Friday 14 December 2018

Lead me dear Truth, to the Heart of What's Real

Familiar feeling. Stuck energy attempting to rise. Tears threatening to release. Mind desperately seeking distractions: coffee, food, public spaces. But the need to release is overpowering even my most time-tested numbing techniques. "Maybe I just burst into tears right here? Right now..."

Write. Now.

Where is True? Dear Truth, I do love you.
So where, oh please where, can I find you?

Inside me? Remind me. Please.
How do I unwind Thee?
From twisted self-trickery.
From neural pathways looped incessantly.
Survive. Belong. Be liked. Be strong.

Yet some fractions of moments
Of stillness and knowing.
I must be my worst enemy.
Which way am I flowing?

Moksha? Or imprisonment?
The choice is always mine to make.
While the complex layers of persona at stake
Preach fear with the temptation of a biblical snake.

My deepest fear: Alone. Pain and grief.
And this deeply engrained, harmful belief
Well I make it come true...

What is it, actually, that I truly fear?
"Stay away. Don't come near!
Leave me alone. I won't stay!"
Every fibre of my being, when approached close enough
Terrified and shut tight. Scaled, hardened and rough.

And they know that somehow
I might lie to myself now
Still attracting those who can't
Wounded soldiers that shan't
Let me in either.

Wounds upon wounds
Damaged minds wired all wrong
But psychic and magic and so fucking strong

Mind-tricks rage against the Self
Inner Being collecting dust on an abandoned heart shelf

Calcified heart.
I can almost smell damp lichen covered rocks
Layered in a crust that when shocked
Shocked by Truth. By Light. By unconditional Love
Does crack just a little
Some shards fall aside
Releasing buried pain that for lifetimes did hide.

Love me! JUST LOVE ME! Will somebody...love me?

This raging voice stuck inside. The cries that it cries. So loud. So intense.
Not subtle or true...
Love me, oh love me, they did and they do.
Deeply and truly
sometimes painful and cruelly.

Heal myself. I know how.
Maybe it will take ten more somethings from now.

I commit to loving Truth.
And so all is revealed.

Love is always right here. And always right now.
So near. So intimately dear...
That I can't seem to notice (maybe I know not yet how?)
Softly. So softly. I am beginning to hear
Gentle sweet whispers. Sounds in my ear...

"You are Ok. You are perfect. You are Beauty and Joy.
You are the Nothing that keeps dancing.
Forever and for always. To make. And to destroy."





Wednesday 12 December 2018

Sometimes it is hard to believe in the good things coming

Dreams last night. Wild. From a still point I catapulted, body and soul, up like a rocket. Bursting through the atmosphere. Beyond the protective layer that encircles Great Mother. Terrifying and exhilarating. Is that what it feels to be free?

Ego. Personality. Layers of selves piled upon for safety. For attempts at belonging. For dull, numbing half-aliveness. I thank you dear personas, for all your hard work. Mind too. Thank you. You have tried so hard for me. To create safety and peace. I gave you an impossible task and I am sorry.

This morning, emotions rising. Anger. Pain. Grief. Pressing my forehead against the chilly window pane. Breath and tears adding damp fog to the obfuscation already clouding my view. Yet I see. I see. I watch...releasing the pain of a thousand years. Little by little. Let it flow. Let it flow.

The witness in me. The impersonal Is-ness is sitting more and more steadily. Ever-present, I forget less and less. Who I am. I AM. Emotions come. Pain is processed as my physiology interacts with the energetic forces. I cry. I ache. I collapse. I dance. I laugh. I cry. I dance the dance of being so Being Itself can witness pure wild potential made manifest.

And it is ok. Ok...yes. But...it is not ok too. Nahko's "Love Letters to God" plays on YouTube. The one that shows powerful, beautiful, painful heart wrenching images and scenes from Standing Rock.

My heart breaks. Deeper and deeper the cracks shatter the hardened crust I have built around myself. Tears flow. Xavier is near. I look at him. I know that it is important to release and to cry. I know it is healthy to sit calmly in the depths of inner stillness knowing all is ok while emotions move through. But that is not enough! Not enough in this insane world we are living in; a world where our very lifeblood, our rivers, our lakes, our ecosystems...they must be honoured as sacred once again. I believe in the good things coming. I have to. My babies are SO magical and pure. You are sacred. I am sacred. All of life is sacred. This shall be remembered. And so it is.

