Forward -into the Present

In last weeks post I talked about the power of nature, how we ourselves can be stimulated to rediscover the child within. I guess like myself you will have childhood memories, some good, some not so good -but on the whole we recall the good. These memories come back into consciousness in a number of different ways -they can be awoken by children, things they say and do, reminded by something we read or view, and they can also return when we feel oppressed or restricted causing us to retreat from the impersonal expressions of life. And during the past year for many social restrictions have disordered routines -had you think aimlessly, wonder what day it is, had you bed late, fill hours with TV you would otherwise not watch -and in general lose the forward looking nature previously common to the order of your life.

What happens now?

As of this week children return to school, care homes relax some of their restrictions, outdoor meeting can tentatively begin. What is actually happening is a shift of consciousness. People are beginning to look forward, visualising more interactive socialising, anticipating normal working hours. Expressions of frustration, injustice, and anger will find voice -and for some the child within will behave badly. Yet for most ‘picking up where you left off’ will be acts of joining together broken ties, reliving purpose, strengthening the bonds of love. What will happen, however we express, is a forgetting.

Many have had weird and wonderful dreams -some that frightened, some peopled by strangers -who somehow we knew, and some suggesting long lost feelings were yesterday’s experience. Youthful expressions of movement and change -desire and need having the same meaning. Yet, as you know, such remembrances most often retreat and disappear before breakfast is done. And do we remember to remember them? We try of course, particularly if they gave us good feelings -even the best of effort fails after 24 hours. Now ask yourself this question -how much of your past can you remember?

Not a lot -is it?

Even autobiographical writers struggle to remember their past. As honest as they maybe they will be selective -some parts of experience will never see the light of day. Critics of the self-confessing famous will take a stab at their recollections, inferring intentional memory is recorded to express their desire to be remembered, for posterity to benefit from their life’s purpose. And personally? Give it some thought -some efforts, achievements, expressions of thanks received. Are they forgotten -are you taken aback by recall, and you did more than you are currently thinking you did? The stark truth is we forget more than we remember.

Why are we so forgetful?

The reason why is because our BodyMind is not designed to be a repository. It’s not a bucket that fills with life’s experience, growing heavy as time passes -finally to plunge into the abyss of death. No. We human beings may be complex creations, but in essence we are no different to all other forms of life -we are instrumental by design, or to put it another way, we in common with every other form of life are borderless beings.

As I write this I’m listening to music on the radio. Just happens to be of the kind of music I like. As the songs come and go I get a strength of like feelings -when the DJ talks between tracks I ignore what they say. And do I remember what I had good feelings about, maybe also tapped my feet to -10 minutes ago? No I don’t. Are those experiences available somewhere for me to re-experience? Yes they are. In this technological world we now live in I have choice ways. I can record -I can hear those same songs again because someone else has recorded them -or I can simply wait until I hear them again on another station at another time. And what about the DJ’s annoying chatter I blanked out because it didn’t interest me to listen -has that been recorded by me, whether I like it or not?

The answer is yes, but in same way my like of songs are not stashed into a bucket of experience -they, like all memory good, bad, indifferent, and ignored, are available but rarely brought back into present consciousness. You don’t need to be psychologist to know that we are selective by nature, yet be reminded we are not the choosers we like to think we are. Life’s experiences are mainly caused by reacting to conditions of life about us at any one time. Our rational minds in most instances will label reactionary knowledge as chosen to know.

Man’s conceit is his undoing. He assumes he has (or can have) control over his own experiences. In reality he does not.

As you look forward to a return to ‘normal’ life, do not be regretful of opportunity missed, of expressions you did or didn’t make, or wish you had. Life has not been shortened –time is not a measure of values, be it by years or nanoseconds. Memories should not define you. If you are brave, moments will fulfil -they alone will forward you, engage and satisfy. Life so lived is a great adventure and will forever keep you young.

As I’ve been talking about memory, about time, the poem today is not mine, it’s the first verse of ‘Burnt Norton’, the first of the Four Quartets by TS Eliot.

Burnt Norton: Verse 1

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.
But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.
Other echoes
Inhabit the garden. Shall we follow?
Quick, said the bird, find them, find them,
Round the corner. Through the first gate,
Into our first world, shall we follow
The deception of the thrush? Into our first world.
There they were, dignified, invisible,
Moving without pressure, over the dead leaves,
In the autumn heat, through the vibrant air,
And the bird called, in response to
The unheard music hidden in the shrubbery,
And the unseen eyebeam crossed, for the roses
Had the look of flowers that are looked at.
There they were as our guests, accepted and accepting.
So we moved, and they, in a formal pattern,
Along the empty alley, into the box circle,
To look down into the drained pool.
Dry the pool, dry concrete, brown edged,
And the pool was filled with water out of sunlight,
And the lotos rose, quietly, quietly,
The surface glittered out of heart of light,
And they were behind us, reflected in the pool.
Then a cloud passed, and the pool was empty.
Go, said the bird, for the leaves were full of children,
Hidden excitedly, containing laughter.
Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.