Contemplations During Down Time #1

3/17/15

Once every few months I consider the following: A single, Universal force responsible for creation and destruction. Nothing in the physical world is truly in an inert state. Slowly, everything is being "destroyed," breaking down, to make room for new creations. If Einstein was right and matter at the speed of light turns into energy, and energy cannot be created or destroyed, then matter, in death, must transforming into something else. Let's first associate this idea with the seasons, as the concept is evident or can be theoretically applied to various, natural processes. Let's look at the natural purposes of the seasons beginning with Winter. Agriculturally, winter is a time of gestation. It is the season in which the earth prepares for the birth of Spring. The earth is essentially pregnant with life.  However, this is also a time of "death" in which "life" breaks down, returning to a sort of beginning.  I'm reminded of winterizing plants. Leaves fall, stalks "die" and everything returns to a moot state.  Yet with many plants, the seed or bulb remains, and will be ready to exert the energy needed to grow in the season of Spring. Various conditions in Winter can affect the harvest in the Autumn.  So we see the process of a sort of destruction which is needed for future "creation." Smaller, personal examples of destruction and creation are apparent in common phrases, such as, "Something must end (death) for something new to begin (life)."

Even in literal creation, as in sexual reproduction, destruction must take place on a physical and psychological level. An egg must be destroyed to grow into a fetus, as a must a sperm be destroyed, dead in its original form, but transformed into something else. This process of the sperm penetrating the egg is characteristic of the male sexual organ penetrating the vagina. This is a holographic process. The same process happens in plants. I think it is highly amusing to recognize that plants have sex! And the characteristics of this process stem back to the myth of the cosmic egg - creation of matter in space. Are individual objects born of the "Big Bang" enacting a cycle, perpetuating an energy that is responsible for the creation of matter itself? Psychologically, for a time, the parents must also "die" as individuals to rear a child that is half mother, half father, yet entirely unique in itself, in the same way that a fetus is not just half sperm and half egg, though sperm and egg both retain their initial identities in the early stages of the fetus before transforming together into something else entirely. This idea would render positive space masculine, penetrating the feminine, negative space. Conversely, negative space also exists within matter. For me to scratch wood off of this desk, there must be space in-between particles, allowing the desk to be altered, "destroyed" of its original identity. This notion, though approached through observed phenomenon, is the theory of the Yin Yang. And all things, though they have been through the process of destruction and creation, retain an element of original form. Therefore, a person always retains the masculine (sperm) and feminine (egg), though one more than the other determines his or her physical sex.

Similarly, a tree is cut down and destroyed, cut into planks to make this desk. It is no longer a tree.  But the material and apparent, natural wood grain suggests its origins. Consider the holograph, which is cut in half again and again. Slowly, the image of a car becomes a blur, yet some of the information from the original image must be retained for the blur to continually appear. However, the blur is no longer identifiable as an image of a car. If everything contains a sort of "memory" of what it was before it transformed into something else entirely, then that "memory" must also contain its own memory of what it was prior to its "memory" state. Theoretically, nothing is lost, and therefore everything contains within it the whole, before it became separate, different "things." If everything contains its original state, and/or a memory of its creation from energy into matter (essentially, a memory of the Big Bang), then the process of which things came to be must constantly be happening within everything for transformation to occur.  Essentially, the Big Bang didn't happen, it is happening. This is theoretical physics from the phenomenological viewpoint of a non-scientist.  These questions and ideas came from the exploration of my personal habits of creation and destruction, observing them first within and recognizing them without.

One year, I had cultivated a hanging garden. I was shocked and impressed by the carnage enacted by Mother Nature. One of my plants was infested with aphids. Every day I had attempted biological warfare with Neem oil, to no avail. I had read that the best solution was green lacewings. The idea of growing and hatching my own army of bugs to defeat the enemy was highly amusing to me. It struck me that to I was attempting to create and maintain beauty at the hands of suffering. Soon after my infestation of aphids, I noticed caterpillars devouring the same plant. I had seen a hornet land on this plant and turned my head, while eating breakfast on the porch one day, to a loud thud. The hornet had captured a large caterpillar and their weight together had dropped them to the porch floor. After some initial struggle, the hornet, now positioned a top the caterpillar, began devouring the creature, (and quite rapidly too!), until it was completely gone! Yet still, as humans, we are terrified of our own destructive nature, the part of the very thing needed for our survival.

