Does peyote rhyme with coyote? Just wondering.....

A couple of times during the readings, I had to kind of shake my head, as if to dislodge water from my ears. I know this reading was a little easier than the other texts, but it was still a little tedious to me. I think that accompanying Huxley on his experience was a little weird, but at the same time a little interesting. I think I would rather read about one's experience than to see it, like with did with the video in class. It's one of those things that I think loses something with the visual to accompany it............kind of like what Huxley says about landscapes. For years, no one painted them, but they spoke/wrote of them. Now that that they are painted, we could care less about them. A flower is a flower. A rock is a rock. A babbling brook............well, it doesn't babble.

I thought it was interesting when he touched on the mind as an elimintative. Some of the other authors we've studied have talked about this, but I like how Huxley put it. "What comes out at the other end is a measly trickle of the kind of consciousness which will help us to stay alive on the surface of this particular planet." (p. 23) The idea makes sense. Our brain filters through everything it takes in and merely highlights to us what we need to know to keep us alive. The information it receives that won't benefit us is discarded...........it's considered chaff, in a sense. It is that "stuff" though, that may increase our day-to-day experience. I would expect that as our society moved into more industrialized times, with more "free" time, that our mind would filter less, and that we would experience more. But I don't think we allow ourselves to do that. I made a comment to the Professor the other day and she advised me to relax (I'm paraphrasing). I told her that wasn't how I was wired. She thought that was funny, but I had to reflect on that. I know that I am wound tighter than a tick (where do these phrases even come from????). BUT WHY???? I am not daily fighting for my survival............far from it. Yet we all act this way. We are constantly in a go-go-go state of mind. We think that everything we do is soooooo important. And while some things might have some sort of significance, I think we may need a lesson from Huxley. We need to stop and smell the proverbial roses, or as he did, look at a chair. He found so much in a chair. Granted, he was taking a drug, so he wasn't in the "right" state of mind, but maybe he's on the right track. There are times when I realize that I have been so focused on going somewhere, that I don't realize what I have experienced while getting there. I have learned to look around when I'm running, not just to avoid stepping in roadkill (though that is terribly important), but to make sure I SEE. A lot of what Huxley talked about was simple. He mostly talked about taking in our surroundings, and studying them. I'm removing the altered state from this, sure, but I think that's the underlying message, especially in The Door of Perception...........at least that's what I came away with.

I spent most of this blog referencing The Doors of Perception, though I enjoyed Heaven and Hell more. One of my favorite passages was on page 138: the nature of the mind is such that the sinner who repents and makes an act of faith in a higher power is more likely to have a blissful visionary experience than is the self-satisfied pillar of society.......Hence the enormous importance attached, in all the great religious traditions, to the state of mind at the moment of death." God sees through the things we say and do that are solely for appearances. He knows the state of our heart, of our true mind. He knows when we are simply spouting out crap that we think we ought to say, because someone told us it was so when we were young. When we make the true commitment to Him, regardless of how late in life, He recognizes it, and welcomes it. A death-bed conversion is a conversion, even though it came at the last possible minute. Such a person will receive the same lot in Heaven as someone who was converted much earlier in life. That's the beauty of God!!!

I think I have sufficiently digressed in my ramblings about both articles, so I will consider this entry completed.