I am a warrior. Like Nahko, I think words must be my weapons. I don't yet know how they will fly. But I know that I have to start somewhere. Sometimes silence. But not in the face of today. Here. Now. I am writing. Expressing. And manifesting healing in myself. And others. For the highest good of all.



Sunday 22 July 2018

The Myth of Intuiti and Ratios


Here is where she gets stuck. This slightly disheartened but ever passionate graduate student in the humanities. She normally follows her heart, her intuition, even travelling to Senegal because of perceived synchronicity (which is why and how she came to learn about Léopold Sédar Senghor), and ultimately basing her decision to pursue graduate studies upon sighting a hawk at just the right moment... But how? How to write about this intangible realm of intuition? How to cement in words, through language, what intuition is without falsely solidifying this phenomenon and creating even more separation? Separation. Definitions. Labels. Meaning. Words. Language.  Thought...She slumps ever and ever lower and soon finds herself fast asleep, dead to this world, but having gained access as a witness to some other realm, where the illusion of time holds no sway...
           
            There was an enormous burst of light! A cacophony of sound, like thunder, accompanied the ethereal scene. Somewhere in the less-tangible realm inhabited by spirit entities and souls, by energy beings and light, approximately 200,000 years ago according to our current time-keeping system but long before time was measured in a linear way, a scene seen only in the depths and the heights of the subreal[1] was unfolding. Somehow, the author of this dissertation was able to observe this incident; her consciousness having entered the Akashic Field through an elevated dream state.[2] She could feel it in the very depths of her being. Her consciousness was suddenly present at the dawn of known history. Yes. This event was felt, inevitably, as the immense blow was dealt. Human consciousness had taken the most enormous, incredible leap. Human language burst forth![3] Such possibilities for creation and destruction along with so many secrets to keep. And there, in the ether, in the subtle realms visited by some shamans and gatekeepers, a violent fracture occurred. Two entities, that had previously transcended duality, that had functioned in unity and reciprocity, split apart, with only an increasingly thinning thread to bind them.
            She observed the scene. Understood what was happening and her brain translated this knowing into transferable meaning; into language. These words, made up of phonemes and syllables, rife with rhythm and underlying intention, are imagined to have been uttered by the incorporeal entities who engaged in a dialogue of their own:
            “Blessed light! What on earth did just occur?” A flowing, spiralling, violet entity timidly, as though she is not accustomed to the solidity of speech, utters her surprise and dismay.
            The vibrant, deep orange, angular and boxy entity replies: “Precisely. Just now, on earth, a corporeal member of homo sapiens descended from a tree and discovered, upon the ground, a spore producing member of the biological kingdom that will come to be known as fungi, and consumed it. This particular mushroom contains the alkaloid known as psilocybin. The human thus entered an altered and heightened state of consciousness wherein his brain began to evolve rapidly. The substance increases lucidity and opens portals to the eternal rhythm. Because of what he has glimpsed while in this altered state, he will inevitably try to communicate this spiritual understanding to others. As efforts are made to describe and communicate this awareness of Being, art, religion, ritual, ceremony and complex systems of language will emerge. The ability to form consonant sounds will emerge, unlike all other animals on earth, who only create utterances consisting of vowel sounds. The other humans will also eat of this alien fruit, leading, eventually, to a doubling of brain-size.”
            The potential for creativity and mutual beneficence greatly excites the flowing violet being.
“Joyful splendour! The sender of magical mushrooms, I do thank and honour you. Just imagine what these humans now can do!? They can imagine and create, gather and cooperate. Discuss and ponder; perform rituals and live in perpetual wonder!” The purplish entity spins and twirls in a fluid display of powerful potential, and then stops suddenly. Her vibration shifts from intense blissful ecstasy to solid stillness. She glances at her counterpart. He too looks pleased, though rigid and fixed.
            “With a clearly defined language system, homo sapiens can begin to label and name all the items that make up the world around them, right down to the most minute and minuscule particles. Advances in science will become increasingly powerful. With language, knowledge can be recorded and cemented. There will be no limit to human discovery and knowledge!” As he speaks, the portion of him that would be above his shoulders grows increasingly bigger and more square until he becomes made up nearly entirely of cerebral mass.
            Here in this realm of Akashic records, time is not linear. All that ever has been and ever will be is knowable. From long before homo sapiens arise on the planet to way beyond our demise. Infinity is amorphous. Two parallel lines running along beside each other will intersect at infinity. And thus, all moments in known human history, all great persons and events are accessible within the Akashic field. For the purposes of clarity these two entities will be called Ratios and Intuiti. The orange angular rational one is Ratios and the purple ethereal poetic one is Intuiti. At this point, they engage in a kind of debate or battle of the faculties, one might say. This through presenting, each at their turn, their heroes and heroines throughout the ages, all in an attempt to prove which is the greater faculty.
