Entry 49: Force 101

Wrap Up

This course has been very helpful to me.  These concepts for the most part are not new to me.  This has however helped me shape my own beliefs into a more coherent form and commit them into writing.  Something I am notoriously bad at.

I do not get a very good metaphysical base for my development becasue of the area i live in.  Not a lot of energy workers out here in rural kentucky.  This has been a very good way to start me down that path on my own though.  The exercises were fun.  I especially like the walking blindfolded.  It is hard to say if these exercises were too hard for beginners or to easy for experienced people.  It was something different each time, so that was what kept things interesting.

I hope to learn more about this when 2.0 comes out!

Entry 48: Force 101

Classifying energy

I have tried the energy classifying exercise, and I don’t know about seeing colors or auras.  I can see people and their demeanor pretty well.  I can get a feel for how they may be feeling.  Of course this system of evaluation is very dependent on the moment and people can change minute to minute.

Steph

Slow, relaxed, cool, calm

Neutral, Healthy, calm and honest

Justin

Fast, Relaxed, Warm and Vibrant

Happy, Healthy, Calm and Honest

Mary

Slow, Relaxed, Warm and Vibrant

Happy, Sick, Calm and Neutral

Colin

Slow, Dull, Warm, Vibrant

Neutral, Healthy, Neutral, Honest

Matt

Slow, Relaxed, Cool, Calm

Happy, Neutral, Calm, and Neutral

Entry 40: Force 101

The Living Force

To me, the living force is the interactions one has between the force and the self.  This is the aspect of the force that guides actions and can be guided by our intent.  I cannot think of any fictional examples of this view, but I have a few philosophical examples of this.

I equate the living force to the concept of the noosphere.  The sphere of thought and existence that transcends the personal that the physical and becomes the global consciousness.  This is a sort of metaphysical link between all living things that is influenced by the thoughts and desires of those that contribute to it.  So we as living beings influence it, but in turn we are influenced by it.   We are in a symbiosis with it.

Our thoughts and desires guide us and the force to reach those ends.  Both are important to the success of our efforts.

I tried the Yogic breathing exercise.  I found that it only had mediocre results.  Maybe my nose was too stuffy  to do it right, but for the most part I found it to just be breathing.   Thoughts?

Entry 37: Force 101

Intuition has been the focus of these last couple weeks.

I find that I can be intuitive if I just shut up and listen.  For example, as i was courting my fieancee, there were many instances that I trusted my intuition.  We had many things in common, many of the same friends and were at many of the same places; we had just never met.  My intuition came into play the first time in this regard when a friend of mine asked if i wanted to go to fencing with him.  I said yes and I met stephanie that night.  After that I would feel pressing needs to go for a walk or to the store or just go sit.  Sure I could just ignore them, but for the most part it fet right to follow those little imparitives.  Because of that, i would end up meeting up with her all the freeking time.  We would go eat at the same time, go to the store and meet up, or even if it was the middle of the night, i would go for a walk and she and her roommate would be out walking as well.  It made things go much more easily for the two of us.

I do not often  get those imparitives anymore from day to day.  Sometimes i will get a feeling to follow a trail in the search field only to find that the subject followed that same trail before me.  Or perhaps I would feel the need to get ready for company (cleaning and such) to have an unexpeceted guest drop in.

I wish I knew why I do not get those feelings as much as I used to, but I have a theory.  When you are where you are susposed to be, there is less work for the force to do, so you are not given as many signals as if you were finding the path or straying from it.  When the Intuitive signals do arize, I usually take heed.  Then again, I may not be as intued to them as I used to be.  That is also a possibility.

This week the only impairitives I have recieved was to get my lesson plans ready.  This was good becasue I had an unexpeced observation which saved my job!  It also pursuaded my principal to support me more and next year changes will be made!

Entry 33: Force 101, Meditation 101, Interation: Martial Arts, Search and Rescue

Again, behind on my posts so killing many birds with one stone.

To tell you the truth, I started working on this weeks lessons, but really i got side tracked and really busy so i will be starting them over.  Just for myself and for everyone else, this week is Intuition in Force, and chan meditation in Meditation.

