I love this definition of intuition. I am always searching out views and experiences of intuition as I feel like I was deadened to it for a long time. Your perspective has brought something new to me, thank you.
Thanks for your comment. This deadening of the intuition is a very important thing to investigate. It is well known that it can be a trauma response, but what is less talked about it how it can be peer, family or place-of-worship pressured out of a young person by being deemed strange or 'bad'. (I experienced all of those rather than a specific unfortunate traumatic event.) Intuition allied to paying close attention to the phenomenal world is like having a robust and nimble immune defence against diseases. Without it, we are prone to being gaslit, manipulated and exploited, whether personally, or by aspects of our wider culture.
And I am so glad you are writing, because I would never bother reading just words. The timeless, unwritten, unspoken resonances in the spaces around and under, above and below, behind, between and ahead of your words... and so in my heart-mind, are the true art. The weaving alive of all and everything and nothing is what really touches in… and I yield to the experience and its magic.
'I learned not to shirk my commitment to the mundane view, lest I should be labelled a lightweight, a dreamer, or worse, earnest.' The mundane world is but a dull axe; no one yet knows how to make a seed, though they know how to defile one. Sincerely, a fellow lightweight.
I quite love your foraging, adventuring, clear-cutting your way writing. Along with intuition I have sometimes experienced something I would call 'presence'...a kind of unknown known...it guides! Many Thanks Jerome
It is a sence that there is an 'otherness near and within you...when I was six got up very early one morning... when attempting to make myself a breakfast by pouring hot water from the tap onto a shredded wheat..
It came over my that this would be my life - alone. It was more than word's it was experienced in my body. Indeed at eighty five I continue to be alone but my life is and has always been blessed with wonderful people. As an artist one is never alone.
Your writing feeds the soul, and your honesty and generosity is much appreciated. I greatly value you sharing your thinking in its rawness and honesty: thank you. I also love what you commented to Tessa, about the combination of intuition with close attention to the phenomenal world creating a robust and nimble immune system.
Your writing so resonates with me. As a young person I had much naturally assumed faith in my intuition, and I was so surprised one day to realize it had been all but eroded away by voices who "knew" and my own self doubt. That realization started the long journey back. Its so much easier now. And how perfectly well put your observation on earnestness. Please God anything but earnest..
I love this beautiful writing of yours. Your account of your childhood and school years rings many bells of recognition for me. I didn't see colours, I saw beings, other beings, all around us, at the edges of vision, behind trees, inside flowers, in the wallpaper. Except nobody else seemed to see them. So, I learned not to speak of them. And, unacknowledged and denied, the other beings gradually faded away. I wonder how many other children have a similar experience. I suspect that it is widespread.
Like you, I was lucky and was able to find a way back. I greet the beings every day now and they are coming back, stronger and stronger. There is no way I am going to deny them again. As I am typing this, I am aware that some people will read it as a confession of madness. Whatever. I am done with their sanity.
Thank you so much for your writing. It is comforting to know that there are other mad people around.
"If I am feeling something and I cannot tell you it clearly in words, why then, I am harbouring a lie, yes? Root it out!"
I think, for me at least, that is the clear warning that the course is wrong. If people praise intuition, I habitually respond with all the very real reasons to be suspicious of it. An immune system is a thing of terrifying savagery, after all; like a jungle trying to kill you. And they can overreact horribly. I immediately think of people whose intuition tells them things about black people, gay people, women, etc.
But I think those valid concerns are a distraction when it gets to this point - and it so easily does. When you are straight up saying something *cannot exist* because you can't describe or explain it, then I think you've betrayed science even more than you've betrayed yourself. It doesn't match anybody's principles, only habits.
I am sorry Nicholas, I don't follow what you are saying. An immune system is a normal part of living beings, like eating, drinking, movement or sleeping. Interfere with any of these and the creature suffers. Eating requires plants, fungi and animals to die for us to be nourished. I see this as an entirely normal part of the natural process, and, like the immune system, not at all a 'terrible savagery'. By intuition I do not mean 'fantasies and projections based on prejudices'. I mean subtle, non verbal senses of the reality of a situation. Intuition makes you feel uncomfortable. Fantasies make you feel secure / righteous / justified. People don't seem to praise real intuition. People mistake assumptions and emotions for intuition. I have done so, even recently, and have learned much from it. I am not sure who these people you mention who are praising intuition are, but then I don't watch TV or follow popular culture, so I am probably out of touch.
Personally, the times I have strongly overridden my intuition, I have been physically or verbally attacked, almost died in landslides, a raging river or fires, or by infection, amongst other ill outcomes. My organism seeks to persist. This is not cruel, it is a good and proper function of part of the living universe. I am grateful for my intuition and now treat it with more respect, and train it by paying close attention to outcomes after the heat of the moment has passed, critiquing and refining it, I hope. I also use it to protect those I love, not just myself. This is what any parent does (or should do), and it is adaptive (and dare I say it?), good. It is the basis of how we learn to care for others, when times are such that we can put down our immediate fear of the moment and include others in a widening circle of loving attention.
