Mon 29 Apr 2002 20:12
It's been a long time!

relationships cannot progress further without career/work progress.

from At a Journal Workshop, 1992, Ira Progoff
p60
Sitting in quietness, our eyes close. We let this take place gradually. It is as though the stillness and the softness of our breathing draw our eyelids together so that they seem to close of themselves.

As we are doing this, we let ourselves feel the tone and quality of the period we have described.

Here we let images come to us again, images o every kind.

Whatever their form, they will be twilight images, coming to us out of the middle level of consciousness between waking and sleeping, and just presenting themselves to us so that we can observe them in a natural way and record them.

p61 now, we are free to let our Twilight Imagery extend itself as fully as it wishes.
Period Image.

As we consider these two side by side--the actual outer events of our lives and the spontaneous imagery that comes from our inner depth--do we observe any perceivable relationship between them?


p65 We have to recognize though that the mere fact of continuously writing entries, as is done in the keeping of a diary, is not sufficient in itself to bring about deep changes in a person's life.
To achieve a significant transformation in a personality, strong forces of energy must be generated.

p66 As much as possible, our writing should focus on the essence of the experience. Often a very few words are sufficient to indicate the quality of the experience that is taking place.

I'm going to break from copying now and try Twilight imagery, focusing on a feeling of quiet and peacefulness:

well, a bit much to write here.
Starting with riding subway, probably as suns sets over river to brooklyn.
peace in brkln room,
songbirds,
resting in park near w-burg bridge.
other peaceful times.
but also busy times square on that cold day.
eventually, however, the ruionous dark side (northeast) of manhattan- a feeling of a bit of fear, a feeling of decay, of sapping, of fading.
and of the forest chopshop in the dark.
yeah, the darkness.
even now.
I see myself on my bicycle headed to the sunny south and west, sleeping outside, the miles going by, taking an online BSCS program... mind seeking opposites when same is not progressing. The darkness yields to the sharp sunny greeness of via paraiso park. New orleans. Endless travel, always moving, day after day, WiFi, technonomad. Austin sculpture, ben.
YBp

zilker barton springs. allergies. asthma
quakers.
time time.
desolation
aloness, I seek.
goodbye friends,
I know the atmos phere

posture proud.
flying
windsurfing.
that alive that alive that alive
not nyc?
wilber.
Yes, I shall be on the road again. probably when the web base is fully as up to date as I wish?

by december?
Europe time is an empty void.
the void of the road and endless miles. Won't that send me right back here?
energy marshalled?

I'm not staying here? to wander forever? what of wandring by mind?
metaphor?
The physical wandring is ventually not a new experience, and must settle down for more mental and emotional and relationship wandring.

I am become as a quiet tree, observing, quietly, mildly participating, observing.

a physical future. Importance of saving money.
What of taking trips and then returning?

Europe time, an empty void, like those times of life one has no memories from, and yet I wish that kind of time again? That simple time, that time of nothing to do but sit on the cycle and pedal. Or to spend all day resting in the forest.


How little I am motivated by relationships? Seeking a minimal level of relationship, but no more, because more clings and tires and reminds me that these are people seeking peace and complacency, as perhaps I am, but their (her) peace and complacency is not mine?

I'm going to where the water and ocean is, again.

call peter.

miami.
New orleans.

I have missed you but the intervening hours have been instructive, somewhat painfully.

fantasy

here, as a vacation, an opportunity. My bike, my vehicle.

modem, fdd, w-lan???

eating, eating.

typing on the open

electricity generation systems.

teaching, and wandering every summer.

is it time? that quaker school? I do have things to teach now (wilber), progoff, ITP, etc.

no.

a day on the road will remind you of what?


ok., enough for now.

p71
absorb the movement of the day. It is an atom of time in our existence.

(how you felt, etc, relationships, etc. throughout the day)
even when our lives seem to be uneventful on the outside, the range of content and movement within us is very great.

do not inadvertently censor.

pay no attention to the style of our writing.
it is an exercise in our lives, not literature.
no need to be concerned about grammar, polite language, etc.