Integration: Search and Rescue

3/20 – Urban training.  Today we ran 1 short trail for a new member, the dog got off track for a bit but that is to be expected.  I was run on by 2 of the more experienced dogs, and neither did very well becasue of distraction and high gusty winds.  It is hard to follow a scent when it is whipping around buildings and being blown at random.

We also had table top training.  We learned how to set up a Landing Zone (LZ) and how not to comprise a possible crime scene.

Today’s training was 8 Hours.

3/13

Today we ran trails at Kess Park, in Mayfield.  We started at 1 and ended at 4. It was wet, windy and cold, but I was running things and not having to sit out in the rain myself!

Integration: Martial Arts

3/17

St Patrick’s day.  No fighting.  Just drinking.

3/14

Today just me and my friend showed up. It was just the two of us so we had a light day.  We ran through a few concepts we had been working on and did some light sparring.  3 hours.

Entry 32: Inegration – Martial Arts, Offline Activities, Force 101, Meditation 101

Well I have another epic post to make this week!  When I had time to post every couple days, it certianly kept things easier to remember and organize.

This past week I have not been sick unlike the past couple of weeks, but it seems like I had to make up for the time I had lost.  It has been a very active Week.

I will pick up first with my classes.

Force 101:

This week I tried the sensing exercise.  I only did this one a couple of times.

The first time i tried i, i allowed some time for me to acclimate to my deprived state.  My house, I found, is very dirty and cluttered.  I ended up slowing myself down and using my tai chi walking.  It is a good way to walk with my feeling rather than my observations.  I am not sure what i would do if i was blind.

My second time I tried this, I had learned from my previous attempt and slowed down myself and was able to get around fairly well.  I tried to visualize my surroundings in my head.  Seeing my house as I remember it being.  I found my visual perception is much closer than things actually are.  I would end up turning away from something far too early and run into an obstacle I thought I had already passed.  I suppose that is better than thinking I had space and bumping my shin on the coffee table.

Meditation 101:

Observation Awareness

My time spent in my house was much the same as my ordinary meditations, only now my eyes and ears were active and engaged to what was going on around me, rather than focusing inward.  My animals are in almost constant action.

The cat chews the fern.

The Headlights through the window.

Is the stove still on?

Sorry about the poetry.  But this seems like a very zen exercise.   My second time was in school.  My chaotic location.  Sometimes i fail to notice how much i get swept up in this.  It is very stressful.  I cannot remove myself from my classroom entirely because i have to maintain classroom management.  Maybe the fact I cannot distance myself from the chaos is what drives me up the wall. No wait, its the fact that there is no sink in my art room and I am CONSTANTLY catching flack for the mess in my room, the mess on the kids and the mess in the bathroom.  But i digress.  There are better, less negatively charged, places to do my exercises.

Places like my yard.  I was able to sit back in my yard and just observe.  I count this as my nature exercise becasue i own land and it’s pretty out of the way, i just walk a few yards and I am out in the bush.  I like being out in nature and i find my self there often.  Search and rescue requires me to be out in the woods for hours and hours at a time alone.  This weekend though, was warm, sunny and relaxing.  The perfect weather to just sit and be there.  There still is not a lot of animal activity yet becasue nature has not caught up with the weather.  I felt comfortable out there in the woods, the way I felt in my house.  There were no negative reminders of what I am going though with work right now, so it was great to just be.  Best one out of all 3.

Offline Activities

Went to blot on Saturday.  It was outstanding.  I very much enjoy this group and the spiritual practices of my ancestors.  We began with a “feast”  I brought potato salad.   After blot we began a “runes” class.  It is interesting to hear about the runes and the powers that they are said to carry.  Knowing language and writing are seen as mystical in this tradition.  Sort of akin to the power of the spoken word in other traditions.  We understand the importance that language has for us as a people and our primitive shamanistic traditions place emphasis on the chant, writing and words spoken during ceremonies.

After, we learned about the god that we dedicated this blot to.  Vidar, slayer of the fenris wolf, restorer of the natural order.  The wolf in this aspect as we learned today is the rampant growth and appetite of modern society.  Vidar is the restoration of a more natural way of life.  Of course I am speaking metaphorically becasue in the descriptions are of a man slaying a giant wolf and ending Ragnarok.  Vidar as a man is a quiet warden.  An avenger of nature.  All in all, a doer not a speaker.  I admire that.

