I'm neither poetic, nor a writer of grace, so vaguely self-conscious in my reactions to writing like this. But the persistent mystery of consciousness is now permitting some interesting and non-mystical enquiries into the possibilities that consciousness might possibly be a distributed phenomenon that is literally shared *between* beings. It's amusing to note that if you ask yourself if the most recent thought you had was really your own, it's impossible to empirically demonstrate that it was. Which plays into a longstanding suspicion that thoughts have us and not vice versa. There may be more (in a scientific context) to your sense of connection with those birds than you even intuit now. Amusingly, I feel it with trees too.
Thank you for sharing that, Mike. I can’t say I’d be that surprised if consciousness did turn out to be a shared phenomenon--and I think I’d find it quite a relief to discover that my thoughts weren’t entirely mine! It certainly makes me want to spend a lot more time amongst trees, though. Better to have 'ones' thoughts influenced by them than, well, all the alternatives…
"Which plays into a longstanding suspicion that thoughts have us and not vice versa. There may be more (in a scientific context) to your sense of connection with those birds than you even intuit now. Amusingly, I feel it with trees too."
As with David's posts, I pause and am reminded to pause. It is a lovely thing to read of the goldfinches and that you are noticing them. (A charm! Didn't know that was the collective noun for finches. Brilliant.) When we were just away, I would spend several minutes each morning deliberately watching the plantain squirrels dart across tree branches, taking the time to notice that I was noticing. Now I'm back at work and sucked into routine, I must remind myself to do that more (albeit in a far less exotic location, sans squirrels), so thank you for this morning reminder, Chloe 🙏
A charm, or a ‘troubling’, or a ‘pantheon’--which I suppose speaks to their complex characters! I commend your pausing, Nathan. It’s an act of rebellion in this too busy world. I like that you’re noticing what it is that you notice. I’ve been thinking of it sometimes in quite animist terms, so thinking about what it is that my attention is ‘feeding’. It’s slowly making me a little more discerning. I really don’t want to feed the news cycle too much, for example, that is already a well-fed beast. Thank you, Nathan, for pausing & for reading 🙏
As you describe it, I can almost hear the hushed silence settling over the millions of people gathered in Trafalgar Square. Sadly, we are making wars faster than our ability to protest them. I love the poem you closed with. Ross Gay has a gift for capturing and illuminating moments like this.
It was quite a thing, to be surrounded by such a mass of people and for everyone to be silent. It's one of my earliest experiences of becoming aware of the ineffable, I think. Ross Gay's a genius and a saint. Wishing you a beautiful day, Ben.
It's lovely to read about this day again. I was 20 or 21. We had been going down to London for anti-war demonstrations since autumn 2001. But this one was different. You mention the wave of noise and I'm glad you did, because this was the first time I heard it (it happened again when Bush visited later in the year). It seemed to require a critical mass of people. Hundreds of thousands? Not a chant, but a roar, pulsating through the crowd. Like the crowd becoming conscious, becoming one thing. Like you and the goldfinches.
You heard drumming. I wasn't drumming that day, but shortly after I joined one of the samba bands. I don't think I was very good, but that didn't seem to matter. It was all about being part of something back then.
I was so hoping that someone who was there would read this. I was there for when Bush visited and remember the same. And I had exactly the same thought, that the roar itself was conscious, almost like some enormous, invisible dragon moving through the crowds. It reminds me to this day of when you see movies like the Gladiator, the roar sound effects they use for the Colosseum cheers--that's the closest thing to it that I've heard (though the experience itself is entirely different of course).
I love that you joined the samba bands! They were such an important part of all those marches. My brother is a photographer and has amazing photos from that day, he's going to try to dig them out.
"May we all take on the work of rigorously examining the fixed ideas to which we have become attached." This introspection on a large scale seems so hopelessly impossible to me, Chloe. BUT -"I once kissed the hand of a dying woman with such sincerity that I swear the kiss contained an echo of every kiss ever given as though it were the last." This is one of the most beautiful lines I have ever read. Thank you.