            Intuiti begins to speak her concern to Ratios: “Surely you see the possibility that the use of language could cause great misunderstanding and utter forgetting within the human race. They’ll begin to believe that space, and time too, are real, measured and true. What if they record these languages of theirs? With markings and letters! Of this, I am most scared. Dear Socrates dares warn his kind. But he is killed by drinking of the hemlock vine. In Phaedrus, composed by Plato, of course, for Socrates never wrote anything down, Socrates explains his concern:
Writing, Phaedrus, has this strange quality, and is very like painting; for the creatures of painting stand like living beings, but if one asks them a question, they preserve a solemn silence. And so it is with written words; you might think they spoke as if they had intelligence, but if you question them, wishing to know about their sayings, they always say only one and the same thing. And every word, when once it is written, is bandied about, alike among those who understand and those who have no interest in it, and it knows not to whom to speak or not to speak; when ill-treated or unjustly reviled it always needs its father to help it; for it has no power to protect or help itself. (275d-275e)
I foresee and fear the power of the written word. Used out of context. As propaganda. Brainwashing. Humankind may become too reliant on language, may begin to believe too deeply in the ability of symbols to determine an intangible reality...” Intuiti catches glimpses through the ages of war propaganda and feels despair at knowing how many innocents will die because of ill-conceived ideas of superiority and horrendous beliefs that one religion is truer than another. Holy wars. Wars. Holy books... Ratios tries to console her fears by illustrating all that words and language can usher forth. Progress!
            “But what of science? And medicine! Think about Hippocrates; they will call him the father of modern medicine. He first began chronicling medical understanding. They’ll use his oath throughout much of human history. He explains: “First, do no harm.” How could language and writing possibly do harm Intuiti? Your concerns are unfounded.” As Ratios extrapolates he becomes more and more convinced of his truth, the certainty in his logic. Intuiti grows weaker and her voice begins to grow more soft, ever increasingly silent. But still, she speaks.
            “Much harm and strife humans will endure as medics mistakenly search for the cure. They will look at the pieces, the parts and the sections. Doing no harm may well be the intention. Yet understanding of the complex whole is beyond the mind’s rational comprehension. Some medicine will remember the unity. Ayurveda, Chinese medicine, ancient wisdom passed down. But the West, with their records and cutting apart...one studies the lungs, another the heart. Without thought to emotions and energy they will fall. I’m afraid your Hippocrates is not brilliant at all.” Ratios becomes slightly hostile and starts listing the great achievements of science and progress.
            “Humans will land space crafts on the moon. Send stations into space, orbiting and collecting data; exploring Mars with robot technology. They will invent immensely powerful weapons and learn how to save lives by transplanting organs! That is how powerful the calculated mind can be. Great vessels will be fabricated, crossing land, air and sea. Not to mention the tiniest nano-technology. Can’t you see? The power of language and thought will lead humans to the very brink of ultimate and supreme knowing. With the capability to organize their language and thoughts, to record what they know, the progressive increase of rationality and logic will exponentially grow!” Ratios head is, at this point, becoming dangerously large and pointed. Angular and sharp; menacing. Intuiti is becoming nearly translucent, but her voice still resonates with the rhythm of Truth.
            “Yes. What you speak is true. But riddle me this, if I ask it to you: what of happiness and joy? Contentment and love? A feeling of gratitude for all that is and ever was? During moments of this time when homo sapiens lord over the earth, there will be instances of love, of joy, of rebirth! The human condition: great joy and great sadness. But the sadness comes from the mistake, from a deep cursed forgetting. Language and thoughts with their naming, their separating and their claiming, convince humans of separation…interconnection is left waning. What this means, I do fear, is that the end will be near. The earth’s resources taken hostage; the humans will feel the cost of their over-emphasis on rationality, on seeing the vibrancy of life as finality. Analysis and experimentation; use and degradation. This will be the ultimate end, unless the humans no longer pretend, that their thoughts, words and minds can truly and definitively find the way to be well. This world will have fell. And yet, I have hope. There are those who will know, still show the beneficence of intuition as a valid way of being. There will come to the earth, a man of spiritual worth.” As she speaks, images float amidst the ether, displaying the events of which she speaks. “On the day of his birth an ancient Baobab tree, more than 2000 years old, will crack down the centre, releasing the great soul that will enter this newborn earth child. He will be eloquent, wise and, sadly, much reviled.[4] Though others will renew his works and his fame. Honouring his name and, I am still hopeful, furthering the vision he kept close to his heart until the very end. A poet, philosopher and statesman so dedicated to his vision for a civilization of people who remember that they are not truly separate. That they all have much to offer the world as they begin to remember what they intuitively know. In “L’Esthétique Négro-Africaine” he explains the fecundity of this rejection of separation and conflict: “The Other–be they adult, ancestor, spirit or God–, far from being an obstacle, is support for, source of vital force. Far from their being conflict in this confrontation between You and me, there is conciliatory accord, not derealisation, but a realisation that is bigger than the individual essence”[5] (p. 206). This vision is not utopian, as it is often accused of being. It is a return. To knowing and understanding in a balanced way. To a sharing of energy. A return, in all senses, to love.” As Intuiti speaks this time, she has renewed light and energy. She has hope. And Ratios, he seems to be affected as well. His head growing slightly smaller, tilted pensively to the side as though he is remembering something, someone...
