was talking to last week and she remarked that "shadow work" as a term implies a very specific aesthetic of what the practice ought to feel like, this masculine warrior doing-battle-with-one's-demons vibe, and that it doesn't have to feel like that at all
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"shadow" suggests the practice ought to be scary and "work" suggests the practice ought to be effortful. but nibras said something i said suggested to her that "shadow work" could be more pleasant and effortless, just a calm acceptance of everything that arises in experience
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so "shadow work" is another example of a concept with a frustrating marketing problem like "self-love", where in theory it refers to a broad universal phenomenon but the specific words suggest a much more specific aesthetic
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“self-love” has this frustrating marketing problem a lot of other things also have, that while in some sense it ought to refer to this broad universal thing, in practice it’s read as having an extremely narrow and specific “love and light” aesthetic many people don’t relate to
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talked in his intro imaginal workshop about "views of imaginal practice" - e.g. do you view it as manipulating your own mind, as healing your wounds, as contacting spirits and gods, as an exercise in manifestation, etc.
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1 spot left on this introductory imaginal workshop, dm me if you want to be added to the list
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these quite different views have quite different aesthetics, will be attractive to quite different people, and perhaps (although i wouldn't know) have quite different effects; river emphasized the importance of finding one you vibe with, and i've been thinking about that broadly
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one could talk, for example, of views of meditation, views of shadow work, views of therapy; in my own personal view of things these are actually all themselves views of a more fundamental basic practice
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it's funny for me to think about how specific the implications of using specific words are because in mathematical training you are taught to cleanly separate syntax and semantics; you learn that there is a way that mathematical entities work independent of what you call them
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so i feel like my relationship to language has for a long time been to automatically distinguish the finger pointing at the moon from the moon, so to speak; once you know where the moon is you don't need the finger anymore
but for *communication* the finger is still paramount
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also from mathematical training my inclination is to make terminology as consistent as possible so people know when they're talking about the same thing; but in the view of views perhaps one ought to let a thousand views bloom instead, for maximum reach
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talks at various points in his book about how a fully general practice needs to be able to "eat itself"; part of what i think this means is that you need to be able to reconceptualize and re-view practice in your own terms
meditationbook.page/#169b
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when you meditate are you viewing it as quieting the mind? strengthening mental muscles? getting in touch with god? mark's book's view is that "meditation is concrete problem solving" which is quite unusual afaict but which i happen to love
capture.dropbox.com/tIlMX0Acs0rm9q
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one of the things that most draws me to mark's view of meditation is the sense of freedom i see in it. every possible motion the bodymind is capable of is in play. it's so much more than following the breath. improvisation with one's entire instrument
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meditation does not have to involve sitting down, you do not have to be still, you do not have to be quiet, you do not have to be alone, you do not have to be in a group, you do not have to be inside, you do not have to control your thoughts, you do not have to control anything
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this is all related to the point i try to make in my twitter bio
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"you have to solve for aesthetic resonance"
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this can be almost offensive to thinky mcthoughtbois but I do think it’s straightforwardly true that past a certain minimum threshold of idea/audience fit, you have to solve for aesthetic resonance
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