Today was an ordinary Bake Off in which attendees brought spiritual "ingredients" which are presented to the group, other "ingredients" are added, "stirred" that is contemplated, and then "baked" to see what new and wonderful "nourishment" our group can come up with.
Initially our admired Dr. P. Norton sat with his guitar on his lap. This was irresistible and he went first with his "ingredient", a lyric he wrote himself and accompanied on his guitar to the tune of Space Cowboy. The words are quite intricate as is the guitar accompaniment, such that there were requests to include the lyrics here in the blog.
Heidi brought several New York Times articles to consider and passed them around. Here is the first one: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/01/style/bringing-a-daughter-back-from-the-brink-with-poems.html?_r=0
In this case a daughter rebelled by refusing to wear shoes, even going to school barefoot. She eventually stopped that behavior but moved on into more worrisome depression and other emotional concerns. The mother started putting poems in her shoes as a reminder of a way to end behavior that is harmful to self. She enabled her daughter to make better emotional choices through her caretaking. Our discussion on this matter included some of the following ides: Maybe we need to go barefoot with our feet on the bare ground to get in touch with Gaia, Mother Earth.
Heidi brought another NY Times article about texting and using all the abbreviations, emoticons, dashes and other punctuation marks. It appears often that the words say less than all of the symbols around them.
Sky made the comment that Zen is doing one thing at a time. This simple comment led into quite a discussion about multi tasking. I commented that really the brain is not capable of doing more than one thing at a time. What the modern world calls multi tasking is really just frequent switching between doing one thing, and then to doing another thing. that constant changing cost brain energy, increases stress, and is really inefficient. We indeed may be suffering interpersonally from our current society. As an example, kids certainly are having problems attending and this may be contributed to by the current ubiquitous presence of texting constantly while supposed to be trying to do something else.
Several attendees agreed that mindfulness helps overcome the need to tendency to want to multitask.
Paul viewed the current almost addiction to multitasking in a different way. He postulates that we really engage in multitasking because it does cause stress, it increases adrenaline, and we are indeed addicted to that buzz. Therefore, when we stop multitasking we get the same relief that we get after watching a horror film, or a packer game. It is relief when it is over. But we want that buzz again and so we again engage in that multitasking behavior again and again.
Sky quoted Attar: "Between you and me, God, there is only me. Get rid of me."
At the end of the meeting, there was a brief discussion of another New York Times article which was quite deep and due to the hour in our discussion, was treated quickly and somewhat glossed over. It had to do with something called the incomplete dyad, where in some things that society criticizes as immoral, there is no harm and no victim. In many of those cases, we tend to slot in a victim because we need the wrong to be associated with a wronged person. It is our perceptions that then create and magnify the harm. I would like to just give you the reference here in case you would like to read further on this topic by reading this article that was cited. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/01/opinions/sunday/the-myth-of-the-harmless-wrong.html?_r=0
The New Physics
(to the tune "Space Cowboy.")
I told you 'bout living in alternative states
And you know I am a prankster of sorts
Let me tell you friends that I found a new way
And it's not electromagnetic force
It's the same old cosmos with a new set of rules
About energy, space time, and mass.
So don't tell me what you knew back in 2002
'cause I'll know you're talking out of your nose.
I'm a Higgs boson; bet you weren't ready for that
I'm a Higgs boson; and I turn stuff into matt, matt, matter.
Up, down, top, bottom, strange, charm, six little quarks
Held together by some cosmological spit
I keep my eyes on the screen as they turn envy green
And I don't by that Newtonian stuff
All you back bench schemers, post doc dreamers
Think you have something new to say.
But I'm sitting in the Alps with the Hadron Collider,
So I guess I will be ruling the day.
I'm a Higgs boson; bet you weren't ready for that
I'm a Higgs boson; and I turn stuff into matt, matt, matter.
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