Very Superstitious, Ladder's 'Bout to Fall

When you believe in things you don't understand, you suffer. Stevie Wonder had it right.

So, are "symbolists" just superstitious folk prone to fatalism who abdicate the responsibility for their lives to mysterious "outside forces"?

Some probably are and they have an awesome soundtrack to rock it to...

But as Jill Bolte Taylor suggests in the video I posted yesterday, an expanded world view that includes an awareness of the interconnections of life, and has a deeper appreciation of the richness of analogy and metaphor does not shrink one down to being nothing more than a puppet for the Fates to play with or steal away one's common sense and intellect. Quite the opposite. It provides us with a very useful tool for spiritual growth.

Consideration of the various levels of meaning of events in our lives and our relationships with the external world (and by this I mean the entire external world, people, animals, plants, the weather, things we overhear and observe, even "inanimate" objects) can provide a provokative jumping off point for contemplation.  The outer world can, and often does, provide an astoundingly accurate mirror of our inner states.  Even if you believe that life is a series of random events, just noticing what you notice can be informative.  We have all heard stories of how inaccurate and varied "eye witness" accounts can be.  Our brains are constantly filtering information and determining what it determines we should or should not attend to. 

Our filters reveal a lot about us. For example, my brother, a former cop, is a "scanner". When we are out, his eyes always sweep the crowd for potential problems with an eye to keeping his loved ones secure and out of danger. I, on the other hand, standing right next to him at an outdoor carnival, might notice the flock of geese flying overhead and have my thoughts turn to time and the passing of another season and how important it is to appreciate our brief lives here.  Same festival, different filters, different "reminders" based on what we most value (and by this I mean which themes we are most attentive to).

My brother, tending toward the literalist end of the continuum, is looking for who is about to do what to whom. I, tending toward the symbolist end of things may take the scene in quite differently.  He might argue that he makes the world safe for those of us who are distracted by geese overhead so our purses don't get stolen. I might argue that I bring him back to moments of beauty that make life worth protecting in the first place.

This isn't an either/or proposition.  There isn't a right or wrong.

And THAT is an important point.  Using whole brain thinking...taking care of the literal, practical demands of life essential to one's ability to function in the world while appreciating the multi-layered meaning in the way our lives unfold is what I am advocating. While No Safe Distance will have a right-brain bent, it is simply because I would like to help balance out what is a largely left-brain focused world, not because I want to deem one as superior to the other. 

Cultivating a stronger "right-brained" perspective enlivens life in a way that can be quite enchanting but that does not mean it's all "Flower Power and love beads" any more than it means you have to start fearing black cats and cracked mirrors.  Symbols, metaphors and synchronicities (unusual coincidences that catch our attention and therefore seem "meaningful") are neutral.  Like the tale of the Taoist farmer we can't always know whether an event is good or bad no matter how significant it seems at the time it occurs.  Our lives are stories unfolding and we can't read ahead.  Paying attention, however, can help us notice trends and situations that we may want to work with more consciously in order to keep ourselves lined  up in the direction we want our lives to go.

If you don't watch where you are going, you will end up where you are headed.

The mystically inclined, as opposed to the superstitiously minded, don't become dependent on outward signs to direct behavior, but simply use them as tools to develop their inner resources and self-knowledge.

An action you can take:

For those of you who have asked for recommendations on how to journal, this is certainly an area to explore.  Simply making notes when you notice unusual events and writing a bit about what they might mean to you can help you cultivate this kind of awarness. Making notes of trends, even if you did it as a "monthly reflection" can be informative.  For example, I tend to get a lot of St. Clare and St. Francis symbolism showing up in my life. One day, on a whim, I started listing out all the ways Clare and Francis had shown up and was astounded to find I could trace a line over my entire life, despite only learning who St. Clare was in the last 4 years (it wasn't that I had a life of looking for her). And the incidents of her showing up would be noteworthy to even the most skeptical including possession of a St. Clare pendant made by a woman named Laura Young who came into my life out of the blue and was gone just as quickly. The Laura Young in question made a range of jewelry of all types, St. Clare being the only saint in the entire collection.

Keep in mind, you may find some symbols are meaningful to you in an idiosyncratic way. For example, maybe an ill friend of yours loves monarch butterflies. If, during a moment of sadness, a monarch came and landed on your knee while you were sitting in the yard, it may provide a comfort for you simply because of the association with your friend in a way that it might not to someone else. For some people, a butterfly may just be a butterfly, but for you it may mean much more.

Comments

[Nancy Mehegan]

The Cheyenne language marks many trees and plants, rocks, objects as "animate". Also objects used in rituals (a ritual pipe is animate while a 'whiteman' tobacco pipe is inanimate)[easy to read that one!!] The calf of the Cheyenne leg is animate while the thigh only inches away is inanimate, a raspberry is animate but a strawberry is inanimate in Cheyenne and Mi'kmaq. All of a sudden, we're not in Kansas anymore--these distinctions just don't make sense to us.(Dan Moonhawk Alford) Out "tidy world" begins to shimmer with life... ~ Nancy Mehegan

[Laura Young]

VERY interesting, Nancy. I had not heard this before (or of Dan Moonhawk Alford). Thanks for adding an intriguing thread here!