I don't want to do the daily log entry- well, briefly:
Joanna spent the night in the loft bed of this tiny room.

I see I'm still writing for an audience.
Only my original journals are like he suggests, almost pure imagery.

her body, her self, warm and enveloping. 2 hugs only, more would be trouble,

hard to sleep though- thinking of her, and
how to adjust my head?
woke up tired and with a sore left eye.
Recovering in the pool, slowly like a zombie, felt drained.
Carmen, still taciturn.
frank doing handstands.
Nice to see my pool friends, sara, etc. audrey.
drained at work, and felt, well, not at ease, not in the zone.
the work I do, is, unfortunately, a ways of sustaining

but by the end,
feeling better.
checking email
foolish.
fffff does not work
ffoolish
fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff
foolish
folish
olish
olish
foolish
oolish
olish
oolish
oolish
oolish
oolish
what can I do?
oolish
oolish
 uking oolsh
frick, I don't know.ffffffffff
ffffffffffffff
ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff
pound it hard
fffffffff and repeatedly.
then home, after interneting, bill paying route finding,
digestion was not perfect, but not bad.
NO more soy flakes, how sad.
then,
eat, read old email- quaker email, znet email, aip email.
and nap, and finally awake, and awake enough to do something and to write!

Yes, I need to free myselffffffffffff.

Loot: python jobs. Will program in python.
for free or for money.
Imagine what you would want a software program to do for you, and I'll help you with it.
python services.

google: vaio pcgsr7k keyboard cleaning.

fffor ne in [d[]do:

All this life meditation is quite tiresome...

perhaps this is a book I should buy and never read?

one censors in the act of choosing to write of one thing and not another.

the heat is coming on!! (I like the sound it makes)

the most important of progoff's work for me is the emphasis on the waiting and letting images come and writing these images?

his other excercises and metaphors are masterful, but that is the key process?

I think I've done life history, steppingstones out the wazoo.

p94 we do not deliberately try to recall any specific event, but we let ourselves feel into the atmosphere of that time in our lives.

sara and the flowers and the restaurant, and the two stringed, and the massuses, and her little strokes, and her not being tired, and her wedding thoughts, and I've never been here, and , "do you love it here?" and I don't want to go, and she, and part italian, and "I'm evil" and how did she know, and and, waterfall--the waterfall. She's game.

p96
Journal checklist:
1. Dialogue with persons:
inner importance to us in the unfolding of our life? we should not overlook the more prosaic, everyday relationships that continued through the period.

2.dialogue with works:
were there any outer activities that became a ocus for our energies in a way that held an inner meaning for us? These artworks may be of many kinds, and may include works that were carried through to competion during the period, works that were begun and were left incomplete, and also works that were conceived and planned but were not actually started or given an external form.

society of post menapausal, thin, single, childless obsessive, compulsive women.

3. Dialogue with the dog (body). Were there occurrences or situations  that were especially concerned with your relation to the physical aspect of your life?

4. Dialogue with Society. Was it a time when events took place in history that involved you in serious questions of personal commitment? Were you redefining your identification with your race or your family or social group? Did you find youself during this time deeply involved in literary or artistic works of past and present time, the artworks of others that brought you into profound consideration of the nature of human existence?

5. Dialogue with events. bleah

6. dream log. bleah

7. twilight imagery.
waking visions or other experiences

8. inner wisdom dialogue.
what experiences do you recall in which you recognized a profound truth of human existence that was new to you at that time?

9. intersections: roads taken and not taken.
there is only one road for me! no coin tosses here.

has that untaken road remained a possibility of a life that has not been lived? - Camp counselor? Pioneering? Sailing?

What is the book, "the cloud of unknowing"?

this apartment is like a monastary, and that was before you came. anne's friend from connecticut- I chose not to spend more time talking with her (because she's not younger or striking?)

