Duality - Again

Duality – Again

Ok.  So we all know I’ve got a beef with duality.

Well … I just learned something that made a lot of sense to me, and has made duality be less of a villain in my book:

There are two types of duality:

1)  Prescriptive Duality.  This is the duality that I’m familiar with.  It takes two things that are each other’s opposite and determines one to be “bad” and one to be “good”.  Or “dark” and “light” or whatever … it assigns each a value opposite the value of the other polarity.   In prescriptive duality, the value of one thing is relational to the value of its opposite – they’re both required in order to define each other. I think this is lame.  You know, the whole spectrum/vividly hued tapestry thing where I prefer an entire range of color to merely black and white …

2)  Descriptive Duality.  This is a way of using duality with which I have previously been unfamiliar.  With descriptive duality, there are still two items, but there is no value placed on them other than “different than that one”.  There is no hierarchy of right/wrong or better/worse.  It just says, “Hey look … there are two things here.  One looks like this and the other looks like this.”  I can see the value in this mode of duality application.  Because, often, there are two things that one may wish to contrast – not in value, but rather in features.  It provides nothing more than neutral information.

When I was finally presented with the concept of descriptive duality, I was so relieved.  It works just fine in any setting that prescriptive duality works in, and is able to empower one to recognize difference from a space of equality.  Kinda like the Human Rights Movement.

A Recipe for Salvation

Gebara – Out of the Depths Chapter 4

Women’s Experience of Salvation

Thought #3

Gebara asserts that salvation shows up in two ways.  One as the end-all “Congratulations – you’ve won a golden ticket to Heaven”, and the other as a series of Oasis occurring periodically along the walk of life.

While I don’t personally put much stock in the golden ticket idea, I LOVE the idea of Oases.  Gebara puts it like this: “Salvation is everything that nourishes love … a little oasis in the midst of daily trials.  These temporary redemptions – these that refuel eagerness for living - are not bound by moral judgments or narrow laws – they are always open to what lies beyond institutional prescriptions and established customs.  These ordinary acts call into question societies incapable of taking into consideration the common good over selfishness.”(pg 123)

So: 

Offering to babysit kids so a harried Mama can have some respite:  Salvation.

Picking up litter as you walk from your car to the supermarket:  Salvation.

Consoling a man whose lover just died:  Salvation.

Speaking kindly to yourself when you screw something up:  Salvation.

Recognizing and speaking to that little spark of God present in the homeless man:  Salvation.

Donating money to a charity that actually uses funds for their mission:  Salvation.

Speaking up against injustice instead of muttering “not my problem”:  Salvation.

Honoring yourself as a corporeal body literally filled to the brim with Divinity:  Salvation.

Look how easy it is! 

The best part is that performing these acts not only provides an oasis of salvation for the person receiving the love, it fills the salvation coffers of the one giving the love as well.  And what is especially awesome is that I can know that even when I feel so depleted that I simply cannot share another thing with another person … so despondent that I cannot find one ounce of love within myself to share, I am still graced by the beauty of Salvation when a stranger in a passing car tips his hat to me.

How cool is that.

Jesus, in A Course in Miracles, says that every single action by every single person who is or has ever been in existence is one of two things:  An Expression of Love or a Request for Love.

Love … not just for Hippies anymore.

Alienation and Damnation ... what a team!

Gebara – Out of the Depths Chapter 4:  Women’s Experience of Salvation

Thought #2

Ok – so here’s an interesting thought:  “… churches, like the global market, dominate people and encourage people to become dangerously alienated – often leading to their human damnation in concrete history.” (pg 131)

First thought: That’s what churches CLAIM to *NOT-do* … human damnation and alienation are at the core of what religion claims to be counteracting.

Second thought:  There was this fella I was dating.  (Woo Hoo for me!!).  I liked him a lot, and I’m pretty sure he liked me a lot too.  (Woo Hoo again!).  We had fabulous conversations, enjoyed doing many of the same things (dorky stuff like singing Karaoke to Neil Diamond in the front room), our children got along beautifully, his children liked me and my Grommets liked him.  We found each other attractive, and we both seemed to offer (as a person) things that the other delighted in.  Sounds pretty awesome, huh!  Well it was.  EXCEPT …

He practiced a religion that told him that he is unable to attain full salvation unless he is married through a special ceremony.   A woman, such as myself, who is not a member of his religion, is unable to participate in any of said special ceremonies.  Therefore, if he chose to marry me, he would be choosing to eschew his personal salvation.  That is bullshit.  Would I join his church?  No.  I don’t believe what they teach and for me to claim membership in something that is contrary to my beliefs is completely out of integrity.  I live in integrity.

So – this church of his definitively encouraged him to alienate himself from me … someone for whom he cared deeply and who cared deeply for him in return.  If he chose to disregard his church’s encouragement, he was (at least according to its dogma) entering damnation.  Wow.

All because I frame my relationship with God differently than he does.

What’s funny, though, is that it was ok for me to frame my relationship with his children differently than he does.  It was ok for him to frame his relationship with my mother differently than I do.  It was ok to have differing ways of speaking to friends, and expressing thanks to benefactors. 

So what gives?