When I was a small child, my father, (where I get my interest in physics from) had excitedly drawn my attention to a similar scene inside of the garden. I remember the feeling, but not the image, as I was too young not to feel horrified and block the image from my mind.  A garden snake slowly swallowing an unsuspecting toad. After seeing the hornet and the caterpillar, I understand now, first hand, my father's then fascination. As I grew older, specifically into a teenager, I, for many reasons I assume, became what I feel is imbalanced in the manifestation of this primal process of creation and destruction. Though, at times I "created" images of destruction, sadness and solitude, anger and evil, rather than enacting them (though to be fair I did enact them at times) I had denied the creative force that is love and thus became a sort of harbinger of destruction. This is an extreme label of course.  But I wonder how my conscious denial and suppression of love unconsciously affected the manifestation of this primal destructive force. Anti-biotics commonly cause yeast infections because they deplete "good" bacteria, causing an overgrowth of yeast. So we see here - too much of anything in the microcosm of the body acts or creates an imbalance which creates illness and destroys the body. Creation and destruction in unison create the "whole" - an order in which creation and destruction work together to grow and evolve all that exists.

The origins of the universe are within everything. I had once thought love was a weakness and cursed my desire to create (as I was compelled to paint, it never felt like a choice). Only when I had accepted love did I begin to feel lucky I had the desire to create, and was good at it! I realized that I was not limited to paint on a canvas, but that I had the desire and strength to create my own life. This seems to be the same/similar experience individuals have with God, but I'm suggesting here that there is no divide, that God is science, and all dissenting viewpoints are merely people saying the same thing in different languages, assuming that the lack of understand is an augment in the content.

Contemplation of a Forest

This morning I understood some things that had been brewing in my mind for quite some time.

Repetition of form is hidden by color, the shape of negative space, light and shadow, and the process of time; time, which renders some shapes more aged and malformed than others.  Because of the interplay of differentiated and complicated shapes, we ironically tend to ignore the geometry of nature and call it organic.  An organic form is generally conceived of as an amorphous form, like an amoeba, rather than a geometric one, which a maple leaf is exemplary of.  A forest, then, is made up of limited forms in various states of existence according to time.  Trunks and branches are essentially the same, branches being like smaller trunks. These trunks and branches have, in time, broken and fallen to the floor.  They exist on the forest bed with fallen leaves, which have also been altered through time.  This creates the foundation of the forest.  Visually, it is a mess of decomposing forms with a sort of brownish, red color.  Conceptually, it is a vision of the future, while the branches and leaves on the trees create a vision of the past.  Furthermore, we see how the foundation, the future, creates the past, (the decomposition of such material which feeds  new growth) and how also, the past creates the future.  We could learn from this, possibly, that there is no time, or rather, that all things exist in all states - always.  Hence, time is not an illusion, but functions cyclically and not linearly.  Returning to the discussion of forms…

If you ask a child to draw a leaf, a flower, or a school bus, the visual response that will often manifest is not of a leaf, a flower, or a school bus.  Rather, it is of a shape, a symbol, that represents a leaf, flower or a school bus.  Here, the brain, through memory (created by the passage of time), is accessing the general form of these things because they are part of a system of shapes.  All flowers have centers and petals.  Most leaves are oblong in shape.  A school bus is a large vehicle, in the shape category of vehicles, and more specifically in the shape category of trains, trucks and buses.  In the vein of a question explored in a prior blog entry, do we perceive existing order, or do we create order?  Do we perceive symbols and shapes that already exist with a message?  Or do we create meaningful symbols out of a physical world that is meaningless?  Perhaps it is the former.

Back to the forest.  This morning I recognized that what I was looking at was a repetition of the same few shapes, like a kaleidoscope.  What made my vision appear organic was the three-dimensional quality, the placement in space, of these shapes.  What was organic about the composition of the forest was not the way the leaves were arranged (this too was very geometric and fractal-like) but the amorphous shapes the leaves made out of negative space (here we are reminded that the essence of a cup is its empty space, and not the thing itself). These shapes in space felt chaotic, and so should they be, as space is without form, (when we break a cup, it loses its form.  It no longer contains.  What might have been held by the essence of the cup has gone wild, become amorphous.  We call it a mess.  This is chaos).  Yet, it was only looking through space (space, the essence, that in which form exists and makes use of) that I was able to see the geometric composition of the forest.  If one meditates on an area for some time, yet allows their mind/brain to also ingest the whole of what they are seeing, peripheral vision and all, then the geometry of the composition becomes apparent.  By this I mean, you can actually see it, the fractals, the tiny shapes that create the larger shapes that are repeated throughout the vision.  Honing this practice, a sort of visual meditation, may actually enable us to see the three-dimensional world in the second dimension, if only for a second, where we may actually become aware of the patterns that create the physical environment, that are hidden by color, light, space, and time.