We bloted to vidar.

We then went on to sumbel.  A toasting right.

Integration:

Martial Arts

3/4

Practice today was simple and hard.  We did not have a formal instructional time.  We had another reaction exercise much like the previous one, but this time I stepped back and really looked at the students footwork.  I was able to give each of them useful feedback.

We then broke down and did press drills together.  Lots of them.  and it was pretty intense drills.

3/8

Today we had 2 out of town visitors.  We spent the majority of the 3 hours sparring.  One fella got his thumb messed up pretty good.

Entry 31: Force 101, Meditation 101, Integration – Martial Arts

I have been sick for the last week or so and i have been heading to bed early so I have been unable to make the posts as i have wanted to.  Today is the first day i have felt “right” in a couple weeks, so now is as good of a time as any to get caught up.  I have not been neglecting my exercises and lessons, but as it has been a week, i will just sum up the gist of it.

Force 101:

I did the “headless” exercise this week.  This really does make one feel a part of the scenery as it were.  We do so much interaction with the world around us through our heads.  Processing information going on around us seems like an activity of the mind.  When i was not using my head, I felt more like a piece of furniture.

It is easy during this exercise to feel a connection to that which is around you becasue of the fact you are not using your mind to differentiate between yourself and that which is around you.  As I said in my essay about my view of the force I feel it is more a way of viewing our sameness.  I use the word sameness because while we are all a part of this big force soup, we are still given variation and individual presences in he force.

I will be starting the next exercise this week.

Meditation 101

Mantra Meditations. This was an interesting exercise.  I chose words like Courage, Truth, One, Force Love and Calm.  I found that when meditating for extended time frames, like those of 10 minutes or more, the word became more of a sound in my mind rather than a concept.  A couple of times the word became just a white noise.  I found the more i had to think of the word, the more syllables it had, the longer i was able to focus on it as a word.

I also used the Mala for this meditation.  I as able to push myself a little further with the mala than i would have normally gone.  It helps me reach a goal, even when i am not consciously reaching for it.  I also like physicality of it.  I like the way it feels holding the beads.  It is like holding a book or a brush when making art.  It seems that physicality is part of the human experience and that we find reassurance when holding an object despite the fact we seek detachment.   I wonder why this is…

I will be beginning the next meditation exercise this week.

Martial Arts from 2/24

Practice began with cut thrust cut thrust drills.  We then worked with a partner for press drills and a bit of ringen exercises.

I tried something new today for warm ups.  We got 5 racket balls, put on a mask and tried to block the balls flying at us by going through our covers and guards.  It was loads of fun and was good reaction training.    The balls did not hurt when you got hit, and it was really cool when you could redirect the balls back at people!

Entry 29: Force 101 – Force Assignment

The assignment states that i should look at an interpretation of the force and describe how it relates to how I view the force and how i differ from it.  However, for myself, comparing my beliefs to a singular philosophical approach limits how i can articulate what the force means to me.  I will compare my beliefs to preexisting beliefs for reference so it will be easier to grasp.

I will begin with my view of the universal force and how it informs my beliefs of the forces other classes of interactions.  For the sake of communication i will use the accepted jedi jargon of universal, personal, unifying though in my mind these are just names for how the force interacts with itself.

The force in all its infinite expressions, I feel is best experienced rather than spoken of “The tao that can be described is not the true Tao” according to Lao Tzu.  I feel this is very true.  Our capacity to articulate infinite anything is beyond us.  So to say that i feel the force is this or that is only a half truth and changes every day.  So to begin know that the force of which i speak is that which i have experienced so far.

The force i feel is similar to the tao.  It is in all things, it is of all things and it is simply all things.  It is neither for us or against us.  It does not possess a sentient intelligence, or at least does not possess one that I can understand.  However, to say that it is unconscious is not the truth.  It is conscious in the fact that it responds to other consciousness and is composed of consciousness.

