Bandwidths are waves we can ride to the Sea

Another aspect of looking at our perceived reality can be illucidated using the metaphor of bandwidths on a radio. I appreciate the way Sarah explains that social agreements (even agreements we do not consciously acknowledge that we are maintaining) can create a tension, what she describes as truths and lies. I perceive this a little differently.

I understand the model that we live in a binary plane. We like to structure our bandwidth and say, “This is true, this is false.” It has been done perhaps since we began communication with one another…and to its credit, this practice gives us a range of scope in which we can focus (until someone sees beyond it…

Yet, I do not see this as the deeper or broader reality. I return to the bandwidth metaphor. I once rented an art studio in New Mexico. When I moved in there was a little radio clock that the previous tenant had left. It was such a cute compact object, that I have taken it with me throughout many moves across the U.S. I tend to like to listen to National Public Radio in the morning, which existed somewhere in the high 80’s on the FM band. As I traveled from place to place, I found that what I was picking up was different from place to place. Also, I noticed that I could often find some station that transmitted NPR somewhere in the high 80’s or low 90’s, and I experienced many cultural ‘flavors’ as I drove across the U.S., by listening to smaller radio stations (ones that did not play the same syndicated programming throughout the entire U.S). In each bandwidth I experienced alternate transmissions. To add to this range, I have also had the pleasure to experience transmission from highly powerful short wave radios, which can pick up signals from other countries, when the wind is just right.

So, I see our agreements, once again, intimately connected and interdependent on our ability to see, to focus, and to be aware that the universe is unlimited. I no longer can believe that there are truths and untruths. There are differences of opinion, variations in perception, in ’seeing’, or to respect the metaphor, in “hearing’.

A brash statement. There is only truth. Yet, I am making it, based on my observations, as one who enjoys riding the waves. My friend Jeremiah used to say that everything is fiction. It took me years to understand his gaze. I came to embrace it and then I transformed that into something that was more accepting.

I will love to delve into the minutia of this metaphor, why we make certain stations appear in certain radio waves, how our reality is influenced by the type of radio we listen to, what happens in those radio free zones, you know the ones I am talking about? Does time really stop, or is it too big to fit into our limited view of the time-space continuum?

But I seem to like to end my little comments with questions. I’d love to hear whether it piques your curiosity.

ciao for now,

Karen, a.k.a, Bella

What is a social bandwidth?

Hey,

Thanks for the comments. I am learning how to navigate this site.

What is a social bandwidth? Good question. Here is my short answer. I’ll write more later.

As a member of a society, I agree to follow certain rules. For instance, if I am driving and I come to a stop sign, I stop. I have agreed to follow the rules of driving, as set forth by the state government.

Now, this is pretty much how I form my reality as well, as a member of that same society. Yet, the agreements I follow can be by conscious choice, or by subconscious agreement, or by generational, tribal and/or genetic ‘agreement’. I can see this will be difficult to describe in a short comment…

…but for now let me give an example or two.

When I was living in the suburbs as a young girl, the adults raised money to build a baseball field in the empty lot right behind my house. There was great excitement about creating a space where the children could have a place to focus their energy and play a sport, rather than starting fires, which was what happened with great frequency in the empty lot (and probably a few other activities as well). So we all watched as the tall wild grasses were plowed and the diamond was dug out, the building of a neighborhood play venue.

I saved up my money and bought myself a glove. I oiled it, and practiced clutching my hand over rolled up socks, and rocks and whatever I could find.
Then the day came. The baseball diamond was sparkly new, ready to be christened. My brother and a group of his friends gathered at our back yard and jumped the fence, commencing to put together an informal game of baseball.

I watched from the dining room window, and then went upstairs to get my new glove. I walked to the back of our yard, climbed over the fence and walked out onto the field.

