‘How is it that you can all talk so nicely?’ Alice said, hoping to get it into a better temper by a compliment.

‘I’ve been in many gardens before, but none of the flowers could talk.’

‘Put your hand down, and feel the ground,’ said the Tiger-lily.
‘Then you will know why.’

Alice did so. ‘It’s very hard,’ she said, ‘but I don’t see what has to do with it.’

‘In most gardens,’ the Tiger-lily said,
‘They make the beds too soft - so that the flowers are always asleep.’

in Through the Looking Glass - The Garden of Live Flowers by Lewis Carroll

“Through all creation runs the same ebb and flow, ebb and flow, which you can see in the ocean. It is the life-pulse of creation. And there is in it pulse - the long ebb and flow of spring and fall, the short ebb and flow at your own wrist. Just so there are long spiritual spring-flows and fall-ebbs, and there are the short daily ones you can easily feel. And there are infinitely smaller ones of which you are not yet conscious, but to which you subconsciously respond. The spiritual tides of the One-Power flow in all veins. We feel them, and respond, but we as yet only dimly understand.

But where we cannot understand we may trust. As I wandered in the wilderness of “ups and downs,” as I descended from Transfiguration Mounts to deep Valleys of Shadows, and then asceded again, and yet was never quite lost, I learned more and more how to trust; until in time I came to KNOW that ‘all things work together for good’ to those who work with them.

All nature works, and then rests; works and rests. I caught its rhythm and worked and rested with it. When I felt that inertia stealing over me, I rested; and while resting my power recuperated - the tide rose in me.”

Elizabeth Towne, 1904

↬ Romy Macias

“I hope the tides will swell in soon.”

LULLABY #1

Ebb overrides Flow

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“We get our ideas from what I’m going to call for a moment our unconscious — the part of our mind that goes on working, for example, when we’re asleep. So what I’m saying is that if you get into the right mood, then your mode of thinking will become much more creative. But if you’re racing around all day, ticking things off a list, looking at your watch, making phone calls and generally just keeping all the balls in the air, you are not going to have any creative ideas.”

John Cleese on the Origin of Creativity
↬ Open Culture

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“Life is not linear, its organic, we create our lives symbiotically as we explore our talent in relation to circumstances they help to create for us.”

Sir Ken Robinson:Bring on the learning revolution!
ᔥ ted talks

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“We may also discover the foundations on which to build a good life from the knowledge scientists are slowly accumulating. The findings of science makes us increasingly aware of how unique each person is. Not only in the way the ingredients of the genetic code have been combined, but also in the time and place in which an organism encounters life.
Thus each of us is responsible for one particular point in space and time in which our body and mind forms a link within the total network of existence. We can focus consciousness on the tasks of everyday life in the knowledge that when we act in the fullness of the flow experience, we are also building a bridge to the future of the universe.”

Finding Flow, by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
ᔥ Psychology Today

The concept of rhythm applies to many situations: musical, artistic, athletic, occupational, social, personal. Each has its own dynamic. Each person is aware of moments of intense concentration when he feels energetic and alert, and is able to accomplish many wonderful things.

As well, each is aware of times of feeling completely exhausted and settling into a deep sleep. This experience of sleep is not so unlike the more energetic experience. Both have an intensity about them which is rhythmic. The same is true of sexual orgasm. Whatever its manifestation, there is a powerful yet effortless quality about rhythm which one recognizes the moment it appears.

Rhythm is the difference between the wave in the ocean which really takes hold and comes crashing into shore and all the other dissipating, feebler waves.

in Rhythm and Self-Consciousness:New Ideals for an Electronic Civilization by William William McGaughey

thebookofcobalt:

LULLABY #2

When Stillness Arrives

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“There’s sun on the river and sun on the hill…
You can hear the sea if you stand quite still ! (…)
But everyone says, ‘Run along!’

(Run along, run along!)

All of them say ‘Run along!
I’m busy as can be.”

A.A. Milne in “Now We Are Six”

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” Man must know that his power lies in the stillness of his centering Self and not in the motion by means of which he manifests his stillness. “

Walter Russel in “The Secret of Light”

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“if it is too hard, stop. go. the pause will still let ( ’ ’ ) move forward.”

ᔥ entpm - entanglement ( personas / metaconstructs )

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“Once you grasp that fundamental concept you realize that willpower will not help you. You’re not capable in the moment. The more we try to control our effort (or our thoughts about effort), the more we tend to get in our own way - and reduce our odds for success.

