On My/One’s Role
"…There is a famous story told of a child who continually annoyed his father. In desperation the father took a map of the world, tore it into many pieces and told his son to put the puzzle pieces back together to make the map of the world.
Knowing the child had not learned what the world looks like yet the father settled down to enjoy the rest of the evening with a good book.
No sooner had he made himself comfortable the child returned with the completed map.
In amazement the father asked ‘how can such a young person put the world together in such a short time?’
The child’s replied “On the reverse of the map was a picture of a person. I put the person together and the world fell into place."
(story source - I slightly adapted it from what I had originally posted it here in January in the comments - will try to find from where later. Image source)
A Note and Invitation - I am conscious of the power of this story in its own right and don’t want to taint it with my own thoughts, my intention is to share however, as I also use this blog to achive my own thoughts and states at particular times, you will find my thoughts below.
Thus, I invite you to sit with this story yourself for a while and respond (and share;)) before reading my current state - though of course feel free to read below…
A Sister/Complimentary Story: A story that I think compliments or precedes this is that of Rabbi Zusia on his death bed - I have included a written version of my own spoken/oral reworking of in the first comment below (this is a tale that is told by many and as far as I know, copyright free).
This story: The story above was rediscovered yesterday by remembering a story that has confused me called ‘The Tainted Grain’ after copicing early in the morning near a Faerie Glen (all trees are doorways - go sit by an oak!) with Laura for her spiral scultpure at Emerson and speaking to Helen. I also feel the need to highlight two other thoughts: ‘Where does one start - we start where we are at.’ And Listen - you will know when the time is right. (NB: I think time operates in a circle and a line, we walk on/through the line at the centre, so the past present and future are continuously moving around us as we make changes in the present impacting and effecting in front and behind us and the world around us…though of course this is just one way to see time) -
`Every person is a world’ - keep your waters clean and flowing and look after the water and especially the Well source. Look after water and keep it moving.
Me: Lots of thoughts about myself and my own role and what I am being asked to do next…if one’s role is to be oneself what then is the role - to be the best oneself? And related to changng the world…how does one change the world? By doing ones own unique role, not Abraham’s or Moses or anyone elses, just me (via Rabbi Zusia story I tell). Am thinking on ‘being the change’, ‘the medium is the message’ being a vessel / container (knowing the difference between container and content) and so forth. Currently I feel I have come full spiral (imagine full circle with other layers on top) and my ‘work’ right now seems to be about strengthening me. Physically too.
It seems I am being asked to work on my physical to operate more strongly from my centre, my core. Strengthen it. Enliven it. Enjoy it - Sing and dance. Connected thought: song and dance as preceding voice ie what happens before and around ’speaking/voicing our worlds into being’…movement and breath, life as movement. Making space. Having strong roots and groundedness helps you elevate further and higher. Holding paradoxes/polarity: to go high be strong at the root level, on the ground.
Things feel more simple at the moment. Not that things aren’t complex, just that they can be simple too by making space around them. Not to damage the complexity or break it, but to give it room to move - ie space helps to reduce the feeling of complexity. Perhaps that is what mathematicians and phycisists mean about elegant and beautiful proofs. They are complex that can be expressed simply. Or another anaolgy: the musical notes are able to be played when there is space between them for them to be read.
I am learning that this is ok and important and valuable to focus on my own self and that is ‘work’. Probably the only ‘work’. Certainly very challenging work. The rest is me as participant and support and channel and facilitator and accompanier and voice.
And with that I am going to go sit and listen to some music and maybe dance a bit before getting back to administration I have to handle. Spring freshness to you!
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May 24th, 2007 at 4:14 pm
Rabbi Zusia is dying and his disciples stand around his deathbed, making sure he knows that even until his last breath he is not alone.
Suddenly, their Rabbi awoke and they notice he is crying. And that he looks afraid.
His disciplines are in shock. They had never seen their Rabbi afraid!
He was their teacher and leader, a righteous man who had upheld the traditions and walked the path of a Tzaddik. He has taught them, and taught them to find joy even in the saddest of moments and here he is, crying and afrad.
“Why are your crying? Why are you afraid?” they asked him, suddenly afraid too!
“I had a dream and it was the end of my days…and I was called into question.
And they asked me “Zusia, why we you not more like Abraham”
And I had an answer. ‘Because I am Zusia, not Abraham.’
And then they asked me “Zusia, why were you not more like Moses?” and I had an answer, ‘because I am Zusia, not Moses’.
And so they went through all the Tzaddikim and Tzaddikot (righteous and brilliant ones) of all the generations until this one, and each time I had an answer - ‘because I am Zusia’.
And then he asked me “Zusia, why were you not more like Zusia”
And I had nothing to answer. I had nothing to say.
—
May 31st, 2007 at 3:16 am
Just wanted to say how much I enjoyed your post “, all of it, especially the quote “Where does one start - we start where we are at” - thanks!
