Wonder, Truth, and Power

THE NATURE OF US

I wake up thinking of a wave, a huge wave in the ocean. I wonder what it would feel like to be an enormous body spread out in all directions, to slowly gather force and swell into such an enormous display of power. I am feeling myself as body of water. Then I switch to a giant redwood tree and wonder what that would feel like - water gathering from the ground up, the back and forth of fluids from earth to sky. A third image comes of a panther prowling in the forest, and I wonder and feel the sense of power, water focused through muscle and limbs.

All of these images evoke feelings of enormous strength in different ways, power erupting, power contained, power moving. I wonder what it would be like to be is a game every child plays, but it is useful throughout our lives. Imagination stirs the waters of our body, moves our heart, and in turn our blood. I realize that passion is part of how the power gathers, a passion for something beyond oneself. From this play I start to think about power in general, and realize how little I have paid attention to it. I think of the power of an idea, the power of truth, the power of integrity, and feel through my body this energizing or gathering that motivates me to move, to act. I see how even my writing is an organizing of power, developing a thought and following it, not knowing where it is going, but supporting the flow of ideas through the focus of my attention.

And this brings me to the power of intent, feeling how it is a sustained energy focused in a particular direction. I tend to wander, wonder and improvise through life, therefore to feel into focused intent is novel. Intent is how creativity moves into form, how an idea is directed in such a way it emerges into the world. Though I have done this in my life at times, now I am consciously seeing how it works. And like many of us, I may have ceded power to others far too much as the concept didn’t interest me. I am now wondering how to bring the inner part of myself into a functional relationship with the outer world - and this essay is part of that exploration.

To explore and inquire is fundamental to being human, it is what we do as babies and how we learn to move. It is important to keep the wonder and curiosity of the child within us alive. This is the part I am skilled at. Here Stephen Buhner in Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm elaborates:

The embedded developmental stages (or consciousness modules) that still remain within every one of us serve specific ecological and evolutionary functions. They act as a lens through which we are able to perceive unique layers of the textural reality of the world. It is the young child in us that allows us to experience the livingness of the world, that has the most open gating channels, that approaches the world with empathy and caring. It is this part that feels most deeply, this part that can sense and follow golden threads with the most ease. This is the reason that the great scientists, naturalists, and spiritual adepts are all so childlike. It is through this part of the self that the metaphysical background of the world is most easily accessed.

Our sense of power and authority is rooted in our physical experience. To truly be an individual, each of us must inquire into our own experience, sense what our heart is feeling, and what our gut instincts are revealing. When we are truly rooted in the moment we come to each experience anew. We listen to a person speaking and come to our own conclusions. We improvise our actions based on our perceptions in the moment. Feeling our way, we know what to do. Trusting our perceptions underlies the ability to intelligently discuss and create consensus.

Yet something happened along the way for most of us. Unless we were very fortunate, our natural curiosity was stifled by rote schooling and religious authority that told us this is the way it is, we know what is best for you.

We grew dull and stopped learning. We stopped questioning and accepted the conventional wisdom. For some this began even earlier. Perhaps we weren’t allowed to explore freely as a baby, perhaps we were not allowed to crawl on the floor, or deprived of nature, staying inside the house. Possibly we learned that exploration was dangerous and it was important to understand the world through a trusted intermediary - an authority. We may have been abused, threatened, or experienced danger, and the desire to explore diminished. Unwittingly we may have stopped sensing, perceiving, and thinking for ourselves, stopped trusting our bodily knowing.

When we can no longer feel ourselves, we are ripe for external authority to direct our attention, tell us what is important, and what we should think. We see this happening in our world now. Thinking for ourselves is particularly essential in maintaining our democracy today. We need to be able to sense what is true, and question whether information is being delivered that is not serving us.

Because most of us grew up in a world that was shrouded in secrecy, discerning what is true often means getting back to primary experience, to simply knowing how we feel. Much of the programming has been geared to creating fear within us. There is a need to go beyond our initial reactions that may obscure deeper truths, a need to keep questioning and noticing discrepancies or patterns.

It is time to ask questions of ourselves. What feels right to each of us? What makes us feel aligned and whole, what gives us meaning and feels true?