            “So. Not simply statistics and recorded thought; not simply a collection of data and information. Is this what you propose? A union? Or that intuition should rule? I fear it would be a chaotic nonsensical realm if intuition ruled over the other more linear and calculated faculties. No limits. No boundaries. No organization or planning. This causes me great fear and anxiety. And yet. There is one example, a great man of science, maybe even the greatest, that seems to support what you are saying. He was arguably a mad man, but his discoveries in the realm of physics will change science drastically. He himself, with his unruly hair, claimed that: “Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” And he, somewhat over-emphatically also stated that, “the only real valuable thing is intuition.” However, I do believe that statement goes too far.” As Ratios ponders what it means for a man like Einstein, a man of science, to make strong claims in favour of intuition, he glances upwards, searching his ethereal mind for evidence to support or deny such claims. Intuiti breaks the silence.
            “Yes! Indeed. A misquoted line, pulled out of time, and context, will partially prompt one graduate student to take up this fight. The plight? A world out of balance. This tool of interconnection, of communication and endless misdirection, they will call it the internet. It resembles Teilhard de Chardin’s noosphere, but not yet evolved to the level of Love. Amidst it’s pages will circulate these words, attributed to Einstein, but never actually heard, from his lips: “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift. The rational mind a faithful servant. We have created a society that worships the servant and has forgotten the gift.” Bob Samples, about our dear Wizard scientist, explained the unfortunate twist. Where things went awry. These are the words that are written, though both versions apply: “Albert Einstein called the intuitive or metaphoric mind a sacred gift. He added that the rational mind was a faithful servant. It is paradoxical that in the context of modern life we have begun to worship the servant and defile the divine.”[6] And try, she will try, to honour the divine, to reinstate its sacred status in the realm of epistemology, of ways of knowing. Her aim: to recreate this balance, having these words as an inseparable fulcrum upon which to tip, back and forth, back and forth. Society. Disequilibrium. But now! The time has come? Revolution. Intuition! Senghor often credits this spirit to Henri Bergson.” The wispy graceful sway of Intuiti, her unpredictable movement and lyric chatter has enervated Ratios. He feels fear. Fear that his thoughts, his mind, can’t clearly comprehend what this all means...
            “What you speak of, can’t be thought. Not clearly and cleanly. Leave spirit and vital forces alone. The mental faculties of homo sapiens cannot atone for such blithe nonsense. It is enough to know, as René Descartes powerfully proclaimed: “I think, therefore I am.” Nothing more is needed in this game, called life. Thinking beings! Thought formed in language, with increasing precision!” Ratios is pleased to put forth Descartes’ widely accepted ideal of what it means to be human. Intuiti is even more pleased, for Senghor eloquently counters Descartes:
Thus the Negro African sympathizes,[7] abandons his personality to become identified with the Other, dies to be reborn in the Other. He does not assimilate; he is assimilated. He lives a common life with the Other; he lives in a symbiosis...Subject and object are dialectically face to face in the very act of knowledge. It is a long caress in the night, an embrace of joined bodies, the act of love. “I want you to feel me,” says a voter who wants you to know him well. “I think, therefore I am,” Descartes writes. The observation has already been made that one always thinks something, and the logician's conjunction “therefore” is unnecessary. The Negro African could say, “I feel, I dance the Other; I am.” To dance is to discover and to re-create, especially when it is a dance of love. In any event it is the best way to know. Just as knowledge is at once discovery and creation–I mean re-creation and recreation, after the model of God. (On African Socialism, 73)
Life and relationships are a dance; a rhythmic discovery of mutual growth and understanding. This is what intuition opens for people. Interacting with the world around in all its wonder from a place of openness and love, rather than separation and cold, hard logic creates a rhythmic dance of being. Yes, indeed. This is the best way to know.” Intuiti is ever flowing, ever moving gracefully to an energetic pulse that is felt rather than heard.
            Her grace and rhythm are increasingly attractive to Ratios. He explains: “I’m beginning to see that this marriage of binaries could be useful. That by combining the intuition and rational thought, humanity may be capable of even greater advances and progress. The mistake is made when one side of the binary is considered superior to the other side. It is natural, though, to think in terms of binaries. The mind simply works in that way. Don’t you agree?” Ratios is now also becoming troubled by images of injustice and inequality based upon the false equivalence of certain mental faculties with race and gender.
