Notes from the Fringe

Not looking forward to this one at all.
I prefer writing about the garden that I tend to, that I’ve walked around a bunch in.
The garden that, more or less, makes known sense to me.
The garden that is, more or less, predictable.

This bit is about the borderland of my known-ness, the liminal lands.

The only reason I’m writing about this is that I think one of us (Dojo-types) is out there.
If she’s out there, others will probably follow.
Part of my agreement is to do what I can to provide some mappage.

It’s difficult in the I-don’t-want-to-do-this kinda way is because I don’t want to be laughed at.
Not about something that is this close to my bones.
I don’t want it dismissed.
Concerned that my lack of clarity in writing about it will have people turn from it.

And it’s the most amazing place.

I told her that, for me, it’s like she’s spent her time in the desert and now she’s on that hill leading to the promised land.

Didn’t make sense to her as she’s never been here.

Ok.
Here we go.
It’s going to be a bunch of stepping stones.

There is this experience that people have when one of their meaning-making pieces changes.
Not “changes” as becomes more or less on that value-continuum.
“Changes” as in the old meaning-making drops away, it’s not longer operational.

Lots of stories about this.

“Used to think that homosexuals were hell-spawned tools of the devil. Till a couple moved in next door and they are the nicest, most helpful couple we’ve ever met. Can’t believe that we believed what we did.”
Things like that.

It’s not that the first beliefs were “wrong” and the new ones “right”.
Though that could be the meaning-making.
It’s the dropping away of the old.

Usually, at this level, there is another set of values that the thing(s) slip into; bad people slip into the good people value box.

There is another place where this “dropping away” can take place.

It’s not about how “things” out there are held in meaning-making.
It’s about underlying motivators.

I’ll use her examples to illustrate.
The labels that we’re using now are “fear” and “moths”.
Moths as in “moths to a flame”.

Fear is the thing that she turns away from.
Moths are the things that she turns towards.

Fear is the quality that she feels repelled from.
Moths are the quality that she feels drawn towards.

We’re working with the imagining of fear and moths being wind in her sails.
They define direction and speed.

She can look at her past life and see how a lot of choices, a lot of directions have been about the fear/moth dynamic.

What kinds of friends.
What kinds of lovers.
What kinds of work.
What kinds of homes.
What kinds of learning.
What kinds of activities.
What will people think?
How will I feel?
What do I need?
What do I want?
What can I have?
What can’t I have?
What can I do?
What can’t I do?

The fear/moth is pretty common.
ACIM says that it’s the only one.

Ok.
Understandable dynamic.
This is one human dynamic that underlies making choices.

Now, she’s done a lot of work.
Lot of different dances in a lot of different places.
I don’t think that there is one thing to point at as a causative agent.

What happened is that fear/moth suddenly wasn’t there.
In terms of its potency in supplying her with directionality and movement in making choices.

It used to be that either fear or moth were significant prompts in making decisions.
She would hold up her sail, when it was time to move, to make a choice, and the winds of fear/moth would fill that sail and off she would go.

She raises her sail now and it doesn’t work.
Something has shifted so that fear/moth doesn’t have the density-of-fuel.
They went from having high octane to having almost no octane at all.

If you are used to having one type of fuel, one type of meaning making, especially around making decisions and making choices and that fuel doesn’t work anymore….WTF is a pretty common reaction.

There are plenty of other fuels out there.
But not probably as fierce, as intense as the ones we pass through our amygdala.

It’s a bit weird.
Disorientating.
Confusing.

From over here, she has lost her fear/moth lenses.
Now she has to find some other way of making her way through, “How to make choices.”
Not simple about picking A or picking B.
But the flavor of the meaning-making that makes A a “better” choice than B.

To choose is to differentiate.
To choose is to demonstrate preferences.
In having preferences, you choose to enliven particular values/character.

From over here, she will be learning how to use very nuanced flavorings.

It can be a very odd landscape.