Aphelion

[cheddarsox]

today is the day in this calendar year, that the earth is furthest from the sun in it's orbit.

I find it a useful reminder that things are not always as they seem. Because I live in the Northern Hemisphere and it is the brightest, hottest part of summer right now, yet we are further from the sun than during the darkest chill of winter.

As a pantheist, I live my life based on what I "know"..but there are different ways of knowing, there is that deep down, feel it in my bones knowing, there is observing and making a logical conclusion based on what I see, and there is careful studying, measuring, comparing over time that often shows that things are not as I guessed when I casually observed them, but something rather different.

So...I find aphelion to be a good day to say "what do I know?!", an exercise in humility and the absurd, and a day to commit myself gently to more careful observation...hey, I just might learn something.

I try to be more aware of what sort of "knowing" I am experiencing...the gut kind, the casual kind, the studied king or...heck, even something I just cobbled together based more on mood and fantasy than anything else.

And there is a difference between knowing and believing/accepting. I know some things, and use that knowledge when I have to...like to pass a test, but I don't really believe it. I don't really believe in dinosaurs, though studying them was a long time hobby of mine. I know they are real, but I can't wrap my mind around them. I just don't believe it. Like some people don't believe Elvis is dead, or that their mommy chose drugs and a trucker over staying and raising their family. We know...but we don't believe.

And some things I believe, but I don't know. A good bit of what science teaches about what's in outer space...I don't know that it's fact, but I believe it, I accept that they are basing it on real information and that they have no good reason to lie to me. Or what my mechanic tells me...sometimes I believe him, sometimes not, because I have no way to know for myself.

An experience I love is this...when I casually observe something over time, and my gut and mind get together and come up with an explanation, then I get a chance to test my theory and it turns out to be correct. I like that three way, triple crown of knowing. I need that reassurance every once in awhile.

An experience I fear is this...when sometimes I lay in bed at night and the cloud of paranoia and confusion passes over me, and I don't know anything. I'm even wondering if as I lay there the atoms of the bed will stop doing their thing, and I will get absorbed, or the atoms in me will stop doing their thing and I will fly apart into a zillion bits, and that everything I've based my life on is a sham.

They are both important experiences and I think both of them are true...I truly know some things, but I truly hardly know anything...and it's good to remember both those truths, and the trick is knowing when to act on which one.

Ultimately, it returns to my trust in the Universe. I don't have to know. The Universe takes care of itself, it's not my job to hold it all together, or to know when it should fly apart. My job is to be me, now. My place is here. I don't worry about whether asteroid M569K12 might smash into us and make our planet uninhabitable by humans for several hundred years. That is too much for me to take on. Maybe that is someone else's role. If I go the way the dinosaurs did...wouldn't that be ironic? I wonder, if in that last moment...at last I would believe.

I

[TygerTyger]

That was an interesting read.

I've been having a problem lately placing a conventional value on things. It's quite strange really, well at least to me it is.

My sister-in-law got married recently to a wealthy man who gave her some expensive jewellery. Like everyone else I went "Oh that's really nice" but actually all I saw was pieces of metal wrapped around an allotrope of carbon.

Gold and diamonds.

I know other people place a value on these things but that's my problem, I can't help but see them as things! Gold is a metal, just like any other but with the symbol Au and the atomic number 79.

Diamonds are minerals, just like any other only they happend to be the hardest known naturally occuring substance and the refract light brilliantly.

They are beautiful to me but not because they are worth 'X' amount in currency. Their beauty lies in their origin, which is the same as everything else that exists.

More and more I'm seeing things by a different set of values than punds, shillings and pence - but no one else I know seems to!

[Heart of All]

I've been trying to think about things in terms of their actions, and that sort of changes what I know. Like your sister-in-law's wedding ring-- it symbolizes some things (money, commitment, etc). It expresses that idea. And by expressing that idea, those "pieces of metal wrapped around an allotrope of carbon" influence things. I'm working on remembering that things at here just as much as we do...they change our lives and indeed provide its context.

So sometimes I know that things are just there. The couch is just here for me to sit on, the computer is just here for me to write on and learn from and entertain myself. But sometimes I know that these things are subjects, not objects. I interact with the computer. It makes me mad some days and makes me feel good on others. It influences my mood, the way I spend my time, what I know (or believe, or think I know). :)

[Eleisawolf]

As I stated in a previous thread, one of the great things that Pantheism has done for me is that it has given me permission to use "I don't know" as an answer. What a relief! I don't have to know everything! And even if I'm wrong, the universe will continue to function, life will go on, and joy can still be found.

My father was quite the perfectionist when I was growing up. I found myself trying to meet his expectations--I learned to do the things he could do, like reading upside down and backwards, adding 3+ digit numbers in my head, and noticing improper grammar usage and opportunities to catch anyone at being wrong.

This is still a difficult habit for me to overcome. Being an editor, I catch mistakes quickly and easily even when I'm watching a commercial. It's annoying to me, because when I have to be right, when I have to be the one who knows everything that is true or correct, I become a very obnoxious person to be around.

Fact is, I get tired of being right, but sometimes I don't know how to turn it off. But, as we say at my office, nobody's going to lose a finger if I make a mistake.

Through Pantheism, I have discovered the joy of "I don't know." It frees me from the need to be right, and allows me to see other people as human, the world as mysterious, and everything as surprising and valuable and beautiful. Even the incorrect... even the "wrong"... and even the me that annoys people when I catch bad grammar.

Fact is, I don't know is an okay thing to say. Because I don't. And that's okay, too. The joy is in the process... not in being correct or knowing from the beginning.

The joy is in just being.

Peace

[cheddarsox]

Eleisawolf,

I grew up with a great deal of that perfectionism as well, and "needed" to be right, because being wrong, in my family of origin was the ultimate sin. But I learned early on what a sham it was, that my perfect mother and father...didn't know either, but that the game was to pretend you did...and the best way of doing that was to find a fault in the other person first, which proved right off that somehow we were superior.

I also find great relief in the unknowing that is inherent in pantheism.

Indeed, I am in love with not having to know. I love to be just a citizen of the Universe, and not have to compulsively know and be responsible for, and be "better" than everyone, and outsmart everything.

Sometimes when I am making dinner, or working on a piece of art a family member will say "what are you making" and I'll respond..." I don't know"...and it's true. I just trust the process. It's fun for me to see what will come next. I write most of my novels the same way...I don't know what's going to happen, that's what keeps it fun for me, I want to know how it's going to turn out.

That is my life...a cloud of unknowing, with some moments of great clarity, and determination...but not for a specific outcome as much as an authentic one. Whatever I get, I want to come by honestly, organically, not because I forced the issue with my insane idea that I know better than everyone and everything around me.

Somewhere deep inside me, I trust the Universe...more than I trust my intellect. That final surrender, to that truth, was my "conversion" moment. When I finally, truly let go of my compulsive need for a sense of superiority over the Universe itself, when I gave up that last bit of nonsense pounded into my head by my upbringing, and released myself to life.

It didn't come all at once, but I do recall that final seminal moment.

I still struggle. I still fall into the "superior" mode too often, but usually, even then, there is something inside that knows I'm full of doodie.

Somehow the struggle is authentic too, even though I know the Universe is going to win...it's in me to struggle. I wonder about that.