Saturday, March 2, 2013

Loving the Machine: More Riffing on "Re"




The scalepoint of re or le ascending – mechanicality – can be baffling at times, especially when the card or cards above it indicate something beneficial. “Mechanicality” refers to being on auto-pilot, to acting unconsciously, to being at the mercy of unconscious mechanisms within or around us: isn’t that inherently unfavorable? In the upward trajectory that begins with intent, isn’t mechanicality, our waking sleep, the foil? The degree to which we are self-aware correlates directly to our ability to realize intent: how can auto-pilot be good?

Unconscious mechanisms start out as conscious, or semi-conscious, responses. A child who is berated for asserting themselves, as a simplistic example, may grow into an adult who is either timid or overly assertive; and they probably won’t know it and if they do they won’t know why; and this behavior may consistently undermine their efforts. Their initial response was not a bad thing – it was a survival tactic that became a belief that became a behavior. Along the way, dozens of experiences and observations are used to bolster that belief, and new beliefs and behaviors are unconsciously adopted based on the first... what we end up with, of course, is an adult who believes and behaves in ways they consider their own, but are not. In an ascending scale, in an intentional process, this is what re is: we jump out of the gate all gung-ho with our intention at do, and the first thing we run into is what we’ve unknowingly become. 

Now we can really get lost here – we can simply ignore re and power through with our intention – and watch it not materialize. Re often shows up as a getting-stuck point, a place where we keep trying and it keeps not working. But we have an opportunity at re, an opportunity to see: acknowledging this glimpse afforded us, we can undertake the next scalepoint, mi, the point of conscious effort, with something new in our pocket. By that time, of course, the glowing intention we set at do has taken on a new flavor; that’s what  fa, so, la, and ti are about, the depth and breadth of our intent that we couldn’t yet see at do

But back to our initial question: what happens when there’s beneficial cards over re? Well, not all unconscious mechanisms are bad – sometimes survival tactics actually help us survive. Say our child, for example, puts their hand on a hot stove – forming an unconscious response around that experience is probably a good thing. Spending one’s whole life unconsciously avoiding bare-handed encounters with the blistering hot? Nothing wrong with that – sometimes our beliefs serve us well. They still need to be seen, of course – that’s why they’re hanging out at re. But sometimes the view is nice. Recently, a Unison of Brass showed up in a casting over re: an unconscious tendency toward collaboration, toward working well with others. It’s good to see that – maybe sometimes you need to work alone. But it’s a wonderful thing to have.

We – or I, anyway – tend to be pretty unforgiving when it comes to unconscious behaviors. “Wake up, fool!” It’s important to note that this harshness is itself an unconscious behavior, a judgment. We need to be nice to the machine – we are here, after all. That which is unconscious is as sacred as the rest. Aho. 



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