Perceptual Liberation

Chronic Ecstatic Awareness

Lithuanian grass works by Gintvilė Giedraitienė

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ROWDY APPRECIATION FOR EXACTLY WHAT IS

Both my soul friend and I have a high capacity for entertaining a myriad of emotions simultaneously.

But right now? Simple joy fills us. We are blissfully overwhelmed with rowdy appreciation for exactly what is. We love life with so much grateful and graceful relish that it might be logical to conclude from our example, right here and now, that living as sentient creatures on planet Earth is the most brilliant and generous gift of creative genius the universe ever dreamed up.

One reason for our rapture is that our perceptions perpetually liberate us.

As we loll in the marsh, our ears work with such exquisite sensitivity that we hear the buzzing of bee wings and the plunk of a turtle rolling off a rock into the creek. We tune in to spider eggs floating on the wind and the miniature symphony of earwig eggs hatching half-buried in the fertile dirt beneath the madrone trees.

We celebrate the aquatic stonewort plants releasing oxygen bubbles. We adore the low hum of orchid pollen and fern spores as they sail and then settle with subtle thumps on soil being purified of excess dross by the methodical work of mycelial networks. We hear the sounds of the purification, too.

Some may be skeptical that we can hear the sun’s rays land on the gleaming mud, but I swear we can. Same is true about the rustle of reeds, the frog swallowing a beetle, the western gull relaxing its wing to take a nap.

As for our eyes, they gather countless surprises that make us feel sweet and holy. The cirrus clouds high in the western sky thrill us and teach us, amuse us and transform us.

We don't just see these clouds; we commune with them, empathize with their fluidic consciousness, share the journey of their moisture from seas and lakes to atmosphere and back.

More healing visual shocks come from the blue darner dragonfly hovering overhead, its compound eyes, through which we, too, can see, offering us glimpses of its mosaic perception of the sky and earth.

The cricket poised on a sea lavender leaf reveals to us the entire evolutionary history of its species through the particular pattern of its wing veins.

Likewise with the white egret pecking for grubs in the mud. We sense not just its external form but the pulsing of blood through its vessels and the electrical signals racing along its nerves.

The quarter moon rising in the east shows us not merely its sun-lit cratered surface but the entire sweep of its relationship with Earth, the gravitational dance that has shaped our oceans and weather patterns for billions of years.

Because of the blessings of these perceptions, we are smarter now than we were before we saw them. We are happier and realer and freer, having absorbed their teachings and integrated them into our ever-grateful awareness. How much more can we hold? An infinity more! There’s no limit!

And now we will think that same thought again, even bigger, even more encompassing: We are always growing smarter and realer and freer because of the sensations we absorb. Each perception adds another note to the raucous, sublime music of our consciousness.

Our sense of smell is gently prodigious. At this perfect moment, we celebrate the olfactory confluence of wild irises releasing their perfume, a heron's nest with its bouquet of fish and feathers, the earthy exhalations of mushrooms pushing up through soil, the sweet promise of nearby apple trees blossoming, and the resinous aromatics of wild rosemary bushes.

Ecstasy! This rhapsody of scents tells us the complete ecological story of this place, its past and future, its health and challenges, its relationship to the greater systems of Earth.

To be so thoroughly interconnected is a stupendous privilege. Thank you!

photo: from a project about skelers in Scotland’s Shetland Islands by Gemma Ovens

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CHRONIC ECSTATIC AWARENESS

What motivates us to develop this fathomless repertoire of prodigious perceptivity?

The first is that the quest for revolutionized perceptivity is a hedonistic thrill. It's fun, entertaining, and delightful to plumb so deeply into the subtext of reality, the rich nooks and crannies that hide beneath the surface. Each sensation is potentially a doorway to unpredictable wonder. Each prick of perception offers a friendly shock. Each willful invocation of receptivity is a request to be taught secrets previously unknown and unimaginable.