Can I offer you a quote in return…
The pauses between the notes - that is where art resides — Artur Schnabel
and a little song from a new cd that came in the post today..
memories linger in the mind, yet changed
traditions remain, yet transformed
no two clouds exactly the same
can the same water flow through the river twice?
i am still myself, but different
change is the only that thing that does not change
it’s by a duo called adjagas, their name is the from the Finnish Sami culture and means “the state between sleeping and waking”, a kind of liminal space, I can’t categorise
Being the change has a lot of appeal, though I think you are much further down that road than i am.
Have fun!
…kenn
May 31st, 2007 at 7:58 pm
“Be occupied, then, with what you really value and let the thief take something else.†- Rumi
June 3rd, 2007 at 6:03 am
argh more related thoughts:
listen to the landscape - what does your inner landscape look like?
the freedom of a structure and rigourous process…(not the same as a rigid!)
- ie music works on lines of music sheet to be played…helps musician to know what note to play…even though it is true that music exists off that sheet
June 4th, 2007 at 6:23 pm
The first story reminds me of the way I think about maths -
The key story:
Imagine you are in a dark room and you start feeling your way around it. Eventually you will learn all there is to know about the room and its contents. You will find the light switch, read all the books, watch all the videos etc. Imagine also that you come across a locked door to which you do not have a key and which you are unable to kick down. Most scientific disciplines would offer solutions at this point. Engineers would try and build a camera to fit through the key hole. Physicists would try to garner as much info as possible from the light seeping through the key-hole. Ditto chemists, who would attempt to understand the chemical composition of the universe beyond by analyzing the atoms that travel through the key-hole.
Maths outdoes all the other sciences. It would try and find an object (better still invent an object) that adheres to the stipulations of permanence and correspondence; as well as, most importantly, fits through the key-hole. Correspondence requires that there be a one-to-one correspondence between any given point on the new object and myself (or whoever is stuck in the original room). Think of the one-to-one correspondence between the pimple on the face and cape town on the map on the other side of the sheet of A4 paper (the example we discussed earlier). Its imperative that the correspondence is one-to-one, i.e. pimple corresponds only to cape town and vica versa! If cape town can correspond to pimple as well as left earlobe, the whole thing breaks down. Permanence requires that whatever mathematical (or otherwise in our analogy here) rules of operation defy the person in the room, also apply and defy the new object. And thus the mathematician succeeds where the others faltered: he actually gets to travel through the keyhole himself and explore another room and this can go on for ever (or untill the whole universe has been exhausted).
Basically, all mathematical tools one learns about in school or university are such objects. Logarythms, algorythms, trigonometry, calculus etc etc.
As an easy example of permanence, think of the ancients to whom the very concept of a negative number was absurd. How can you have minus 27 chickens??? To them, numbers started with one and that was that. They went through the keyhole as it were to another room when the admited the negative realm to their numbers. They realized that the positive number room was just a small room within a much larger room that contained the negative numbers as well. Permanence dictated this since all the rules that define positive integers (the commutative, associative and distributive laws for the sake of simplicity) also admit negative numbers. So even though the concept of a negative number seemed alien to the ancients at first, they had to accept that positive numbers were but a mere subset of a much larger family - a family that through the ages (and with the help of correspondence and permanence) grew to include ratios, surds, irrational numbers, transcendental or non-algebraic numbers, imaginary numbers, complex cojugates and all sorts of matrix-based contraptions that are frankly beyond me.
Hope this helps Natalie and see you soon.
Balint
June 6th, 2007 at 12:59 am
A comment from Marge: how can I be a blessing for the world today?”"- this is a question she asks herself…and it was useful for me also because it reminds me of the importance that I am also a vessel/instrument for what is asking to come through me…
June 24th, 2007 at 2:57 am
thanks to all of you for your feedback and support on this! Kenn, Balint Marge and more!
And Lina - an old post that relates from last year, and just refound:
http://natalieshell.com/2006/07/13/saving-humanity-and-taking-care/
perhaps I have been saying the same things for a while but they are sinking deeper and I am living them more, embodying them, and being ok with them,too!
July 10th, 2007 at 10:16 pm
“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.†-Oscar Wilde
July 16th, 2007 at 12:08 am
[...] on my/one’s role - failure breeds success - every person is a world - get out there and [...]
August 16th, 2007 at 2:18 pm
“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.â€
Tolstoy
December 1st, 2007 at 4:42 am
[...] one hand, I agree - it is in a lot of texts and stories about, for instance, you being the way - be the change type stuff (if you see yourself as a medium…). And of course when I make up stories I am for sure [...]
December 24th, 2007 at 7:02 pm
to go with balint’s story:
“An angel told me that the only way to step into the fire and not get burnt, is to become
the fire”.
— Drew Dellinger
via Peggy Holman today http://www.opencirclecompany.com