So I encourage my clients to step back and use a term I call ‘stillpower’, which means don’t push ahead but rather be still.
The feelings that come will be of ease, clarity, and responsiveness.
It sounds crazy. I mean, do nothing? Yes.
Do not make any decisions from a low mindset - just be still.“

Garret Kramer in article
↬ by Jake Cook for 99U —Stillpower: The True Path to Flow, Clarity, and Responsiveness

For “Lick Your Wounds With Beauty”

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“Flow is a state of self-forgetfulness, the opposite of rumination and worry: instead of being lost in nervous preoccupation, people in flow are so absorbed in the task at end that they lose all self-consciousness, dropping the small preoccupations—health, bills, even doing well—of daily life.

In this sense moments of flow are egoless. Paradoxically, people in flow exhibit a masterly control of what they are doing, their responses perfectly attuned to the changing demands of the task. And although people perform at their peak while in flow, they are unconcerned with how they are doing, with thoughts of success or failure—the sheer pleasure of the act itself is what motivates them.”

Daniel Goleman in “Emotional Intelligence”

Ebb overrides  Flow

These exceptional moments are what I have called “flow” experiences. The metaphor of flow is one that many people have used to describe the sense of effortless action they feel in moments that stand out as the best in their lives. Athletes refer to it as “being in the zone,” religious mystics as being in “ecstasy,” artists and musicians as “aesthetic rapture.”

It is the full involvement of flow, rather than happiness, that makes for excellence in life. We can be happy experiencing the passive pleasure of a rested body, warm sunshine, or the contentment of a serene relationship, but this kind of happiness is dependent on favorable external circumstances. The happiness that follows flow is of our own making, and it leads to increasing complexity and growth in consciousness.

Finding Flow - Reviews the book ‘Finding Flow’ by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

ᔥ Psychology Today

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In Plato’s time, philosophy was on the cutting edge of human knowledge. The concept of form, or ideas, or generality, or abstraction, became the building block of knowledge in many fields. To know the true properties of the generality meant knowing the specifics. Whether in science or engineering or business management, one first becomes acquainted with the general principle before applying it to situations demanding such expertise.

However, civilization has moved on. We are now living in an age of electronic communication where the human participant needs a different set of skills. In a word, what is needed is “rhythm”. He or she needs to perform in a skilled, rhythmic manner. No one can learn how to hit baseballs like Babe Ruth or sing songs like Elvis Presley by acquiring such knowledge in schools. The requirements are more elusive.

Platonic form is conceived as an object that exists objectively, independent of the thinker who grasps its abstraction. Rhythm, however, dwells in the performer himself. Rhythm is an innate skill enhanced by habit and a peculiar kind of knowledge that puts a person “in the groove” or gives that person a “mental edge” while performing. It comes within the province of sports psychologists, coaches and trainers to impart that knowledge, however imperfectly.

William McGaughey in Rhythm and Self-Conciousness

Ebb overrides Flow

“But there is another aspect to a Wave Rider’s relation to work that many will find strange. On occasion, all of their busy doing simply stops. The task lists are put away, the goals and objectives are all placed on hold. The Wave Rider is content to be there in that present moment. An outside observer might legitimately conclude that the Wave Rider has given up, but the truth is rather different. She or he has simply let go. Not to be confused with a fatalistic withdrawal from life – this letting go has a very different quality.

The commitment to the original passionate concern remains unshaken, and if anything, is deepened and intensified. Rather than fatalism, there is profound awareness and trust in the deep forces which drive towards completion and fulfillment. And of equal importance is a recognition that any “doing” in the sense of organizing, managing, forcing – will not only be ineffective, but may well be counter productive.”

ᔥ Wave Rider

↬ CoCreator @ SpaceCollective

LULLABY #3

Ebb overrides Flow

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“The old philosophical culture held that will power was the key to successful execution. Mind needed to discipline the body to behave in a certain way. Will was a matter of strengthening one’s resolve. It was a matter of applying mental perseverance over time. Rhythm, however, cannot be achieved by willful effort. The performer will often choke if he tries to improve a performance by tightening up or consciously forcing a correct routine.
Rhythmic performance is more a matter of trusting one’s instincts and letting go.” (…)

“Rhythm does not come in a steady state of high performance, but in periods of intense effort followed by relaxation. Unlike steadfast virtues, rhythm involves a controlled flow of energy over a period of time. The hard part is usually the beginning. Once the energy flow has started in the right way, rhythm can be maintained seemingly without effort. Indeed effortless activity is an important characteristic of performance in this mode.Rhythmic performance is natural and easy. But sometimes it will not come, no matter what a person does. As they say in show business: ’ When you’re hot, you’re hot; when you’re not, you’re not.’ Rhythm has its ups and downs.”