Thank you for this.. for dipping in and out of the consciousness of the collective, the Goldfinch , the drum beats and harmonics - and for weaving them into your being and into this beautiful contemplation- thank you for the gift of your art and for the ways it merges into the consciousness of those who read and feel it... love you, tiny bird. 🐦 💗✨
It’s an act of rebellion and sanguinity to bring our one, precious consciousness into communion with another’s. It’s so simple, yet such a tiny miracle if I stop to think about it. And yay for unfixing our mind’s notions of how things ought to be! You probably knew I’d get behind that one.:)
"I very much like the idea of my consciousness uniting with these Goldfinches, so I have taken to stopping whatever I am doing when they appear. It makes for some disjointed conversations, but it is entirely worth it. Reality has a way of becoming particularly interesting when we gather up the entirety of ourselves and channel it toward a singular focus." Thank you, Chloe, for reminding us to break out of our everyday for the sake of what is right in front of our eyes!
I was reading this during a morning chat with my daughter & husband, and it reminded me to give my full attention to the beings around me, which made for a wonderful morning.
Yes. Thank you for this. It did stop me and resulted in this reply. Being stopped in you act so you consider some other way of knowing can be life changing. It can be simpler and feel safer as the limpet on the rock. But we can’t then grasp what we are missing. I worry about those MEGA limpets. Never easy to change minds. For the limpet it could be a pollution threat that robs them of safety. What can be a compassionate wake-up call for our species? I hope we find ones that work.
Yes! Thank you. It's so jarring, but so necessary. The mega limpets are many, and of course it's a way of life that's encouraged and promoted, almost the world over. I wish knew, in regards to the wake-up call, truly, but I hope for the same. Thank you so much for your thoughtful comment.
Beautiful, Chloe, every word, each thought, and whilst I love all that you do, I was particularly moved by this line:" I once kissed the hand of a dying woman with such sincerity that I swear the kiss contained an echo of every kiss ever given as though it were the last."💜
It is the best! I am extending a welcome to you if you are ever in my neck of the woods! I don’t know if I have shared with you that I was a critical care nurse in my previous life and that I have had lots of death, dying and suffering experience. It is a strange thing in that everyone has it happen through out their lives but it is rarely spoken about. I find it to be a beautiful thing and want to share with others but it is frowned upon. Weird. I am actively working on my wishes with my family. I watched a great movie the other night-Our Friend. It was really good and showed how fucking hard a good death is on everyone involved but how it is worth it. Keep up the good work and stop by anytime💕💕💕
Thank you so much, dear Heather. I remember you mentioning your experience as a critical care nurse some time ago, and you're absolutely right, it's a strange (and beautiful) thing indeed. I'm going to seek out Our Friend, that sounds like an important watch. And you'll of course be the first to know next time I'm in Colorado! 💗🤗💗
Wow, that last poem was splendid. I think about you often, being a doula, and I wonder if it is something I feel drawn to. I wasn't there when my father died, I arrived an hour later. But the time I spent with him as he died changed me. We spent many quiet hours together over his life, driving, sitting together and reading. And it ended quietly for us. I wish that for those who need it. You must be great at it.
I think you'd be very good at it, Jo. Those quiet last hours are a different kind of time. I'm really glad it ended peacefully, and I don't doubt that you contributed to that outcome 🤍
I'm neither poetic, nor a writer of grace, so vaguely self-conscious in my reactions to writing like this. But the persistent mystery of consciousness is now permitting some interesting and non-mystical enquiries into the possibilities that consciousness might possibly be a distributed phenomenon that is literally shared *between* beings. It's amusing to note that if you ask yourself if the most recent thought you had was really your own, it's impossible to empirically demonstrate that it was. Which plays into a longstanding suspicion that thoughts have us and not vice versa. There may be more (in a scientific context) to your sense of connection with those birds than you even intuit now. Amusingly, I feel it with trees too.
Thank you for sharing that, Mike. I can’t say I’d be that surprised if consciousness did turn out to be a shared phenomenon--and I think I’d find it quite a relief to discover that my thoughts weren’t entirely mine! It certainly makes me want to spend a lot more time amongst trees, though. Better to have 'ones' thoughts influenced by them than, well, all the alternatives…
Wrote this down, it tracks in my understanding of our interdependence 👣
"Which plays into a longstanding suspicion that thoughts have us and not vice versa. There may be more (in a scientific context) to your sense of connection with those birds than you even intuit now. Amusingly, I feel it with trees too."
YES!
Make sure you're sitting down - and then read Erik Hoel's recent piece headlined 'The egregore passes you by'.
