Lifescape

Make a shadow

Want a shadow?
Take five breaths and make a shadow.
Conjure it, speak of it, make of it a dedication:
I knew my soul would live like this! -
A realisation, a revelation!

Give something of yourself to yourself,
Then give yourself to someone else, and
In the space that will emerge, talk of love,
And touch another, gently too;
Remember these are shadows you are talking of.

Long shades fall as a bright day ends,
Yet if we are at peace, they seem
Like ancient, dark, remembered friends.
Want a shadow?
Take this life and make a shadow (ref)

 This is not, writes Alice Walker, “a time to live without a practice. It is a time when all of us will need the most faithful self-generated enthusiasm (enthusiasm: to be filled with god) in order to survive in human fashion”.(ref)

My practices are poetry, conversation and a sense of meditative presence. My ‘enthusiasm’ is based on a rational, materialist knowledge (not belief) in what we now know through science (as opposed to what was known and believed in centuries past). The ‘god’ I am filled with is a flow of spirit into the words I write. In future decades and centuries, more will be known (and therefore science will evolve) but the poetic voice that emerges from the human soul will still be seeking ways of practising.

 For me, it is practice that is important, rather than any belief – in fact belief often gets in the way of a sense of fulfilment in our lives. Knowledge is good – albeit a necessarily incomplete portion of our human experience – and comes from evidence that is accumulated and adjusted over time.

 Joy and spirit (also good) come from subjective experience and from disciplined, connecting practice. But is important to assert that one can feel wonder without belief, feel connected without belief, and we can love and have morality without belief. If someone else wants to get some comfort from the belief in a god or a supernatural soul then, at an experiential level, then so be it. But belief isn’t a necessary pre-requisite to goodness or to happiness. And believing something doesn’t make it true.

 The experience of human wholeness comes from a clear recognition of the boundaries between our inner and outer worlds and between our character strengths and our shadow. It comes from recognising the difference between the enlightenment that comes from knowing, and that which comes from pinning our hopes on some kind of force outside ourselves – either a traditional all powerful deity, or a conscious universe drawn from pseudo-scientific speculation. The grown up psychological position has always been one of facing up to the challenge that new knowledge and self knowledge presents us with – to be humble, to surrender to the realities of our existence.

 So this is a plea for both spirit and science. Science tells us that spirit comes from within – trading in, as Daniel Dennett puts it, “a supernatural soul for a natural soul”  (ref). I can deal with that, it makes life no less wonderful, no less joyful and no less moral. And as the physicist, Richard Feynman wrote over 45 years ago: “we must…make it clear from the beginning that if a thing is not a science, it is not necessarily bad. For example, love is not a science. So if something is said not to be a science, it does not mean that there is something wrong with it; it just means that it is not a science (ref).

 When we love someone (or even if we love a god) then this is not a bad thing – it will often be (but not necessarily always) a very, very good thing. However love (and belief) are always subjective and often can be blind, whereas what we know through accumulated evidence is not – although it may be incomplete and supplanted and supplemented over time.

 What is important is that our practices, our beliefs and the way we use our knowledge are aligned with our world and the other life-forms that share it with us. For, as Alice Walker writes: “We will be doubly bereft without some sort of practice that connects us, in a caring way, to what begins to feel like a dissolving world” (ref).

 It’s up to us now. If we want joy, we take it from our life, own up to our shadows and give ourselves to the world: “Want a shadow? Take this life and make a shadow”

A gift of Life

 The poem above comes from a brand new poetry collection entitled Life. Here’s an extract from the introduction:

“This project emerged when Steve Thorp met artist Kim Major-George at an art and design event in 2009. Immediately something sparked and this collection of poetry is the result. Life was written and compiled in celebration of Kim’s Age of Enlightenment sculptures and her Life of Buddha exhibition UK tour in 2009 and 2010.

 Kim Major-George is usually known for her distinctive spiritual collagraphs. In 2009 she created three large sculptured panels of the prophet Buddha. These powerful images are created using layer upon layer of paper covered with gesso and finally painted with acrylic.

 This pamphlet by Steve Thorp is in two parts. The first, Questing, comprises poems reflecting on the dilemmas of our existence, the questions we ask and the places we sometimes turn. Part two, Wisdoms, has a surer intent. Inspired by small pieces of wisdom from Buddhist teachers, psychotherapists, surfers, poets and others, Wisdoms explores the steps we can make to embody ourselves in the world, rather than, more simply, just being a follower”.