02-01-2011, 12:00 AM
I posted the following in Tif's forum and Lone Wolf suggested I post it here.
GPS as map
This weekend I was traveling to unfamiliar locations via my GPS and pondering the information being shared in the thread (primarily) between Bob May and Lex while I was driving.
I’d been giving the topic of the new and old seers my attention for several days. Both positions shared by Lex and Bob were shared expertly and with fine attention to detail and breadth of knowledge from their respective fields of study. Over and over though I kept thinking that they were involved in the very thing they were warning about and the metaphor that come to me was the use of a GPS for navigating unknown territory.
To begin with the GPS is a brilliant invention—a visual and auditory map to guide and provide direction in unknown territory. Sort of like dreaming. As long as I have a point A and a point B and the system itself has the internal layout of the land I am driving, then I can get anywhere the system has coded within its matrix. In other words, I input the desired end point, follow the directives, and eventually I arrive at my destination.
As I was driving along I had to be aware of several things—the length of kilometers and the visual distance that 100, 200 etc. kilometers actually is---if I turned too soon or too late due to the availability of multiple exit points within my kilometer range, I’d temporarily lose direction. Several times I forgot I was traveling with a GPS and the voice would direct for an upcoming change in direction and scare the **** out of me---I’d forgotten I was navigating by GPS! In other words, I was being subtly influenced by the GPS in order for me to use it effectively---not a bad thing but a thing to be aware of.
I soon realized that without the GPS I didn’t have a clue as to where I was—if that program had quit for some unplanned for reason—I would have been totally lost. I was navigating by a program that I was entirely dependant on. (As sorcerers are in dreaming). Then I began to realize that the GPS was designed to read manmade inventions—signs, highways, roads, turns, onramps, off ramps--in other words navigational systems that were laid down upon the land itself. I wasn’t really independently seeing or traveling the land per se but I was traveling on and in manmade manipulations that were designed to navigate on top of the land I claimed I wanted to travel. (How do we travel the unknown without known tools?)
The roads, the car, the GPS, the signs, the on and off ramps, were all tools for movement in order to “see” a new country. The GPS was my map. But at some point I had to turn off the map if I wanted to see what I claimed I wanted to see—which was the German countryside. Otherwise, it made no sense whatsoever to stare at the small GPS screen as though that, in and of itself, comprised the attainment of my intent (ie, to explore the unknown).
But here’s the weird thing---I was absolutely dependant on that system while also knowing that in the end the system was not the real deal! Yet, I had the awareness that the system itself would prevent me from getting where I wanted to go if I didn’t set it aside at some point and strike out on my own. Once I reached my end point, I’d better be prepared to stand on terra firma and start walking. Turn the GPS off and connect to the land.
So I wonder if the old seers got lost in their own internal GPS system and claimed that they’d arrived at their destination. Dreaming became their downfall. They had so fused the method with the mystery that they couldn’t differentiate the two. Mapping the territory can become the end point, as can discussing the map, or staring at a small onscreen navigational tool. When do we stop “mapping”, swapping maps, comparing maps, and simply start walking the unknown? Our maps, our navigational systems, our dreaming---all of it---is brilliant!! We’d be lost without them. At the same time, we must know when to turn them off and take a step into the unknown.
GPS as map
This weekend I was traveling to unfamiliar locations via my GPS and pondering the information being shared in the thread (primarily) between Bob May and Lex while I was driving.
I’d been giving the topic of the new and old seers my attention for several days. Both positions shared by Lex and Bob were shared expertly and with fine attention to detail and breadth of knowledge from their respective fields of study. Over and over though I kept thinking that they were involved in the very thing they were warning about and the metaphor that come to me was the use of a GPS for navigating unknown territory.
To begin with the GPS is a brilliant invention—a visual and auditory map to guide and provide direction in unknown territory. Sort of like dreaming. As long as I have a point A and a point B and the system itself has the internal layout of the land I am driving, then I can get anywhere the system has coded within its matrix. In other words, I input the desired end point, follow the directives, and eventually I arrive at my destination.
As I was driving along I had to be aware of several things—the length of kilometers and the visual distance that 100, 200 etc. kilometers actually is---if I turned too soon or too late due to the availability of multiple exit points within my kilometer range, I’d temporarily lose direction. Several times I forgot I was traveling with a GPS and the voice would direct for an upcoming change in direction and scare the **** out of me---I’d forgotten I was navigating by GPS! In other words, I was being subtly influenced by the GPS in order for me to use it effectively---not a bad thing but a thing to be aware of.
I soon realized that without the GPS I didn’t have a clue as to where I was—if that program had quit for some unplanned for reason—I would have been totally lost. I was navigating by a program that I was entirely dependant on. (As sorcerers are in dreaming). Then I began to realize that the GPS was designed to read manmade inventions—signs, highways, roads, turns, onramps, off ramps--in other words navigational systems that were laid down upon the land itself. I wasn’t really independently seeing or traveling the land per se but I was traveling on and in manmade manipulations that were designed to navigate on top of the land I claimed I wanted to travel. (How do we travel the unknown without known tools?)
The roads, the car, the GPS, the signs, the on and off ramps, were all tools for movement in order to “see” a new country. The GPS was my map. But at some point I had to turn off the map if I wanted to see what I claimed I wanted to see—which was the German countryside. Otherwise, it made no sense whatsoever to stare at the small GPS screen as though that, in and of itself, comprised the attainment of my intent (ie, to explore the unknown).
But here’s the weird thing---I was absolutely dependant on that system while also knowing that in the end the system was not the real deal! Yet, I had the awareness that the system itself would prevent me from getting where I wanted to go if I didn’t set it aside at some point and strike out on my own. Once I reached my end point, I’d better be prepared to stand on terra firma and start walking. Turn the GPS off and connect to the land.
So I wonder if the old seers got lost in their own internal GPS system and claimed that they’d arrived at their destination. Dreaming became their downfall. They had so fused the method with the mystery that they couldn’t differentiate the two. Mapping the territory can become the end point, as can discussing the map, or staring at a small onscreen navigational tool. When do we stop “mapping”, swapping maps, comparing maps, and simply start walking the unknown? Our maps, our navigational systems, our dreaming---all of it---is brilliant!! We’d be lost without them. At the same time, we must know when to turn them off and take a step into the unknown.