Tanya-

ah the roads taken and not taken encompass friend made or not made- small decisions, like the tanya one, not just big ones.

p115 using twilight imagery to travel roads not taken.

consider, the somewhat profound realization that I did not find satisfaction in leadership?

consider now, the somewhat profound realization that relationships are an important ground but really minor when it comes to content? They are the content but it is the books which hold the more fascinating?

The everyday base is needed, but the more sublime is not to be found there? For even the individuals with extraordinary books are ordinary people? Their ideas are more astounding to behold than the self which produced it?

And here on this site, I produce a somewhat raw self, relegating the work forever to mundanity in comparison with say a more polished directed, separate from self effort like Proust's?

??

what are the most amazing things I've known recently?
Day with sarah on saturday was really quite amazing. Time with Joanna was too (whoah, in total contradiction to above), frank doing handstands was certainly the most amazing of all.

Carmen is dead amazing, amazing for the deadness she inspires in me. Deadness of times past. Wake up Carmen!! No, it's just how she is, only now I've quieted down enough so I can see it?

relationships are the amazing times? but because I can not see how to build with them, am at a loss what to do with them? Passing time is one thing, so is family and relatives, but.

Whereas building and creating a site, is an accomplishment. Not a highlight, but something to point to as defining the self?

A violinist? A musician?

My great inspiration to do nothing incredibly well.

inserting the Mary Lord manifesto.

p117
Using twilight imagery in decision-making.

On the conscious level she new the negative consequences of dropping out of school, but for various emotional reasons she seemed determined to do so nonetheless. She was a person very much in protest against the advice that others gave her, even when she agreed with it.

She needed to reach the deeper-than-conscious levels of her self-- so as to engender an energy and a conviction within her that would carry through her decision by its own power.

Sitting in quietness she closed her eyes, looked inward to the twilight level, and placed hersel on the road of her life. Presently, she came to an intersection. One road went to the left, the other tothe right.

"Go down one of the roads to see where it leads and observe what you find along the way. Then you can come back to the intersection and go up the other road. When you have seen what is on both roads, you will be able to make your decision. See if you can do this." Those were her instructions.

For me, staying in nueva york, studying CS, swimming in the pool is so known... there are so many people and places here, there is so much unknown, I imagine going down that path, but don't even wish to imagine. On the otherhand, I imagine the road, my bicycle, and know that anything is possible.

aware, however, that some time on the road might change my mind.

I should get into construction work? Go intern with that permaculture guy?

Yes, I shall program, but only for my site?

Progoff's example in that case is sickening.

p161 dialogue with the body- st Francis' Brother Ass dialogue.

p163 soon the conduct of his whole existence has become the subject of his dialogue with the body.


p164 The fact was, they both agreed, that the two of them were getting older together.

progoff needs a way to incrementalize his work--
everyone does.
if you wish to take just a little, try this...

the tyranny of books not constantly available.

If it were constantly available, I would not be making effort except as that effort continued to be rewarded in comparison to other possibilities? Knowing it was easy, always to return, if it drew me, instead of wishing to finish it now.

incremental.

digests, outlines, key points. if he wishes to communicate his information for heaven's sake.

his book is to some extent a transcript of what he might say at journal workshops.

p187
However, even those fields of art such as poetry and music, where much of the creative work is carried through in lonely isolation, depend upon the social continuity of humankind.

to the degree that his or her work is valuable, it provides a base and an inspiration for those who are to follow.

Dialogue with society
whenever we read a book, see a painting, hear a symphony, or experience any other work of art that is deeply moving or significant to us, this is where we may record the feelings, perceptions, and other responses that have been awakened in us.

p189 wild.
Being in Parochial school. I believed in 'god, but I couldn't accept the way His representatives were treating us. I didn't know what to do about it, but I was going to revolt. I'll talk to the institution.

In college I believed in a social revolution. Then I gave it up and became a business man. I would like to dialogue with both systems.

I listen to Bach and I think of when he wrote his music. I think he is deeper than civilization. Maybe he will tell me.

Roger Schank's context.

p384 lao tse: muddy water
let stand
becomes clear
2335


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