poliphilo | Players

No, I find I keep coming back to it.

The Bible and Shakespeare- twin pillars of an English liberal education.

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archyena.livejournal.com

The pertinent religious question is whether this is scripted or improv.

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Imrov (I think) but within a fairly tight structure

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arielstarshadow.livejournal.com

I like this - trying on different roles. I think I've been in the same role too long. Hopefully, the move to Europe will help me to shed this role, of which I have become tired, and try on a new one, hopefully one that will be a better fit than the last.

You really are right, the more I think about it. I think about the people I have been in the past, and the people I want to be in the future. Of course, this then begs the question as to which is the REAL person??

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I don't think there is a "real" person. They're all roles. It's just that some of our performances are more convincing than others.

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arielstarshadow.livejournal.com

Hmmmm...so you don't believe that there is a true essence of us somewhere?

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I have heard one description that may (or may not) be helpful:

Our personalities are pearls on a string. The string is us, the essence.

And, to continue Tony's discussion here, I believe that string is God.

We are, perhaps, at essence, God.

God Who plays, Who enters into life fully, so fully that Creation itself becomes created and is at play, unknowing, in the fields of the Lord.

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I think we are spirit. And that the portion of spirit which is us incarnates many times. Maybe that essential self takes a certain colouration from its incarnations. It would be nice to think so.

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Maybe that essential self takes a certain colouration from its incarnations.

Hopefully so. We contribute to the creative soup because our "strings" change as a result of our the lives of each of our personalities.

--I have little doubt that, if I do reincarnate in some way, I'll be drawn--once again--towards church music and organized religion. It's like a magnet--

This is process theology, then: our contribution to the soup changes its essence--changes the Creator.

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Yes. The creation is the Creator's act of self discovery.

The creation is in the process of becoming (to use a nice word that came up the other day.)

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We think alike. I pondered this one for some time, although currently have largely rejected it; I suspect that there is not that much cohesiveness in any given "chunk" of spirit. I think maybe fragments might get kept, by chance, but... (That would explain some people's fragmentary "memories" of past lives, perhaps...) I like the idea of spirit intermingling like that, and all the variety that would provide. I think cohesive "chunks" would get tired or bored or something...and I think it wouldn't feel like home if we were always so separate.

I also wondered if the universe, the spirit part of it, was in the process of slowly becoming sentient; all our small experiences over the millenia might perhaps cause such a thing in the larger whole. It's an intriguing possibility; the larger and more complex a thing is, it grows more slowly; the universe must be still an infant; what it could become as it grows is fascinating.

But then I think that maybe spirit will just always be what it is, an ever learning/exploring/existing thing, and I like that, too. Simplicity does tend to seem like truth.

I wish more people thought/felt the way I do. It gets a little lonely sometimes.

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Ultimately, the religious journey is a solitary exploration, I have found.

My most exciting ideas have never really resonated with others, to my frustration!

Here: I wrote this. It thrilled me so much. Still does! I felt I'd made a breakthrough discovery--combined mysticism with string theory, something only people of our time could do!

(I know: I took off like a rocket with my Idea, and it may mean nothing, except to me.

But it is also important to me BECAUSE I begged God--with some irritation--to tell me what was going on!)

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barbarakitten-t.livejournal.com

Ultimately, the religious journey is a solitary exploration, I have found.

My most exciting ideas have never really resonated with others, to my frustration!

that's it! i hate being solitary (in some ways) but at the same time i can't be anything else because i can't explain myself, my feelings, my beliefs so that anyone else understands them.

to see us humans, to see myself, as an earthen vessel is a good image (but i may have a hairline crack....)

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but at the same time i can't be anything else because i can't explain myself, my feelings, my beliefs so that anyone else understands them.

Thinking for yourself, however, is like opening the door and walking out into fresh air and light.