I have learned many of these ideas by contemplation of nature, but also by my personal creation of art.  It is because of artistic creation that I am able to apply what I have learned in painting, to life itself.  And it works!  Continually creating helps the artist perfect the order that lay in their unconscious, that is the universal web (we can totally call it The Matrix!) that contains us all.  It is the concept of the Yin Yang in Eastern thought that manifests in all of creation, and moves even, throughout the mind.  In Psychoanalysis it is called the unconscious. 

The artist, then, has an unconscious duty to provide a visual for how nature functions.  Sight is merely a sense.  When we close are eyes, are we expected to believe that everything disappears?  Of course not. This should tell us that things exist regardless of our senses.  What does this mean?  This means that how things are presented to us are clues to how the universe functions.  Through our senses, we paint a picture of existence itself.  And in painting this picture, we do not create it, but we provide for existence a form that is only as complete as our understanding of it.  Why then madness?  Lack of understanding.  The primary characteristic of madness is narcissism.  This means a great deal of information about reality is being ignored, and the "mad" individual is focusing mostly on his or her own personal existence and experience, rather than existence itself.  This is not a bad thing, but indicates a developmental level that must, in time, be surpassed.

The physical world is an illusion in the same way that art is a lie.  But art is not a lie.  This is a misconception.  Art and the physical world are abstractions, manifestations of Truth.  Both are paths to be explored.  Everything physical is slave to a process that alters it in time.  Everything is constantly being destroyed and created anew to either move us toward creation (evolution) or destruction (extinction).  Though we cannot avoid destruction, we can maneuver our tendency toward destruction to evolve us, rather than destroy us.  What we literally perceive in the physical world, as well as in dreams and visualizations, is the source of scientific discovery.  Hence, we can learn about the way we act as individuals, and as humanity, by understanding nature through all of our senses.

The Possible Meaning of Myth

The Possible Meaning of Myth

The belief in symbols as real is not necessarily a habit of the insane, or the simple minded.  Believing in a man named God in an actual place in the sky called Heaven, a unified field theory, or various religious scriptures, all represent the same thing in different languages of the unconscious.  Which symbolic language a person subscribes to depends largely on that person’s individual life experience.  With the current conditions of the world that this division has created, it is necessary to explore and expose the possible function of religion and myth through scientific exploration, 
that this exploration may reveal the patterns of mind responsible for their creation.  Perhaps embarking on this journey may move humanity forward in the attempt to achieve greater peace in the world.

As a culture with the predominating religion being Christianity, we so often forget that what we regard now as myth was once believed as truth.  Greek civilization had a host of mythical beings and a comparable amount of stories involving these beings, all of which enacted the soap opera spun by humanity. 

In addition to the aforementioned duel nature of god in Christianity, many religious and mythological parables, as well as modern myths, (genre fiction, whether written or in film: i.e. sci-fi/horror, and comic book narratives) deal with the battle between good and bad.  Star Wars come to mind as a popular example, although a favorite of mine is a Russian film and its sequel, Night Watch and Day Watch.  The plot line deals with a group of humans with supernatural powers, known as The Others.  The Others are divided into two groups, the forces of Darkness and the forces of Light.  First at battle with each other, the Lord of Light recognizes that to prevent them annihilating one another, he must offer a truce to the forces of Darkness.  For many centuries, both forces exist peacefully with one another.

In addition to modern myth portrayed in pop culture, there are a plethora of mythological beings that have emerged in various cultures throughout history, that also represent good, bad, or display a complex, duel nature. 

