[MD] discerning the difference

[gav]

my conversation with matt has brought to mind a book i am reading called culture and horticulture by wolf storl. it draws heavily on the work of steiner and goethe in relation to gardening.

i think the following extract illustrates a point at least tangential to the exchange twisxt matt and me:
"theories are usually the impetuousness of an impatient intellect which would like to rid itself of the phenomena and replace them with images, concepts or just words....instead one must let the facts [phenomena], the contents of the careful empirical observation speak for themselves and let them draw out of the observer's mind the appropriate idea."

this method is labelled goetheanistic science by the author. conceptually it seems MoQ ish. that is, the meditative observation goes beyond the static patterns of knowledge already acquired, using them perhaps as a bridge to reaching a point of identification with the phenomena which then yields, of itself, a corresponding and original idea... a new analogy through which to illuminate the mystery.

i would have enjoyed reading something like the above during my 6 years of university science, i always felt what i would label now as an epistemological gap or vagueness. the real meat of the whole enterprise - the practice, the art of science - was left practically untouched....

of course to fully assimilate the above passages presupposes a certain openness of mind - a certain tolerance, at least, for 'exotic' conceptions - for the idea that there is something that 'speaks through' the phenomena, albeit gently and softly.

but if we return to experience as our faithful touchstone we see that there is nothing unusual about such an idea, indeed the converse is true. just as jung reminded us that synchronicity was natural time, so it is, for the keen observer, that the truth of 'phenomena speaking for themselves' is obvious and normal.

listening to jeremiah abrams, an american mythologist and author, i was reminded of this point. he is an editor as well as being a writer and has noticed that many great writers actually identify their true talent as listening. they are simply excellent and sensitive scribes: the true writer *hears* the story told to him through the phenomena he beholds...as henry miller said, 'not me but the father within me'.

and if writing is reduced to the art of focus and listening..see how all activity and creation can be likewise reduced to a similar fluidity of transmission - very zen ya? wu wei, undo...and then the words get in the ...









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