and be content with that. It only fuels my desire to see the full beauty manifested. Take botany for an example. We can keep a house plant inside and barely water it and it may live, but who among us would be content with that sickly plant when we could cultivate it, give it light and nutrients and see the full splendor that it has to offer?
: this conversation reminds me of a quandry i was trying to think through some time ago while in a kung fu class back in boulder. we were learning how to pull chi up through the earth into our bodies. now this is an interesting thing. i remember reading about a particular martial artist. i don't remember now what book it was in, i read a bunch of them when we were going to that school. but anyway, i remember that the mother of this fellow would tell him as a child to go out into the grass and run around so you can get some chi. boy, i want to run around on some bunny trails, but i'm going to stay on point. ennnneeway, so there we were in class, standing on the ground with our feet planted a certain way, in a certain stance, concentrating on pulling up energy into our bodies from the ground, through our feet.
: later i was thinking about it. the school was in this strip mall. there was this ugly supermarket there, and a nasty little chinese place next door (that of course we ate at once in a while, they had decent moo shu pork) and a framing shop and around the corner a laundramat. etc. and there was a big parking lot there as well. so here we have this nasty old strip mall. the earth beneath us is covered in layers of concrete and who knows what else. we were standing on top of a carpet that had a pad beneath it as well. we were probably 6 inches to a foot at least from any sort of real earth. and the earth that was there was buried under the crushing weight of the strip mall, buried in darkness and pressed down flat. i used to feel sorry for that earth under there. i sort of know why, but then again i sort of don't.
: well anyway, i remember feeling that energy coming up and into me. and we'd move it around while doing tai chi exercises. we'd make energy balls and whatnot. i remember our instructor saying that you kind of had to imagine it, that it was partially something you access through a kind of faith. not really too different from other kinds of spiritual things that people do from time to time.
: so why did this work? why were we able to feel it? why, when the energy we were pulling was supposed to be coming from the earth? i'm sure the martial artists all want to raise their hands and say stuff. yeah, you can pull it from the air. you might simply become aware of your own energy. you can generate it via breathing techniques, etc. but there was something to the earth thing too.
: but sometimes i wished we were doing some of that stuff in the grass, down in the park across the street. i thought about the little boy running around outside (instead of in the house) getting some chi. i thought, why are we doing this inside this awful place? why would it work in here?
: i suppose in the end it didn't matter that much where we were standing, we could have been on the top floor of a 30 story building and we could have still done it. energy is everywhere. magic is everywhere. maybe that is the point. even in these unhealthy structures we have built, the carpets we stand on that contain all the hazardous chemicals and so forth, locked up in even these unnatural products of the industrial age we are still able to experience the joy that is locked up in all things. there is wonder everywhere. there is energy locked inside of everything. in skyscrapers, in parking lots, in underground tunnels, everywhere.
: ...bill, i really like what you have to say along these lines. very cool.
: : You are hitting the nail on the head w your observations. The idyllic, mythological world is a far cry more noble looking than the world we have here and now, the world with oil spills, with litter, with nudie bars on every corner, etc. This is not the same. No, the vast expanses have been carved and served to the multitudes of uncaring, unknowing people who have forgotten how to walk on mother earth with each step being a prayer of gratitude, etc. But still, here is the world into which the Light enters and mysteriously communes. Here is the dwelling place of Emmanuel. The only way we can see it transformed is by committing to it on some level. It might be the very death of us. I still don't know how it all will work out. But your viewpoint is terribly important to those who for whatever reason have been lulled to sleep. You are more like John the Baptist or Elijah. You are the one pointing one finger at Heaven and one at Earth. Seeing that they don't match up you express that reality in a very strong way. Then there are others, whose strengths can blend w yours who see it redemptively. They see incredible hope where it seems that all hope has already vanished. I remember once driving by USF and suddenly it was like a veil was lifted and I could see a huge vast wilderness, and althought my eyes were convincing me that there was nothing there but concrete and glass, I knew that on some level of reality there was a huge wildness sitting right on the same spot. It was almost like the feeling I would imagine upon seeing a leprechaun. Infact, I do believe in leprechauns and faeries somehow. I think that we need to retrain our eyes and hearts to see nature and myth all around us. It might take time to reenchant the world, or to simply reacquaint ourselves w its ongoing enchantment. I think the main thing is to allow ourselves that time. Also, I think the more we encourage that type of reflection and then encourage community action based on that, we will see changes.