I consider what this day, the end of 2005, means to me, and what I have learned this year. I believe I have learned to be quieter, more reflective, to listen more clearly to myself, and others. I have been forced to surrender, and sometimes, I feel my ego dissolving like a bar of soap slipping down the drain. And then, it re-forms; a brand new bar sits waiting for my shower cleanse. The lesson is acknowledgement of change.
Currently, I am learning to eat when I am hungry, and to sleep when I am tired. I am kinder to myself, more accepting. I am learning to find the pulse in confinement; I am learning to be.
What is my intention for this new year? More connection with myself and others, more sunrises and sunsets, more time spent with the wind and the moon.
I am reading a wonderful book, "The Mind in the Cave," by David Lewis-Williams. His intention is to understand the consciousness of those who produced the cave paintings. What inspires art, spirituality, religion, and when did it begin? Are the paintings ego, or are they communion? What is consciousness?
He sees consciousness like a spectrum, like the colors of the rainbow, a range. Yes, he also points out that we see the color spectrum of the rainbow as comprising seven colors, when other cultures acknowledge fewer. It seems that Isaac Newton decided on seven colors. (Oh, my, the sun comes out, and it is blinding me. Wow! It feels like a miracle, it has been gone so long. I actually have to close the blind to see the computer screen. How strange! I turn off the lamp. There is light! Wow!)
So, Isaac Newton having poor colour vision himself, asked a friend to divide up the spectrum. The friend split it into six colours. "Newton insisted on seven colours because of the significance of the number seven in Renaissance thought, and, as Newton himself said, seven corresponded to the seven intervals of our octave. Newton therefore asked his friend to add indigo to the spectrum, it being a popular dye at that period."
David Lewis-Williams then goes on to describe six states between waking and sleeping. I consider all of this. My sense of it is for each of us to see if we can see what we see, without our acculturation. That is my intention for this year, to see the colors of the rainbow as I see them, to see how far I can stretch and contract my seeing, my being, my sense and non-sense.
It seems the right intention, in this moment, for me.
