Friday, November 25, 2022
3:25 a.m. Perhaps time to pause working on the novel and resume my conversation about continuity from the other day (Tuesday). Let’s center on the internal and external (the body as both self and other) as I am experiencing it, with a nod toward the memory process again.
Starting with the least significant event, I was lying down a few hours ago, remembering the end of The Old Man and the Sea, where a young Spanish-speaking boy tries to tell two English-speaking adults what happened to the huge fish Santiago had caught, of which only the spine remained. I knew he used the Spanish word for shark, said then “eshark,” and they misunderstood him to mean that they were looking at a shark skeleton. But I couldn’t remember the word for shark. It has something to do with San Francisco Bay or thereabouts.
I remembered to release the clutch (so to speak), trusting that the word would associate, and within seconds – not as many as five seconds, I’d say – I remembered. “Tiburon. Eshark,” the boy had said. And I remembered that the little town of Tiburon had been named that because its coastline seen from the bay had reminded somebody of a shark.
Watching the association-machine function smoothly, immediately, after watching it jam up, is fascinating and encouraging. It tells me that for whatever reason the jam-up occurs, the answer is to ease off, holding one’s attention loosely on it (or even letting it go entirely) and, in short, getting out of the way.
But the body as intermediary is a larger subject. Gentlemen?
Gee, do you suppose that could be one reason why 3D existence comes equipped with residence within a body?
Did I pretend it might be an accident?
No, but it’s easy, and common, for people to want the advantages and not the disadvantages of a situation.
“Good and evil”?
Well – let’s say desired and undesired. Wanting up and not down, easy and not hard, comfortable and not the reverse.
Impossible, of course.
It is mostly a matter of a conflict between perception and preference. No law says you have to like the way things are, even if “the way things are” are that way for good and necessary reason. Flight involves lift and drag, both. You may or may not like it, but that’s the way it is. Learn to live with it, and you can fly. Otherwise, you can spend your time complaining about what you don’t understand.
Well, I’m experiencing a pointed example of how the body is external even as I still believe it is internal.
And that is an error of judgment. It is neither one, but sort of a bridge between the two. Take, as a close example, your brain. Your brain is a close link to your mind, and therefore to what you think of as you. But it is also physical matter, subject to incident, disease, trauma, whatever. It is you; it is not you; it is how there can be a you. But to think of it as internal or external, you or not-you, 3D or non-3D, is to truncate the reality.
So, to change focus with a more urgent example: Your surgery leaves your body with swollen tissues and a line of stitches. A week after the doctor cut into the tissues, they have not recovered their equilibrium, you could say. You talk to the cells, encourage them to shed the edema and overcome the trauma that was deliberately inflicted to serve a greater purpose. It doesn’t immediately work, even though when you requested of the same tissues (or of the intelligence inherent in them) that they not send pain signals to alert you to what you already knew was happening, they did what you asked. Why should it work one time and not another?
Yes. Why?
You might think of it as stages of mastery.
I can imagine that. We learn to do so much and not (yet) more. Then later perhaps we learn to do more.
One is always in the learning stage, until one ceases to be interested in learning. So, there is always a challenge one hasn’t yet learned to overcome. Later perhaps it is easy.
I don’t get a sense that this has to do with value, or decisions. [Poorly phrased, but they knew what I meant.]
Rewards for good behavior? No. you aren’t born knowing how to play like Paganini. And if you are, you take it for granted and set your sights on other things, other challenging unattainable goals.
Well, you showed us how to get out of our own way, remembering. Can you show us things we do that may impair the healing process?
What’s the common denominator?
Yes, I hear that. Impatience.
As we said, a discrepancy between perception and preference. You want to be well immediately, but the possibilities aren’t necessarily there. Maybe it will take longer, maybe it can’t be done. Since you never know, ahead of time, which it is, there is always the potential for you to start pushing, unbeknownst to yourself. In healing as in memory retrieval, relax and allow.
That doesn’t mean you can’t do things that will help or hinder; it means, it isn’t exactly in your power to direct events to that extent – nor would it necessarily be in your best interests if it were.
So, a list of bad practices, or of best practices, when we are dealing with physical body problems?
Yes, we can do that. But only a few. Too many would start to seem like a recipe to be followed, which is not the case.
Best practices for health, for healing, for maintenance, are the same as for 3D life in general, only pointed toward this specific aim:
- Cheerful acceptance.
- Mild (constructive) impatience.
- Curiosity as to how the specific relates to the general.
Bad practices:
- Sullen refusal.
- Embracing fear.
Short and sweet.
As we said, we want to encourage a way of experiencing whatever comes. It will serve you well, regardless of the nature of the challenge. So, only a few talking-points, and very little explanation around them. Your own guidance will amplify anything you need help with, you know that. Except, of course, if you are afraid to trust guidance, or if you are convinced that you have no access to guidance, you sort of isolate yourself. [It occurs to me, transcribing this, in such case one could always resolve to act “as if” one were convinced.] But failing that, these few points ought to help.
Our thanks as always. A little short, this morning, but I think I’ll go back to bed for a while. Theme?
“Perception and preference,” perhaps?
Rather than “Tips on memory and health”?
Your choice, always.
Till next time, then.