            “Thankfully, you are beginning to see. Much harm has come because these faculties, these epistemologies, of knowing, of showing the superiority of cold hard reason. Dangerous associations of better or worse, like a curse. This race, that gender. Too tender, emotional, unreasonable, devotional. Logic has reigned, and in its wake: the mistake, of Other. Genocide, patricide, loss of pride, access denied. Hélène Cixous searches for the place, the space, for women. It is in the opening of The Newly Born Woman that Cixous very clearly lines up the binary oppositions, asking, “Where is she?” (37). These binaries include, “Head/Heart; Intelligible/Palpable; Logos/Pathos” among others; in each pairing, the male side is considered superior to the female side (37). She presents the binary of man/woman so that the word ‘Man’ is directly on top of the word ‘Woman’ separated by a horizontal line; she explains: “Always the same metaphor: we follow it, it carries us, beneath all its figures, wherever discourse is organized” (37). Noting the omnipotence of this binary understanding of gender, she then asks, “What would happen to logocentrism, to the great philosophical systems, to the order of the world in general if the rock upon which they founded this church should crumble?” (40). Crumble and fall. And out of the dust and debris, a new epistemolgy! That of intuition. This is the mission.” Intuiti evidently feels a renewal of hope for humanity; her colours deepen and throb, ebbing from deep magenta to indigo blue.
            “With these binaries so embedded in both the language and the thought processes of homo sapiens, how do you propose this change will occur? Language is designed to name and delineate. A tool so that humans might accurately navigate, their lands, their jobs, their relationships and lives. How to champion something that language itself seems to hide?” As Ratios presents these questions to Intuiti, he himself is beginning to be swept up in a rhythmic cadence that feels unfamiliar to him.
            Intuiti taps into a moment in time when a philosopher managed to break free from the tradition in which he was trained, where he somehow managed to gain insight into human perception and memory in a way that had not yet been put forth in the Western World. “Of what you speak is true. Language does hold the clue, as to why intuition holds an inferior position. It can’t be adequately described, discussed or analyzed. Does that make it not so? To this the answer is no. Henri Bergson warns of language and the processes of thought. How they fool us into believing that which is not. With regard to our sensations, our feelings of being; he points out that we name them, so we might understand with what we are dealing. But ever? Is ever, a feeling the same thing twice? Not truly. Not exactly. It can’t be that precise. Language leads to our general misunderstanding of reality. He states: "Non seulement le langage nous fait croire à l'invariabilité de nos sensations, mais il nous trompera parfois sur le caractère de la sensation éprouvée" (Essai, 98). Our thought too fails to hit a mark that is true: “Notre pensée, sous sa forme purement logique, est incapable de se représenter la vraie nature de la vie, la signification profonde du mouvement évolutif” (EC, vi).” Intuiti appears pleased with having pointed out the inherent misconceptions that arise due to the fallibility of language. Ratios has some difficult questions.
            “Then, we are at an impasse. A crossroads. Nothing can be done. The game of language and meaning will never be won for the intangible notions like intuition and la durée. How can one even achieve these complete states of understanding? Does Bergson actually say?” He’s rhyming more and more. He seems to be infected, or even inflected, by a rhythmic cadence that is more powerful than himself.
            “Well, it’s simple. And yet difficult, to go back to that place. A place beyond time and outside of space. Duration that is not linear but simply is what it is. How to get there? Remember! Re-seize, albeit rarely, one’s true Self: "Mais le moment ou nous nous ressaisissons ainsi nous-mêmes sont rares, et c'est pourquoi nous sommes rarement libres. [...] Agir librement, c'est reprendre possession de soi, c'est se replacer dans la pure durée" (Essai, 174).  And this act of noticing the immediate, ever-present, data of consciousness is done by dismissing the verbose. Bergson entrance into moving beyond thought’s prose: "My initiation into the true philosophical method began the moment I threw overboard verbal solutions, having found in the inner life an important field of experiment" (CM, 71). Meditation. Introspection. This is the way...” Intuiti’s voice wavers slightly; she know what Ratios is about to say. The way to understanding, perhaps, it is so. But the question remains: How does one share what they come to know? In this global family, where language reigns intrinsically, controlling and shaping the very minds and thoughts of these human...robots?
            “You have sensed my current quandary. If there is to be a return to the balance between the head and the heart, between rationality and intuition: how can the necessity for such a thing be communicated? It seems that language necessitates the superiority of analytic rationality. It is both the product and enforcer of the dominance of rationality and reason.” Ratios once again finds himself scratching is chin and glancing upwards, searching his mind for answers. Intuiti remains very still, humming to herself. Then she hears a gentle rhythmic fluctuation amidst the ether and feels her body beginning to react to the sway:

