It would be presumptuous of me to expect that no matter how banal a concept I might discuss, your perception would match my meaning. In my conceptualization of things, I might imagine a specific paisley pattern and never in a hundred years be able to accurately describe it and if I were to say any word, the shades of meaning that it might have for you transcend my implication through my use of words. House is a million different things to a million different people and to some it might just be a refrigerator box. Don't laugh, for half a semester in college, I lived in a cornfield with only cardboard between me and the night sky. I could write a book about my experiences, all the way down to the day I got housing approved, took what I had on my back and in my backpack to my new dorm room and when I returned a few hours later to get my sleeping bag and pillow, wind up clock and sundries to my horror, the field I had been sleeping in the night before had been combined and there was no trace of my belongings or the refrigerator box. That moment had a necessary transience during the unfolding of my life and to convey the many meanings that it held for me and why they were important to me must remain a fleeting ephemeral moment. The important thing that I am trying to wrestle to clarity is that all of the experiences that we have, every one...even those we ignore or do not grasp the gravity of, have power over our every waking perception. What we see and hear, what we expect and how we decipher the myriad data entering our perceptual systems.
In the world of collectors, ephemera are considered to be disposable things, or ones intended to only be of use for a short time. Movie and event posters, ticket stubs and other items that would have been normally discarded fit into this amazing category. I find that, as a writer, I too collect things that are most often shrouded or disposed of by time. I re-collect events and experiences that are but shreds of paper scattered by the winds of time. A brief story between a friend and I was sparked for instance by the small of burned gunpowder. I have smelled it hundreds of times, but my recollection of the first time I smelled it kicked around in my subconscious for decades, surfacing only this week, now it sticks in my mind like an invisible sliver. It was the middle of the night, I was seven-ish. I was awakened by gunfire inside our house. Groggily, I struggled to lift my head, roll over and get up, but before I could, my mom entered the room and told my sister and I that everything is okay. Even at seven, I knew she was lying, but the attempted reassurance was enough, that I trusted her and drifted back to sleep with the smell in my nostrils. The power of that moment has paired the reassuring love of a mother for her young child with my perception of the smell of gunpowder. I went over forty years without that specific awareness, but it didn't matter, I loved the smell of burned gun powder. The next day, when I got up, there were books with bullets in them on our bookshelf. The bookshelf that was on the other side of the wall to our bedroom. Once I understood the likely trajectory of those shots, I never trusted my stepfather again and could not wait for my mother to leave him.
How our perceptions are wrought, change and get wrung out of us in unique ways is always a puzzle. If we could understand the thorny issues of how we see, hear, listen and attend to stimulus better, we could understand why eye-witness testimony tends to be the least reliable way to get to the truth. Some individuals are able to confront their mortality by association as young children seeing dead vegetation, dead animals or other people who have passed the veil. Others seem to be able to shield themselves in one way or another from the fact that we are all, in our way, ephemera. One of the most likely examples is the young male thinking he can do and survive anything. We humans, when viewed from a geologic time perspective, pass like the smoke through the world like from a discharged firearm, but our impacts can be great. Our fifty or eighty years on the planet is but a wisp, but traces of that wisp will outlive us.
My story here is not intended to be the focus of your attention, it is not about the gunfire, nor the transience of our lives, but the distinctness between "reality" and our perception of it. Because when I told said story to my friend, they immediately wanted to build a puppet to represent a story teller who could say my words to a wider audience. The reason I offer any of this up to the readers who have the ability to make sense of this is to get you to understand that all of life offers opportunity for growth, changing your perspective and broadening the scope of our understanding of what is actually going on not only in us, but around us as well. My friend saw my experience as an opportunity to create a meaningful production to help enlighten others, my own blossoming awareness was, I believe, provided to my awareness to inspire growth and further my understanding. I certainly feel more whole for confronting that old psychic wound and integrating the new knowledge that extracting meaning from previously hidden information has brought, but most of all I think it can be healing for all of us to hear, in whatever ways work for us, that we are all meaning-making machines and we will put meaning into anything if given a chance.