Sorry for not being clear. The spirit in which I was commenting was, overall: "Here is why I can reject appeals to listen to intuition. Here is an obvious reason why I shouldn't." For better or for worse, I'm able to doubt the argument that goes 'my intuition has saved my life.' I am able to doubt many other arguments which talk about what intuition can do in the world and get lost in debating the pros and cons.
What I am *sure* is wrong, with both halves of my brain, is to say 'this thing that I feel: I must ignore it, it can't be in any way real, it must be a lie because I cannot explain it.' That just doesn't make any sense. It defies logic. It's highly unscientific because, while doubt is essential to science, denial is certainly not. So I was singling out that sentence: "...why then I am harbouring a lie, yes? Root it out!" because I can be confident this argument is wrong. Even at times I would be inclined to dismiss any talk of intuition as fantasies, I can still be sure (if I remember to think about it) that this argument is wrong. I, personally, need to remember that.
Immune systems: well of course they are necessary. I think they are also savage. You can't be vegan or pacifist enough to not have an immune system. I can't see 'a good and proper function of part of the living universe' and 'cruel' as mutually exclusive things. Otherwise I will have to go round judging lions and orcas and ichneumons and forming a declawed Eden in my mind. And immune systems do sometimes attack the 'wrong' things (in our judgement), causing suffering and death to human beings. We die very quickly without them but that doesn't mean they are perfect. Right?
Hey, not much to say other than your writing continues to move me, not only into a better space but also into a feeling of awe at how brilliant I find listening to your words.
I love this definition of intuition. I am always searching out views and experiences of intuition as I feel like I was deadened to it for a long time. Your perspective has brought something new to me, thank you.
Thanks for your comment. This deadening of the intuition is a very important thing to investigate. It is well known that it can be a trauma response, but what is less talked about it how it can be peer, family or place-of-worship pressured out of a young person by being deemed strange or 'bad'. (I experienced all of those rather than a specific unfortunate traumatic event.) Intuition allied to paying close attention to the phenomenal world is like having a robust and nimble immune defence against diseases. Without it, we are prone to being gaslit, manipulated and exploited, whether personally, or by aspects of our wider culture.
Indeed, we can be gaslit into placating the attackers as you say.
Intuition is all— the source of possibility— and your description of it as the immune system- utterly lovely.
I’m glad I am reading too.
‘Gems in our roots’ - love, love this image. Also your insight about writing.
And I am so glad you are writing, because I would never bother reading just words. The timeless, unwritten, unspoken resonances in the spaces around and under, above and below, behind, between and ahead of your words... and so in my heart-mind, are the true art. The weaving alive of all and everything and nothing is what really touches in… and I yield to the experience and its magic.
'But when I say, "I have a drowned river in me, which still flows", it is truer than saying, "I feel a bit tired", even though I am a bit tired now.'
This resonates so deeply with me. Thank you for sharing.
'I learned not to shirk my commitment to the mundane view, lest I should be labelled a lightweight, a dreamer, or worse, earnest.' The mundane world is but a dull axe; no one yet knows how to make a seed, though they know how to defile one. Sincerely, a fellow lightweight.
Caroline, What a beautiful telling of transformation and continued growth. Thank you. D
I quite love your foraging, adventuring, clear-cutting your way writing. Along with intuition I have sometimes experienced something I would call 'presence'...a kind of unknown known...it guides! Many Thanks Jerome
I would like to hear more about this 'presence'.
It is a sence that there is an 'otherness near and within you...when I was six got up very early one morning... when attempting to make myself a breakfast by pouring hot water from the tap onto a shredded wheat..
It came over my that this would be my life - alone. It was more than word's it was experienced in my body. Indeed at eighty five I continue to be alone but my life is and has always been blessed with wonderful people. As an artist one is never alone.
When humour and story are not received, or are misunderstood, it guts me. Literalism is all around, wielded oppressively as the search for truth.
Really having a good laugh with someone is medicine, and so rare.
So glad I joined your Substack, recommended by Sharon Blackie. You are bringing something very fresh and precious into my life. Jewels.
Your writing feeds the soul, and your honesty and generosity is much appreciated. I greatly value you sharing your thinking in its rawness and honesty: thank you. I also love what you commented to Tessa, about the combination of intuition with close attention to the phenomenal world creating a robust and nimble immune system.
Thanks for this. Re intuition and attention - one without the other is a partial view. Either 'over feeling' or 'literalism'.
Your writing so resonates with me. As a young person I had much naturally assumed faith in my intuition, and I was so surprised one day to realize it had been all but eroded away by voices who "knew" and my own self doubt. That realization started the long journey back. Its so much easier now. And how perfectly well put your observation on earnestness. Please God anything but earnest..
