GATHER ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old time is still a-flying
These are the opening lines from a poem by Robert Herrick. I read them and I think Carpe Diem! It brings home to me that all we have is time and that time is this precise moment of my existence. Time is then tied into memory as we measure one experience with another. These are our pearls...experience and movement.
What of the movement of my mind? My mind is energy and energy is movement. Therefore I have to think to move my mind. I have to want to use it, stretch it, to be movement and change. How I think determines how I live and perceive life…my reality. My choice is to be conscious or not. The gathering of rosebuds for me is the gathering of information to learn the truth of me. To move from the static information to dynamic knowledge can only be so when it is lived; put into action and become a part of my experience and memory. Spiritual Philosophy offers these tools.
I look back over this year and see the moments where I have lived in a lazy mind and then see clearly when I moved my mind and the difference is as night and day. Overall though, with all the ups and downs that make up life, 2007 has been a good year of learning for me and I feel the change in my energy as my mind shifts. This shifting and learning has opened to deeper levels of knowledge and with this comes a greater sense of excitement about life...about creating.
As I let go of one physical marker of “time” (2007) and move into another calendar year I think Carpe Diem! To seize the day and live with my mind open, questing, sensing and connected to my heart. When I close my eyes at night I want to know that I lived to my potential and left the day better than when I greeted it. I wish the same and more for all..
Monday, December 31, 2007
Monday, December 10, 2007
plasticity of mind...a few thougths this morning
I have been thinking about the plasticity of my brain and about learning. I have always enjoyed learning new things and I have a broad array of interests, at least I think I have, but does this mean I have a growing mind? Have I truly been learning and growing new neuronal pathways? Or, have I just been remaining in my comfort zone and repeating things “known” to me and living out various scenarios of Groundhog Day? This thought is enough to make me shudder! In speaking with a friend the other day I was mentioning that if I viewed each day as a new lifetime, with sleep being a mini death, then I have to ask myself: am I learning and stretching myself or am I just repeating the day/life before? I think of doing a crossword puzzle and have “used my mind” but was I really using my mind or was I just doing what I already knew to do? This thought brought me up short. I know how to read and write but am I really thinking? In doing the crossword puzzle I really am remembering and going over learned familiar neural pathways. This is solely intellectual puttering around. What of the emotional and sensory component to me?
In thinking about the plasticity of the mind and I realize that it works with either a positive or negative input from what we are thinking. The mind will not change its perspective unless it is offered another way to view something. In offering a different view the mind can stretch to learn new ways of thinking, and creates new pathways and reality can change. This is the flexibility of the mind, and this is the very component required for agile, creative thinking and how the opening of the mind occurs. Conversely, the opposite is also true. To go over the same pathway is to create a strong connection and after a while it becomes a rut that is a challenge to go beyond, to get out of. This is an inflexible mind, content to remain inside its intellectual “comfort” zone and live out stasis. It is a closed mind and it has no loving emotional component to soften and stretch. This is when I have to ask myself if I am really learning or am I staying in my comfort zone of what I have already intellectually learned? This means to me that I am trying to control my self and my environment (others) and there is no freedom or openness in this scenario. This is trying to remain within the line or pathways already established through a limiting thought pattern and fearful emotions.
This question then leads me to ask about memory. What memories stand out for me and why? I think back through my memories, which is a bit like “defraging” my mind, to sort my memories into groupings of experiences; the most potent memories are the ones that have a strong emotional attachment to them. I feel it is because of this strong emotional addition that the memory is enhanced. Just in writing these few words I am seeing immediately that the sensory response is interwoven and part of the whole. This is defining consciousness as the mind, loving emotions and senses all working in unity with awareness and understanding.
In asking questions of self, exploring the answers and locating and defining patterns of thinking, behaviours, language then I can change. Once my mind has been presented with new information and I have made a relationship, then my awareness level has shifted and I cannot go back to being unaware. I can make a choice to change or not….either way, I have made a choice. This is how I can stretch my mind, by building on what is “known” and “learned” through opening to the loving emotions and senses. The warmth of the loving emotions adds to the plasticity of my mind. The words “choice” and “change” take on new meaning for me this morning.
In thinking about the plasticity of the mind and I realize that it works with either a positive or negative input from what we are thinking. The mind will not change its perspective unless it is offered another way to view something. In offering a different view the mind can stretch to learn new ways of thinking, and creates new pathways and reality can change. This is the flexibility of the mind, and this is the very component required for agile, creative thinking and how the opening of the mind occurs. Conversely, the opposite is also true. To go over the same pathway is to create a strong connection and after a while it becomes a rut that is a challenge to go beyond, to get out of. This is an inflexible mind, content to remain inside its intellectual “comfort” zone and live out stasis. It is a closed mind and it has no loving emotional component to soften and stretch. This is when I have to ask myself if I am really learning or am I staying in my comfort zone of what I have already intellectually learned? This means to me that I am trying to control my self and my environment (others) and there is no freedom or openness in this scenario. This is trying to remain within the line or pathways already established through a limiting thought pattern and fearful emotions.
This question then leads me to ask about memory. What memories stand out for me and why? I think back through my memories, which is a bit like “defraging” my mind, to sort my memories into groupings of experiences; the most potent memories are the ones that have a strong emotional attachment to them. I feel it is because of this strong emotional addition that the memory is enhanced. Just in writing these few words I am seeing immediately that the sensory response is interwoven and part of the whole. This is defining consciousness as the mind, loving emotions and senses all working in unity with awareness and understanding.
In asking questions of self, exploring the answers and locating and defining patterns of thinking, behaviours, language then I can change. Once my mind has been presented with new information and I have made a relationship, then my awareness level has shifted and I cannot go back to being unaware. I can make a choice to change or not….either way, I have made a choice. This is how I can stretch my mind, by building on what is “known” and “learned” through opening to the loving emotions and senses. The warmth of the loving emotions adds to the plasticity of my mind. The words “choice” and “change” take on new meaning for me this morning.
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