beauty » Conscious Ritualing

Our Daily Qualia

Mar 152013

Temperature places interesting limitations upon us. As soon is it goes above or below a certain level our senses become greatly reduced. On the other hand, when the temperature maintains that ideal comfort level our senses discover exquisite subtleties, hitherto invisible. We discern the gentlest breezes, far off sounds carrying, color and light in all their sweet shiftings, etc. So it is that we have evolved; when things are good we notice the wallpaper.

And it has come to pass that, when we begin to acknowledge the wallpaper, we are given a taste of beauty. At that same moment, however, the wallpaper disintegrates, the illusion of plenty falls away, and we know how barren reality is without qualia.

It is this juxtaposition, however, which reveals to us the sublime. This is why we are lured beyond our ordinary pleasures to face our true suffering, to give up all for an ideal. When the wallpaper falls away, life takes on ineffable new magnitudes of beauty, and strange new dimensions of meaning.

Our Daily Qualia

Oct 082012

In a high fidelity qualiascape, the noise of life does not overwhelm our sense for qualiadelic subtleties. We may seek high fidelity qualiascapes anywhere we consciously ritual; we may even design them.

Our Daily Qualia

Oct 062012

The ability to see color conferred a selective advantage allowing us to see food from further away — but there is more to life than simply eating. Well, a by-product of seeing color is the ability to see a sunset. So, what is the selective advantage of this?

It is up to us to ritual with sunsets in order to clarify what that advantage actually is. Life is filled with accidental qualia that we fail to notice (much less acknowledge in ritual). Be Qualiadelic. Be Conscious. Change the routine.

Our Daily Qualia

Sep 162012

On one hand conscious ritualing changes the way we see the physical Earth, while on the other hand it changes the way we see the metaphysical Earth. Conscious ritualing loosens up the habits of sense by which we have come to perceive the physical world, and it helps us evolve senses by which to know the metaphysical world.

The physical world, that which is present before our senses, is clear to us, solid, fixed, and consistently the same. How different from the mysteries hidden within it — mysteries which are no less mysterious for the laws of math and science which spell them out for us. There will always be mysteries that transcend physics, and thus there will always be new metaphysical truths to be discerned.

Our Daily Qualia

Aug 272012

A book, a piece of music, a piece of clothing, each might suggest whole new worlds, new roles and new selves. A favorite spot, a garden, a building or a street corner might give us a feeling or thought which we desire to experience again and again — these are qualia known only to ourselves and to the special people whom we bring or we find there. Qualia attracts matter and matter forms around qualia. People are matter…but, depending upon the qualia they pay attention to, people may not matter much.

Our Daily Qualia

Aug 262012

Photo by Randy Scott Slavin

Yes, we are all ritualing, all the time (although it is often mere, mindless routine). However, if we set aside moments, as rituals, with beginnings, middles, and ends, and we develop a sense of what it is we are looking for, then it is a conscious tool for transformation. The artist rituals with color and balance, etc., throughout the day — qualiadelic effects of light and perspective — and he is returning to these qualia as he consciously rituals before the canvas. That is how he, his art, and the community’s awareness of the potential in art evolves. In the 1400s, artists consciously ritualed with perspective — using geometry and mathematics — and changed painting forever. This new, conscious awareness of perspective has changed the way we actually perceive the world, and it keeps evolving, as, for instance, the engine has allowed us to move at greater speeds, adding motion to perspective. Geometry itself has changed because of it. For 2000 years or so, geometry was all about static forms; now it is about movement, transition and change. When things are moving around curves, for instance, the three angles of a triangle do not add up to 180 degrees. We haven’t absorbed stuff like this into our normal, day to day thoughts, but we will, and it will make the landscape look much different; and as the landscape changes we will react to it in different ways. The world will change. This sort of evolution, based on qualiadelic relationships, will happen whether we do it consciously or not; but if we do it consciously it will probably happen faster and we may have some control over it.

Here is a good little video, but, beware: minutephysics videos are like potato chips (you can’t consume just one). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajhFNcUTJI0&feature=plcp

Our Daily Qualia

Aug 162012

People change only rarely because of the logic in an argument; they change because they see something ineffable and admirable in the other person’s character. Likewise, the universe cares not a whit for a theory unless we ritual it into reality. Nature responds, not to logic, but to aesthetic “truths.”

This is why beauty is truth. This is why there really is “music in the spheres.” As we turned sound into music, so too can we can we consciously ritual still other qualia into aesthetic truths.

Our Daily Qualia

Aug 152012

There is a whole set of complex qualia, like music, that we know through our “sense” of reason. We are attracted to ideas, theories, mathematics, and technology; we are attracted by concepts like magnetism, curved space, electricity, quantum mechanics, and time. We study them — ritualing with the peculiar logic of each — and we come to believe that they are true.

Many animals also know about the complex qualia that we study, but not through reason; they have evolved in qualiadelic relationships with them. Animals have various senses which — just as our ears hear sound — can perceive magnetism, curved space (imagine a seascape of light and water), and no doubt all the others. The fact is, they don’t need math to perceive spirals, or other amazing patterns, and nor do we. We only need to have them brought to our attention.

Our Daily Qualia

Aug 142012

We know, just from listening over the course of our lives, that music evolves. People are ritualing with it. This is, in fact, how all nature evolves. Living creatures and their environments evolve together in qualiadelic relationships.

Human beings evolve with different qualia than that to which our senses are attuned. Music proves this. Our ears hear the simple qualia of sound, but our mind hears something else: the complex qualia of music.

Our Daily Qualia

Aug 112012

One good idea generates a lot of stuff, and for a long time people go after the stuff until the next new idea comes along. Sometimes we go for the stuff for a long, long time. Today, even though people have lots of ideas, we’re stuck on the stuff. We can’t give it up.

Much worse, perhaps, we mindlessly ritual with all our stuff. That is, we don’t consciously ritual with it for any other purposes than to pass the time or to make money to buy more conveniences. The more convenient our lives are, the more status we have; stuff is status; stuff becomes symbolic of convenience, not of character.

Unfortunately, this is true of the inventor of stuff, too. People today don’t respect an inventor’s ideas, they respect an inventor’s wealth. And why shouldn’t they, since most inventors are only out there inventing in order to make money.

Yet what if our economy was determined by the ideas we have, and by the curious qualia we invent?

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