When I hear talk of "The Four Directions" I hear that to mean 'classic talk of integration.'
To me, the four directions are the classic and universal way to refer to our place between heaven and earth. Slicing through space as if it was a pizza is a wonderful metaphor allowing one to see one's self as perfectly at the center of the universe, and perfectly aligned with heaven and earth at whatever 'attitude' one choses or 'is at' when pondering. There's just one problem with it..
Slicing things like a pizza, talking about god-father-mother-sun as one thing with four faces and an up and down only works so far for me. It works great in three dimensions when I remember that 'below' represents interior dimensions and that 'above' represents exterior dimension mirrored in those interior realms, but this thinking always suffers from being somewhat metaphorical and keeps one 'once removed'. Until one masters the system, that is. And you _can figure it out.
As you must have seen in your first reading of brochures about the mysteries, there is a 'person to person' angle built into their mastery. I'd like you to keep that oddity in mind, that someone one person is not quite 'enough' to 'get it'. This 'it' is ultimately about Self-Transcendence and learning to speak and function healthily once you work it out. In between being a touch-stone, the model is just a model.
This story is all about 'how' I think they really work.
I say that because in my reading I have discovered that all the creation stories I've come accross can be visualized as taking place in and giving rise to the simplest solid object:
When I visualize that object while reading such stories, say about creation or living inside the four-quadrants, I 'know' the shape of the story and can appreciate it in a deeper way.
"Maya!" you will cry, "getting what you expect", cries another. Perhaps. But is it error? No, I do not think that there's error in this choice of method. As long as reason is subtle and no ideas or concepts are mistreated using a reference object is not only right, I think it's 'proper' to subtly reference and guide one's thinking. In software design for example we have a pool of Design Patterns with known properties that allow you to immediately and correctly think through representation, form and function based on past experience. There is even a science of Anti-Patterns summarizing things that won't ever work. Generally, the field of Systemantics has much to teach one there about the generic and intrinsic life of systems and how they 'show up' in the lives of those they touch.
Are the insights incorrect from using your solid? Application is identical to the model of 'squared flatness' with an 'up/down' movement, yet the conception and modeling of the movement is orders more capable than the ordinary classic projection. There is also 'solid' mathematics available from electricity that works qualitatively as the god-models do. But you go figure.
In the back of you mind, remember that I would use the tetrahedron to model the four quadrants with. Why will soon become clear.
Looks like you can keep the medicine-wheel oriented as is the Wilber model I use elsewhere. The color-differences would indicate the difference in mindsets between culture as understood and modeled by the Sioux & Navajo Cultures and my own, which uses different colors.SOUTH WHITE UL UR EAST RED WEST BLACK LL LR NORTH YELLOW
Qualitatively this would point me to the ( UL-RED & White ) connection. I would think about how our conception of 'spirit' might get in the way of a 'direct source'. Look at tokens from their culture 'colored' in that light.
In the same way I'd think about ( UR-YELLOW & Red ).. about how War starts in the mind, about the sanity of praying for greater understanding. ( LL-BLUE & Black ) the solid realm of mystery through which we discriminate both spirit and source. That's a perfectly fine use of color. ( LR-GREEN & Yellow ) About mind arising from physical matter, but not just any mind, the ability to reason and discern sweetly models the closeness to nature inherent in the american indian perspective for the symbol of the medicine wheel to have oriented us qualitatively and 'substantively' toward a pattern which we can test and explore experientially in exploring the feel of both perspectives.
Here are some 4 quadrant decorating tips even. We'll go to many length to define our relation to the cardinal points and if that is not an indicator of an inner and outer set of forces trying to meet and consciously relate, then I don't know what would be. People are and have been obsessed with how to orient in space, both inner and outer, and who's to say that space is not trying to do the same!
Here is a basic 'space making' meditation that sums up many of the essential classic concerns. This fuzzy language may make you uncomfortable. It does me. But its a good place to start. MUCH Simpler than the mystical version is this Buddhist meditation. Joan Borysenko sifts out the nuances here. There's more, but armed with Joan's work, you can see what the Matthews piece was combining for you. But combining is not nescessarily the same as integrating.
Philosophically, we're not quite at a stage where we're applying what math tells us about the basics. Not the fancy math, but not even the simplest and most rudimentary equations are taught with a view on how their structure has held or has the potential to hold and represent thought from other planes.
So, perhaps for funding reasons, the intuitively link utilized by inner directed folks and cultures from all over the world was cut from science. Oh, we make allusions to placate, but the numbers of students indoctrinated without the cluesheet about qualitative math outnumbered those that learned it. Over time polarity developing accross this rift sorted people into inners and outers without there being much support for the center.
They do not have a unifying symbol around which to disagree. Instead, their dialogue is fragmentary and much of their tangible world broken. In an integrated world this will all be different. There will be a unified and or unifying symbol embedding the integrative meme as clearly and lucidly as the symbols for biohazard or radioactive would.
