Approaching the Land

We live in a world, among people and animals and plants and streams and rocks and all manner of things.  So we know where we live, right?  We have a working knowledge of the place we live?  You would think so, but this is far from a certainty.  How we approach it, or don't, determines both out experience of it and our knowledge of it.  What do you truly know about the world around you?  How do you approach the world around you?  How do you approach the Land?

I would postulate that there are three main ways people approach the world around them.  These might be a bit oversimplification, or they might adequately describe the human approach.  My observation shows them to be fairly encompassing.

1) To Let the World Happen to You

In my observation, this is the most common.  It is an approach of not approaching.  Most people don't approach the world, they let the world approach them.  They go through life just trying to go through life, and learn of the world by how it collides with them, often in cross purposes to how they are trying to go through life.  Their experience of the world is that of opposition, that which is trying to stop them, delay them, irritate them, upset them.  As such, the world outside their skin becomes the enemy, something to fight against, the strive against.  Whole religious doctrines have been built off this view of the world, and are a result of choosing not to approach the world, to let the world happen to you.

2) To Seek What is Known to You

This approach is a very academic approach. You start with what you know, what you've learned, what you believe, what you think is true.  Your truth.  You take that idea, and look for the proof in the world around you.  If you find it not to be true, find proof that it isn't true, or don't find it where you expect to, you refine your idea, research a new idea, or come up with a new truth.  Rinse and repeat.  This is an abstract and symbolic way of approaching the world, because you start with something abstract or symbolic, something you believe to be Truth but don't have the experience yet to apply, then test it and find what it looks like, or doesn't look like, in the world around you.  Much of the application of scientific method uses this approach, where the theory starts in the abstract and in equations or calculations, and is then tested to see if it is true.  A lot of market research also takes this approach.

Unlike the first approach, this approach sees the world as a test bed, not as an enemy.  The world becomes that which will aid me in refining my Truth, distilling it down to its essence.  Truth becomes the driving force, and both that within my skin and without becomes the tools to obtain it.

3) To Observe the World and Find What It Teaches

The third approach is to assume nothing.  Presume you don't know anything and go out to see what the world will show you and tell you.  This doesn't mean dismissing what you know or not taking it into account, but observing the world and using it to understand what you already know.  Instead of, I know the he East means this, so what does that tell me about it, this approach is to say, if I knew nothing about the East, and I look to it and think about it and observe what is there, what would I see, and what would that tell me about what I already know or think I know?  Instead of, this is a green ash and I know these things about ash trees so how does that apply to what I'm seeing, this approach is to say, I know this is an ash, but if I did not and if I knew nothing about it, what would I see before me now, what would I learn, then, what does that say and show me about what I already knew?

In this approach, the world isn't the enemy nor the test bed, it's the teacher, showing us what is truly there.  Our Truth is refined and distilled as a byproduct rather than the goal, the goal it to know the world, the Land, around us, to understand our place in it, and to learn what it would teach whether that is relevant to what we already knew or thought we knew or isn't.

You can likely tell from my wording my thoughts on each approach, but I want to be clear, none of them are bad.  We each approach the world the way we know and can, though if aware of how we do, we have the option of changing it.  These three approaches are all acceptable approaches, and the results aren't necessarily better or worse than each other, just different.  It depends a lot where you want to go in life and what you are comfortable with.

That said, the third approach is the one I tend to recommend, the one I encourage when asked, and the one I try to take for myself.  The results of it are the results I want in my life and in the world around me, and results I'm biased for when encouraging others.

What is your heart, where do you want to go, what do you want out of life, the world, the Land?

FFF,
~Muninn's Kiss

All knowledge is not taught in one shed: My thoughts on books, oral teaching, and experience

I'm a firm believer that there is truth and things to learn in everything, even crap.  And by crap, I mean many "occult" books that which are being published lately.  And my "occult" (verses, say, occult), I mean things that claim to be secret or new but are just rewording of a thousand books mass produced before them.  Even in the shallowest, fluffiest, most full of plagiarism and dribble book, there is still truth and still things to learn, because even the most unoriginal and unimaginative person in the world is still led by the Muses once in a while, and will hit on truth and "secrets" and things worth learning unintentionally and often unaware.  I would of course rather read an author for whom that is the norm than the exception, but no book is without a nugget of truth for those that have eyes to see and ears to hear.  Though, that doesn't mean it's often worth the time to read the dribble to find it.

Point being, learning from a book, or a teacher, or the spirits, or anything, relies on the one learning more than anything.  You can't teach a rock to fly, you can just throw it and see if it can avoid hitting the ground.  The author may only produce dribble, but the right reader could find the secrets of the universe in the book (to quote Men in Black, "I promised you the secrets of the universe, nothing more.").  An author could be inspired and breathe the most profound truths into every sentence and the wrong reader might throw it away as nonsense.

Of course, on the other hand, it was fairly recent that the verb that is now our English "to learn" became the action of the student.  Even into the early 19th century, the usage was "He learned me to do it", not "I learned it from him."  A teacher, or author, imparts truth to the student, or reader, breathing that truth into them.  The teacher, or author, does the action, the student, or reader, only receives.  Receiving that truth is passive, teaching or writing it is active.  But, to passively receive something, you must be open to it.  Holding a fist in the air does not allow someone to give you a cup of water, but holding an open hand out in the air does.

This is what I mean above.  When I read, I read in a way that's open to receive whatever truth was breathed into it, intentionally and consciously or unintentionally and unconsciously.  I experience the truth in the book.  Same thing when I go out into the world.  When I stand on the top of a mountain 10,000 feet above sea level with the wind whipping through my hair, the solid rock under my feet, I'm open to receive what the spirits of that place want to teach me.  When I draw a circle, call to the spirits I work with and invite them, and perform a rite, I'm open to what the spirits and the rite has to teach me.  Reading a book really isn't different from learning from experience, it's just a different medium.

The key is to be open to it, and not make it your only source of truth.  There's a saying in Hawai'ian, "a'ohe pau ka 'ike i ka ha lau ho'okahi", basically "all knowledge is not taught in one shed."  This stems from a period when spiritual teachers in Hawai'i would teach in the three sided sheds that were common, to anyone who came to them.  The point being, each teacher teaches differently, and teaches different things.  The same is true here.  There are things best learned from a book, but things you can never learn from a book.  There are things best taught orally, teacher to student, and things that can never be passed through oral language.  There are things best taught only by experience, and things you can't learn from experience alone.  The moment you limit yourself to one source of knowledge, understanding, and wisdom is the moment you limit your knowledge, understanding, and wisdom.

A'ohe pau ka 'ike i ka ha lau ho'okahi.

FFF,
~ Muninn's Kiss