We hold on to our creations as if they are real, but beyond perception, beyond time and space, there is a larger reality which we are also part of. We, perhaps are far more ephemeral than the ego will allow us to admit, but while we are "here" let me tip my hat to you. I am because you are. I honor the light within you and I trust that you will find an appropriate path to your own healing. If you want or need guidance or insight on that path, Feel free to consult with me via e or terrestrial methods. Every dollar that gets donated through our Pay pal account helps us to plant more trees!
In the world of collectors, ephemera are considered to be disposable things, or ones intended to only be of use for a short time. Movie and event posters, ticket stubs and other items that would have been normally discarded fit into this amazing category. I find that, as a writer, I too collect things that are most often shrouded or disposed of by time. I re-collect events and experiences that are but shreds of paper scattered by the winds of time. A brief story between a friend and I was sparked for instance by the small of burned gunpowder. I have smelled it hundreds of times, but my recollection of the first time I smelled it kicked around in my subconscious for decades, surfacing only this week, now it sticks in my mind like an invisible sliver. It was the middle of the night, I was seven-ish. I was awakened by gunfire inside our house. Groggily, I struggled to lift my head, roll over and get up, but before I could, my mom entered the room and told my sister and I that everything is okay. Even at seven, I knew she was lying, but the attempted reassurance was enough, that I trusted her and drifted back to sleep with the smell in my nostrils. The power of that moment has paired the reassuring love of a mother for her young child with my perception of the smell of gunpowder. I went over forty years without that specific awareness, but it didn't matter, I loved the smell of burned gun powder. The next day, when I got up, there were books with bullets in them on our bookshelf. The bookshelf that was on the other side of the wall to our bedroom. Once I understood the likely trajectory of those shots, I never trusted my stepfather again and could not wait for my mother to leave him.
How our perceptions are wrought, change and get wrung out of us in unique ways is always a puzzle. If we could understand the thorny issues of how we see, hear, listen and attend to stimulus better, we could understand why eye-witness testimony tends to be the least reliable way to get to the truth. Some individuals are able to confront their mortality by association as young children seeing dead vegetation, dead animals or other people who have passed the veil. Others seem to be able to shield themselves in one way or another from the fact that we are all, in our way, ephemera. One of the most likely examples is the young male thinking he can do and survive anything. We humans, when viewed from a geologic time perspective, pass like the smoke through the world like from a discharged firearm, but our impacts can be great. Our fifty or eighty years on the planet is but a wisp, but traces of that wisp will outlive us.
My story here is not intended to be the focus of your attention, it is not about the gunfire, nor the transience of our lives, but the distinctness between "reality" and our perception of it. Because when I told said story to my friend, they immediately wanted to build a puppet to represent a story teller who could say my words to a wider audience. The reason I offer any of this up to the readers who have the ability to make sense of this is to get you to understand that all of life offers opportunity for growth, changing your perspective and broadening the scope of our understanding of what is actually going on not only in us, but around us as well. My friend saw my experience as an opportunity to create a meaningful production to help enlighten others, my own blossoming awareness was, I believe, provided to my awareness to inspire growth and further my understanding. I certainly feel more whole for confronting that old psychic wound and integrating the new knowledge that extracting meaning from previously hidden information has brought, but most of all I think it can be healing for all of us to hear, in whatever ways work for us, that we are all meaning-making machines and we will put meaning into anything if given a chance.
We hold on to our creations as if they are real, but beyond perception, beyond time and space, there is a larger reality which we are also part of. We, perhaps are far more ephemeral than the ego will allow us to admit, but while we are "here" let me tip my hat to you. I am because you are. I honor the light within you and I trust that you will find an appropriate path to your own healing. If you want or need guidance or insight on that path, Feel free to consult with me via e or terrestrial methods. Every dollar that gets donated through our Pay pal account helps us to plant more trees!
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