Because I don’t (in ANY way) believe in absolute truth, it's unlikely that I'll be convinced that his church (or any church for that matter) is "serious" business and that following its precepts is mandatory for salvation.  Odds are slim of convincing me that whether I choose to address God on bended knee, in the lotus position, or standing with my face raised to the sky while dancing, or whether I address the creator as   “Dude”, “Father”, “Mother”, or “It” has any bearing on the legitimacy of my relationship with him/her/it.  

 And neither should it have any bearing on whether or not someone is "marriage material."   

So … why don’t people see that?  See that alienation and (false) perception of damnation?  I feel kinda sad about that.

Discussing "Bits" for a little bit ...

Gebara – Out of the Depths Chapter 4:  Women’s Experience of Salvation

Thought #1

“Symbolically, human beings are heaven and earth … happiness and unhappiness, good and evil, joy and sadness…” (pp 109-110) all at the same time.

I love this.  It brings to mind the philosophies of the pre-Socratic philosopher, Heraclitus.  He was deemed by many to be crazy-making in his theory of the identity of opposites … that opposites are identities of themselves.  He uses examples of a road going uphill also being a road that goes downhill, and comments that the beginning and ending of a circle are the same thing.

I know, I know … all that duality-dissing I’m famous for is jumping to the forefront of my brain right now.  Here’s the thing:  Hot and Cold don’t necessarily have to be opposite entities … they’re just marks –in different places- along the scale of temperature.  In fact, Hot IS Cold … when you’re comparing it to something hotter.  I have two fish tanks and I keep them at a balmy 80 degrees so my sweet fishies can frolic under the illusion that they’re in a tropical lake.  In the summer, I can’t believe how cold the water feels and worry that my fishes will have to hibernate or something to stay alive.  In the winter, however, my fish tank literally steams. (I keep my wintertime house at a balmy 65 degrees because I’m really poor and I only have to pay for a sweater and a blanket one time instead of in ever-increasing monthly installments like a gas bill).    

Hot is cold.  

 (Uh-Oh, but this is dangerous … it brings to mind George Orwell’s double speak:  “War is Peace” etc).

(Also, incidentally, the 'promising personality characteristics' of Narcissism read like this: A tolerance of contradictions, A view of everything being an extension of one's own will, A tenuous grasp on the world of objects as something independent, and Being prone to magical thinking and delusions of omnipotence.   Well ...  I not only tolerate, but thoroughly enjoy and appreciate contradictions.  I happen to think that everything in my world is created by and can be changed by me. I have a tenuous grasp on the world of objects as something independent, and I believe in Santa Claus, Faeries, Mermaids and Tree-Spirits who charm our world with magic.  I have also been diagnosed as a Narcissist.  That diagnosis has also been heartily discredited by subsequent professionals I have spoken with - social workers, therapists and life-skills-trainers alike - but it's still there ... oooh ...  I suppose my thoughts/research on Narcissism will make for an interesting post at a later date .....)

So ANYWAY.  Human beings are symbolically everything as it’s represented along all spectrums.  To me this sounds like the beginning of a beautiful argument for balance:  When we recognize that we have all of everything in us (Anaximander’s “homoeomeries”) and that what we give emphasis to is what emerges from the inner vortex of these spinning bits, we’re totally empowered to choose who we are and how we view things and how we choose to CREATE our reality.   

IF that is the case, we’re at choice to separate and segregate the bits however we will, and we can do that as a matter of establishing extremes, or as a matter of spinning equitable harmony.  BUT even if we DO choose to follow the extreme path of black and white, we can never deny that there are billions of bits in glorious hues which we’ve simply refused to let emerge.  FURTHERMORE, it seems a much easier, more fulfilling and more rewarding creation if we use some of ALL of the bits to make, instead of a road that is both uphill and downhill, a nice flat road that’s easy to travel.

Because this is a flow-of-thought journal sort of thing here, I don’t want to spend more time on developing/refining this argument right now … but, hmmm.  What do you think?  Where can this take us?  What could it all mean?????  (ha ha … the last question was just my humorous attempt to sound tacky).

Where There's a Woman There's a Way

Gebara Chapter 2 – Evil and Gender – thought #4

“Daily life is the fight to live for today, to look for work, to do the cooking, to bathe children and do laundry, to exchange the gestures of love, to find meaning in life…  Daily life, and especially that of a woman, is a place where history is made and where different forms of oppression and unacknowledged forms of Evil show up.” (pg 77-78)

I was talking to someone tonight about Families.

Sociologists describe the Family as the most critical –and most violent – institution in existence.

I notice that in today’s culture, the Family has taken a back seat to everything else.  Children are raised by daycares and school teachers to enable Mothers and Fathers to run the world, to make a buck, and to “find themselves”.  As a result, things are running amok.  (In my humble opinion).  Children are paying the price, and Women are taking the blame.  I don’t care what men say or do … if a woman wants to change this, she can do so … she can refuse to play that way anymore.  Instead of focusing her energies on trying to change men, she can use that same energy to change how SHE does stuff.  It’s hard work, and it’s met with –sometimes violent – resistance … but with intuition (a specialty of women), hard work (after generations of practice of doing hard work), and dedication (a ‘staple’ of motherhood), I have strong faith that it can be done.  And, as women are renowned for their networking/community-building skills, we all know we’ll have each others’ backs …

To sum it up, I’ll amend Gebara’s quote:  Daily life, and especially that of a woman, is a place where history is made and where different forms of oppression and unacknowledged forms of Evil are defeated.

There now.  Isnt’ that just so much more refreshing?