William McGaughey in Five Epochs Of Civilization — World History as Emerging in Five Civilizations

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“Is this the infamous “in the zone” state that we hear so much about?

Let’s be clear about this.The zone is not about trying hard. You can’t force it.The zone feels effortless because you’re operating at a higher state of consciousness. Although athletes in the zone are incredibly locked in, their focus is never forced.
Same thing goes at work. You’ve never had to push hard to find a great insight. If you think on your best performances or purest experiences in life, were you trying to exert a force on it? Most of the athletes I work with tell me that when they find the zone they simply “let go” and just absorb themselves in the present moment. It’s a selfless experience. The zone is not about trying hard. You can’t force it.”

Garret Kramer in Stillpower: The True Path to Flow, Clarity, and Responsiveness
ᔥ 99U

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“Indeed there has never been any explanation of the ebb and flow in our veins—of happiness and unhappiness.”

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Virginia Woolf in “Jacob’s Room”

“Algebra applies to the clouds, the radiance of the star benefits the rose—no thinker would dare to say that the perfume of the hawthorn is useless to the constellations. Who could ever calculate the path of a molecule? How do we know that the creations of worlds are not determined by falling grains of sand?
Who can understand the reciprocal Ebb and Flow of the infinitely great and the infinitely small, the echoing of causes in the abyss of being and the avalanches of creation?”

Vitor Hugo (Les Miserables) ↬ TomRaven

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LULLABY #4

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“[S]ilence is not acoustic. It is a change of mind, a turning around.”

in Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists ᔥ Brain Pickings

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This strangeness, a light frost
sometimes cotton candy mist
Time and space cannot conceal
In silence, I am
Keeping silence,
I cease to exist.

Excerpt from Seesaw Horizon by Carla

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“A quantum object ceases to exist here and simultaneously appears in existence over there; we cannot say it went through the intervening space (the quantum jump).”

“A quantum jump is a discontinuous transition of an electron from one atomic orbit to another without going trough the intervening space between orders.”

Dr. Amit Goswami, theoretical quantum physicist in
“The Self Aware Universe - how consciousness creates the material world”

Calla Lilly
“Inspired by Imogen Cunninghams work with botanical subjects.”
ᔥ by Roger Evans

thebookofcobalt:

Lullabies of the String

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“Boltzman discovered that physics and thermodynamics are two sides of the same coin (in fact, a physical theory like superstring theory is undefined without the laws of thermodynamics). As physical matter (superstrings) becomes more harmonious, entropy increases. The will-to-harmony and entropy are inseparable.

They are the crests and troughs of the same wave: It seems obvious after seeing the bottom graph why everything we experience in this universe seems to move in cycles. Spring, summer, fall, winter. Birth, adolescence, adulthood, death. Good fortune then bad fortune then good fortune then bad. We live in a cyclical universe.

But is the harmony/entropy wave not also a graphical expression of the tiniest building block of our universe: the vibrating superstring? Superstring theory claims that from the most cosmic to the most minute level, from the Milky way to Planck’s length (10-33cm), we live in a wave-composed universe which we (each one of us!) can only experience as stuff (discrete particles) arranged in wavelike patterns.”

Quantum theory tells us that even presence itself is a wave— of probability.

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Joshua parkinson in The Consequences of String Theory for Knowledge and Representation

DSC_5897-Copycat Calla Lily I
“Robert Mapplethorpe Calla Lily Copycat”
ᔥ Thom116

Calla 1bw
“When I grow up, I want to be Imogen Cunningham.”
by Jane @Camera6ag

Lull Lilies / They sing

LULLABY #5

“Everybody has a song which is no song at all: it is a process of singing, and when you sing, you are where you are. All I know about method is that when I am not working I sometimes think I know something, but when I am working, it is quite clear that I know nothing.”

