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Perceiving Nature

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lincoln stoller
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Is this fantasy or perception? Reality or imagination? The answer is that you will not know at first. It is the nature of new things to be not fully formed, not fully identifiable as to their nature or origin. What you are looking for, really, is the nature of things behind their appearance because truth lies in feeling, and feeling develops.


What do you hear in the wind, or see deep in the forest leaves? And if you see a signal, who put it there? When developing finer perception you can ask these questions but you must not demand answers. Accept the answer, "You will find out!" Be satisfied with just a change of feeling. Maybe it's a new impression or an idea.


Use your imagination to give your experience a home to remember. Give the wind a voice. Give the leaves a face. It's not because those things are there, it's because you don't want to forget the sensations brushing past you. There is no clear difference between perception and conception, sight and insight. Both come together. To loose your senses you must loose your mind.


"When I speak of entering stillness and silence, I'm not speaking of entering an altered state but rather a state of poised alertness open to this world but undistracted and attentive, the kind of stillness and silence one seeks in order to hear something more clearly or ably."

-- David Spangler, "Subtle Awareness"


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The Tuning-Inward Exercise

Here is a little exercise. You'll need to memorize it because you must do it with your eyes closed. Read it now, and then close your eyes and do it.

Begin by finding a comfortable place where you can close your eyes and fully relax without being disturbed for a few minutes. Place your hands at your sides or on the arms of your chair. Place all your attention in your hands as they become warm and heavy.


Feel the muscles relax and feel the backs of your hands pulse as your heart beats circulation through them. Feel that pulse in your arms and across your shoulders, connecting both arms where the pulse comes together at your neck.


As you continue to feel this, imagine a small black "X" sitting at the top of the bridge of your nose directly between your eyebrows. Let this X slide down your nose, over your upper lip, your lower lip, over your chin, under your chin, and into your neck where your pulse is.


When the X moves inside your neck and reaches your pulse, imagine that this pulse shoots the X up your spine and out the top of your head. And as it does this, feel the involuntary recoil that sets your neck back an inch. And then, as this X sails up, out of your head and out of sight, relax and just feel your pulse.


That's the exercise. Do that: feel your pulse in your hands, then your arms and shoulders. Let the X slide down to your throat and up and out the top of your head, and then be still.


If this exercise worked, you are now in a dreamy, sensitive state, a state that you have both imagined and created. And in this state you are now attentive to new things. Take this state and be in this state in nature. Use this state as a magnifying glass and apply it to the experience of nature. Not a visual magnifying glass, but as a sensory one.


Do this exercise a second time outdoors. Find a comfortable place in nature, a place where you are warm, nothing is disturbing you, and nothing is changing. Gather into you the impression of what's around you, the air, the clouds, the sounds and sensations on your skin. Release your memories and put your mind into neutral where it can just babble quietly or be in silence. Than repeat this exercise and sense how it feels differently.


Do this exercise a third time when something significant occurs. Maybe after meeting a significant person, or accomplishing a significant task. Regain a calm position and state of mind, repeat the exercise and, as your head goes back, ask yourself simply, "How do I feel?"

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Physicist, neurologist, neurofeedback trainer, hypnotherapist, sleep therapist, junior sorcerer, mountaineer, enthusiastic participant in extreme explorations involving mind and body. Believer in the idea that individuals find meaning in (more...)
 

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