For the meantime, I see us continuing the sorting process that started with the initial electrification of the world. I synopsize it as
Seeing ourselves as coming from:
It could be said that we're watching the epic battle between the forces of(swords, circles and crosses)
and(PR, global-influence, corporate-enslavement) (think locally, dominate globally)
So, knowing that it's either end, the global mind now seems to encourage integral thought in new forms. Its my conviction that we need integral laws, thoughtforms and models to communicate that. I also believe the our ancestors were absolutely right. They kept it simple first.(value, service, tetrahedrons) (think globally, dominate locally)
It's spread into new materials with the advent of the transistor and its brought us computing. Electricity, that is, the direct and alternating current. Its brought us Three Dimensional Modeling over 30 years ago around the same time that some people started ruminating about integral theory
We're now due for an entirely new generation of computing technology to arrive at our doorsteps with the next generation of gaming consoles. A mindboggling 8 special purpose computer wired together will deliver the just about the greatest 3d simulations we can imagine for the screen.
Three Dimensional modeling grew to full maturity in the 80s and the 90's were already about movies and animation, physics engines and 3D has been solved at around the right time (assuming a doubling of the speed of penetration with each layer) and with new hardware coming to signal yet another level in breakthrough's perhaps its ok if we got together and made it possible to presented thousands of years of work done with limited vocabularies and projection techniques as seen through modern eyes.
Chaining from 3D to vision, to visualizing, I notice something common in the mysteries again. This is another one of those 'best to grok with another person things', but I'll try to paint you a picture. But first we have to name something.
... See, there you are practicing visualization.. or say you practice noticing what's on your mind.. or you catch a scene, a mood popping in during the day, as you're doing something.. I'd like to call that 'a visual'. You can have them anytime, or rather, perhaps we can agree on that, you have them all the time but you don't notice or don't care to notice them all the time, ok? yes? Ok then, that's 'a visual' and a 'visual backdrop' for you. the backdrop is there anytime, for anything, but lets say we dont see or notice it if you're uncomfortable with the idea. if you get more comfortable with the idea that there is stuff to notice all around you (its obvious, really, no?) all the material on Visual thinking out there will make a lot of sense suddenly.
Ok.. so, long story, what's the point?
The point is that you need to practice doing this in reverse!
Do this with people. In a glance, see them front and back and from the sides. Literally perceive people as being space-occupying 3d beings. with layers. of layers. with complexities and nuances making them unique. You can do this in a glance and establish the 3D rapport.
THAT is what visualization externalized means. and does. THIS is how the upper left externalizes what the upper right locks-down with words or brainwaves or whatever level you want to take this to.
Until you pause to look at every tree you see from front and back and sides by simply getting into the habbit of giving it mental room to exist it will be hard to do that with people. So start on the next lower kingdom of 'inanimate matter' and just look around. See the back of every picture-frame, the insides of your drawers, the contents of your bag, the insides of your shower... Experimentally give space to every house on your block, every appartment in your building. Imagine the walls .. or rather.. LET the walls come at you.
The Technique is to ACKNOWLEDGE, ASK, RAPPORT, CLOSURE.
ACKNOWLEDGE - hi, anyone home in the kingdom of x?
ASK - i'd like to check with the right guy about the state of things
RAPPORT - ok, i'll hold and embrace you by listening
CLOSURE - thanks, appreciate the counsel.
ACKNOWLEDGE - hey house ahead
ASK - what you look like from the rear?
RAPPORT - wow, is that a shower on the garage?
CLOSURE - thanks, nice knowing you.
Visual thinking is simultaneous. It's different from 'thinking thinking'
and produces an entirely different set of experiences in the observer
and the observed than 2D modes of perception do.
This is the second fastest way I know to teach this. The other one requires some gadgetry. Either will give your UL perceptions a great workout which may well be raising your intelligence, or at least educate some of the facilities of discernement. Of course you will want to cross-train perceiving depth with whatever your dominant speciality is. (Ohm's law will have a multiplicative formula combining fire with element
This is of course the same thing everything from Aikido to Zen comes at you with philosophically, the notion that we affect outcome by how we are inside. They all go on to say that 'noticing what actually is' and 'knowing the qualities of each thing' enables the deep organic life in us to automagically serve up the proper response, life to life, all the time. Most if not all the conventional cautions can be summed up as being against collapse into the 2d world of illusions and reflections.
And now you have a meditation to 'make space' with. Apply it / Give space to people when you're in difficult situations and see options unfold out of nowhere!
A glimpse into the Yi Jing |
All the axes from 2d are retained |
See, ultimately its observation like this one about the I-ching that make me map things to the tetrehedron and its mirror-twin. I can only point to diagramming and interior modeling difference to justify erecting this 3D model, but once you do you can you use it to frame much interior thinking of times past.
That's what we want to rationalize and integrate going forward and I hope that the simple practice of visualizing the backs of things as you go about your everyday life will introduce you to how intimacy and integration happen from the inside out.
Thoughts Welcomed.