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in Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists ᔥ Brain Pickings

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“The secret breathed within
And never spoken, woken
By music; the garlands in
Her hands no one has seen.
She wreathes the air with green
and weaves the stillness in.”

May Sarton — “The Clavichord,” lines 13-18 (1948 )

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“Reality is a sound / You have to tune into it / Not just keep yelling”

by Anne Carson ᔥ Jocelyn K. Glei on twitter @jkglei

“Eternally bright, that’s the instinctual picture the lover’s mind to keep.

Ebb

by writing-down-the-bones:

Her teeth are red from chewing hearts,
she knows every one of Jupiter’s moons,
and the ink from her pen
stains hand and cheek.
I hope the tides will swell in soon.

She never understood why caged birds sing
yet always croons her best in June.
I burned up all the pictures
just to feel complete.
I hope the tides will swell in soon.

I traced each vertebrae with my tongue,
stepping stones that led to ruin.
She dressed me in velvet,
then forgot me here.
I hope the tides will swell in soon.

The stars are bright and beckoning
as I lay down in the dunes.
Water licks my tender feet,
and even as I drift to sleep
I hope the tides will swell in soon.

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Calla Lily III
“Still raining so I went to the market and get myself some nice Calla Lilies!  (saw some beautiful pics of Robert Mapplethorpe :)!”
ᔥ by Johanna Blankenstein

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Insight: The act of grasping the hidden nature of things.
Worry: The act of feeling persistently uneasy about things

“Most people believe that worry is a conscientious state of mind. As a result, they mistake their worries for insights. They have a thought about upcoming events, the thought produces an uneasy feeling, and they assume (because of the uneasy feeling) that the thought has merit and needs consideration. In my experience, however, the opposite is true: An uneasy feeling—a worry—is a sign that one’s guess about upcoming events has no merit and needs no consideration. And if a person thinks it does, his or her peace of mind and performance level will decline.

Worries build when we ponder the future from an insecure mind-set.

All people possess the capacity for both worry and insight. People worry when, from a low state of mind, they make assumptions about the future and imagine what will happen if these assumptions prove accurate. Insights, on the other hand, do predict the future. Insights are the opposite of assumptions and, since they are the byproduct of an elevated level of consciousness, they feel free and uncomplicated.

Insights are responsible for all of your productive decisions and actions.”

Garret Kramer in Insight, Worry, and Why You Need to Know the Difference

Seeds of Anxiety

“Creativity is like chasing chickens,” Christoph Niemann once said. But sometimes it can feel like being chased by chickens — giant, angry, menacing chickens. Whether you’re a writer, designer, artist or maker of anything in any medium, you know the creative process can be plagued by fear, often so paralyzing it makes it hard to actually create.”

in 5 Timeless Books of Insight on Fear and the Creative Process
ᔥ Brain Pickings

Seeds of Anxiety

LULLABY #6

“When we tell stories about creativity, we tend to leave out this phase. We neglect to mention those days when we wanted to quit, when we believed that our problem was impossible. Instead, we skip straight to the breakthrough. We tell the happy ending first.

The danger of this scenario is that the act of feeling frustrated is an essential part of the creative process. Before we can find the answer — before we can even know the question — we must be immersed in disappointment, convinced that a solution is beyond our reach. We need to have wrestled with the problem and lost. Because it’s only after we stop searching that an answer may arrive.”

The Importance of Frustration in the Creative Process…
ᔥ Brain Pickings

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“Well, the worst thing we can do is try and fix the negative thought. Which, by the way, is a productive thing. It’s just thought. There is no reality to it. Understand what really is happening. A thought produces a feeling which produces a mood. The feeling is a navigational instrument. It’s telling us we’re not seeing it clearly.

The worst thing is to wage war on this. It’s normal to think negatively. That sign is there to guide you and if that was the right move to make you wouldn’t be feeling that way. You would feel free. You would feel enthused. You would feel passion. You would feel determination.

So, a negative thought is a great thing. Why would you ever want to mess with your own mind’s ability to direct you?”

Garret Kramer in Stillpower: The True Path to Flow, Clarity, and Responsiveness
ᔥ 99U

a Garden they sow

LULLABY #7

“Help us to be ever faithful gardeners of the spirit, who know that without darkness nothing comes to birth, and without light nothing flowers.”