Oh, blimey 🤯
As with David's posts, I pause and am reminded to pause. It is a lovely thing to read of the goldfinches and that you are noticing them. (A charm! Didn't know that was the collective noun for finches. Brilliant.) When we were just away, I would spend several minutes each morning deliberately watching the plantain squirrels dart across tree branches, taking the time to notice that I was noticing. Now I'm back at work and sucked into routine, I must remind myself to do that more (albeit in a far less exotic location, sans squirrels), so thank you for this morning reminder, Chloe 🙏
Thank you too for the quotes and beautiful poem.
A charm, or a ‘troubling’, or a ‘pantheon’--which I suppose speaks to their complex characters! I commend your pausing, Nathan. It’s an act of rebellion in this too busy world. I like that you’re noticing what it is that you notice. I’ve been thinking of it sometimes in quite animist terms, so thinking about what it is that my attention is ‘feeding’. It’s slowly making me a little more discerning. I really don’t want to feed the news cycle too much, for example, that is already a well-fed beast. Thank you, Nathan, for pausing & for reading 🙏
What an amazing selection of terms.
It makes me want to think of fictional collective nouns for how I think about specific animals.
You've just seeded an idea ... a little thought of a conversation in a story. If and when that emerges, all credit to you ;)
Excellent idea. We already do this, sometimes. Eg. 'A clusterfuck of worms'.
😅 so good.
A harrowing of pigeons.
A turnpike of buffalo (a what now).
A monsoon of centipedes.
A harrowing! Yes!
A lollop of golden retrievers.
A catastrophe of labradors.
A pillage of monkeys.
A miracle of long-tailed tits. 💗
😅👏
What an absolutely miraculous term!
🤔 hehehe. I'm fairly certain it'll be obvious for this one. If it eventuates, which I hope it will.
As you describe it, I can almost hear the hushed silence settling over the millions of people gathered in Trafalgar Square. Sadly, we are making wars faster than our ability to protest them. I love the poem you closed with. Ross Gay has a gift for capturing and illuminating moments like this.
It was quite a thing, to be surrounded by such a mass of people and for everyone to be silent. It's one of my earliest experiences of becoming aware of the ineffable, I think. Ross Gay's a genius and a saint. Wishing you a beautiful day, Ben.
Beautiful writing, beautiful day, beautiful you. 💕
It is a beautiful day and there is a beautiful Nadia in it, what more could anyone ask for! 💗
Oh Chloe!!! 😭☺️❤️
Beautiful, thank you. I'm in full favor of stopping everything to look at birds.
Thank you, Anne. Yes, it seems the sensible choice doesn't it!
It's lovely to read about this day again. I was 20 or 21. We had been going down to London for anti-war demonstrations since autumn 2001. But this one was different. You mention the wave of noise and I'm glad you did, because this was the first time I heard it (it happened again when Bush visited later in the year). It seemed to require a critical mass of people. Hundreds of thousands? Not a chant, but a roar, pulsating through the crowd. Like the crowd becoming conscious, becoming one thing. Like you and the goldfinches.
You heard drumming. I wasn't drumming that day, but shortly after I joined one of the samba bands. I don't think I was very good, but that didn't seem to matter. It was all about being part of something back then.
Thanks again for sharing.
I was so hoping that someone who was there would read this. I was there for when Bush visited and remember the same. And I had exactly the same thought, that the roar itself was conscious, almost like some enormous, invisible dragon moving through the crowds. It reminds me to this day of when you see movies like the Gladiator, the roar sound effects they use for the Colosseum cheers--that's the closest thing to it that I've heard (though the experience itself is entirely different of course).
I love that you joined the samba bands! They were such an important part of all those marches. My brother is a photographer and has amazing photos from that day, he's going to try to dig them out.
Thank you, Simon.
"May we all take on the work of rigorously examining the fixed ideas to which we have become attached." This introspection on a large scale seems so hopelessly impossible to me, Chloe. BUT -"I once kissed the hand of a dying woman with such sincerity that I swear the kiss contained an echo of every kiss ever given as though it were the last." This is one of the most beautiful lines I have ever read. Thank you.
Oh, Sharron, I know. But I hope even on a small scale would make some kind of difference. And thank you, so much, for your extremely kind words.