What we believe to be fairies today, small benevolent beings with wings, often wish-granting and nature conscious, find their roots in ancient Christianity or Paganism.  In Ireland, the “good people” (the Irish called them this for fear the beings would be offended by the term “fairies” – which is hypothesized to be a derivative of fata, referring to fate) were believed to be angels who revolted against God.  After the revolt, God closed the gates of Heaven and Hell, leaving the rogue angels trapped on Earth.  Many cultures have their own versions of fairies: the Jinn in Middle Eastern cultures, or the Kijimuna of Okinawa, Japan.  Both cultures ascribe good and bad traits to these fantastic races.  The reason for this could be because these beings are projections of mankind itself.  Projecting the experience of being human outward in the creation of symbolic beings may facilitate mankind’s exploration of its own duel nature. 

Many myths of similar races from around the world, involve tales of abduction by these beings, stories that seem oddly coherent with demonic possession and belief in alien entities from space.  A curious aspect of these myths is that it is often the habit of these cross-cultural entities to sit upon the chest of a person at night, causing them inability to breathe (we are reminded of the painting by Henri Fuseli The Nightmare).  Though some cultures consider the good aspects of these beings, it is typical to associate these entities with the realm of evil, encompassing witches, vampires, ogres, banshees, etc., created to represent real psychological, currently inexplicable phenomena. 

It is sensible that these terrifying creatures commonly reside in darkness.  Fear of the unknown is the paramount fear; one could say it is the only fear, as all subsequent fears (fear of spiders, fear of heights, fear of driving) can be traced back to it.  It is the fear of death, and death is the ultimate unknown.

The study of myth reasons its creation as a way for man to explain the existence of the world.  The study of comparative myth delves a bit further.  It reveals similarities cross-culturally to find the sociological and psychological meaning behind them, for the purpose of finding the origins of their existence, be it psychological (The Hero’s Journey representative of psychic growth), anthropological (a myth that may have been passed on and altered by other cultures, from nomadic races) or environmental (myths representing the behavior of the sun).  But my question does not necessarily refer solely to what myth does.  Not only do I wish to understand the purpose of paranoia and its relationship to myth, I wish to understand why we create these symbols – specifically symbols that represent our psychic experience.  Furthermore, aside from a defense against anxiety (and other emotions), why do we, as a species, seem to have an innate habit of tying together various symbols, applying stories to them, and as a result create entire realms of myth, and consequently religion?

Theory on How A Symbol Functions

We do not create symbols for things that already exist.  Why would we need a symbol for a turtle, a building or a human?  These things already exist physically.  We can create a symbol that looks like a bird that refers to a bird.  Therefore, we can say, “This is a bird symbol,” yet to make a symbol in the shape of a bird would serve the purpose of creating a message.  Perhaps it means, “bird watching” or “bird sanctuary.”  Animals themselves are also used as symbols to represent characteristics of a human, or to relay messages to humans based on the traits of the animal.  The totem is a good example of this.  A silhouette of a woman and man together often means, “This is where the restrooms are.”  The silhouette of a deer on a deer crossing sign does not simply mean, “deer.”  It is a symbol telling us to watch out for deer, and this message exists in the realm of thought – an immaterial realm. 

Employing symbols is a way for us to understand processes that are not material.  To recognize the existence of what is immaterial could be impossible for the human mind to grasp, in the same way that colors are unimaginable for those who are unable to see them.  To make a symbol one must take an immaterial force, (such as gravity or light) or concept and put it into a pseudobody.  It has to be born or conceived in the physical realm before we can fully recognize its existence and understand it.  This pseudobody is the symbol, a container for the meaning.  The meaning is immaterial.  The reason that symbolism is necessary is because humans only know what it is like to live physically, possibly in conjunction with a spiritual outlook, and definitely with at least a consideration of the immaterial forces that move through physical life.  

 A process itself implies the transformation of the physical.  What is immaterial and difficult for us physical beings to understand is applied to the physical.  It is possible that this is wired in our nature because in the physical world the immaterial needs corresponding things to exist.  “But the universe doesn't only contain matter; it also contains forces that act upon that matter. The standard model has given us more insight into the types of matter and forces than perhaps any other theory we have.” Jonathon Attebery (2012, Pg. 2) The Higgs field is a theorized force much like the concept of ether, that is diffused the physical world and also responsible for the physical world via the Higgs Boson particle.  With enough energy, the Higgs Boson is theorized to emerge from the Higgs field.  If it is necessary for immaterial forces to have a physical counterpart - for space to contain a physical object, perhaps the psyche, which encompasses thought and emotion, must also have objects attached to it.  Perhaps we are simply applying what we know about how nature functions, to our mental processes. 