The force, as far as i can tell does not have the sort of intelligence we possess.  The Christian God possesses a intelligence much like our own.  There is a plan, there is a creator and a purpose according to the bible.  I do not feel this is the case.  The force is much like a force of nature in my mind.  A natural element that exists neither to create or destroy exclusively.  Its “consciousness” i feel, is created by beings with the ability to think; for these beings possess desire or intention.

Our intentions are what gives the force its consciousness becasue the force conspires to make those intentions reality.  The force is energy.  It is basically the universal energy.  The brahman says that all that is around us is an illusion.  This is a half truth.  It is what it is, but it is all made up of the same thing, energy.  Even our unconscious essence or spirit is a real as we are.  The fact that all is energy is no illusion.  As we know from modern science, all matter is merely a vibration of energy.  Science has also shown us that thought is energy as well.  Electrical impulses that pulse through our minds.  So, matter = energy, thought = energy, this would mean that thought = matter.  What we think becomes as real as the light on our skin and the colors of our world.  You cannot hold color or light, but that does not make them any less real.  We cannot hold the effects that thought produces, but that does not make it any less real.  As our thoughts resonate outward from us like light from the sun, it changes the universe around it.  Our desires are made known to the force and the rest of the universe.

We are not the only creatures creating thought energy.  All around us there is thought energy changing the universe.  When my desires interact with your desires many things can happen.  For example praying for the recovery of a sick friend.  If my desires interact with your own, we guide the universe to the end that we desire.  If they conflict nothing may happen at all, if we do not really think anything would happen at all, then deep down, we intend nothing to happen so nothing does.  Ever wonder why good things happen to optimists and bad to pessimists?  It is all due in fact to the energy that they create for themselves.

Our collective consciousness is what creates the consciousness of the force.  It does not desire anything on its own, its desires are guided by the collective desires of what makes it up. The unifying force is simply the fact that we are all made up of the force and energy, the same as everything else.  So as people speak of using the force, or the personal force, they have simply guided the collective consciousness of the force to change the energy of the universe to the end that which they desire.  This is what gives rise to the belief of chi and the holy spirit.

“matter cannot be created or destroyed” 

-law of conservation of mass

Truly we are eternal.  Even after the death of our bodies, our energy continues, it cannot be destroyed, our intentions continue.

“There is no death, there is the force”

Entry 27: Meditation 101, Force 101, Integration – Search and Rescue

Search and Rescue

Today we had a table top training.  I lead all activities.  We arrived at 2 and had an equipment check.  Since it is getting warmer, it is important to be ready.  We broke down our kit and examined what we were lacking so it could be cleaned, replaced or updated.

After, we had broke that down, we had a maps and compass training.  Orienteering, map reading.  We will focus more on finding UTM coordinates and latitude and longitude.

2/19

Meditation: Today I went out drinking with my friends.  Meditation would have been a waste of time.

Force: Focus training was put on hold.

2/18

Meditation: Excellent meditation session.  I think things are really starting to click back into place.  It is about time to move on to the next step in the lessons.

Force: Spot study was fine today, i felt like i could go longer than the required 3 minutes so i have decided to mediate on the dot specifically.  It went well and eventually i saw nothing but the dot.  I might as well had on a blindfold becasue all i saw was black.

Entry 26: Integration – Martial Arts, Meditation 101, Force 101

2/17

ARMA Practice today.

I am still feeling under the weather so today i did not spar.  We drilled cutting first.

Cutting all 16 directions 10 times.

We then did pressing and had a pressing king of the hill.  I went 6 in a row undefeated.

We taught some schwert nemmen. Then everyone else sparred.

Meditation:

Today meditation went well. I was able to maintain a steady state of mind for 15 minutes with minimal monkey interruptions.

Force Excercises:

Me and that dot had words today… not really.  But i totally stared it down.  It didn’t win this day!

2/16

Sick today.  Went to bed early.   I did not get any exercises done besides a long deep sleep.

2/15

Meditation:

Today meditation was deep, but it did not last long.  I went pretty deep and i had no idea how long it took, when i felt it was over it had only been 10 minutes.  I feel like as far as meditation goes it is quality more than quantity.  Is this correct?

Force:

I managed to complete the time today.  It was still long and boring.