Everything is Nothing.
Nothing is everything.
Everything in Nothing.
Nothing in Everything
“Nothing comes from nothing,”
Some mockingly say.
To reorient ignorance, we say,
“Nothing neither comes nor goes.”
Love and Nothing,
Identical twins,
Preside over and inundate
The pantheon of everything.
Love and Nothing,
The heart of everything,
And everybody,
Overflow continually.
See and feel
Your true heart
Shared by everybody and everything,
Overflowing everywhere.
An introduction to our experience with dementia.
I am posting this here as an opening to share impressions and reflections from our experiences with Dementia. I hope that, in a small way, it may help others identify, understand and live with the diseases characterized by dementia.
The gist is, my love, Elizabeth has moderate-sever dementia. I believe evident symptoms appeared about ten years ago and she was diagnosed in Dec 2016. Anyone who spent time with us in the mid-2010’s may have sensed something was amiss.
To clarify a little how things are with us, I can say, Elizabeth has virtually no short-term memory and very little long-term memory and she needs help doing most daily activities. Beyond that, she has not significantly developed the more difficult emotional symptoms of anger and paranoia. Emotionally, she is generally happy and content, or at worst, withdrawn and distant. In fact, I believe she is consistently happier since about the time of her diagnosis than any time since I have known her. “Every stick has two ends.”
As for myself, caring for Elizabeth is generally not difficult. In fact, it is mostly a pleasure. The main impact for me is that I am largely a shut-in, only able generally to do short outings. Though my stepdaughters are available and help when I need to do something longer and for occasional breaks. Overall, I feel quite blessed and have nothing to complain about.
I expect to share more of my experiences with the disease on my here and on Facebook.
Feel free to share this with anyone you think will be interested. I am happy to connect with others living with these diseases.
My earliest memory is of hammers. Whenever I saw one, I grabbed it. Finding a few scraps of wood and small nails was easier. With these dear ones, I could be away from mom, and I would move to a lonely spot in the shed or yard. Having a stable place for the scrap of wood, I would steady a nail with my left hand, hold the hammer high near the head with the right, and tap, tap, tap, until the nail was standing independent. Then, changing the angle of the hammer and grasping the base of it with my left hand, I would gently smack the head of the nail being very careful to keep it straight, until its head was flush with its new home. After repeating this ceremony twice more, I felt the world was right. Then, I could head to the tomatoes for my reward.
Being among the tomatoes was not without risks. Someone may come and chase me, or scowl at me. I justified myself there by looking for worms to remove from the plants. My true goal was to eat as many tomatoes as possible. Picking a ripe one, I would bite into it and relish the sweet acidic, letting juice drip down my hand and forearm to the elbow. I continued picking, eating, relishing, until my mouth was sore. Small payment for my reward.
One day, on leaving the tomato patch, as a cloud began to block the sun, I saw father heading toward me. I felt some tension in my tomato filled belly as he rarely spoke to me directly. Holding a brown bag, he called out, “Haly, when is your birthday?” Standing above and looking down at me he added, “Oh, never mind. Happy birthday,” and pulling a hammer out of the bag he offered it to me. I wiped tomato juice from my hand on my pants, and frowning slightly, he handed me the new hammer. As I held it up with my mouth and eyes open wide in amazement, he added, “Stop taking your brothers’ hammers.” And turning, he trounced back to the house.
I held its wood handle and dark iron head above me like a warrior holding his sword after battle, though with considerably more question than surety on my face.
In Tacoma it was always nice outside, even when it was raining lightly. We never saw snow except on the peak of Mount Hood. Dearborn was always freezing with snow on the ground, except when it was sweltering with air full of mosquitoes. Without an indoor toilet, the worst thing was to have to pee at night in January. Father and mama kept a bed pan but said we couldn’t because we always missed it. So, you had to go out – find a coat and boots, even with that and long flannels, it was freezing cold. I would march to the outhouse, at least it did not stink so much in the winter. Invariably, coming back to the house, Les, or one of the others would be going back in from the porch. I would see the yellow snow he made and mumble, “It is not right!”. Mama said, “You do what is right for you. Don’t fret about others.” I felt right, but I also felt jealous, which did not feel right. “Don’t be jelly,” she would also say.
You have no reason to believe me. I ask you not to believe anything that you cannot verify for yourselves. – Gurdjieff
It seems to me that virtually every record of the Gurdjieff teaching is a record of something said in a given place and time, to certain people. As such, we have to understand that it was said for those people at that time with the point of making a certain impression on those people. Therefore, it was not meant as ultimate truth for posterity.
