potential
birgitt williams posted this on the oslistserv:
"For those who study the ICHING, you will know that the first hexagram is all
masculine or dynamic energy. I see this equal to the energy of wanting to
scatter seed (very masculine) anywhere, see where it lands and whatever
happens is the only thing.... The second hexagram is all feminine or
receptive energy. This provides the container for the seed to have a place
to land and to flourish."
to which jake stewartresponded:
"The energy potential held in a container of fertile soil certainly surpasses the kinetic energy of a tossed seed."
and this line was among a quote from christy lee-engel:
"God creates an empty space, and only then, in that space, can the world emerge from the divine womb of being!" Rabbi Marc Gafni
as i string these three jewels together on a necklace to hang around my neck, i'm thinking that the divine womb of being is analogous with a container of fertile soil... and the energy potential of tossing seeds into such a place, the land upon which they'll flourish, is the role that each of us plays in the emerging of the world.
what do you think? what kind of seeds are you tossing? what kind of seeds do you think need to be tossed?
comments:
i think the divine womb of being calls forth her own workers too.
all the potters with muddy hands, the basketweavers working by night.
and all the microbial activity of de-conditioning y'all were talking about yesterday. tireless, relentless, sometimes solitary, breaking down non-useful forms into nourishment. all the shedding skins, all the little deaths.
the night-time noises from the forest floor, the music-before-music.
chris weaver | Email | 04.08.04 - 2:35 am | #
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I'm playing with the idea of a container right now, not doing much but holding open the potential for everything to unfold. Working with one group of youth and I'm in the self-appointed role of "One-Who-Believes-That-Anything-Is-Possible" and letting the youth take care of the rest. When they hit a snag I just say "anything is possible!" and they conmtinue on their way.
Boundless optimism is the quality of good compost...even weeds grow beautifully in it...and the weeds I'm taking out of my actual garden right now have this lovely strong vibrant quality about them. So I toss them back in the compost!
Chris Corrigan | Email | Homepage | 04.08.04 - 3:00 am | #
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wow that smells good chris!
thank you so much for the One-Who-Believes-That-Anything-Is-Possible mantle - can i just put that on?
we have 84 teenagers arriving for camp on monday, and you have just invited me out of stressing over logistics and into holding space.
chris weaver | Email | 04.08.04 - 4:06 am | #
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in my masters in organization development, our teacher antonio nunez used to piss us off royally.
we'd ask him, antonio, what do you do with your clients? and he would say, i love them.
no, antonio, really, what do you do? and he would say, really, i love them.
(antonio was one of the original openers of space - brought hho to CIIS on my birthday in 1989 for my first taste.)
jeff aitken | Email | Homepage | 04.08.04 - 2:20 pm | #
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so it wasn't until recently that i began to really grok what antonio was saying. what a gift.
now "one who believes that anything is possible FOR YOU" might be a definition of love?
jeff aitken | Email | Homepage | 04.08.04 - 4:19 pm | #
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welcome jeff... and chrises... what treasures you each have scattered in this comment box. delight-full!
i would definitely say that believing anything is possible for another is a definition of love. i like hearing you say that this was a line that your professor said. i often bite my tongue in my counseling classes...
at this point in my career, the bottom line for me with my clients is to try and fall in love with each of them. to open the space for any type of growth, healing, and awareness that they desire to be possible... for them and for me. i love them, but i also find a part of them that i can fall-in-love with. this opens the door for me to fall in love with the entire person. i can't think of a better type of therapy!
but unfortunately language is still a bit limiting here in denton (north of dallas)... there's a strong flavor of the "fix-it" menatlity. and a constant challenge that i watch professors struggle with... how do you teach empathy?
ashley | Email | Homepage | 04.08.04 - 4:52 pm | #
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Boundless optimism ... that sounds related to the medicine of unbounded joy that i've been drinking lately.
ashley | Email | Homepage | 04.08.04 - 4:54 pm | #
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Music-before-music: like "your face before you were born"? The pure potential of each of us present in the transparency, before its unimaginable density abruptly flung itself infinitely outwards (at least, in that creation story!)
To see another's potential, to hold that particular spacious container, can be tender and electric. Especially when they recognize in a flash that what you see is true.
And this container/comment box! Full of such concentrated seed energy, entirely invisible till conditions are right, and then voila, boundless optimism and unbounded joy are unfurled! (like sea monkeys!--do you remember those?)
