Any image which we register, either as a sensation or as an impulse
through other than what we regard as our senses,
is subject to perception,
processing of, by and for the consciousness
(also by other than the consciousness).
One mode of perception involves identification:
an object-like “what” is registered as a fit, a make.
We respond with an orientation that could be expressed by the words,
“Oh, I know “what” that is.
“What” is the fit of identity.
There may be missing elements in the image, but we supply the whole image
from some essential minimum number of glyphs, contours, contrasts,
(good enough) etc.
That operation of perception, the supply of every missing component –
to provide some whole of identity, is what is involved in gestalt concepts.
“What” is the whole we have in our mind that we use
to complete the image we have identified?
I have told the story before.
When an architect visited the site of a large building under construction,
he first walked up to a workman who had a brick in his hand and asked him
what he was doing.
The reply was, “I am laying bricks”.
As the architect walked along the edge of the construction site
he met a second workman who also had a brick in his hand.
He asked him what he was doing. His reply was, “I am building a wall”.
Further on, the architect met a third workman with a brick in his hand.
The architect asked the same question.
The third workman answered, “I am building a cathedral”.
The actions were the same, in each of the three cases,
but the whole which was related to the action was of a different scale.
That whole, which was related to the actions, in the mind of each of the workmen,
made a difference in their attitude, but it also made a difference
in what they were building (hermetics).
I have often said, “There is no time off”.
Even our stillness has a context, an environment.
Mindfulness means continuously being and doing in behalf of All That Is.
We are like a fourth workman.
Our work, which isn’t work, because it’s so much fun, is to be a total synthesis.
Our work, every state or action, is an elegant design,
with an infinite number of variables.
elegance = number of variables / 0 – 1 unity of state
Elegance requires us to have somewhere between one and zero elements
underlying the design of our being and doing.
When we achieve the zero, we have the unmanifest, the continuous, the void,
the totality, emptiness and mind only.
We harvest the exploration involved in physical reality by elegant design,
synthesis and symbiosis.
During our mindful sitting, our mindful breathing, our mindful gazing,
we are honouring, we are acknowledging, we are being and doing
what everything in the universe needs us to be and needs to have done, here,
within and around the form of our person.
There is no time off, for every state of being, every act, can honour
and acknowledge the larger context, the greater scheme, the whole, All That Is.
Whenever our states of being or our acts are determined by smaller schemes,
we attempt to separate, close off, isolate, bound,
we are requiring the obstructed reality of delayed consequences,
substance and form, space and time.
But if we multidimensionally dream-live, if our insertions and outpressings
have the quality of sudden transformational match-cut meaning fits,
fresh metaphors – with enough similarity and complementarity to relate,
but enough differences to bring fresh meaning, new possibilities,
we can acknowledge, in our states of being and in our actions,
the vastness of All That Is.
Perceptions based upon categorical identities, small scheme identities,
like the first workmen, the kind of perceptions
that cause us to critically think or say, “I know what you mean by that act,
or that neglect”, means the scale of the gestalt preserves
and perpetuates the obstructed reality and a need for it.
It is like saying, “We are laying bricks or I am laying bricks
and I ascribe the same context and motives to you which I hold.”
We do this by regarding our states of being and our actions
or the actions of others as belonging to a small scheme.
We are here, together, now, in behalf of the universe.
We are combining our states of being and our doing in behalf of All That Is.
The elegance of our mutual respect, regard and oneness,
welcomes a resonant connection with All That Is and affects our state, now.
Others, at other times, who have gathered for such purposes,
have noted the effects of those who insist, who persist,
who hold their minds on smaller schemes, as the explanatory context
for even the gathering.
Of such occasions it is said, “There are rocks in the love feast”,
those who are unmoved, unaffected by the larger scheme or the context.
Let us each allow the joy of elegant oneness.
copyright 2011, 2014, ECOhealth / Eve Revere