Here's a second layer of our motivation: Expanded perceptual capacity enables us to cultivate what we call Chronic Ecstatic Awareness. This is a sustained devotion to detecting and homing in on the endless fertility of ordinary existence. It’s not about fetishizing weird and special anomalies, but about reveling in the radical specialness of everything that is.

Yes, we know the word "chronic" often implies something unsettling or unpleasant in human discourse—chronic pain, chronic disease, chronic problems. But as is our wont as language-reshapers, we have commandeered this term for a redemptive purpose. For us, "chronic" signifies the desirable persistence of a condition—in this case, the state of awakened, appreciative, adoring awareness.

My soul friend and I aspire to learn to meditate nonstop. Not sitting in silent stillness, holding a rigid position with eyes closed, but meditation as in softly relentless presence, as in unbroken attentiveness. We aspire to be ceaselessly attuned to the ever-shifting miracle of existence, even while engaged in seemingly mundane activities.

Luckily, the ways to meditate are infinite, with novel inroads becoming available all the time as consciousness mutates and evolves. This infinite freshness helps us ply our related aspiration: to arouse states of Chronic Ecstatic Awareness through intimate communion with raw, unfiltered reality.

Now we’ll give an appreciative nod to philosopher Christopher Bamford, whose crazy wisdom regarding meditative practice aligns with our own:

"As a free deed, meditation is naturally individual, uniquely our own. It is where we most fully become ourselves. There are no rules. Every person who meditates will shape his or her own meditation. No two people will do a given meditation in exactly the same way. The same meditation practiced daily will be different every time. Every meditation is experimental. One never knows what's going to happen. Improvisation is essential. Meditation is something to play with. There is no 'wrong way' of doing it."

Building on Bamford's recklessly wise prescriptions, we further affirm that our laboratory for meditation is everywhere and everywhen.

We are serenely resolute scouts and researchers, always on the lookout for innocent opportunities to dive down into deeper, wilder, earthier awareness. Our curiosity never dims, our enthusiasm never wanes. We are everlastingly ardent to initiate experimental probes that might reveal further news about the jewels in creation’s infinite net.

Take note: We are not compulsively and obsessively curious. Rather, we are tenderly and carefreely curious as we shift into altered states that generate insouciant, ecstatic immersions in the NOW—not as timid, sterile escapes from reality but as fervent plunges into the glorious, mysterious mess.

This is key to understanding our style and strategy: We forever reinvent the practice of being alert to the welcome of the next moment. Nothing is taken for granted, nothing becomes routine. Each sacred breath, each cherished heartbeat, each sensory billow arrives as a crisp gift, unprecedented and unrepeatable. It's hard work—and yet paradoxically, the easiest assignment possible.

Our exploratory experiments are always in-process, not final accomplishments; always verbs, not nouns; ongoing voyages rather than destinations.

We have zero interest in grasping an ultimate all-knowing perfection and then retiring from life’s hubbub. One of our sacred mottoes is “ENLIGHTENMENT SUX!” Not because we are opposed to being gleamingly, splendidly awake in the most relaxed ways possible, but because we reject the spurious theory that there is some final, finished state of being gleamingly, splendidly awakened in the most relaxed ways

PS: We don't require psychedelics for our daily sorcery, though we are happy for others who find that technology helpful. Being trained through attention and intention, our bodies naturally stir up the neurochemicals necessary for altered states and expanded awareness.

Our conclusion: The most powerful psychedelic substance ever is the inquisitive human consciousness, churning and yearning with eager, exploratory joy.

Naudline Pierre, "The Prayer"

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EACH MOMENT IS A PLACE YOU HAVE NEVER BEEN

The playful work of gliding into ever-new altered states does not have an on-off switch. It's not a matter of either being in routine, mundane consciousness or else soaring through numinous terrains on a rapturous trip. There are a trillion in-between altered states to be cultivated and discovered, each with its own specific quality and its own particular revelations.

Some states are subtle—slight shifts in perception that unearth hidden codes in familiar surroundings. Others are major—stark dissolutions of established boundaries that crack open epiphanies in unknown psychic terrain. They all fall along a vast spectrum, mixing elements of ordinary and non-ordinary consciousness in proportions that change moment by moment.