The one exception is All and Everything. However, as Gurdjieff says in The Arousing of Thought, he wrote it for the subconscious, not in normal language for the false-consciousness. Therefore, it is almost completely allegorical. It may state ultimate truth, but not directly. There is also Herald of Coming Good, but Gurdjieff recalled it.
Reality of Being may appear to be an exception but remember that it is from notebooks and so was not prepared by Jeanne de Salzmann for publication. For all we know, it may have been meant simply for her own use preparing for talks with groups. The editors say she had reported that she was writing a book, but we don’t know how close this was to the book she intended. It does not appear to be anywhere close to a complete book. I am compelled to note that, despite its limitations, I feel it is exceptionally valuable.
Still, it seems to me that we must take all of it with some doubt but use it to investigate truth for ourselves.
Words are good but they are not the best.
The best is not to be explained by words.
Johann Goethe
The ‘best is not to be explained by words,’ because truth cannot be expressed in words. It is said that the teaching is an oral tradition. Although oral means by mouth, here it implies direct, not only by mouth. This is why there are few written expositions of great teachings, the teachers know their truth cannot be expressed in words. Of course, truth can also be communicated directly without an oral element.
I began by addressing the Gurdjieff, Fourth Way, teaching but this point is true of all spiritual teachings.
Knowledge is knowledge of the whole. Yet we can only receive it in fragments. Afterward we must connect them ourselves in order to find their place in an understanding of the whole. Jeanne de Salzmann
This post assumes a familiarity with the ideas of G.I. Gurdjieff. However, it may be of interest to those studying nondual concepts as well.
How do you understand, or picture, the Ray of Creation as it is presented by Gurdjieff, as recorded by Ouspensky in In Search of the Miraculous? I realized that I had generally pictured it as presented in the diagrams in the book. That is, hierarchical, sequential, and separate, like a family tree. Then I realized that Gurdjieff’s words as they are recorded in the book present a different picture.
Consider these excerpts: (emphasis is mine)
“In relation to the term ‘world’ it is necessary to understand from the very outset that there are many worlds, and that we live not in one world, but in several worlds.” P. 75
“If we take one of the many worlds created in the Absolute, that is, world 3, it will be the world representing the total number of starry worlds similar to our Milky Way. If we take world 6, it will be one of the worlds created within this world, namely the accumulation of stars which we call the Milky Way.” P. 80
“In the big cosmic octave, which reaches us in the form of the ray of creation, we can see the first complete example of the law of octaves. The ray of creation begins with the Absolute. The Absolute is the All. The All, possessing full unity, full will, and full consciousness, creates worlds within itself, in this way beginning the descending world octave. The Absolute is the do of this octave. The worlds which the Absolute creates in itself are si.” P. 132
“In order better to understand the significance of the law of octaves it is necessary to have a clear idea of another property of vibrations, namely the so-called ‘inner vibrations.’ This means that within vibrations other vibrations proceed, and that every octave can be resolved into a great number of inner octaves.
“Each note of any octave can be regarded as an octave on another plane.” P. 135
The words here present a picture, not of a family tree of separate entities like the diagrams in the book, but more like a body with parts which serve individual functions yet are made of the same material, or energy, as the whole. Beelzebub says we have the potential to become particles of the Absolute. This picture seems to suggest we are already particles of the Absolute, all be it, not fully conscious particles. To put it another way, it is popular these days to say we are made of star stuff. Further, this picture suggests that we are made of and live within the sun; the sun is made of and lives within the milky way; the milky way is made of and lives within the world of all stars; all stars live within world three and everything which happens in it, is the action of world three; and everything, including everything we see, know and experience, lives within and is made of the Absolute.
This is a different type of post for me. Maybe the first of many personal, memoir, type pieces.
I grew up in the inner city of Detroit, SE side between Jefferson and Kercheval. I turned sixteen in 1972. I am ‘white,’ obviously. My family did not flee to the suburbs.
When I was very young, I estimate our neighborhood about 50% white. I grew up on the same block my mother was born on. On Kercheval and Jefferson there were small merchants who had been there since my mother’s youth. That changed in 1967.
One afternoon my cousin, I and a black neighbor boy were playing in his backyard and my uncle came to the back door to tell us to come inside in case there might be some stray bullets flying. I don’t think I understood what that meant but we went to his front screen porch. We saw people running from a house near the end of the block to a store on the corner, several times, back and forth. Shortly after the back-and-forth stopped, the shop was ablaze. We were not near the center of the riots but they erupted in our neighborhood.
After the riots, the neighborhood changed significantly. It also became somewhat dangerous. Our home was burglarized several times and family members were mugged or assaulted a number of times over the next decade. Though our immediate neighbors were always excellent neighbors and friends.