In Body, Spirit and Democracy, Don Hanlon Johnson writes:

How can we awaken people to value their own underground currents of passion, which are intense enough to carry them forward on a lifetime of commitment to learn, investigate, experiment, document, revise and dare to say what they have discovered? How to evoke that restless longing for meaning and justice which provides the surprising resources of physical stamina to carry on when one is exhausted and in despair?

Any response to those questions must take account of the fact that wonder is radically physical. You see it in the open eyes and exploratory movements of the loved infant, starting to make distinctions among the various elements of her world. You feel it emerging in the sinking of your heart as you see a homeless woman and her child in the street in the rain with all their belongings in a shopping cart and you ask “why”? You witness it in the endless vitality of the scientist who stays in her lab late into the night and on the weekends, hot in pursuit of the solution to a problem that so far eluded her community of researchers. You feel it in the rush of blood and quivering of limbs when you see a sunset or marvel at the vastness of the night sky . . . .

Wonder is radically physical. To explore and question the world is to become excited, to delve into what moves us and ignites our passion. Revelation can come from the most simple experiences in everyday life. Allowing space for the new to emerge is essential. Sometimes pondering a question is enough, then letting it go, and letting clues arise. Waiting as the world around us seeps into our knowing, allowing answers to bubble up. We move towards what captures our attention because it feels interesting and is fun to explore. It is not about finding answers from others, but allowing our own knowing to arise in interaction with our world and the information we gather. This feels like the ocean wave growing in force to me, increasing information assisting with the growth of power and authority.

Because I see the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual as one interconnected moving field, I find inspiration and knowing may come from daydreaming, just laying around being lazy, walking with no destination, being curious about a plant or flower, taking warm baths, opening a book to a random page, or my own restlessness and anger. Once I have something to wonder about, I then look for my own truth. How do I feel about it, what my hypothesis is, or even what my hunch or intuition is. Sometimes long before I have heard an idea emerge in the larger field, it is something I have been privately considering for years - and wondering.

At some point I learned to trust my feelings, my first impressions, and what my body felt in certain situations. I learned the hard way, making plenty of mistakes, not listening to my gut instincts. I was good at defying conventional wisdom and rebelling, but not adept at feeling deeply enough to discern what was true for me. I believe this is a very important skill to develop. What am I feeling as that person is talking? What do I see in how their body moves or shapes itself? How is my heart feeling, my gut, do I feel light or heavy, fearful or free? How does a thought I am having feel to me? Discernment is a very important survival skill, whether we use it in selecting a marriage partner, a job offer, or a political candidate. Discerning how my body feels in reference to a stimulus can answer a lot of questions.

Power over someone has never interested me, but power in the support of truth, integrity, and freedom in our world does. Unfortunately, there are too many players in the world that do value power over others. It is time to trust our knowing and the power of our inner authority, to focus our intent on what we feel is true, fair, and supportive of all beings.

I have been thinking about all of this with the 4th of July and our celebration of independence this week. The censorship we are experiencing, the labeling of everything as disinformation, is a dangerous development. Corporate entities that sponsor news programs do not want their products challenged, resulting in media that stifles the truth. We need to give ourselves the time to pay attention and ask questions. Who are we ceding power to? Democracy requires that we each feel empowered to voice our truth.

There is this wonderful quote we are likely all familiar with, from Jimi Hendrix:

When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.

Through our own love for ourselves, we must each summon our power now. There is something worth bringing forward from the idealism of the 60s that Jimi expressed. I wonder what it would be like to live in a world of peace and harmony. May we each imagine how beautiful that would feel, and find the passion and power to move forward together to create the more beautiful world our hearts know.

Thank you for joining me here today!

Sabrina Page, MA in Philosophy, Cosmology and Consciousness. My background includes working with individuals and groups, with a focus on somatic inquiry and embodiment to support you in living life fully, freely and fluidly, intertwined with nature. As well, I have studied movement, dance and astrology with some of the leading individuals in their fields. My private sessions are offered on zoom, phone, or in person in Bolinas, California.

More information is available on my website, sabrinapage.com

THE NATURE OF US is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Free and paid subscribers receive identical content. If you want to support and encourage me a little extra, and your finances are OK, please choose paid.

A recent essay:

The sweetness at the heart of us