eThoughts : Gestalt, Figure/Grounds, and Forgiveness

Sometime around the age of 14, when I was camping in the Sierra Nevada Range, I left our camp about an hour before sunset to make a nature run. I did not walk far, but apparently I was not paying attention. This went against the training I received, but a walk to relieve myself was not exactly considered a grand undertaking.

Nonetheless, after taking care of my purpose, and dawdling around for a bit musing about whatever I was musing about, I turned what attention I had to making my way back to camp.

However, much to my horror, and I do not use that word lightly, I had no idea which direction was back. Worsening my fears was that I could not hear any human sounds at all, which seemed odd considering that in my mind, I had not wandered very far. And, because of the forest, I was without any external, high-ground perspective. Still, I climbed as high as I safely could onto some nearby rocks to try and gain some orientation. But it did not help–I did not recognize one thing as a landmark. I called out, I whistled out, but I quickly realized that my noisy outbursts simply disappeared into the woods.

Now, in full panic, I realized I was lost, alone, and nearly out of daylight. In the midst of this panic, I became aware, commensurate with my training, that flopping around like a fully charged, unmanned fire hose was likely to make matters worse. Still, these bipolar forces of run or wait were very powerfully exerting their influence upon my psyche.

Why sitting down won out, I’m not certain–perhaps I was so overwhelmed by my predicament that being forced down was just a natural occurrence. I do remember that my mind seemed to shut down–and I was left there in the external and internal quiet. Whatever time elapsed, I’m again not certain, but at least some daylight remained when the entire issue, like a giant, 3-D Gestalt shifted right in front of my eyes–I knew exactly where I was and exactly which way camp was. However, I was now befuddled by why this was ever a problem to begin with–the directional arrow was so crystal clear that my mind could not comprehend how it had gotten lost or how it had become confused. This was a frightening problem in itself, but one left in the wake of the priority to return to camp before my mind pulled some strange trick and left me stranded again.

And then recently a parallel befuddlement arose. I was discussing a physics issue with someone who had much more knowledge than I do about the subject–admittedly not a big feat. Nonetheless, they were sufficiently versed that they discussed the issue without any apparent drag on their attention–clearly they could have done a number of other tasks at the same time. However, I was not so astute–I didn’t get it and every bit of my attention and intelligence was being spent trying to understand the “problem.” Worse, was that I apparently didn’t have enough of either attention or intelligence–apparently I just wasn’t going to get it. After using every alternative way of saying and demonstrating the solution that they could think of, they shook their head and went on with their lives, leaving me there to stew in my lack of comprehension.

A few hours later, while doing something else, which included not doing something else, I clearly saw in my mind a visual image that made me understand the concept the person was previously trying to explain. My mind knew the truth of the issue, but it was left with that knowing without being able to explain it. The conundrum was interesting, and I, a person who is comforted by explanations, was left with grasping something with one part of the mind, extending to the body, but not being able to explain the concept, my normal mode of including the body.

Like the being lost story, this story is also one of learning that the mind can see and know, even without understanding and explaining. In fact, my explaining mind was rather comforted–it is hard work to be in charge all of the time. And my body was happy and reassured, another way of becoming integrated was manifested: if we only believe and accept what we can explain, we can’t believe or accept much, if we only believe and accept what we see, and forget the explanation, we cannot efficiently communicate and include our knowing with others.

One of the swiftest journeys back and forth between our interactions with ourselves, others, and our environs is powered by forgiveness. Forgiveness greases the wheels of being stuck, and it takes an almost constant dosing to work it seems–our minimum daily requirement is enormous, mostly for ourselves, but also for others. Evaluations are important, getting “it” is reassuring, and forgiveness, in conjunction with explanations and seeing helps to reset our present and maximize our available learning field.

And I think an important thing occurs when we do this integration–we polish the quality of our awareness, a much more salient endeavor than polishing the quality of our authority.