To whip up ongoing ecstasy and unlock ever-shifting altered states, we try to hang out in the mood of beginner's mind, willing to lovingly play with whatever's in front of us. This approach, which Zen practitioners call shoshin, involves setting aside preconceptions, expectations, and accumulated expertise to encounter each experience as if we were anthropologists from Mars encountering everything for the first time.

The fun, not-quite-impossible trick is to hone an ever-simmering, full-body readiness for surprises. We don’t shout the following command at reality, but we slyly and seductively invite reality to COME DELIGHT, INFLUENCE, AND EDUCATE US.

In his native German, the poet Rainer Maria Rilke extolled the strategy die Fragen lebt, which we translate as “living the questions.” Meaning: Allow life to answer questions we haven't even thought to ask, to provide solutions to problems we didn't know existed.

Pure, raw, naked perception is our ever-available entry into altered states. If we open our senses as far as they will go and devoutly welcome what's in front of us, without the filtering, categorizing mechanisms of habitual thought, we will ALWAYS be changed by the experience.

“Each moment is a place you've never been,” said poet Mark Strand. YES! Life’s ever-original whirls of light and twirls of sound usher in untested plot twists we have never experienced before and will never experience again in exactly the same way. Recognizing this uninterruptable flow of inventiveness ensures each perception yields original dispensations.

We love what meditation practitioner and molecular biologist Jon Kabat-Zinn said: "Mindfulness is wise and affectionate attention." This definition captures our approach—not cold, analytical observation but warm, engaged participation in the ongoing miracle of existence.

For us, that means we are not forever stalking heroic, epic adventures fueled by fierce macho bravado. While we have certainly experienced extraordinary upheavals and radical transitions, our fundamental practice remains consistent: cultivating wise and affectionate attention to whatever's in front of us, whether seemingly mundane or obviously spectacular.

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BY Jemima Jameson

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FREE WILL.ASTROLOGY

For the Week of May 22

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Gemini writer Raymond Carter (1938–1988) established a reputation as a master of terse minimalism. One critic noted that he practiced the “Theory of Omission”—an approach to writing fiction that mandates the elimination of superfluous narrative elements. But it turns out that Carver’s editor Gordon Lish had a major role in all this. He deleted half of Carver’s original words and changed the endings of half his stories. Years after his death, Carver’s widow, Tess Gallagher, published the original versions, with the omitted material reinstated. I believe the coming weeks will be an excellent time for you to make comparable restorations, Gemini. In every way you can imagine, tell the full story, provide the complete rendition, and offer elements that have been missing.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Even if you don’t regard yourself as a psychic or prophet, I suspect you now have an uncanny knack for deciphering future trends. Your intuition is operating at peak levels, especially when you focus it on the big picture of your long-term destiny. As long as you’re not overconfident about this temporary bloom of expansive vision, you can trust your ability to see the deep patterns running through your life story. To make the most of this gift, take a loving inventory of where you have been and where you are going. Then devote relaxed meditations to adjusting your master plan.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): River deltas form where rivers meet the sea, creating fertile and complex ecosystems that nourish abundant life. Some of my favorites are the Rhône River Delta in France, the Po River Delta in Italy, and the Shinano River Delta in Japan. In the coming weeks, Leo, I will visualize you as the metaphorical equivalent of a river delta. I’ll call you the Leo Delta, trusting you will be inspired to celebrate and cultivate the rich intersections that characterize your life—areas where an array of ideas, paths, and relationships converge. Be open to synergizing different aspects of your world: integrating emotions and logic, connecting with diverse people, blending personal and professional goals.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Your natural inclination is to solve problems through detailed planning and careful analysis. On occasion, that process dead-ends in overthinking, though it often works pretty well. In accordance with current astrological omens, however, I suggest an alternative approach for you in the coming weeks. Instead of trying to figure everything out, how about if you simply create a relaxed spaciousness for new things to emerge? Experiment with the hypothesis that progress will come not from doing more, but from allowing more.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): As they climb, mountaineers carefully assess every handhold and foothold. Unfailing concentration is key. I recommend adopting their attitude in the coming weeks, Libra. You are entering a phase when ascension and expansion will be among your main assignments. The best approach to your adventures is to make steady progress with precision and thoughtfulness. Rushing rashly ahead or taking needless risks could be counterproductive, so be scrupulous about planning and preparation. Trust that the most efficient path to the summit will be via small, deliberate steps. Your winning combination will be ambition leavened with caution.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): At age 42, Scorpio painter Georgia O'Keeffe left her busy New York art career and traveled to New Mexico for the first time. The landscape's beauty overwhelmed her. She wandered around the desert for three months, creating no art at all. A few critics accused her of wasting time. She rejected their ignorant misunderstanding of her process, replying, "To see takes time. I had to learn the country first before it would let me paint it." Her most iconic paintings emerged after this phase of pure observation. I'm recommending a similar period for you, dear Scorpio. While your instincts may tempt you toward a flurry of activity, I believe now is a time to wait and see; to pause and ponder; to muse and meditate.