I am Mrs Earnest. People are just going to have to bear it or bog off...
I love this post Caroline! Intuition is the same as thought but about a million times faster!
Yes, because it includes the whole organism, not just the grey matter!
I love this beautiful writing of yours. Your account of your childhood and school years rings many bells of recognition for me. I didn't see colours, I saw beings, other beings, all around us, at the edges of vision, behind trees, inside flowers, in the wallpaper. Except nobody else seemed to see them. So, I learned not to speak of them. And, unacknowledged and denied, the other beings gradually faded away. I wonder how many other children have a similar experience. I suspect that it is widespread.
Like you, I was lucky and was able to find a way back. I greet the beings every day now and they are coming back, stronger and stronger. There is no way I am going to deny them again. As I am typing this, I am aware that some people will read it as a confession of madness. Whatever. I am done with their sanity.
Thank you so much for your writing. It is comforting to know that there are other mad people around.
Bless you, Andy. I too am done with their 'sanity'. Good to see you here, hope you're well.
"If I am feeling something and I cannot tell you it clearly in words, why then, I am harbouring a lie, yes? Root it out!"
I think, for me at least, that is the clear warning that the course is wrong. If people praise intuition, I habitually respond with all the very real reasons to be suspicious of it. An immune system is a thing of terrifying savagery, after all; like a jungle trying to kill you. And they can overreact horribly. I immediately think of people whose intuition tells them things about black people, gay people, women, etc.
But I think those valid concerns are a distraction when it gets to this point - and it so easily does. When you are straight up saying something *cannot exist* because you can't describe or explain it, then I think you've betrayed science even more than you've betrayed yourself. It doesn't match anybody's principles, only habits.
I am sorry Nicholas, I don't follow what you are saying. An immune system is a normal part of living beings, like eating, drinking, movement or sleeping. Interfere with any of these and the creature suffers. Eating requires plants, fungi and animals to die for us to be nourished. I see this as an entirely normal part of the natural process, and, like the immune system, not at all a 'terrible savagery'. By intuition I do not mean 'fantasies and projections based on prejudices'. I mean subtle, non verbal senses of the reality of a situation. Intuition makes you feel uncomfortable. Fantasies make you feel secure / righteous / justified. People don't seem to praise real intuition. People mistake assumptions and emotions for intuition. I have done so, even recently, and have learned much from it. I am not sure who these people you mention who are praising intuition are, but then I don't watch TV or follow popular culture, so I am probably out of touch.
Personally, the times I have strongly overridden my intuition, I have been physically or verbally attacked, almost died in landslides, a raging river or fires, or by infection, amongst other ill outcomes. My organism seeks to persist. This is not cruel, it is a good and proper function of part of the living universe. I am grateful for my intuition and now treat it with more respect, and train it by paying close attention to outcomes after the heat of the moment has passed, critiquing and refining it, I hope. I also use it to protect those I love, not just myself. This is what any parent does (or should do), and it is adaptive (and dare I say it?), good. It is the basis of how we learn to care for others, when times are such that we can put down our immediate fear of the moment and include others in a widening circle of loving attention.
Sorry for not being clear. The spirit in which I was commenting was, overall: "Here is why I can reject appeals to listen to intuition. Here is an obvious reason why I shouldn't." For better or for worse, I'm able to doubt the argument that goes 'my intuition has saved my life.' I am able to doubt many other arguments which talk about what intuition can do in the world and get lost in debating the pros and cons.
What I am *sure* is wrong, with both halves of my brain, is to say 'this thing that I feel: I must ignore it, it can't be in any way real, it must be a lie because I cannot explain it.' That just doesn't make any sense. It defies logic. It's highly unscientific because, while doubt is essential to science, denial is certainly not. So I was singling out that sentence: "...why then I am harbouring a lie, yes? Root it out!" because I can be confident this argument is wrong. Even at times I would be inclined to dismiss any talk of intuition as fantasies, I can still be sure (if I remember to think about it) that this argument is wrong. I, personally, need to remember that.
Immune systems: well of course they are necessary. I think they are also savage. You can't be vegan or pacifist enough to not have an immune system. I can't see 'a good and proper function of part of the living universe' and 'cruel' as mutually exclusive things. Otherwise I will have to go round judging lions and orcas and ichneumons and forming a declawed Eden in my mind. And immune systems do sometimes attack the 'wrong' things (in our judgement), causing suffering and death to human beings. We die very quickly without them but that doesn't mean they are perfect. Right?
Yes to all this. No declawed Eden. Also, no such thing as 'perfect', as no place to stand and say 'that is perfect' from.
Thank you. Your words are a well. They refresh and sustain me in ways I cannot speak.
Hey, not much to say other than your writing continues to move me, not only into a better space but also into a feeling of awe at how brilliant I find listening to your words.