It is possible environmental forces are being employed by the mind, and that these forces can be explored through the avenue of human behavior.  The following is interesting, relative to this idea:  “Paintings from Van Gogh’s periods of psychotic agitation behave remarkable similar to fluid turbulence.  His self portrait from a pipe, from a calmer period in Van Gogh’s life showed no sign of this correspondence.” (Natalya St. Clair, 2014)

In our current paradigm, we have created a system of symbols, the alphabet, to convey messages.  Though the alphabet is a system of visual symbols, it has replaced an important vault of information that is downloaded early on into our psyches, before we learn to speak.  This vault contains all that we experience through sight.

The physical world is the first alphabet, which we not only project meaning onto, but glean meaning from.  Because our intuitive ability to glean meaning from and project meaning onto something is relative to one’s individual experience, we all develop our own visual alphabet.  This visual alphabet contains not twenty-six symbols, but thousands, downloaded into our psyche, each containing either a meaning projected upon it from a specific experience related to it, or gleaned from it.  For example, having the experience of being beaten by a stick renders a stick a weapon, though it is not in and of itself a weapon.  And like the same letter may yield a different sound depending on its context or cultural association, so may a visual symbol contain multiple meanings depending on its context and the way an individual interprets it. We can also glean universal meanings from the symbols presented to us by the physical world.  A flower, for example, represents beauty and order.   

Because we do not experience anything without the conduit of our physical body, we must understand thoughts, emotions, and processes, by employing a set of symbols that give these concepts bodies.  And because change is constant, we must have these symbols enact stories.  We are left with external representations of our own psychic reality and development.  The Odyssey, the Biblical parable of the prodigal son, and Dante’s Divine Comedy are all examples of this.  Nonspecific bodies would include beings like angels, demons, sirens, aliens, skinwalkers, etc. that do not have stories in and of themselves, but appear in various narratives to represent specific ideas.

Image - Ferdinand Lured By Ariel - John Everett Millais

The state of mind is what society would call slightly Schizophrenic, the vision is spiritual, and the facts are perceived. If there were whole genius in all of us (a perception akin to one of the five senses), perhaps we could derive the mathematical interpretations of unexplained, simply observed phenomena. The artist needs a mathematician to conform the two dimensional web of sight that documents form constructed of lines (shape), which creates a cohesive and sensible connection in any given, perceived moment. This does not mean that there isn't chaos. If a photographer did not have eyes he or she would not process "composition." However, through our eyes, composition is often there. Visual and artistic impression is based upon perception. What does this mean? It means that the inspiration is already there. All music has evolved from the drum beat. Let us not forget that the first rhythm is the human heart. As humans are as much a part of nature as a Peony, or snail, let us not forgot we move as cells through the Universe as cells move through us. Multiple studies have been done which confirm that the role of the human brain is to derive order. But are we deriving order or perceiving it? If there is an order to things is not safe to assume that it must be sensed, not through our metaphysical and intellectual capacity to impose a mathematical map onto nature Herself, but rather, through our very senses? And isn't it our very senses that we are naturally endowed with which have taken us, say, from Lucretius's observation that things, in order to cast reflections, must cast actual films - to the scientific discovery that it is not that things cast films, simply, but rather that there is an entire world of light and electrons (which in a way, can be seen as these primitive "films") which brings us closer to the truth? And so, as long as there is order, disorder must be conceived.

It does not do us any good to live in an argumentative world which says, this theory is better, or that theory is better - that there is chaos and there is order, but rather that order shifts into chaos, and back again. And is it crazy to believe that this can be seen constantly, to the eye which has practice noticing and seeing, rather than merely looking - Indeed, is it right to call a man or woman Schizophrenic because in a given moment, the clouds shift from differentiating form from the tops of trees, to immediately fall behind them with what appears to be the exact same form as the trees, divots and all?

If a particle shifts from a wave to material based on our perception, does this not suggest that when we look at things, there is an external response? And if this exists in the world of the very small, and size is relative - if we consider ourselves as particles in the grand scheme of things, do we, as humans, not also exist as belonging to a world of possibility, in which something may be looking at us, and guiding our behavior? And if this is an all encompassing consciousness which is the greater thing that has its eye on us, is it not, at the very least, conceptually human, as an atom belonging to the vast Universe of our body is also human?

