This Too Shall Pass

I'm wondering if Shikha's posts are word art and their frequency is part of the rhythm. They just seem a bit odd because frequent short posts like that are normal for Twitter but out of place on forums.

Is this right, is it art? Or have I been to too many PostModern art installations?

Nicely articulated Jenifer. 

Boy, did you guys ever SHOW UP here!! Fantastic!

Stef,

I think all or most of Shikha's posts are word art. That's what she does. It's her specialty. It's going to be totally guesswork on my part here to say this (so she can correct me if I'm wrong) but the madness is the very matrix ("womb" in geological terms) which her gift has crystallized within. Most art comes out of such a place, and artists who are/were not "mad" in some way, have most likely just not been outed yet. I have just such art all over an entire wall in my home from the people I used to care for when I was working.

This forum is not the right canvas to hold such art, as you've said. I'm hoping that the new site (whenever that happens) will have a better designed format so that she can cover her own space with it, and let the Forums remain neat and tidy. That would be optimal. I'd guess that you've been to just the right amount of pomo art shows. Clearly you've learned how to spot it when it's emerging out of place.

Annie, Balder,

Yes. I'm glad you both said this. I said it too in a pm. So, I'm thinkin' that if so many of us have suggested this, and she hasn't done it, that it may not be possible. Which brings up Iain's inquiry...

Iain,

This is a common misconception. Choice, or what is technically known as "executive function", does not always sit with the identity that is currently Present. In order to locate choice, one has to do a re-identification process much like 3-2-1 in order to re-connect with the part of us that has that power. For reasons that are usually hidden from everyone's view, this is not always possible. When it is tried and not achieved, then it is safe to say that it is not currently possible. It may be possible at some other time.

Altho this is debated, the best environment for someone who is not currently able is created by people who can be present to them and non-judgmental while we all wait it out. The "Tough Love" or behaviorist environment is not effective for certain kinds of issues (there's alot I'm not saying here because it would require diagnosis and/or prognosis which is impossible). In fact, it actually makes some problems worse (it did in my case). What we can do without a diagnosis or prognosis by a professional is hold her right where she's at. We don't need licenses in order to do that and if any professional challenges you on that (some might) they can go stuff themselves. They don't own all the space around people with such issues. People have a right to non-professional Peer Support.

Unlike many Trolls that I have dealt with in my years online and at Integral Life, Shikha is not hostile or aggressive. She is not antagonizing people using the polemic that is the weapon of choice for Trolls. I have struggled before with people who were most certainly mad and hostile and wished that we had some other method of helping them besides excluding them. But in the case of hostile mad people, exclusion is what's best for the Community because Communities can't usually organize coherently enuf to deal with them effectively. I am guessing, however, that this Community can organize itself in such a way that we won't have to resort to that in Shikha's case. I have alot of experience with non-aggressive mad people. Permission to descend in service of transcendence is what they need. No one is better informed or equipped to do that than an Integral Community. I believe in us. At the very least, I have hope for us.

When you say,

"anyway, onward"

I can't help but smile because there is no where else to go or be but right here. There is nothing else happening but this. This is reality. And as much as most people don't want to be here now when such things invade our awareness, I can testify to the fact that this is probably exactly what we most need to be present to. The Universe has a way of helping us learn what we most urgently need to understand. Knowing how to cohere and develop a Lower Left Presence and use it to change things is desperately needed in a world where hyper-individualism and competition are tearing at the connective tissue that is trying to grow for our next stage of evolution. We've already developed our skills to the point of Mastery of looking at Objects. It's time we develop skills of looking at Subjects. The questions we're asking and considering here about, "Who is that person?", "Why do they act that way?", "Why do I feel this way when they do that?", "Who am I?", "Why do I act this way?", and so forth are just skimming the surface of a Deep Green Sea  *  of motivations and feelings and values from which our interpretations of exterior reality emerge. This is the least explored territory of humanness. I can't think of anyplace I'd rather be.

Ambo,

Werd! LOL

Kamm,

Thank you.

--oOo--

I think Jim Morrison (another madman) said it best:

"People are strange, when you're a stranger

Faces look ugly, when you're alone

Women seem wicked, when you're unwanted

Streets are uneven, when you're down"

I don't want you to be a stranger. I don't want you to be alone. I don't want you to be unwanted. I don't want you to be down. I'm extending this post in hopes that this intention will help us seem less strange, ugly, wicked and uneven for you. When I am in that place, this is what I most deeply need. If this is not what you want/need, I'm totally open to learning about you more specifically.

Blessings and embrace to you, Shikha.

--

"The Left Hand Path, not merely the Right ... must take the lead."

~SES pg. 148

Jennifer,

This is a little confusing to me, because some of the so-called mentally ill (such you say you are) speak in such a way that could be classified as very wise.    Aren't we all  ill at ease with the system we live in?  J. Krishnamurti said, "It is no sign of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."   Yogananda talked about mental illness using physical illness as metaphor -- just like you could catch a cold, you could catch a 'mental' cold in the form of irritableness, and so on.    

I struggle to understand why you say you are mentally ill when you seem like one of the most sane people around!  In that case, we should all be so fortunate.     In my experience, even small signs of sanity are often regarded with great suspicion by 'others'.  I would be more inclined to believe, any one who labels YOU as mentally ill is mentally ill themselves.  But, according to that logic, you are mentally ill because you have labeled your self as such.   

One time, I checked into several different homeless shelter in Miami, for research purposes.  Some ones would be sitting across a desk and look me in the eyes saying: "You obviously have a mental illness."  Why?  "Because you COULD get a job and live like a normal person but you CHOOSE to be here instead".   I guess if that is the criteria, then I am mentally ill, too.  But only in the universal sense that we are all crazy for choosing to have been born on earth.

When you say you are mentally ill, do you mean it more in the universal sense that we are all sick, as evidenced by the fact we are living on earth, or do you mean in a more specific way?  I hope I am not being insensitive, I guess I am just trying to categorize, or, understand how you are using the term mental illness.

Jeremy

नमस्ते