Category Archives: Thought

Maya Angelou: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings   dwn Aug 15, 2015 519putcu+lL._SX330_BO1,204,203,200_  This image from Amazon is the cover of this book by Maya Angelou.  It is a very vivid memoir of her childhood, detailed in its sensory descriptions.

Here is an example of her writing, where she is describing her angry brother leaving her mother and her at about age of sixteen.  The following is a set of quotes by her brother, and her thoughts in the situation, a good illustration of what I think of as mind points in motion.  ( As I imagine, in keeping with the synapses firing at the moment.)

“She wants me out, does she?  Well, I’ll get out of here so fast I’ll leave the air on fire.  She calls herself a mother? Huh!  I’ll be damned.  She’s seen the last of me.  I can make it.  I’ll always make it.”

At some point he noticed me still in the doorway, and his consciousness stretched to remember our relationship.

“Maya, if you want to leave now, come on.  I’ll take care of you.”

He didn’t wait for an answer, but as quickly went back to speaking to his soul.

I love this description of (a young) person,  reach out and grab his relationship with his sister, (then about age 14).  Then the young man’s consciousness included and invited her, and went back to its internal reflections, “speaking to his soul”.

As this issue resolved, the young man’s mind points aligned, and he went confidently off to become a porter on a train.

 

 

Context, An Ever-changing Aspect of Experience

DSC06736 Here is a house in the sun, with clouds in the background sky.   There are palm and other tree in front of, and around, it.  There are also curbs and a sidewalk in front of it.  This is part of the context of this house.  Another part of the context of the house might be who lives in it.

For the person who lives in it, the house and everything outside it, is part of his context, and another part of that person’s context is his past in that house, and indeed the entirety of his past,  and everything he or she ever experienced, whether remembered or not.  They say that the brain bears traces of everything, even that which is seemingly forgotten.  These things in the past ,  and everything which we experience  in the present, are part of each individual’s context, and everybody on earth has a different one.

Not only do we have different sets of eyes, ears, taste buds, nose sensory organs, and skin sensations, we each have absolutely unique combinations of genes with which our bodies respond to our  environment, physically, and mentally, continually adding to our contexts, and our experience of it.  On top of that, our physical a and emotional experiences change over time from birth, through growth, maturity, decline, and death.

I have my unique, immediate, mental context, and you have yours

Our contexts are never the same as they were even an instant before.  This is why we “shall never pass this way again.”

Nice Thoughts

IMG_20150802_191924 This low resolution photograph suggests the  following:

  • Follow your heart
  • Create peace
  • Fall in love
  • Dream big
  • Show gratitude
  • Discover your passion
  • Be spontaneous
  • Believe in yourself
  • Your life is now

This advice, always in vogue, graced the  wall of a restaurant.  These are nice thoughts, which each of us, as individuals, can cultivate.

Recently I received and email with this title, and I pictured the sender sitting in home space sending me some nice thoughts.  This amplified nice thoughts in me.  I followed up with a return email, and amplifying “nice thoughts” in some small circles.

I spoke with somebody yesterday who meditates.  I think meditation probably can help one to harness the above beneficial “nice thought” aspects of our minds.