May Sarton, poet and novelist

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“THE GARDENER
The gardener is a cultivator of soul, a regenerative keeper of seed, soil, and root. (…) The gardener’s function is regeneration.The psyche of a woman [ or man ] must constantly sow, train and harvest new energy in order to replace what is old and worn out.
There is a natural entropy, or wearing down and using up, of psychic parts.
This is good, this is how the psyche is supposed to work, but one must have energies-in-training ready to backfill. This is the role of the gardener in the psychic work. He keeps track of the need for change and replenishing.
Intra-psychically, there is constant living, constant death dealing, constant replacement of ideas, images, energies.”

Clarissa Pinkola Estés, American poet and psychoanalyst in “Women Who Run With The Wolves—Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype”

May Sarton, poet and novelist

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“We have all hidden gardens and plantations in us; and by another simile, we are all growing volcanoes, which will have their hours of eruption: how near or how distant this is, nobody of course knows, not even the good God.”

Friedrich Nietzsche ᔥ Lexido

LULLABY #8

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” I SHOULD see the garden far better,’ said Alice to herself, ‘if I could get to the top of that hill: and here’s a path that leads straight to it — at least, no, it doesn’t do that —‘ (after going a few yards along the path, and turning several sharp corners), ‘but I suppose it will last. But how curiously it twists! It’s more like a corkscrew than a path! Well, this turn goes to the hill, I suppose - no, it doesn’t! This goes straight back to the house! Well then, I’ll try it the other way.”

in “Through the Looking Glass - The Garden of Live Flowers” by Lewis Carroll

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“I know that there are no straight lines

just curves and cracks and wiggles

it is all a mess

a perfectly ordered mess

and I am but a tiny fraction of it.”

ᔥ Happy Monk La La La

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“You have to take the work as a whole, to try and follow rather than judge it, see where it branches out in different directions, where it gets bogged down, moves forward, makes a breakthrough; you have to accept it, welcome it, as a whole. Otherwise, you won’t understand it at all.”

Gilles Deleuze (via carnivorousdreams)

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Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace.

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May Sarton, poet and novelist

Seeds of Anxiety / a Garden they sow

“Creative people, as I see them, are distinguished by the fact that they can live with anxiety, even though a high price may be paid in terms of insecurity, sensitivity, and defenselessness for the gift of the “divine madness,” to borrow the term used by the classical Greeks.
They do not run away from non-being, but by encountering and wrestling with it, force it to produce being. They knock on silence for an answering music; they pursue meaninglessness until they can force it to mean.”

Rollo May in “The Courage to Create”

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“Anxiety is an even better teacher than reality, for one can temporarily evade reality by avoiding the distasteful situation; but anxiety is a source of education always present because one carries it within.”

“Anxiety is essential to the human condition. The confrontation with anxiety can relieve us from boredom, sharpen the sensitivity and assure the presence of tension that is necessary to preserve human existence.”

Rollo May

ᔥ Wikiquote

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wildcat2030:

Seeds of anxiety  / a Garden they sow

duende (n.) The mysterious power of art to deeply move a person.

“The duende, then, is a power, not a work. It is a struggle, not a thought. I have heard an old maestro of the guitar say, ‘The duende is not in the throat; the duende climbs up inside you, from the soles of the feet.’ Meaning this: it is not a question of ability, but of true, living style, of blood, of the most ancient culture, of spontaneous creation.”.
He suggests, “everything that has black sounds in it, has duende. [i.e. emotional ‘darkness’] […] This ‘mysterious power which everyone senses and no philosopher explains’ is, in sum, the spirit of the earth[…].
The duende’s arrival always means a radical change in forms. It brings to old planes unknown feelings of freshness, with the quality of something newly created, like a miracle, and it produces an almost religious enthusiasm.[…]”

excerpt from Duende (art) in Wikipedia

loverofbeauty:

(Source: other-wordly)

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Soothing my mind / A field or a mine

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“What I didn’t know, at the time, is that the human mind will regulate to consciousness without any interference from us. You don’t have to be vigilant about your level of awareness; your feelings are doing this by design.
Here’s the rub, though: For this understanding to go into effect, you must see this “concept” as an irrevocable fact. If you’re sitting on the fence—sometimes looking within to explain your mistakes, but other times blaming those around you. Or if you’re still reaching for external techniques when you lose your serenity or patience—then that deep insight, that epiphany, will simply not appear.”

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Garret Kramer — Waiting On Insight

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