#Openness

[philosophybits]

Through laziness and constancy the mind keeps to what it finds easy and attractive; this habit is constantly limiting our knowledge, and no one ever takes the trouble to extend his mind and lead it as far as it could go.

François de La Rochefoucauld, Moral Reflections

[thirdity]

What is frequently appreciated in many so-called symbols is exactly their vagueness, their openness, their fruitful ineffectiveness to express a “final” meaning, so that with symbols and by symbols one indicates what is always beyond one's reach.

Umberto Eco, Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language

[ksjanes]

As we experience this big blue space, we begin to have this feeling of openness, limitless potential. We get a sense of timelessness as we connect to this vast open space. We can get the impression of accommodation and inclusiveness. This can include us being less afraid of circumstances and less frustrated or upset. We end up  with sensing that there is more than enough space for our thoughts and emotions as well as others thoughts and emotions. With this sentiment space can bring comfort to us in times of trouble as we  recognize that even our troubles and the chaos  in our lives arise and pass away within the blanket of our awareness of space.

K.S Janes

[serenityquest]

[in-tenebris-et-in-solitudine]

[848ellie]

Ready to Receive 💜 I am ready to receive from the universe, accepting all the good things and opportunities coming my way. With an open heart and mind, I trust in the endless possibilities around me and know I am in alignment with growth. Each day, I move forward with confidence, ready to manifest my dreams and welcome the abundance that the universe has prepared for me.

[angelaeleni]

Whenever I feel blocked or stuck, I start to ask myself these questions through my day:

How can I be the most loving person to myself and others?

How can I keep my heart open?

[heart-songs]

The one where I confess that I am unapologetically soft

how my heartbeat mimics the wind, invisible but far-reaching. With gossamer fingers I braid my hair, brew the tea, knead the bread. On obsidian nights, I gather dried lavender and listen for the willow. I have cradled newborn heads on the crest of my collarbone patched wounds with rose petal kisses, unwound the deepest of aches with worn-out denim and bare skin. I have carried the dead, cried my weight in tears. I am soft, and my hands are small but I would hold the sun for you, blister ‘til you no longer wish to be a burn. I am soft, and my voice is softer. It was made to breathe poems into the scruff of your neck to lay the ghosts of your worst fears to rest eternal. I am soft, and we are only a moment but my love will linger long after the willow stops weeping.

- Cora Finch

[the-healing-mindset]

It might be time to let go of what you think you know, and open up to what the world has to offer you.

SourceMessages

[gennsoup]

It is a terrible thing To be so open: it is as if my heart Put on a face and walked into the world.

Sylvia Plath, Three Women: A Poem for Three Voices

[philosophybits]

Attention consists of suspending our thought, leaving it detached, empty and ready to be penetrated by the object. It means holding in our minds, within reach of this thought, but on a lower level and not in contact with it, the diverse knowledge we have acquired which we are forced to make use of. Our thought should be in relation to all particular and already formulated thoughts, as a man on a mountain who, as he looks forward, sees also below him, without actually looking at them, a great many forests and plains. Above all, our thought should be empty, waiting, not seeking anything, but ready to receive in its naked truth the object which is to penetrate it. All wrong translations, all absurdities in geometry problems, all clumsiness of style and all faulty connection of ideas ... all such things are due to the fact that thought has seized upon some idea too hastily and being thus prematurely blocked, is not open to the truth. The cause is always that we have wanted to be too active; we have wanted to carry out a search.

Simone Weil, Waiting on God

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Image: Cleric-Knight-Workman / Unknown artist / Wikimedia Commons / Public domain.

Image description: An inhabited initial from a 13th-century French text representing the tripartite social order of the Middle Ages: the ōrātōrēs (those who pray – clerics), bellātōrēs (those who fight – knights, that is, the nobility), and labōrātōrēs (those who work – peasants and members of the lower middle class).

* * * *

Thin and Thick Barriers

“One major personality dimension that’s been described, on the basis of many years of research and supported by hundreds of studies, is “openness to experience” which is one of what are called the “big five” dimensions of personality.* Another concept is “barriers” in the mind, [a continuum] which distinguishes between people who have “thick” barriers, who compartmentalize their different experiences, from those with “thin” ones, whose experiences merge together. Many investigators use the term “boundaries,” but we think “barriers,” which can be porous, is a better descriptor.” ...

People with thin barriers tend to be open, emotional, and perhaps spiritual; those with thick barriers tend to be detached and perhaps religious, traditionalist, or conservative. Those on the autistic spectrum, and religious or scientific fundamentalists usually have very thick barriers. Most people are somewhere between the extremes.

“... Adherence to a single extreme way of understanding gives comfort to the “believers” in both extremes but is the cause of much incompatibility, and one way or the other, both miss the truth. The arguments just pass each other by; it’s like listening to a flat-earther debate with an alien-from-outer-space adherent.”

~ Robert Ornstein and Sally Ornstein, God 4.0: On the Nature of Higher Consciousness and the Experience Called “God”.

Note: * The big five are: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.

(Ian Sanders)

[gregor-samsung]

" There are those who say that a native will not speak to a white man. Error. No man will speak to his master; but to a wanderer and a friend, to him who does not come to teach or to rule, to him who asks for nothing and accepts all things, words are spoken by the camp-fires, in the shared solitude of the sea, in riverside villages, in resting-places surrounded by forests—words are spoken that take no account of race or colour. One heart speaks—another one listens; and the earth, the sea, the sky, the passing wind and the stirring leaf, hear also the futile tale of the burden of life. "

Joseph Conrad, Karain: A Memory, tale written February–April 1897; published November 1897 in Blackwood's Magazine and collected in Tales of Unrest, 1898.

[in-tenebris-et-in-solitudine]

In Solitudine et in Tenebris

[starseedsrise]