Christy Lee-Engel | Email | Homepage | 04.09.04 - 1:29 am | #
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hi jeff, hi christy
no words, just smiling
Anonymous | 04.09.04 - 7:53 am | #
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"To see another's potential, to hold that particular spacious container, can be tender and electric. Especially when they recognize in a flash that what you see is true."
what does one do when fear accompanies this recognition that the potential is real? fear and a yearning to pull away, run...
do tell more about the sea monkey, por favor.
and christy, your words answered some deep questions of mine in quite a timely manner. thank you.
with love,
ashley
ashley | Email | Homepage | 04.10.04 - 2:31 pm | #
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i've posted about this on the oslist in response to birgitt and of course it ties in with what you're saying in my comment box today, too, ashley... so now i post here just to be obviously here in such good company!
michael herman | Email | Homepage | 04.10.04 - 9:29 pm | #
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Oh, yes, the fear part! (and I think it can be scary &/or embarassing for the recognizer as well as for the recognized when the recognition is rejected!) ...fear of being judged for not living into one's possibility, and fear of disappointing the ones who believe in them. And maybe fear that growing into what's possible will be too hard. So, I think, the love that sees that anything is possible for someone is also love that assures that person that even if they shy away or somehow miss what they *could* be, what they *are* is really fully precious. I have had a few patients who didn't come back for a year or three, and when they did come back they were ready to step into their lives in such a fuller way.
Christy Lee-Engel | Email | Homepage | 04.11.04 - 12:32 am | #
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Oh, and sea monkeys! They were (are?) advertised in the back of kids' comic books, with a cartoon of little monkeys in a fish bowl. Really they were dried up brine shrimp who magically unfurled back into life when you dumped them into the water. What's not to love about something that comes back to life from dried-up nothing?-- speaking of believing that anything is possible!
Ashley, I'm so happy to know that our thinking is mutually supportive!
love, Christy
Christy Lee-Engel | Email | Homepage | 04.11.04 - 12:41 am | #
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so if humility and vulnerability are related... then when we vulnerably give way to fears of being judged for not living into our possibility, and fears of disappointing the ones who believe in us. And maybe fears that growing into what's possible will be too hard. when we vulnerably open ourselves up to these fears, we are showing humility.
through this sacred humility and vulnerability emerges assurance that even if we shy away or somehow miss what we *could* be, what we *are* is really fully precious.
i like that!
ashley
"For those who study the ICHING, you will know that the first hexagram is all
masculine or dynamic energy. I see this equal to the energy of wanting to
scatter seed (very masculine) anywhere, see where it lands and whatever
happens is the only thing.... The second hexagram is all feminine or
receptive energy. This provides the container for the seed to have a place
to land and to flourish."
to which jake stewartresponded:
"The energy potential held in a container of fertile soil certainly surpasses the kinetic energy of a tossed seed."
and this line was among a quote from christy lee-engel:
"God creates an empty space, and only then, in that space, can the world emerge from the divine womb of being!" Rabbi Marc Gafni
as i string these three jewels together on a necklace to hang around my neck, i'm thinking that the divine womb of being is analogous with a container of fertile soil... and the energy potential of tossing seeds into such a place, the land upon which they'll flourish, is the role that each of us plays in the emerging of the world.
what do you think? what kind of seeds are you tossing? what kind of seeds do you think need to be tossed?
comments:
i think the divine womb of being calls forth her own workers too.
all the potters with muddy hands, the basketweavers working by night.
and all the microbial activity of de-conditioning y'all were talking about yesterday. tireless, relentless, sometimes solitary, breaking down non-useful forms into nourishment. all the shedding skins, all the little deaths.
the night-time noises from the forest floor, the music-before-music.
chris weaver | Email | 04.08.04 - 2:35 am | #
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm playing with the idea of a container right now, not doing much but holding open the potential for everything to unfold. Working with one group of youth and I'm in the self-appointed role of "One-Who-Believes-That-Anything-Is-Possible" and letting the youth take care of the rest. When they hit a snag I just say "anything is possible!" and they conmtinue on their way.
Boundless optimism is the quality of good compost...even weeds grow beautifully in it...and the weeds I'm taking out of my actual garden right now have this lovely strong vibrant quality about them. So I toss them back in the compost!
Chris Corrigan | Email | Homepage | 04.08.04 - 3:00 am | #
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
wow that smells good chris!
thank you so much for the One-Who-Believes-That-Anything-Is-Possible mantle - can i just put that on?
we have 84 teenagers arriving for camp on monday, and you have just invited me out of stressing over logistics and into holding space.
chris weaver | Email | 04.08.04 - 4:06 am | #
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
in my masters in organization development, our teacher antonio nunez used to piss us off royally.
we'd ask him, antonio, what do you do with your clients? and he would say, i love them.
no, antonio, really, what do you do? and he would say, really, i love them.