Par les soirs bleus d’été, j’irai dans les sentiers,
Picoté par les blés, fouler l’herbe menue:
Rêveur, j’en sentirai la fraîcheur à mes pieds.
Je laisserai le vent baigner ma tête nue.

Je ne parlerai pas, je ne penserai rien :
Mais l'amour infini me montera dans l'âme,
Et j'irai loin, bien loin, comme un bohémien,
Par la Nature, – heureux comme avec une femme. (Rimbaud, «Sensations», 12)

“No thoughts! Let them slip through, sinking right out of the soft, supple mind. There, in stillness, one will find, a deeper intuitive understanding. That’s it! Language that is free to explore and to play. Creating new; generation, regeneration, vibrations that are rife with underlying meaning. Freedom is to know oneself deeply; then, from that knowing, intuition is easy, is naturally understood and felt. Going beyond words. Beneath them. Inside of them. Language is not to blame entirely. Human misconceptions about language, however...” Intuiti is excited about these claims she makes, and yet, she feels exhausted. Trying to make language function in a way that is intuitive and rhythmic, that provides a deep understanding of interconnection and Spirit, rather than as the seemingly clear and concise labelling mechanism is tiring.
            Ratios is looking skeptical and perplexed. “So words mean more or less than the sum of each definition? Human minds like clarity and concise meaning. They feel safe when they can confidently say: “Yes! I understand.” They like charts and categories. Systems and binaries. Black and white. Wrong and right. I am not convinced that we will win this fight of regaining balance. The faculty of You is too intangible, ethereal. Once momentarily felt, intuition, well, once the human mind tries to grab hold of it, look at it, be convinced that it happened, it will vanish. Humans have evolved to want something to hold on to. Written words. Logic. They want guaranteed methods that work every time! Do they really care about vibration, about metre and rhyme?” Though his skepticism remains, Ratios is also being moved gently by a rhythm or force that, whether he admits it or not, is affecting his very being.
            “Humans are comfortable with what they know. Yes, it is so. But they are willing to grow! To evolve and to flow. Plus de mots. [8] Wrote Rimbaud. Language is the problem, causing separation; But it is also the answer, the act of creation. Literature! Poetry! Dis-covering the depths of the soul. The power of writing, has been foretold: "Si l'écriture est ce qui advient quand quelque chose se fait dans le langage par un sujet et qui ne s'était jamais fait ainsi jusque-là, alors l'écriture participe de l'inconnu. C'est à dire du rythme. Elle commence là où s'arrête le savoir" (Meschonnic, La rime et la vie 237). Beyond knowing there is a flowing, where intuition runs free. Giving wholeness and understanding, allowing all to just Be.” Intuiti is now wholly excited and the chord that connects her to Ratios is pulsing and thickening as the understanding flows back and forth, back and forth; a glorious dance between head and heart.[9]

