May 7, 2023·edited May 7, 2023Liked by Joan Tollifson
Hi Joan. A couple of phrases came to mind while reading your excellent piece:
“Cracking the nut of life” - from a poet friend of my wife. Seems like in the end there are no nutcrackers adequate to the task. Besides, life is not a nut and doesn’t need cracking.
“All that worry for nothing” - from a woman on her deathbed. Posted online by her son in comments.
I was also reminded of Alan Watts who referred about our experience as “a happening” and “joining the dance”
Very good post. I feel that I only experienced what people call bare awareness when I dropped the expectation of something different and better. It may have been after trying some of Douglass Harding's novel experiences. It has felt like a mixed blessing because this awareness does contain everything, including all my baggage and nothing like enlightenment to come along and save me, just the rather direct raw experience of what is. Contemporary spirituality does seem to me like another pillow for the privileged upper middle classes that keeps them, us rather, at a comfortable distance from the people we consider the unenlightened masses as well as our own experience.
Joan I appreciate your posts so much. I am about your age and have been at this for a very long time. Your posts are are profoundly simple and wise. Thank you.
Thank you, Joan, for another fluent expression of your fluidity! I really appreciate the confirmation I receive when I read such phrases as "no longer interested in having transcendental experiences" and "ever-more inclined to find the beauty in the whole catastrophe, just as it is." I also appreciate how your emails always nudge me into re-examining the ways I've been looking at things.
And thank you for the bonus this time of a movie recommendation. Mary and I have put Babyteeth on hold at our library and look forward to watching it.
“…this one bottomless moment here and now.” I’ve been living in that moment, that perhaps illusion of a moment, for a very long time.
I just lost my eldest brother -- 12 years my senior. He was a charming, adventurous, mendacious, hateful man. I won’t miss him; I’ll miss my role as the youngest of 3, and the only girl, little sister, and none of those roles mean anything, do they?
I’ve been close to his daughter -- middle child of the first set of 3 children, born long before the second set of two...and then there’s the one who found me via one of the DNA search services who the brother would not even speak to me about. Anyway that one oldest daughter - in her 60s now - is very distraught over her father’s death. When we spoke of it, she wanted me to confirm that I, like her, believe that he is “up there” looking down on all of us. I spoke about people having different beliefs, and that mine didn’t have to determine hers, and that he would forever live in her heart, in her love for him. (He never did anything good for her as she struggled through life.).
Since I refused to lie and claim her beliefs as my own, she has cut me out of her life. (The death was only a few days ago.)
I fool myself by thinking I was respecting her in my refusal to lie. I am not sure I was. Not sure at all.
So these words of yours are really speaking to me at a very deep level...and it’s also all nonsense, I fear. Fear?
So amazing how we two Joans have fallen back into one another lives. We could make a lot out of that!
“Like” (that conveys a lot) My Mother used to say: “ Don’t pick at it. Leave it alone” Can’t help looking at “it” though. sometimes in the mirror. An analogy just came to me.life is like riding a motorcycle off the beaten track. One has to get in the flow of balance, being aware of looking where you are going,let go and go with the flow, don’t go too fast. If you fall down,roll with it. Get up,have a laugh, see what happened and get back on the bike and keep going. Home awaits, but be at home on the bike as well. I send some love your way and appreciate your views,awareness, honesty, and motivation to share. ok.
Joan, thanks for always being honest and vulnerable. When someone with your experience and wisdom acknowledges that the spiritual path is often one step forward, two steps back- I personally find that very helpful. Thank you.
just read your offering and feel so relaxed--no where to to go, nothing to do, just be. But then as you mentioned even the going and doing have their place in what is. So nice to have access to your thoughts.. Thanks!
Beautiful piece. Esp liked "I am no longer hungry for transcendent experiences or huge breakthroughs. Ordinary life seems like miracle enough." Made me think about how much of the psychedelic renaissance seems to be happening in isolation as opposed to part of a larger package of mindfulness, tradition, and interconnectedness. Wrote about something vaguely similar here: https://mattruby.substack.com/p/-somethings-off-with-how-we-talk
enjiyed reading.....love (being kind)
thanks
Hi Joan. A couple of phrases came to mind while reading your excellent piece:
“Cracking the nut of life” - from a poet friend of my wife. Seems like in the end there are no nutcrackers adequate to the task. Besides, life is not a nut and doesn’t need cracking.