My brother hollered from the dugout. “What are you doing?” “I’m going to play”, I responded. The boys looked at one another, a moment of pause, then laughter. “You can’t play, you’re a girl.” A big and fat boy, whose name I have long forgotten, picked me up and threw me back over the fence, my glove still on my hand.

I cried. I went back into the house. I told my mother what had happened. She listened. I thought she would go out and tell them to let me play. But she didn’t. She explained that girls don’t play baseball. I kept crying and repeating, “it’s not fair.” My mother’s response was, “Life isn’t fair.”

So this was reality when I was 8. Years later, when my sister was 7, girls were able to join little league, a baseball league for elementary school aged children. She and my younger brother both played in the league. My sister did not know the reality that I had known. The social reality had changed.

There are many ways that our experience of reality enter us, and often they come in ways that we may not detect with our conscious mind. I will write more about some of these ways, that I have observed. This simple example is one I think we can all see as a parallel for experiences in our lives. As time unfurls, human rights ebb and flow. In hindsight we can intellectually say, this was given, this was taken away. Yet, when we are living it in the moment, it is our social reality. Many of us will accept such mores as reality, will say, “this is the way it is.” Some of us, like that little girl who simply could not understand why girls did not play baseball… will question it, and occasionally confront and change it.

I must end for now…but leave you with something to ponder. When there is an inner tension inside you. You believe that reality is one way, yet in your body there is a tension. You can not align with this reality. Has this ever happened to you? Have you ever questioned its validity? Have you ever dreamed of changing?

Reality is a bandwidth, what’s your channel?

Hi.

I have been in this inquiry into the ways people construct the social bandwidth we call reality. Also, selfishly, I have been wanting to understand what it means to find myself, walk my path, manifest my destiny.

So here is a smattering of little bubbles of revelations, chronicles of my intermittent search, and a baby step toward sharing myself with others.

As a child I used to astral travel in my sleep, and all throughout my life I have been sensitive to what I call other realms of existence, as well as subtleties of my own environment. As I grew older, I was relieved to find that the bandwidth, the ‘reality channel’, changes with region, culture, religion and across history. Being a somewhat logical yet intuitive thinker, I understood that ‘reality’ is a social agreement. Nonetheless, this intellectual awareness did not diminish my discomfort of feeling like an outcast in a culture that did not agree to accept what I saw right in front of me.

Through the years I have met people with whom I share some of the same sensitivities and abilities. What a relief! Finding ‘kindred’ certainly facilitated my further growth and development, but I can not say that even these temporary communities helped me to gain enough confidence to accept my own perceptions. I have always envisioned myself a freak, and my associations with other ‘freaks’ did not necessarily help me to see how my gifts of vision had any personal or social usefulness or purpose. When a culture agrees that something does not exist, it also takes away its validity and its necessary employment within that same society.

So, basically I have felt an inner tension about being ’sensitive’ or ‘deep’ or ‘intense’, words people have repeatedly used to describe and often disarm me. For some reason, this is how I felt other people’s reactions, as forms of attack.

I share this about myself, because I now realize, pardon my using a word that sounds so similar to the topic, that my experience of feeling like a freak and feeling like I am being attacked for telling my story is a commonplace experience. I am not suggesting that everyone has been in this space, I am reporting that I have met thousands of people who have been there, and who exist there, or shall I say here?

In other ways I have crossed the line (what line?). I have acted as a highly functioning member of work groups, creative groups, as a teacher, student, partner, ensemble member. I love the collaborative dynamic, especially when there is a unifying intention of building something. Yet, I have often felt ravenously hungry and malnourished, as my inner world and vision was not being called upon. My inner and outer experiences became so dichotomized that I began to categorize everything inside myself as one world, and what was happening via earthly social agreements as the ’surface world’. When I felt unable to thrive on the surface, I retreated to the caves.

Now I am telling you very personal stuff, but I have come to believe that it is better to share my most intimate stories to the public at large. When I have revealed these aspects of myself in personal/intimate relationships, the negative and fearful reactions have hurt me. This is another dichotomous situation that I am working diligently to shift, but you gotta go with where you are and what you know.

