Introceptual Ghostland – 6/13/2009

photo credit: Graham Coreil-Allen

there’s one other

spiritual alchemy

from here I can see the sky.

Corinthian Ave / W. Girard

What I see when I Google Map “2101 South College Avenue philadelphia” and select “street view”.

Many Mirrors

see also: cognitive dissonance

Someone once said to me, “were a mix of all ages at all stages of life.” This makes a lot of sense to me. As we grow we learn to be more comfortable with certain aspects of ourselves, yet with this “wisdom” comes more questions. Oftentimes when I really feel like I finally am able to step back and realize more the patterns in my thinking and reactions, I feel older in terms of my new awareness, yet adolescent in the sense that this new awareness is very new to me. I can look around with a new perspective and find people who relate to the awareness as if they known the things I just realized for a long time.

I heard tonight another person say, with respect to giving advice, “everyone has already gone through what you have.” To which I added, “we all figure it out for ourselves in the end.” While we may be able to speak of similar realizations, the way we get to them is distinct and specific. It is easy to get caught up in thinking someone else believes the same thing or thinks the way you do because your experience has been quite similar, and just as easy to realize you have come to the same conclusion as another who you find to be quite different from yourself.

I have been realizing that at certain points of breakthrough in my development (or realization of growth), I recall many things that I heard someone say in the past; things that either confused me at the time, or I dismissed as something I wasn’t interested in. I think there is something to be said for the ‘human experience’ in terms of understanding the same truths in different ways, depending on our views and experience on this earth. I wonder if we all learn the same lessons and come to the same realizations, in different manifestations.

Another way to look at this is if you try hard enough you can see a piece of yourself in every person you meet, whether this be in relation to how others react to something, or finding similarities in stories of personal journeys. This is a beautiful mental model to think that we are all united by our eerily similar qualities, despite our differences, especially if you think of it aesthetically: like seeing many mirrors of yourself all around you. Sometimes it happens in reverse, where you question why someone is acting the way they are, only to realize later that you find yourself acting in a similar manner. How many times have you heard someone question the way another is and thought to yourself, ‘but that is an exact quality I see in you’ ? Uniqueness is present with each individual. But, if you look closely, and draw parallels as well as metaphors, there is a way to connect everyone by comparison or conversely by distinct contrast.

Another way to say this is there could not be sameness without difference. It is these two things that appear to be independent, when in reality, require the each other to exist.

My Plants

I wanted to write a post about my plants.

Lola:
My oldest plant. She has been through a lot with me, I almost killed her by leaving her out in the rain, she got too much water. She is a spider plant that I got at Deerfield Academy when I was working there as a counselor at a summer arts camp. She is flowering right now, little white flowers, I have never seen them before, apparently she likes I weather on my porch in Philadelphia.

Isadora
A “peace lilly” that I got at a flower shop in Baltimore, on McMechen (spelling?) st – halfway between my apartment and the Freshman dorms. Named after one of the mothers of modern dance, Isadora Duncan, she has flowered 3 times and needs water every 3 days. I bought her a new pot at Home Depot, since then she has grown about twice as many leaves and seems to have a new found confidence.

Steve:
Bought at Home depot – is a variation of a palm tree. Standing about 3.5 feet tall I bought him to bring home and live on my new porch. I tried for a while to water him outside, but leaving him out there was hard for me to remember to water him enough. Every time I watered him, the water spilled out through the holes in the side of his plastic pot. I decided to bring him inside today to take better care. I realized that there were no holes in the bottom of the pot and that was why the pot couldn’t hold any water: it spilled out over the side and couldn’t be held in the bottom and soaked up later. Cut holes in the bottom, I hope he gets better now that I have made these changes, I have a feeling he will.

My last plant has no name yet, I think Herman is possibly a good name or Harold. He is another variation of a palm tree – 2 feet in height, with a burst of green leaves, that really do look much like a head of hair. I bought him at Ikea, seems not to need much water and sits by my bookshelf.

A note card I found in Baltimore.

I found this card by XS (a sushi restaurant in Mount Vernon, Baltimore).

Side 1
Refletary (maybe reflect on) our lives.
Reconsider your motivations. You are powerless before the love.
Thank you Thank you. You are the greatest audience in the world. I love this town. You are doomed.

Side 2
Oblivion is all you are If there’s some left for you
you don’t mind if you do.
Cheers
Might as well face it you’re addicted to love (till solo)
Let Ute’s tasty locks be like an intention to you. Your unwillingness to admit your own interior weakness is unacceptable. Your blood will not be on my hands. submit

“There’s a fine line between love and hate.”

A woman once said: “There is a fine line between love and hate.” This struck me at the time but I wasn’t sure why. It seemed to be coming from a place of great wisdom. A chunk of time has passed since I heard this, and it has come up again in my thoughts – and I am trying to figure out why this could be. For me, right now – one potential meaning of this phrase could be explained by my reaction to others. I have heard people say ‘The connections we make with others are, in part, caused by something we see in them that we see in ourselves.’ Right now, I am defining love as caring deeply about others well being, and hate as inability to accept the way someone is naturally preventing this caring to occur. I myself struggle with extreme social anxiety, this can prevent me from seeing which side of the line I will fall. I have identified my frustration with other people to be really an insecurity I find in myself. Often times when I realize this it is a relief, and it helps me to grow and learn more about myself and my reactions to the world around me.

It seems to me that on a macro-scale this same repulsion and connection theory can be applied. When cultural values collide in a large scale, maybe it is a societies subconscious reaction to something present in their own culture that is harmful to their progress/well being.

Usui Reiki Principles

give thanks
don’t anger
don’t worry
be honest
be kind