This. This is the start…

The PhD candidate wakes from her slumber, uncertain about what she was just privy to: was it merely a dream? Or had she somehow entered some other simultaneous dimension? Does it really matter? She feels renewed passion and purpose on this quest to consider intuition! Intuition as epistemology! Through literature, poetics and philosophy. For now, a return to academic speak, to a language of inquiry and hypothesis.




     1. Senghor uses the term “sous-réel” to denote what he deems true reality, beyond illusion and mind. This reality is composed of vital forces, which, according to Senghor, make up the fabric of this deeper reality, which he deems, “sub-reality: of true reality” (Liberté 3 66).
     2. Akasha is the Sanskrit word for “space” similar to the English “ether.” The Akashic field is an interconnecting cosmic field that exists at the roots of reality and informs our day-to-day experiences. Basing his discussion around quantum physics, particularly the works of Ervin Laszlo, Deepak Chopra explains that, “Akasha is more real than the visible universe. Akasha organizes and coordinates all the projections we call time, space, matter and energy.” Thus, he claims that the following key assertions of Advaita Vedanta, the Indian philsophy of non-dualism, are bolstered: “The material world is projected from nonmaterial source. The invisible world comes first. It contains the seeds of time and space. Reality increases the closer one gets to the source” (213). Chopra also explains that non-embodied entities or souls exist and interact within this field.
     3. The origin of language for humans has been central to scholarly debate for several centuries. In spite of this, there is no consensus on the ultimate origin or age of human language. Most are in agreement that language originated somewhere between 350,000 and 150,000 years ago.
     4. Very few scholars have given Senghor the justice of reading his enormous oeuvre carefully or even at all, before jumping on the bandwagon of criticizing him. As Cheikh Thiam explains in his introduction to a special issue on Senghor called “Negritude Reloaded:” “Senghor is too frequently a victim of what I call, for lack of a better term, “intellectual gossip.” It is common to find scholars in Africana studies who have only read his poetry or who limit their understandings of Negritude to Sartre’s preface of the Anthology of the New Negro and Malagasy Poetry (1963) and who believe that they have mastered all the intricacies of his half a century-long process of theorization of Negritude. This rather superficial relation to Senghor’s work leads many scholars, even leading Africanist scholars, to limit his philosophy to his famous citation “emotion is Negro, while reason is Hellenic” and its essentialist racialist implications.”
     5. « L'Autre–adulte, Ancêtre, génie ou Dieu–, loin d'être obstacle, est support, source de force vitale. Loin qu'il y ait conflit, dans cette confrontation de moi et Toi, il y a accord conciliant, no déréalisation, mais réalisation plus grande de l'essence individuelle. »
     6. 1976, The Metaphoric Mind: A Celebration of Creative Consciousness by Bob Samples, Quote Page 26, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Reading, Massachusetts.
     7. In the French text, sym-pathise, literally, “feels with.”
     8. From Une saison en enfer.
     9. HeartMath studies define a critical link between the heart and brain. The heart is in a constant two-way dialog with the brain. Our emotions change the signals the brain sends to the heart and the heart responds in complex ways. Today we now know the heart sends more information to the brain than the brain sends to the heart.