This is where I am going, with today’s little salty appetizer of what I am presently seeing as the nature of reality.

Gastric juices awaken, I will leave the main course for another day. It would be good if we take some time to get to know one another.

One of my ’sensitivities’ is that I am able to ’see’ energy, and even as a young child I experienced other people’s ‘dis-ease’ when touching them, being in the room with them or as a thought popping into my head. As way leads on to way, I eventually studied various forms of bodywork which helped me to understand, structure and refine, what I am now calling my palpation skills. Several years ago I began my training as a Certified Core Synchronism Practitioner. This work has been monumental in helping me to be more and more effective to see disharmony in the body and facilitate relaxation and the healing response, It has also been one of my most profound teachers in the reality quest.

When I put my hands on a person’s body, I am following protocols that look for relationships of subtle movements in the bodymind. Over the years I have developed my palpation skills so that I can perceive 5, 10, 15 movements at the same moment, without moving my hands. Feeling these movements in my hands has been a factor that has improved my acceptance of my own gifts. Perceiving subtle energies through the physical sense of touch continues to build a bridge between my inner world and outer worlds. It has also been of great value to convene with dozens of peers every year and be reminded that there is an ever growing community of people who actively practice the development of their sensitivities, who contribute their skills to society and who are employed to do this.

So the bodywork and my personal integration work has been seeping some kinds of new awareness into my mundane get up and go to work meet people and socialize stand in line at the grocery store and wonder what it all means parts of life.

Basically, this is what I see today. Everyone is right, real and essential. All realities exist. Reality is limitless.

This sounds exhausting. Doesn’t it? What to do?

Focus.

To go back to the example of the Core Synchronism, in my training, I have expanded my vision. I have learned to feel things that five years ago I didn’t even know existed. That’s golden. When I am working with a client, there is usually a presenting symptom, or complaint, such as a headache, neurolgical imbalance, you know aches and pains. So, I focus on movements that I have been taught may relate to that symptom. I am able to feel 15, but I may only focus on 4-5, as they relate to that client’s presentation.

Yes, it is obvious that this is how we do our work, but remember, this is a story about the nature of reality.

So, what I see now is that we are all these little worlds, spiraling around each other like atoms. If I were to zoom out I would see the universe, in its limitless dynamic beauty. This idea is not new or extreme. It is reflected in the origins of most spiritual practices. What I understand now is that as one of those worlds, my existence is an integral part of the universe. My unique way, my visions and perceptions and contributions keep the universe alive, as do everyone’s. If I express my SELF, I thrive (a concept and way that is greatly beyond health, maintenance and paying the bills). If I thrive the universe thrives. It is pretty, much and simple…

…and it has taken me decades to feel this truth, like the grains of sand at the margent of the sea, through my fingers.

Assuming that you can fathom this truth, how does this relate to manifest destiny? Well, this is a very good way to start the ball rolling, don’t you think?

I was indoctrinated into the Catholic church. I was taught that there is a god who lives outside of me that knows the truth and reveals the truth. Skip ahead thirty some years… and now I see that I am an essential being, a member of the universe. The truth or nature of reality is being created by me, and everyone else.Of course we want to make group agreements. Yet, too often these agreements forget that everyone is included.

My destiny is to listen to my self, to find and express my unique reflection of reality, a highly creative and artistic act, while also associating with others and choosing which group agreements I will enter. The more I relate to others, the more of the dyanmic puzzle of the universe I see and hence have at my disposal. The focus on self does not deny everyone else. I present my SELF, like the symptoms that clients bring with them. This is what I am focusing on.

What a simple way, yet a very complex labrinth of twists and turns to have even gotten to this understanding.

And this is where I will leave you for now. I hope you accept this fodder to chew, digest, fill your belly, or whatever.