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The Helpless Pursuit Of Knowing
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The Helpless Pursuit Of Knowing

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On passing through the womb threshold,
we become anamnesis.
A blank slate to the eye,
tabula rasa to the trained
Written in bones,
an old arrangement.
A place to sit amongst the placed.
Clues sprinkled along the way,
captured by neck hairs
in kairos moments.
In the shadows we cast,
an agitation,
a gnawing if you will,
that there was something you were born to give.
A gift
A song
A weave
A price to pay
But for the life of you
you can't make sense or tail of it
Construct traps lead to empty hands
and bumbling minds.
Concepts, but a shape 
you try to fit all of life into
but end up defeated on summits
But the old arrangement can only be heard
in place
in reverie
in fidelity
So sit
humbly
and pray that you will be worn away
to reveal the images written on bones.

Hello Hedge School,

This poem spoke through me a few months back. The words, this seeker's white flag of surrender came as I was overcome with frustration. Frustration is my telltale sign that I am trying to force nature's hand. Desperate moves reeking of impatience and insatiable thirst.

Metaphorically, I feel a mist setting in. Confusion bunkering down for the long hard night.

Interestingly, I find myself in these places when I wade too much into the land of concepts and constructs. A yearning for knowing catches me with overwhelm. Gnowing on the other hand, or direct experience, swaps answer for questions. Swaps fast for slow. Swaps intellect for intelligence.

“When dominated by the human intellect, life is a mere circus, says Sadhguru. But when dominated by the human intelligence, it is nothing less than a dance.”
Sadhguru - Of Mystics and Mistakes

Swapping knowing for gnowing is my first sign the mist is lifting. The first sign my dark night is lifting. Surrendering knowing and trusting starts to tune my ear to all that is around. I fall out of the mind and into the body. Back into participation with all that is unfolding. Back into Gnosis. Gnosis is the Greek word for knowledge. But not knowledge as we know it. It is about "direct knowledge of ultimate truth" gained through experience. Gnowing is my poetic play on words.

A reminder to be in the direct experience surrendering to the experience.

A reminder to merge with the experience.

“The value of knowledge is often higher when it lives in the domain of gnosis. Practice, experience, mastery….these are the keys to gnosis.”
David E. Martin

So in the midst of the mist, I surrender to the experience. Trusting that whatever shows up is perfect and just in time. Being deeply situated, deeply in place, allows me to tune my ears. To notice my place amongst the larger place. To hear my story amongst the larger story.

“This larger story — much deeper than your prosaic personal history — expresses the ultimate meaning of your life, its true significance, in the same way a myth communicates truth or gnosis. To be living that larger story is to be a particular character in a web of relationships and meanings, to have a particular place in the story we call the world. Because it's your larger story, that particular place is your ultimate place.”
Bill Plotkin - Nature and the Human Soul

So to wind out this week, I'll speak to the language I hear when I see my place in the story of the world. I’ll speak in poetry.


The shade a shadow brings
looming as eyes scan skylines
for a sign
Is this the way?
Mimicry absorbs
as you feel into the options
A glance away,
a second guess
fumbled in the darkness
of idolatry.
Searching for a flicker
in the ether,
not knowing the brightest
is built in.
Gasp a breath
of gnosis
and step
shade
to 
shine

Till next time,

Steve

Image credit: Photo by Anne Nygård on Unsplash

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