The only seeming link between the world of the very small, to the world of the very big (the physical world in which there are objects) would be that of speed. So while we exist on a very low level of energy, it makes sense that the subatomic world would exist in the realm of possibility, rather than definition. But this does not mean that we cannot exact change in the world of objects and Newtonian physics, perhaps it just means that it takes a lot of work, and a very long time.

It is not my role, to read books that have come before me, though I read in my spare time that which interests me. It is important for me to exist an observer of this world, and to derive my knowledge from intuitive experiences so that I may not be unconsciously influenced by others, though others may have shared thoughts before me.

It is my goal to explore my inquiries from a basic, phenomenological view point, so I am certain that the bulk of my ideas and thoughts are sourced from within, and communicated without, and vica versa, with my experience as a guide, and informant of inner truth.

A Thought To Elaborate On

Psychologically we create symbols out of our first experiences with the object. This can be hypothesized as evidence of a biological tendency to map patterns of behavior onto the physical brain. If we are taking real situations, and creating a repetitive process out of them (repetition compulsion, as theorized by Freud), then it would seem that the brain has a tendency toward creating patterns, and simultaneously has an interest in the recognition of pattern. In this sense, a developed brain can see a shark, for example, and rather than accepting it as merely a carnivorous animal, it's characteristics are recognized, and related to human characteristics. We can theorize that a person who has an obsession with carnivorous animals might also be interested in, or expressing his own internal aggression and "dangerous" behavior through this interest. This is how symbols are born.

"Indeed, the introjection of the "object" of the drive along with the sensations, affects, related to the gratification or to the frustration of the drive, are basic to continuity of interpersonal communication.  As the continuity of object relationship is maintained, the memories of object relationship plus drive experience become stored as object representations and self-representations and become the nuclei of organization in the mental apparatus. The subject of identifcation becomes an extension of biological theory. ... Identifications constitute theoretical bridges between biology and personality and between personalities and social groups." (Grinker, 14), as quoted from Therese Benedek M.D. Parenthood as a Developmental Phase - A Contribution to the Libido Theory.

Thus, truth does not lie simply in philosophy, but is also biological. We cannot escape our biology, yet we can become aware of it, and becoming aware of our biological tendencies, are we then able to master them and forge ourselves as individuals, as well as our species, toward evolution.

Nature as the Primordial Womb and Artistic Creation as Symbolic Birth

There a difference between birthing a symbolic world that is a physical manifestation of unconscious processes (a painting, or a story, for example), as the physical world is a manifestation of an unseen energy, and the biological process of reproducing (giving birth). The reproductive process in individual biological organisms, can be seen as a microcosm of the creative force within the Universe. The unseen world (this can refer to the subatomic world, or consciousness itself, both which are still shrouded in scientific mystery) is first what made physical existence possible. First, we have space, which is akin to a giant womb, which is then populated by various objects (planets, and other cosmic entities), and specifically in our subjective view, we have Earth. Here we can hypothesize that the Earth is like an egg inside of the giant womb (space) which was fertilized to create not only Man, but life itself).

The artistic process can be seen as a reverse avenue to the greater creative force. This is what many religions in various ways describe as "The Way of Return", this "way" referring specifically to the Tao.

"Tao or Dao (/taʊ/, /daʊ/; Chinese: 道; pinyin:  Dào (help·info)) is a Chinese concept signifying 'way', 'path', 'route', or sometimes more loosely, 'doctrine' or 'principle', or as a verb, speak. Within the context of traditional Chinese philosophy and religion, Tao is a metaphysical concept originating with Laozi that gave rise to a religion (Wade–Giles, Tao Chiao; Pinyin, Daojiao) and philosophy (Wade–Giles, Tao chia; Pinyin, Daojia) referred to in English with the single term Taoism. The concept of Tao was later adopted in Confucianism, Chán and Zen Buddhism and more broadly throughout East Asian philosophy and religion in general. Within these contexts Tao signifies the primordial essence or fundamental nature of the universe. In the foundational text of Taoism, the Tao Te Ching, Laozi explains that Tao is not a 'name' for a 'thing' but the underlying natural order of the universe whose ultimate essence is difficult to circumscribe. Tao is thus "eternally nameless” (Dao De Jing-32. Laozi) and to be distinguished from the countless 'named' things which are considered to be its manifestations." - Wikipedia

This can also be recognized in other religions, in which the physical world is referred to as a kind of "darkness" (quotations for conceptual purposes), whereas the truth lies in the non-physical realm.  Science studies the physical world, and therefore the Taoist idea that "The Way" cannot be understood or described, is similar to the idea in Christianity that the existence of God cannot be proven, and requires, essentially, a personal knowing which in Christianity is termed, "faith." More specifically in the Christian faith there is the concept of "Dark Night Of The Soul" in which an individual must fall away from "God" to return to God.

