From The Archives: If something clicks in the forest, am I the only one who heard it?

"Into the forest" fractal art by
Padley Wood

[First posted 3/20/06]

Reader, W.E., experienced a “click” when reading about the edge of butterfly consciousness, and describes it:

“It was like -- Of course! Consensual reality (and dreams of such) is the illusion. Reality (capital R) is what I already know (before and beyond words) within.

“And what keeps us desiring this consensual reality is the fear not only of the death of our little individual ego life, but the fear of confronting our own Individuality and power of Realization of Reality. We are afraid of our Individuality because our little egos tell us we'll be all alone and that we're better off continuing to pursue the dream of consensual reality (where we'll at least be surrounded by warm bodies and hope of better things); but this consensual reality never actually happens -- it's the carrot held in front of all of human history and each individual life.

“This transition from consensual reality to Individuality spans the void muttered so often in the spiritual tradition.”

Thanks W. E.

We all “know” — that is, knowing is the experienceing of our Being on a certain, non-language level. Our beingness. Not who we are, but that we are. That has no name. Thus, that is also this. Thou Art That. This is the feeling of “I Am” or Self-Realization — the conscious experience of having awareness of Self -– not self, or ego mind’s rendition of Self — but of the ever-present presence of one’s aliveness.

This aliveness is always there, whether or not we are aware of it, even as we drift in and out of the collective dream in awareness of it, it remains, for it is all there is. To consciously connect with it is to connect with the infinite potentialities that are the corridors of consciousness through which we travel.

The collective dream is like a cluster of frog’s eggs, connected, sharing, seemingly one, but full of potential individualities slowly growing until each can swim free on its own, exploring its own Universe.

The collective survives while imitating that which it non-consciously intuits — which is the potential Individual — which exists past/present/future, or all at once — of which we are each but a developing bud. The collective lives, consciously or not, in anticipation of becoming an Individual. Not a collective of individuals, but an Individual of collectives.

When a bud — or, really, a spark of light — reaches the threshold — or edge — of consensual reality, it has begun to wake up. There is beginning awareness that it is the source of light of its personal experience — which is its Universe. It is its own light — and because it an inseparable part of its Source, begins to comprehend and see that it is also its own Source. This experience is one that belongs to it alone as well, and here we have the seeming paradox that the one is many, the many, one. It depends on one’s perspective, which shifts, at first, willy-nilly, suggesting chaos. This “chaos” is a kind of Brownian Motion,⁽¹⁾ where the sparks are colliding chaotically around, everyone flying around with different velocities, creating more motion, raising the “temperature” (energy) and more light. The butterfly begins to transform into a firefly, bringing forth and carrying its own energy of self-awareness to light the edge of the forest — and now able to venture into the forest! But only if it hasn't been caught and placed into a jar!

Brownian Motion is still being studied and researched, and many technologies utilize the theory without understanding it fully. In this century, the theory has been combined with fractal theory.⁽²⁾ (It might have been noticed that this blog uses a lot of computer-generated fractal designs and art — choices arising not out of chaos, FYI.)

The Individual cannot have the experience of “sharing”⁽³⁾ its individuality unless there is “other” — thus there is the realm of collective, which allows the budding, growing, flowering Individual to experience sharing. The notion of “sharing” is an illusion — we share whether we realize it or not, whether we note it or not. The realization — that is, making real — of sharing with our Self is an infinitely expanding experience of ecstasy.⁽⁴⁾ It’s very exciting! So there is also the rising desire to share this experience, to manifest novelty, to expand it, to make it more, to go forth and multiply.⁽⁵⁾ However, as an Individual, we cannot do this without manifesting as individuals. A major aspect of Self-Realization is that nobody but I can experience I as I experience I. This is the One and Only Great Gift graced upon us by our Creator Source — and is as close as we each will ever come to knowing our Creator Source — by our resonance with Its resonance. The Gift is our Self. In essence, we come to experience Giving Our Self to Our Self. The mystery of aliveness will always remain a mystery to experience and to explore, forever.

When there is Self-Realization of one's Individuality, even the tiniest bit, a new and profound sense — serenity — arises. This sense is a true relaxation into one's aliveness, immortality and unique Divinity. Out of this relaxation may arise the desire (a novelty) to experience and journey with other Individuals, to share the graceful mysteries of Life. The ecstasy of this togetherness, this sharing, cannot be arrived at, or forced, nor achieved — any more than it could be said that a seemingly insignificant and dusty little seed, after being placed in the ground for a time, arrives at, forces, or achieves that state of sunflower.

"Midnight Vineyard" fractal image by Sarah Scotland.

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⁽¹⁾ Brownian Motion is a sophisticated random number generator, based on a process in plants discovered by Robert Brown in 1827. He found that small particles suspended in a fluid were in continuous movement and thus, described it as Brownian motion. Brownian Motion is one of very few things that truly cannot be predicted, in other words, it is genuinely random.
⁽²⁾ The concept ‘fractal’ (short for “fractional dimension”) was introduced by IBM researcher Benoit B. Mandelbrot nearly two decades ago. Expressed in its simplest form, ‘fractals’ refer to images in the real world which tend to consist of many complex patterns that recur at various sizes. Mandelbrot proposed the fractal as a way to cope with problems of scale in the real world. It gets pretty complicated from here, but it might help to understand that it’s a kind of scaling process that proposes how the world builds up from the quantum/atomic level of reality into the reality we see and partake of on our scale — trees, their leaves and branches; clouds, storms, waves of the ocean — all manifest designs.
⁽³⁾ Sharing is in quotations to show it as an implied concept, not a fact of Reality; that is, it’s part of the game of consensual reality. “Game” = “play” as in “creative” as in “fun.”
⁽⁴⁾ “Realization” means “to make real” or “to bring into reality” – or, as we in the Risen know would say “manifest as real.” Now what does that mean? “Real” is from Late Latin realis, from Latin res – “thing” (and readers of this blog hopefully understand that “things” are “manifestations”), from Latin re – “backward” or “again” — conceivably (but maybe not) from Indo-European *wret-, metathetical variant of *wert-, to turn (< “turned back”). To bring into reality (wherein we believe we reside) is to manifest some thing within the collective and individual dream. However, we, the sparks, who are not things, are brought into Reality not by our selves, but by Our Self.
⁽⁵⁾ “And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.” (Genesis, Chapter 9, verse 7.) This is found in the story of Noah and the Ark, one of the greatest metaphysical stories in the Bible. Metaphysically, Noah means calm, peace and balance. The ark symbolizes a container or conveyer of consciousness, the carrier of life, an abode or a vessel for preservation, with a conscious awareness guiding it. Water in this instance reflects the psychic aspects of consciousness — psychic phenomena, magic, astrology and so forth. We can be inundated by the ego-mind’s illusory abilities (magic). To explore or dwell in this level of consciousness is to become lost in an oceanic dream of non-reality. The story of the flood, then (very briefly) means that the Noah consciousness must rise above the psychic aspects of ego-consciousness. It is, as E.W. discovered, “spanning the void” above the magical mutterings of the ego-consciousness. The question remains, perhaps: Who's holding the carrot?