Unfurling Understanding...A bit!

Hello Friends,

Spring has finally sprung in Central Oregon. Daffodils standing tall the lips of the blossoms reaching skyward towards a sunburst blue sky.

And---

This is definitely a stream of consciousness writing and not tidied up.

So forgive me if you will, and relax into it if you can.

Unfurling Understanding a bit.

First I am not for or against understanding.

And---This is more about understanding in the context of relationship. It's not a straight line or finished.

Have you ever been told, I don’t understand you?

What exactly does that mean?

You aren’t making sense? What does that mean?

You aren’t speaking my language?

You aren’t using words or sharing concepts I already know?

Hummmm.

More questions.

Can we ever really truly understand the complexity of another living being?

And when, or if we do, does that come from fitting someone into a box (neural network) already created in our brain?

Does understanding someone, or not understanding someone create a sense of separation, an othering of sorts?

Or is it inviting, or inclusive?

When I say I don’t understand you---what happens inside you, how do you feel, what do you take away?

What parts of you get quiet, or activated, or curious?

What opens, or closes, or cracks?

ME---

I have been told many times.

I Don't Understand What you Are Saying.

I am not writing to create understanding.

I am not writing to your brain.

I am not speaking to your brain.

If I was I would say; Hello Brain.

Truth.

I most often am speaking/writing from my body---to your body.

As much of me to as much of you.

The fullness of the bodies way of knowing.

I am saying hello to your heart?

To your chinny chin chin?

To what shimmers or shakes.

To our shared bodily knowing and resonance, or not.

It doesn't have to land.

It may skitter across.

It may come through another day.

It's all welcome.

I like to grow at the edges of what I can conceive, or make sense of.

I am okay being confused, actually.

It gets my creative juices flowing.

I’m not sure understanding makes room for confusion, or for life to be as messy as it can be?

​
And---

Here is a post from one of my favorite humans.

An example about not understanding with the mind, however, the bells of my body shiver and grin, and feel wildly alive and curious when I read this.

“We can never be sure of what the world is doing next, what it is producing, what lines are being blurred, what categories are being composted. If we do not cultivate bewilderment, we will risk seeing things too clearly in a world at a time when clarity often gets in the way.”---Bayo Akomolafe

Bewilderment like confusion isn’t easy to understand. It doesn’t fit easily into our knowing narrative.

And perhaps sitting with these words and wondering about our modern story of progress and productivity and human exceptionalism and clarity and how it isn’t working for the vast majority of species including many humans, if not all. Of us.

Or writing a poem in response, or using one of the lines for prompt writing, or writing a love letter to bewilderment ,or drawing, painting, collaging, dancing, or sharing Bayo's quote with a friend, or at the dinner table and talk about bewilderment and consider clarity through his notes.

And it's okay to want understanding, or to offer it.

Not creating another binary story here!

Till next time.

Love,

Carol