Ahhhh! Breath-taking! Breath-giving! “We breathe in. We breathe out. We breathe in. We breathe out.”
We’re meditating with this image today, a bit of visio divina, with a touch of soulful jazz. What do we see? What is the image revealing? What is emerging in the interpretive space between us and the observable “other?” What meaning arises in the middle? What is shifting or deepening in our awareness? Who is our “we” in this context?
There seems to be a subtle but necessary art to a rich spiritual life—one that celebrates openness to improvisation, creativity and seeing with a beginner’s eye. As Otto Scharmer might say, it is the art of release, letting go of “downloading,” what he calls “absencing,” i.e., defaulting to old patterns, habits and ways of perceiving that no longer serve. Scharmer offers the term presencing, which is the art of being fully attentive in the moment, allowing our perspective to shift or morph, even just an iota, so that something new can come into focus. When we are presencing, exercising our full sensorium and breathing into the present moment, something entirely unexpected and innovative can emerge from what has been in our field of awareness to what is becoming.
What might help us to enter into the heart of presencing? How might we shift our focus when we are so often deeply invested in maintaining the status quo of our own perceptions and ways of relating, of preserving our exclusive sense of “we” and whatever privileges and perks that engenders? “We” may persist in blissful ignorance of structures and paradigms imbued with ingrained injustice and cycles of violence that we cannot see and will not address because we cannot, will not change our perspective and focus. It would necessitate ceding some imaginary control, some myopic certitude, or assumed position of power within the collective. How might we ever break free from the tyranny of our own limited perspective to welcome a bigger “We?”
In Taoist understandings, a unitive life force that forms the very net of being, the Tao, undergirds all ways of perceiving and relating. This worldview allows us to perceive living energy, especially what appears to be opposing forces, as ultimately One. In this way, we recognize and celebrate the Yin and Yang of continual energetic movement and exchange. Experiential encounters in our daily life may seem to be “factual” at some level. We often think of ourselves in the first-person-omniscient sense—in that we see, hear or otherwise experience a phenomenon “as it is,” in its entirety. Rather, we experience the entirety of existence from a certain vantage point, a unique perspective, governed by our limited awareness, capacity for sensing and bodily position within a vast constellation of swirling energies. Our ways of perceiving and “knowing,” which govern our interpretations and meaning, are limited to the boundaries of our metaphorical camera lens frames. Whatever escapes the focal point or misses the depth acuity is lost to a fuller picture or understanding. We only “know” something perspectivally, which is why it is so necessary to include as many perspectives as possible in our claims of what ”we” know, especially, who comprises our implicit, universal “We.”
In The Jazz of Physics: The Secret Link Between Music and the Structure of the Universe, cosmologist and saxophonist Stephon Alexander talks about the improvisation, spontaneity and co-creativity required to work within the realm of theoretical physics, where inexhaustible Mystery and unanswerable questions reign supreme. Studying the inner workings of the universe requires openness, expansiveness, radical inter-connectivity with many fields of study, and the humility required to constantly shift perspective, think outside any boxes of language, concept and measured perception. Much like the fluid, necessarily co-creative, energetic exchange of extemporaneous musicality that is jazz, our perception and understanding of the universe(s) requires presencing, the ability to zag and move with the groove when the energy shifts.
It seems the same might be said of the spiritual journey, as many contemplatives and mystics have noted from diverse spiritual traditions. “Ephatha!” Jesus admonished one who could not perceive fully. “Be open!” We can’t experience radical inclusion, any healing of pernicious division or authentic communion without an openness to a bigger “We.” In a jazz quartet, a phenomenal sax player without percussion and some guitar or keyboard is just a loud horn in a vacuum, no fullness, no phenomenal combo, no communal groove.
Now we ZAG! We look at another, zoomed-in, somewhat pixelated image that has emerged from the other. Now what do we see? Who is our “we” now? An exquisite red-headed wood-pecker, even with all her beauty and majesty—but without the gorgeous embrace of the emerald arbor-elders who surround her, and the exquisite avian, reptile and insect communities that conjoin in one chorus—is somewhat lost without the larger “We.” Or do we now see her in deeper texture and detail? Do we draw nearer to the heart of her magnificence by focusing more particularly on her story, her journey, her contribution to the whole, a sort of solo riff in the midst of the ensemble? Can we ONLY enter into the bigger “We” by zooming in on the detail?
Which is more important to understanding and meaning? The whole or the parts? Or is it both?
This is the crux of what we call the “hermeneutical circle,” in which text, authorial intent and the life experience of a reader all intertwine to construe meaning. The author/photographer/artist/musician does not “own” the meaning, nor does the interpreter (hermeneut)/critic/fan, nor do the words/images/music and the symbolic letters/pixels/notes that comprise them. The meaning is in the gaps, the spaces between all of these. It is the circular movement of the One and the many, where reading one word apart from its sentence or paragraph seems out of context, maybe even nonsensical, and one paragraph, apart from its chapter, has no context, no meaning without the scope of the entire book. The book itself is a trifle, a non-sequitur—meaningless in a vacuum—without the context of a vast library of related books on a related topic. And the entire topic, whatever it is, wouldn’t be a topic without the millions of individual books, with individual chapters, paragraphs, sentences and words that contribute to its comprehensive meaning. The art of interpretation, hermeneutics, requires that we embrace the Tao of presencing, of perceiving the parts and the whole, and shifting and inviting other perspectives in many times, many ways. When we are fully alive to the limitations of our own myopic perspective, we come to an awareness that meaning cannot be construed without each of the distinguishable parts, and not one of the parts, without the whole, makes much sense at all. The “We” needs everybody, every dancing quark, every living breath to fill in the gaps of infinitely varied, individually detailed perspectives, and to co-create the vast cosmic mural of a whole that none of us, individually, can perceive or ever appreciate its fuller meaning.
Now we ZAG again!
What if this two-dimensional “image” were happening LIVE, right now, at this very moment? We are no longer merely observers, recreating and reconstructing an image with the very limited meaning we assign it. We are now co-creators with our arbor-elders, our avian-kin and the miniscule multitudinous eco-systems—whole universes—that hide within and outside the scope of our experience. We are engaging in the cosmic dance, the great universal jazz ensemble. We are being perceived by what was formerly considered “other,” our energies, shifting movements, colors and aromas all blending and con-fusing and swirling together with abundant, complex, diverse life all around and within us. Our sense of “we” has just exploded into a new whole “WE,” a fusion of Yin and Yang, the parts and the whole, from what used to be active, animate “us,” and passive, inanimate “it.” “We” are all active, participatory members of a great big universe. Our little, exclusive “we” has become a profoundly inter-connected, co-creative, phenomenal, enormous “WE!” Who are the WE we’re becoming? And what do “WE” mean altogether?
Maybe it’s not an answer. Maybe it’s a song of praise. A groove. A communion. The rhythmic heartbeat of One Who is many.
Ahhhh! Breath-taking! Breath-giving! “We” breathe in. “We” breathe out. “We” breathe in. “We” breathe out.
Our great big “WE!”
It’s the Tao of presencing.
—Laura Weber, Prairiewoods associate-director and retreats coordinator