(antonio was one of the original openers of space - brought hho to CIIS on my birthday in 1989 for my first taste.)
jeff aitken | Email | Homepage | 04.08.04 - 2:20 pm | #
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
so it wasn't until recently that i began to really grok what antonio was saying. what a gift.
now "one who believes that anything is possible FOR YOU" might be a definition of love?
jeff aitken | Email | Homepage | 04.08.04 - 4:19 pm | #
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
welcome jeff... and chrises... what treasures you each have scattered in this comment box. delight-full!
i would definitely say that believing anything is possible for another is a definition of love. i like hearing you say that this was a line that your professor said. i often bite my tongue in my counseling classes...
at this point in my career, the bottom line for me with my clients is to try and fall in love with each of them. to open the space for any type of growth, healing, and awareness that they desire to be possible... for them and for me. i love them, but i also find a part of them that i can fall-in-love with. this opens the door for me to fall in love with the entire person. i can't think of a better type of therapy!
but unfortunately language is still a bit limiting here in denton (north of dallas)... there's a strong flavor of the "fix-it" menatlity. and a constant challenge that i watch professors struggle with... how do you teach empathy?
ashley | Email | Homepage | 04.08.04 - 4:52 pm | #
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Boundless optimism ... that sounds related to the medicine of unbounded joy that i've been drinking lately.
ashley | Email | Homepage | 04.08.04 - 4:54 pm | #
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Music-before-music: like "your face before you were born"? The pure potential of each of us present in the transparency, before its unimaginable density abruptly flung itself infinitely outwards (at least, in that creation story!)
To see another's potential, to hold that particular spacious container, can be tender and electric. Especially when they recognize in a flash that what you see is true.
And this container/comment box! Full of such concentrated seed energy, entirely invisible till conditions are right, and then voila, boundless optimism and unbounded joy are unfurled! (like sea monkeys!--do you remember those?)
Christy Lee-Engel | Email | Homepage | 04.09.04 - 1:29 am | #
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
hi jeff, hi christy
no words, just smiling
Anonymous | 04.09.04 - 7:53 am | #
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"To see another's potential, to hold that particular spacious container, can be tender and electric. Especially when they recognize in a flash that what you see is true."
what does one do when fear accompanies this recognition that the potential is real? fear and a yearning to pull away, run...
do tell more about the sea monkey, por favor.
and christy, your words answered some deep questions of mine in quite a timely manner. thank you.
with love,
ashley
ashley | Email | Homepage | 04.10.04 - 2:31 pm | #
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
i've posted about this on the oslist in response to birgitt and of course it ties in with what you're saying in my comment box today, too, ashley... so now i post here just to be obviously here in such good company!
michael herman | Email | Homepage | 04.10.04 - 9:29 pm | #
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oh, yes, the fear part! (and I think it can be scary &/or embarassing for the recognizer as well as for the recognized when the recognition is rejected!) ...fear of being judged for not living into one's possibility, and fear of disappointing the ones who believe in them. And maybe fear that growing into what's possible will be too hard. So, I think, the love that sees that anything is possible for someone is also love that assures that person that even if they shy away or somehow miss what they *could* be, what they *are* is really fully precious. I have had a few patients who didn't come back for a year or three, and when they did come back they were ready to step into their lives in such a fuller way.
Christy Lee-Engel | Email | Homepage | 04.11.04 - 12:32 am | #
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oh, and sea monkeys! They were (are?) advertised in the back of kids' comic books, with a cartoon of little monkeys in a fish bowl. Really they were dried up brine shrimp who magically unfurled back into life when you dumped them into the water. What's not to love about something that comes back to life from dried-up nothing?-- speaking of believing that anything is possible!
Ashley, I'm so happy to know that our thinking is mutually supportive!
love, Christy
Christy Lee-Engel | Email | Homepage | 04.11.04 - 12:41 am | #
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
so if humility and vulnerability are related... then when we vulnerably give way to fears of being judged for not living into our possibility, and fears of disappointing the ones who believe in us. And maybe fears that growing into what's possible will be too hard. when we vulnerably open ourselves up to these fears, we are showing humility.
through this sacred humility and vulnerability emerges assurance that even if we shy away or somehow miss what we *could* be, what we *are* is really fully precious.
i like that!
ashley