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SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): By the 20^th century, the 483-mile-long Seine River in France was so polluted that most of its fish were gone. But clean-up efforts have been successful. Now there are 32 fish species, including the Atlantic salmon. The Seine is also very close to being completely safe for humans to swim. I would love it if you were inspired by this success story to undertake a comparable project in your own life, Sagittarius. What would you most like to see revived and restored? Now is a good time to begin the effort.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Until she reached her 70s, Capricorn visual artist Louise Bourgeois was a peripheral figure in the art world, modestly respected but not acclaimed. Then New York’s Museum of Modern Art presented her work in a major show. In response, the New York Times reviewed her work, saying it was "charged with tenderness and violence, acceptance and defiance, ambivalence and conviction.” I bring this to your attention, Capricorn, because I suspect the coming months will also bring you recognition for labors of love you’ve been devoted to for a while—maybe not in the form of fame, but through an elevated appreciation by those whose opinion matters to you.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): The name of the old Talking Heads album is Stop Making Sense. One of its many implications is that we periodically derive benefit and relief from being free of the pressure to sound reasonable and be consistent. According to my detailed, logical, in-depth analysis of your astrological omens, now is a perfect time to honor this counsel. I hope you will give yourself a sabbatical from being sensible, serious, and overly sane. Instead, please consider a sustained pursuit of pure pleasure, fun foolishness, and amazing amusement.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Be on high alert for fleeting intuitions that flow through your awareness. Really good ideas may rise up only briefly and only once, and you should be ready to catch them in the ripe moment before they fade away. Do you hear my urgency? Pay special attention to passing thoughts or sudden insights. They may contain more value than initially apparent. I will even speculate that seemingly ephemeral inspirations could become foundational elements in your future success. Document your hunches, even if they seem premature.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): I think you’re ready to establish new ways of nourishing and protecting what's valuable to you. Your natural assertiveness will be useful in setting boundaries and securing resources. Your flourishing intuition will guide you to implement adjustments that safeguard your interests while remaining flexible enough to permit legitimate access. Be extra alert, Aries, for when you need to balance security with accessibility. Your best defenses will come from clever design, not brute force. Do what you need to feel secure without feeling trapped.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): In July 1971, 26-year-old Taurus poet Bernadette Mayer kept a scrupulous diary. Every day, she shot a roll of 35 mm film, wrote about the day’s events, and recorded herself reading her accounts. By August 1, she had accumulated 1,100 photos and six hours of readings. One of her goals in doing the project was to learn more about how her memory worked. What was worth remembering, and what wasn’t? She also hoped to gain an objective perspective about her routine rhythm. Years later, she acknowledged that though this was a narcissistic experiment, she had no shame about it. Inspired by Mayer, and in accordance with astrological omens, you might find it worthwhile to lovingly and thoroughly study the details of your daily life for a while. It’s an excellent time to get to know yourself better.

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