As a teenager I was a regular alcohol and drug user. Not to addiction, but I was a regular user and often drove and did a few other stupid things, under the influence. This led to several encounters with ‘Detroit’s finest.’. Once even forced off the road by a police car with officers stepping out of their car, guns drawn.
On one of these encounters with a man-in-blue, I am sure I was way over the limit and, at least, should not have been allowed to continue driving. However, in each case I was let go with no more than a warning. My white privilege, as I now see it, is that I am absolutely certain that my black neighbors and school mates were not handled so delicately when they brushed elbows with our ‘defenders of the peace’ in any similar way.
In another area, my family likely also experienced a ‘white privilege’ benefit but also suffered from its ill affects: Redlining.
According to the Michigan State University Redlining in Michigan web site: “The federal government redlined Detroit on June 1, 1939. Consistent with the requirements of the government Underwriting Manual, the redlining specifically targeted residents of color, deeming their neighborhoods as ‘hazardous’ to investment because they had residents of color or were even near residents of color.”
My parents bought the house of my childhood in 1958. The older woman selling it to move to the suburbs provided the mortgage. Without her carrying the mortgage, my folks likely would have had to pay a much higher interest rate and maybe could not have afforded the house. Redlining meant no one could get a government sponsored or insured loan in a redlined area, no matter your skin tone. ( See MSU Redlining in Michigan: Detroit – Redlining in Michigan (msu.edu)) And I believe it is fair to assume that the seller would not have carried the loan for a black family.
On the flip side of this coin, when my mother sold the house in 1983, she received $1,800 for it. And, the house was not small, I believe it was about 4,000 sf. So, although my parents were given the ability to own the house, it was not an investment. Redlining took its toll on everyone in its grasp. (For anyone not familiar with the role that redlining played in the creation of today’s ‘ghettos’ see Ta-Nehisi Coates’ The Case for Reparations)
“Verily, verily, I say unto you, еxcept a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.”
“Verily, verily, I say unto you, еxcept a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.”
Some call it separate self,
Some ego.
Some, “What the hell are you talking about, this is who I am!”
For those who feel that something is amiss
Who hear the prophets’ warning as their gist
They look for the culprit now and then
Catching glimpses of impermanence within
But with each glance it vanishes
Replaced by claims of vanquishes.
The game continues with now and then
Becoming more and less
With warnings becoming mindfulness
And vanishings becoming emptiness
Vanquishes, “The quiet space within.”
So, is death due for the prideful one
Or quiet fading like last night’s dreams?
Is there one which could die,
Or many which evaporate, as
With thanks to the sun,
Does the puddle in the afternoon.
For any who know, let them know.
For those who are wondering,
Best keep wandering,
Appreciating the game,
Of sacred to-and-fro.
Peace in a lively dining spot.
Quiet fills the room
A woman sits still
At the corner of the bar
The nondescript tender
Is lost in a dream
From the end of the bar
A patron stares at the same spot as his neighbor.
Setting the overall tone
A man stands, hands in pockets
Looking out the window.
Dry silence here in is seductive.
Heavy strokes enhance allurement.
We sit in a lively room at its feet.
For an after-dinner drink,
Let’s step into the quiet.
On Peace and Quiet
Quiet peace is present
Thoughts and words tend to disturb
Peace is unperturbed.
Music too fills the void
Repeating melodies cringe
Between notes, stillness.
When the mountain speaks
There is no echo
Quiet resounds.
Can’t remain, must do
A decision resolves
Follow, relaxing.
Movement thus begins
Fear of failure contracts
No blame, no credit.
Peace and quiet remain
Available on each breath
Rest and watch life flow.
These words are good
They are not the best
Best is not in words.
was …
“In the beginning was the Word.”
In the beginning was emptiness, the implicate and things.
In the beginning was the shadow of the hawk flying overhead;
In the beginning was the four-year old’s taste of ice cream,
and being the last to finish,
being tickled,
finding a frog,
running in circles;
In the beginning was the cool moist autumn morning;
In the beginning was walking over Ambassador Bridge,
and feeling it move when the rail is over-looked;
In the beginning was the traffic jam, the long line, the late doctor, forgetting,
and quiet felt;
In the beginning was crepuscule light, and
Monk and Nellie,
and the minor key;
In the beginning was the Heiliger Dankgesang eines Genesenen …;
In the beginning was Duino and the Elegies,
and Da Vinci’s smile;
In the beginning was the silence of the aged couple,
and the look between them;
In the beginning was the cross
with its torture and death,
adoration and return;
In the beginning was the messenger,
in resonance with emptiness;
In the beginning was the seeker, seeking the beginning.
James Evans & By The Way Books 