Scientifically, we have originated, physically, from one source. Hypothetically, if this one source experienced consciousness, without an objective world to find understanding, it would not be able validate its own existence. This original source (let's imagine the Big Bang Theory here) has imploded in on itself to fragment into external environment, ultimately imparting intelligence and consciousness into humanity.

(I ask the reader now, if he or she would like, to read this Wikipedia reference for synoptic purposes on the history of the theorized origins of life:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis#Spontaneous_generation)

 "Tao is thus "eternally nameless” (Dao De Jing-32. Laozi) and to be distinguished from the countless 'named' things which are considered to be its manifestations."

My field of study is Psychoanalysis. Here is an obvious reference in ancient religion to what we began discussing in the beginning of this article, the process of actual human birth as well as the psychological process of the infant emerging from the mother, first experiencing oneness with the mother and then slowly becoming his or her own person capable of taking care of his or herself.  Here, the mother then becomes differentiated from the infant.  When a human reproduces, physically, it is an experience of becoming the mother (father), in the way that a human falls into the darkness that is the physical realm and through creation in general (not simply artistic creation, but let's here envision the elaborate world we have created in terms of architecture, technology, etc.) is pointed again to the truth or "the way".

Is this why creative inspiration seems so cosmic and otherworldly? Do we know intrinsically that we are channeling a greater force that was responsible for our own creation?

The Universe has seen to it that there is a biological tendency in place to reproduce, and even rewards (or bribes!) us with making extreme pleasure and release an intrinsic part of conception. Here, we can infer that both the creative process and actually giving birth are ways to recognize our individuality, as well as our creative power, through becoming the source which has created us. We are tied to this source historically, and hence we are the source, yet we are also separate from the source.

We see this process taking place also in the world of politics, exemplified in in Camus' The Rebel:

"We see that the affirmation implicit in every act of rebellion is extended to something that transcends the individual in so far as it withdraws him from his supposed solitude and provides him with a reason to act... Why rebel if there is nothing permanent in oneself worth preserving?  It is for the sake of everyone in the world that the slave asserts himself when he comes to the conclusion that a command has infringed on something in him which does not belong to him alone, but which is common ground where all men - even the man who insults and oppresses him - have a natural community. (Camus, Rebel, 16)

Here, the rebel asserts his or her individualism simply to return to a place of authority, which is a source that is in charge and guides humanity itself. The rebel breaks free of societal authority, asserts individualism and suggests that he or she stands for a greater truth that must be imparted through the vessel of the individual to all men.

Here I will say that it is my opinion that it is a gross mistake to believe that we are separate from The Whole. Whether or not there is a God or intelligence that created us (in reference to an energetic force or process, rather than a physical God or alien race, which I believe for some are merely tangible symbols to give a voice to this concept of Tao). The inferred truth here is that we have evolved and emerged from a biological process that finds its roots/history in a very small world. The broken Whole is a way for the Universe to converse with itself, and the study of the physical world, which is in parts, in a way for the Whole to communicate with itself. In a sense, a person is a holographic reflection of the larger and more detailed picture, and a person's individual physical existence is cast into a darkness that is away from the light. Only to understand the true concept of "light" which is another mythological characteristic of "God" and "Truth" - one must study what they can see in the darkness (the physical world) to find the source of this faint luminosity. Here is where artistic creation is employed. In artistic creation, a person becomes that source of light and truth, and splits him or herself into parts by creating a body of creative work which provides clues for the human to become consciously aware of the processes of the psyche.

Symbolism From A Phenomenological Perspective.