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Some, though, are much more solitary than others, I have found. I would like to be less solitary; I would like to find a community with which I had enough in common; such a thing doesn't really exist for me, the best I can do is UU, and that is more a conglomeration of utterly solitary journeys than even a partially shared one, to my mind. So. *half smile*

What you wrote does resonate with me; it makes sense to me as an alternate idea to my general one, which is that there was no true beginning at all.
I can see yours; though, of course, what you call God and ascribe intention to, I do not call God and do not ascribe intention to; to me, that may be where spirit comes from and goes to, then. :)

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I believe in individuation. I think human evolution is all about becoming more sharply defined and singular. As a chunk of spirit gains in wisdom and experience so it becomes more cohesive and less likely to fly apart and mingle.

I like the idea of the whole universe becoming sentient. Perhaps we humans are at the cutting edge of this process.

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I don't rule out individuation; the idea of becoming more cohesive as a result of accumulated wisdom and experience is basically word for word one of my theories; in the end, though, I've concluded (for now) that more unity rather than more separation seemed more correct to me. What need does spirit have to be more individual, really? What purpose would it serve? Those are the questions I asked myself and did not find satisfactory answers; to me, there are more compelling reasons for unity, for sharing and mingling, for the greater whole remaining such.

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Perhaps we have a choice. We can choose unity or we can choose individuation. And both choices are perfectly valid. And why not?

Why shouldn't we all be conducting different experiments "at play in the fields of the Lord"?

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Certainly possible. And, now that I think on it, that might be what underlies the duality concept present in so many faiths; two distinct, mutually exclusive paths, spirit exploring each. Interesting food for thought. :)

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I like the idea of playfulness.

The Presbyterian catechism is interesting:

"The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever."

(One must first set aside the irony of such a light-hearted observation coming from the dour and fatalistic Presbyterians.)

And Jesus is about not worrying about things so much--"Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow."

In the end (I look back at my meandering, often confused life), he is correct.

(I'm thinking--and have been thinking--of my childhood pretending, wherein I imagined many dollhouses on the grass, and I was small enough to fit inside, and I could choose any one of them, and then, when bored, move on to the next.)

I also like to explore your idea that these are all gene combinations and fate--where we land.

Maybe it's meant to be fun! The Garden of Eden: a perfect place for play.

We all dream of such a world, and we say it will be true in Heaven.

But, hold: you live in a beautiful place, where wind blows in from the Irish sea, and you have such views, even from your window!

And I am hearing birds right outside, and it's raining here, and I live in the foothills of mountains.

Eden, right now--and all for the joy of it.

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karenkay.livejournal.com

(I'm thinking--and have been thinking--of my childhood pretending, wherein I imagined many dollhouses on the grass, and I was small enough to fit inside, and I could choose any one of them, and then, when bored, move on to the next.)

Have you looked into housesitting? If you sell your house you could move from place to place that way. Some people do that and never own a house.

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I did once look into housesitting, Karen, and tried it once.

But the other person's stuff is always there, and I can't move it--

I stayed for three months in a woman's house for her, and she had hideous figurines on her mantle, and tacky things I didn't like all around--finally, her presence oppressed me.

I like the idea of having nothing in a space, and then slowly adding in interesting things.

And I love best the idea of moving on when I get bored with it all.

I need a portable, blank cube with one window and one door.

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barbarakitten-t.livejournal.com

I like the idea of having nothing in a space, and then slowly adding in interesting things.

i sometimes wish that i could have a fire or something so that i don't have to move anything into my new house and so that i don't have to decide what to get rid of...

i have 40!!!!!!! (i counted them saturday because i was going to cull, but they are all still okay and i may wear them....) t-shirts for work. these are walmart "haynes her way" type t-shirts that all cost $8 or less and i wear them to work with jeans or skirts (i love working for a university library where i can wear jeans and a polo shirt with a "librarians control all knowledge" logo one day and a very nice dress the next day and a denim skirt and cotton blouse the next, and knit leggings with a tunic the next...and they are all okay becuase there is a minimal dress code and if people bitch about what i wear i can take it to the union rep....)

so, i have 40 t-shirts and they are each a different color and they are all wearable and i may have marcey go through and pull some for herself...but i ended up putting them all on hangers and into my closet because i can't get rid of anything!!!!!!!!

if everything disappeared and i started over...tc and sean tell me that in 6 months i'd have the same problem as before...

damn.

a portable blank room sounds wonderful.

