Taking The Lid Off - 2

When I first mentioned the idea of looking at things without mentally labeling them (back in the post Nameless) I didn't go into details of the experience I'd had with this myself because I wanted to see what people might find if they came to the practice without any preconceptions. Thanks to reader Sunflower for reporting back! She found herself paying more attention to the details of the tree, so dropping the label may have opened her up to experience more about it. On the other hand, as she pointed out, the removal of the label may simply have forced her mind to find other ways to categorize the tree. Old habits die hard! I wonder if it is worth instructing our minds to drop all labels before attempting this exercise? Perhaps that's what I was doing myself but without explicitly realizing what I was doing.

Although there was a lot of response to the post, no one else reported trying 'the tree thing'. Maybe other people tried it but didn't notice anything out of the ordinary - or perhaps something did happen and people preferred to keep it to themselves! If you haven't tried the exercise yet, you can still do so. Just look at a tree (or anything) and allow the name that we normally give it to fall away from your mind. Then see what happens. If you've read the previous post about my own experience, by all means bear that in mind as you allow the label to fall away. Perhaps that is the key you need to open up the door for you. Then perhaps you will see what I saw. Or something else entirely. Or nothing at all.

As we slowly awake from this dream we are in (if that indeed is what's happening) then the various waking glimpses which we receive are inclined to be fleeting and unpredictable. It is as though we are sitting on a moving train, looking at a curtained window. Occasionally, the curtain is blown aside by the breeze to reveal a glimpse of a vivid yet unfamiliar landscape beyond the window. We don't know when these glimpses will come and we don't always know what they mean, yet they make a very strong impression upon us.

My connection with the energy in the tree was one such glimpse for me, and it seems to me that - for whatever reason - it must have been what I needed to see on that day. On another day, I might only have seen the familiar thing we have labeled as 'a tree'. Perhaps you too will have a memorable 'tree' experience, or perhaps you may find that another technique will waft the curtain away for you. We'll talk about something else you can try very soon...

Or perhaps it may be you are not in need of any such glimpses for now. We all wake up in our different ways. But if you have stopped to read this blog for more than a few moments, then the chances are that you are waking up, whether you know it or not. And that vivid landscape beyond the window is waiting there for us all, whether or not we can see beyond the curtain.

This will probably be my final post before Christmas, so whatever your faith or none, I wish you all the very best for this holiday season. I hope you have a wonderful time, but if you have a miserable one, please remember that this is a difficult time for many - you will certainly not be alone!

 

This may also be of interest:

Taking The Lid Off

Comments

[Sunflower Optimism]

Wishing you a beautiful Christmas filled with wonder and joy!

See you on the flip-side - then we'll talk about all these interesting posts!

[Kren]

I've actually tried the same practice awhile ago.

First it started with a candle meditation associated with Yoga (I guess, I got it from a Yoga book). Which was all great, I mean, talk about organizing thoughts, they start with 1!

But looking at ANY object for awhile, you tend to notice more about it than you would before. Limit yourself to a grain of rice and you'll notice the tiny crevices linear to the grain itself. And sometimes you'll think WOW.

The experience you, Simon, had is different of course. You recognized the energy that the tree itself expressed.
Let me tell you something I've noticed... the theory of talking trees. Talking of course is a verbal way of communication. Trees use chemicals actually. If one tree has a disease for instance, it will actually give off a cent so other trees can sense it, and therefore either grow tougher leaves (in some cases) or produce more seeds quickly, in the hopes that said disease is gone by the time the seed is a young adult (MOST cases).

AND MORE.... (IMO) what you experienced is the life force... the CHI, or Qi.
I've seen the pictures. If you rip a leaf in half, and take a picture that is not sensetive to light, but actually sensetive to electrons and the such, you'll see nearly a full leaf. The exact same full leaf that WAS there... but not any longer.

This does in fact hold signifigance to life and our universe.

As humans, some of us have looked closer, but most of us haven't and need to.

[Secret Simon]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and experience, Kren. I'm not experiencing this effect myself so much at the moment - perhaps because I've written and thought about it so much, that I am not approaching it with the necessary 'innocence' any longer! - but I did seem to get a similar effect with inanimate objects as well as with trees. I've read somewhere about the idea that such objects too have their own 'spirit', though I can't remember which culture this comes from. It would certainly tie in with the idea of unity: that *everything* is one.

The other day I had to take Chris' printer, originally purchased in 2001, to the tip. It had an uneasy and rather traumatic relationship with Windows XP and eventually gave up the fight in a shower of dislodged springs. I felt rather sad to leave it there at the side of the skip.

I often feel sad to part with objects like that. I tend to bid them a quiet goodbye and thank them for the work they've done for me, but I'm not sure whether this is because I am deeply spiritual and sense their essential living essence or because I have a materialistic attachment to possessions - or am just going plain crazy.