“All that worry for nothing” - from a woman on her deathbed. Posted online by her son in comments.
I was also reminded of Alan Watts who referred about our experience as “a happening” and “joining the dance”
Just this. Thank you for being part of my ride, sister ❤️
Very good post. I feel that I only experienced what people call bare awareness when I dropped the expectation of something different and better. It may have been after trying some of Douglass Harding's novel experiences. It has felt like a mixed blessing because this awareness does contain everything, including all my baggage and nothing like enlightenment to come along and save me, just the rather direct raw experience of what is. Contemporary spirituality does seem to me like another pillow for the privileged upper middle classes that keeps them, us rather, at a comfortable distance from the people we consider the unenlightened masses as well as our own experience.
Joan I appreciate your posts so much. I am about your age and have been at this for a very long time. Your posts are are profoundly simple and wise. Thank you.
Thank you, Joan, for another fluent expression of your fluidity! I really appreciate the confirmation I receive when I read such phrases as "no longer interested in having transcendental experiences" and "ever-more inclined to find the beauty in the whole catastrophe, just as it is." I also appreciate how your emails always nudge me into re-examining the ways I've been looking at things.
And thank you for the bonus this time of a movie recommendation. Mary and I have put Babyteeth on hold at our library and look forward to watching it.
“…this one bottomless moment here and now.” I’ve been living in that moment, that perhaps illusion of a moment, for a very long time.
I just lost my eldest brother -- 12 years my senior. He was a charming, adventurous, mendacious, hateful man. I won’t miss him; I’ll miss my role as the youngest of 3, and the only girl, little sister, and none of those roles mean anything, do they?
I’ve been close to his daughter -- middle child of the first set of 3 children, born long before the second set of two...and then there’s the one who found me via one of the DNA search services who the brother would not even speak to me about. Anyway that one oldest daughter - in her 60s now - is very distraught over her father’s death. When we spoke of it, she wanted me to confirm that I, like her, believe that he is “up there” looking down on all of us. I spoke about people having different beliefs, and that mine didn’t have to determine hers, and that he would forever live in her heart, in her love for him. (He never did anything good for her as she struggled through life.).
Since I refused to lie and claim her beliefs as my own, she has cut me out of her life. (The death was only a few days ago.)
I fool myself by thinking I was respecting her in my refusal to lie. I am not sure I was. Not sure at all.
So these words of yours are really speaking to me at a very deep level...and it’s also all nonsense, I fear. Fear?
So amazing how we two Joans have fallen back into one another lives. We could make a lot out of that!
Love and respect you, my friend.
“Like” (that conveys a lot) My Mother used to say: “ Don’t pick at it. Leave it alone” Can’t help looking at “it” though. sometimes in the mirror. An analogy just came to me.life is like riding a motorcycle off the beaten track. One has to get in the flow of balance, being aware of looking where you are going,let go and go with the flow, don’t go too fast. If you fall down,roll with it. Get up,have a laugh, see what happened and get back on the bike and keep going. Home awaits, but be at home on the bike as well. I send some love your way and appreciate your views,awareness, honesty, and motivation to share. ok.
Joan, thanks for always being honest and vulnerable. When someone with your experience and wisdom acknowledges that the spiritual path is often one step forward, two steps back- I personally find that very helpful. Thank you.
just read your offering and feel so relaxed--no where to to go, nothing to do, just be. But then as you mentioned even the going and doing have their place in what is. So nice to have access to your thoughts.. Thanks!
Beautiful piece. Esp liked "I am no longer hungry for transcendent experiences or huge breakthroughs. Ordinary life seems like miracle enough." Made me think about how much of the psychedelic renaissance seems to be happening in isolation as opposed to part of a larger package of mindfulness, tradition, and interconnectedness. Wrote about something vaguely similar here: https://mattruby.substack.com/p/-somethings-off-with-how-we-talk
dear joan,
thank you for sharing all of this.
i love “Ordinary life seems like miracle enough.”
and also all the rest of the words and thoughts, which are equally miraculous in their way.
love,
myq