Wow - what a memory... beautiful story...
Is that crow on the payroll?
I was watching him outside, wondering if he was going to make himself known. His timing is pretty interesting. He gets paid in sunflowers seeds.
Thank you for this.. for dipping in and out of the consciousness of the collective, the Goldfinch , the drum beats and harmonics - and for weaving them into your being and into this beautiful contemplation- thank you for the gift of your art and for the ways it merges into the consciousness of those who read and feel it... love you, tiny bird. 🐦 💗✨
Hey thank you my sweetest love, for your special harmonics and for your eagle eyes and ears 🪶👁️💗
It’s an act of rebellion and sanguinity to bring our one, precious consciousness into communion with another’s. It’s so simple, yet such a tiny miracle if I stop to think about it. And yay for unfixing our mind’s notions of how things ought to be! You probably knew I’d get behind that one.:)
Amen and well said, Kimberly! And yes, I’ve thought of you more than once while reading this book :)
I have a half written email that should land in your inbox tomorrow 💗
"I very much like the idea of my consciousness uniting with these Goldfinches, so I have taken to stopping whatever I am doing when they appear. It makes for some disjointed conversations, but it is entirely worth it. Reality has a way of becoming particularly interesting when we gather up the entirety of ourselves and channel it toward a singular focus." Thank you, Chloe, for reminding us to break out of our everyday for the sake of what is right in front of our eyes!
Thank you, Sydney, for reading and for seeing!
I was reading this during a morning chat with my daughter & husband, and it reminded me to give my full attention to the beings around me, which made for a wonderful morning.
I love, Rain. Really, thank you for sharing that 🙏
Yes. Thank you for this. It did stop me and resulted in this reply. Being stopped in you act so you consider some other way of knowing can be life changing. It can be simpler and feel safer as the limpet on the rock. But we can’t then grasp what we are missing. I worry about those MEGA limpets. Never easy to change minds. For the limpet it could be a pollution threat that robs them of safety. What can be a compassionate wake-up call for our species? I hope we find ones that work.
Yes! Thank you. It's so jarring, but so necessary. The mega limpets are many, and of course it's a way of life that's encouraged and promoted, almost the world over. I wish knew, in regards to the wake-up call, truly, but I hope for the same. Thank you so much for your thoughtful comment.
Beautiful, Chloe, every word, each thought, and whilst I love all that you do, I was particularly moved by this line:" I once kissed the hand of a dying woman with such sincerity that I swear the kiss contained an echo of every kiss ever given as though it were the last."💜
Oh, Mya, I so appreciate you. That line was the most important one to me, too ♥️
I agree with Mya. That line truly got me. You inspire me to be a more loving, conscious person, Chloe. Thank you. ❤️
Al! You are so, so kind. Thank you. I feel blessed to be a student of the universe alongside you ❤️
It is the best! I am extending a welcome to you if you are ever in my neck of the woods! I don’t know if I have shared with you that I was a critical care nurse in my previous life and that I have had lots of death, dying and suffering experience. It is a strange thing in that everyone has it happen through out their lives but it is rarely spoken about. I find it to be a beautiful thing and want to share with others but it is frowned upon. Weird. I am actively working on my wishes with my family. I watched a great movie the other night-Our Friend. It was really good and showed how fucking hard a good death is on everyone involved but how it is worth it. Keep up the good work and stop by anytime💕💕💕
Thank you so much, dear Heather. I remember you mentioning your experience as a critical care nurse some time ago, and you're absolutely right, it's a strange (and beautiful) thing indeed. I'm going to seek out Our Friend, that sounds like an important watch. And you'll of course be the first to know next time I'm in Colorado! 💗🤗💗
Wow, that last poem was splendid. I think about you often, being a doula, and I wonder if it is something I feel drawn to. I wasn't there when my father died, I arrived an hour later. But the time I spent with him as he died changed me. We spent many quiet hours together over his life, driving, sitting together and reading. And it ended quietly for us. I wish that for those who need it. You must be great at it.
I think you'd be very good at it, Jo. Those quiet last hours are a different kind of time. I'm really glad it ended peacefully, and I don't doubt that you contributed to that outcome 🤍
Thanks.
Reverences and Roars, elegant.
I might send my next post to you before I publish it so you can write the title if that's ok, Kenneth