During an art critique in my school days - a professor pointed out in a student's painting the repetition of form. Interestingly enough, there it was, hidden but in plain sight. Certainly, consciousness of this form repetition would have to be genius, a kind of tapping into some vault of esoteric knowledge that exists only within the ether. This gifted insight was one I had always remembered, and since then I had been able to see it manifesting (unintentionally) in my own work. In one particular piece, for example, entitled, "Drowning With You", there was no "you", yet I had called it this. There it was in the distance, a tiny hand emerging from a charcoal sea - reaching past the horizon line into whatever it was that was "above."  Who was I drowning with? And what was I reaching for? The drawing is presented below.

It hadn't occurred to me until much later that the actual hand (presented in blue pen to the right of the painting) mimicked the larger form (which I had considered to be a rock (nature) to the left of the composition. Similarly - the tiny blue hand that can be seen (right bottom and diagonal to the perpendicular blue hand) mimics the form (another rock) that is in the forefront of the composition.  If one looks closely, even details such as the thumb and fingers are abstractly duplicated.  

My thought:  How could this be a mere coincidence?  

Clearly, there was an unconscious process happening during this drawing's creation. Furthermore, who was I drowning with? With these symbolic forms manifested, the correlation drawn is this:  

I was drowning with nature.  

But what does it mean to be drowning with nature? Here, I had unconsciously formed a visual connection between the subject (the arm and hand which represent a human drowning (myself)) and the object (the rocks, rather, nature). Let us explore why, unconsciously, I may have visualized this.

From a psychoanalytic perspective - to destroy the self is to destroy the primary object. The primary object is the human "mother." Killing oneself is a way to kill the object. Why? Because we are born from another human, and our initial experience is the experience that we are a small piece of this "greater" thing that we have emerged from. Any feelings we experience as children toward our object (mother, and in some cases father) (for example, anger toward our mothers if we are not fed right away) activates the aggressive drive which we are born with biologically that enables our survival.  "You are hurting me. You are preventing me from getting the nourishment I need. I must destroy you so that I can survive." There is an opposite reaction that occurs from the experience of this aggressive drive, and that is the protective urge to keep the object safe, because biologically we also know that our source of food and care comes from this object (mother). We are dependent on the mother. If the mother is bad, we still need her to survive, yet we also want to expedite the process of detaching from her (physically and psychologically) by destroying her and becoming our own, separate object.  At this stage, this is impossible to achieve. To go off and die and refuse the mother is a way of killing a part of the mother as an expression of aggression which can create or activate a destructive impulsive action. Because we depend on our objects for guidance and nurture, we learn and internalize behavior, as well as feelings, that are experienced and presented by the mother (in this case, also father). As we get older, we carry this within us. How many times have you heard someone say, "Oh he's just like his father!" "I'm worried that I'm becoming my mother." In the adult, suicide is not just a killing of the self - it is a rejection of the internalized object - the object which can not be tolerated and must be destroyed.

However, the drawing does not simply represent a feeling of destruction toward the primary object.  We must ask, "Why then, is this 'greater' object represented in the natural environment, and not in the form of another human?" I wondered, what is it that is trying to speak with me through this image?  Clearly, I did not represent this consciously, which means there is an unconscious and symbolic message hidden within, that, as was mentioned before, can only be understood through connecting to that esoteric vault within the ether. Is it as simple as saying, "Well, I'm drowning, and nature itself is also drowning, so this is a representation of wanting to destroy the primary object, yet it is presented in code to bring these repressed, unwanted and destructive urges to murder the primary object to light." The reason I do not believe that it is as simple as this is because we must consider further circumstances surrounding the image that apply to its hidden meaning. I will consider the fact that the analysis of this image is an analysis of self - and therefore the interpretation is altered based on personal bias. However, my intention is not to find answers, but to present the reader with the advent of this mind journey that has been embarked upon.

Further circumstances that must be considered are as follows:  

What is the symbolism of drowning in the ocean?

 Could this be representative of the "oceanic feeling" which Freud has never felt but discusses in his work (which was unbeknownst to the artist during the creation of this drawing)?  

Does this oceanic feeling correlate with days in the womb?

Why should we stop at "physical" mother, child, father?  

If all living things reproduce, and sexual processes permeate existence, what does this say about the creative force and its role in the universe at large, which flows through all living things?  And what is the role of human creation in all of this?  

Should we look at the destruction of the self, not only as destruction of the "greater" thing - this primary object (physical mother) but as destruction of the "greatest" thing - nature itself?

What was I reaching for?

These ideas will be explored and formulated in the evolution of this blog.