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a portable blank room sounds wonderful.

...back to my dream of a quiet, empty white yurt.

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A Tardis. I want a Tardis.

Then I could set up home in any place or time and move on whenever I got bored.

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I see I have something new to learn about!

Off to read.

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*falls over in shock* (Doctor Who is one of those things so basic to my experience, the idea that someone has not encountered it is overwhelming. :)

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Dr. Who?

How did I miss Dr. Who?

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halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com

Funny...I know so many people who have NOT heard of Doctor Who that I am impressed when I meet someone who knows of him/them/er, ah...

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But how splendid to have the Whovian universe to explore from scratch.

I was around for the first broadcast of the very first series- with William Hartnell.

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halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com

All Whovians know a TARDIS means Time and Relative Dimensions in Space.
I"m surprised, with all your other surprising knowledge that YOU don't know this.

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arielstarshadow.livejournal.com

I wish I knew more about how to do this in Europe. chuckle Wouldn't that be ideal??

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Children often have this vision of the world as Edenic. Have you read Thomas Traherne's account of his childhood in the Centuries of Meditations?

‘The Corn was Orient and Immortal Wheat which never should be reaped, nor was ever sown. I thought it had stood from Everlasting to Everlasting. The Dust and the Stones of the Street were as precious as Gold. The Gates were at first the end of the World, the Green Trees when I saw them first through the Gates Transported and Ravished me; their Sweetness and unusual Beauty made my heart to leap, and almost mad with Ecstasy, they were such strange and Wonderful Things; The Men! O what Venerable and Reverend Creatures did the Aged seem! Immortal Cherubims! And the young Men Glittering and Sparkling Angels and Maids strange Seraphic Pieces of Life and Beauty! Boys and Girles Tumbling in the Street and Playing, were moving Jewels. I knew not that they were born or should die...’

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And that is how he saw his world as a child! (surely his ecstacy exhausted him!)

I had a friend whose toddler broke a vase. They ran into the room where they'd heard the crash, and he was staring at the glass shards with amazement.

My friend said he could suddenly see through his child's eyes the miraculous transformation of the vase into pieces of glass. There was no judgement or guilt involved, of course--it was just another wondrous part of his new life.

This child also chased the moon across a field, running after it with his hands up in the air. His father caught him before he ran onto the railroad tracks.

I wish I could go back to the freshness of first childhood--I suppose we all wish for that.

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Traherne lost his ecstasy in adolescence, then recovered it in adulthood (which is rare.) The Centuries are one long book-length ecstatic utterance - and, yes, they are rather exhausting to read.

The broken vase is as beautiful as the unbroken vase. Yes, yes, yes!

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The broken vase is as beautiful as the unbroken vase. Yes, yes, yes!

Which is why the duality you and I speak of above is not one that must or should be seen as "good/bad"; if only more people could see that...

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This is where Christianity comes a cropper. By insisting on a God who is All Good it creates a "problem of Evil" which has bedevilled all attempts to create a Summa Theologica.

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Speaking from (humbly) experience; but what a beautiful exhaustion!

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manny-script.livejournal.com

My son, who is now 26 and working with emotionally disturbed teens, had a wonderful take on the trying on different roles thing when he was little. He claimed that he had been born on a different planet (Petit Prince was his favorite book at the time) and that on his home planet, beings were not born into any particular species but could spend their childhoods testing out the choices and only settle on a species when they became adults.(I often suspected it was just an excuse to run around the house barking, but that's another story) I like the image.

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(I also like the image of your son running around the house barking like a dog.)

Children can think in startlingly original ways. I always take their ideas seriously.

My son, when four or five, once announced at the dinnertable: "This is all imaginationing."

"What is?" I asked him, baffled.

He waved his fork around at the room. "All of this," he said. "Everything."

Another time, I found him sitting in his toybox holding up an airplane. "The world is God's toy," he said.

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manny-script.livejournal.com

Here is the best advice I ever saw on parenting:

On Children
from The PROPHET, by Kahlil Gibran

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, "Speak to us of Children."

And he said:

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts.

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;

For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

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