That was just great Mary! I too loved that book and loved reading it to my kids. Well, I had no idea of the depths and truths right there on them pages. Thank for that beautiful rendering of simple wisdom.
I agree with you - Mother Bear getting ready to take it all back, and that's okay.
You do a knack for finding wisdom in so many places.❤️ Such a pleasure to read.
I'm so glad, Kathleen. I want to thank you, because it sprang as a direct result of your comment on Tereza's post. I just love how sparks keep the fire going and going...
Mar 3·edited Mar 6Liked by Mary Poindexter McLaughlin
My first response to this was a deep sigh. You often elicit that from me, Mary. A sense of all being right with the world because you're in it, and you're making a soft sense of it--not soft-thinking but thinking softly, with love and care. And later in the piece, corny as this is, my eyes teared up, wondering what I had done in my life to have this perceptive, well spoken woman responding to my thoughts and completing my sentences.
There's something deep in me that sings in resonance with this. There's also a particular timing that makes it especially significant (and isn't that always the case?) I'm going to post an episode in response after the relevant person in the story wakes up, so I can ask permission to tell it. Thank you for this! And someday, I'm hoping you and my oldest daughter will meet. You'll give me so much street cred with her, as another person off the scale in emotional intelligence.
Oh, Tereza! I'm so grateful for our connection. I described you to my husband as a whirling dervish of intellect and truth-seeking, qualities I appreciate because I always learn something in your presence -- and because they inspire my own truth-seeking journey.
I'd love to meet your daughter! But why do you need street cred??
What a profound reminder of how technology of all kinds can mask our true self and make us dependent upon outside sources for perceived safety. Our reliance upon such impermanent stuff leaves us feeling ever more unsafe in a hostile environment, desperate for a gentle and wise cosmic mother to hide within.
Paradoxically, we can find profound safety in a desolate landscape after a mirage we’ve clung to dissolves. Like trampled grass, we spring back into life after death, disaster and disappointment and somehow we rise up to greet a new day. Resilience is our superpower, but as a condition of life, we must accept that we will meet death again and again.
Impermanence will topple all of our dreams eventually, even the beautiful and inspired ones. But it’s by the trustworthy light of the soul shining through the cracks in a flawed human vessel that we can navigate to relative safety, secure in the knowledge that the maps we need were installed at birth and get updated in real time.
I love the usable gems of inspiration you mine from the simplest things, Mary!
"But it’s by the trustworthy light of the soul shining through the cracks in a flawed human vessel that we can navigate to relative safety, secure in the knowledge that the maps we need were installed at birth and get updated in real time."
Haven’t come across that book yet, but if it’s as warm and cuddly as you describe it, I suppose Frankie and I will have to read it. I see my local library has it. 🤗
I loved this, Mary, and I loved "Little Bear" back in the day! I think Else and Maurice would approve of your wise words, as well. So would Mother Bear. :) I find myself aware of needing less, especially technology-wise. Simplifying my life as much as possible.
It's a balmy 55 deg.! here and I'm headed outside. Who knows, maybe I'll meet up with a Bear coming out of his or her slumber. 🐻 XOXO
Aww, thank you, Mary. It's a process, that's for sure. And, a lot easier, I might add, while living alone up on a hill at the edge of the woods. :)XOXO
Well...I think that maybe Klaus Schwab is the embodiment of Mother Bear, and that when he says "you will nothing and be happy", he is giving humanity a great gift! It's hard to imagine Klaus as altruistic though. Running alongside the Klaus narrative I have noticed a different emerging narrative that looks a lot like like Mother Bears offering of love. I experience this emergence as an undercurrent to the Klaus like dominant narrative, and this appears to me as an awakening of love and connection; a realization that we have what we need and have always had what we have needed, and it was and is our birthright that no one can take from us. I am blessed to be able to swirl in this undercurrent with you Mary. I so appreciate your offerings of connection and love!
I'm experiencing that same emerging narrative. It seems like an example of the equal and opposite reaction phenomenon -- and probably the only way we could find our way back to true awakening.
Mary, you thanking me for my presence means more than you can imagine to me. It is always with some trepidation that I will myself to comment to your wonderful weaving of thoughts, musings, insights, and ideas. A big part of my childhood trauma was being diminished by my father in many ways; being told repetitively that I was stupid in so many ways for so many years. I shut down at a very early age, stuttered for some years and was mostly invisible. Zero confidence in myself. So, I am often moved to comment on your writings and in that process I pass through a gauntlet of fears of poor spelling and poor punctuation, being seen as bumpkin and whatever else my mini-me critic conjures up. And so I push on through. Your thank you for my presence is a balm for me and it touches me deeply Mary...Namaste
I'm sorry to 'pipe' in here, given the comment was for Mary.
RE: "I am often moved to comment on your writings and in that process I pass through a gauntlet of fears of poor spelling and poor punctuation, being seen as bumpkin and whatever else my mini-me critic conjures up."
Those early childhood imprints can be so stubborn.
But you are already SO much bigger than any story and that wounded kid is being subsumed by that larger YOU already, which is clearly insightful and kind and very intelligent. You've already pushed through. :-)
"I experience this emergence as an undercurrent to the Klaus like dominant narrative, and this appears to me as an awakening of love and connection; a realization that we have what we need and have always had what we have needed, and it was and is our birthright that no one can take from us."
Beautifully said, I think you're hitting on such an essential thing - the upside off this illusion-shredding is we deepen into ourselves. And remember. Thanks.
Wise words. I do think certain thoughts can be helpful. Two substack blogs worth exploring for new ideas going forward: the whole social and threefolding.
Beautiful articulation of the modern dilemma. Tech safetyism has always been a parenting challenging for me. Two smart, eccentric kids who live a lot in their heads and don’t find socializing easy unless it’s with their “tribe” of likeminded friends. As kids it was too easy for them to fall into texting with their buddies as opposed to getting out in the real world and seeing them in person — or even better, making friends outside their circle. And now I watch them trying to find romantic partners with these $&!@ apps! Ugh. It all seems designed to insulate from those awkward moments and rejections you have to go through to find meaningful relationships.
Ugh is right. A young life with no awkward moments practically guarantees an adult life filled with them. I'm sorry for the pain you experience on their behalf. Ah, parenting!
I recently read a post about freelance writers that led with the title, "Let's Get Rejected Today." Should be encouraged for all of us, in all things, but particularly for young people.
Thanks for the comment, Johanna, and I wish for the perfect partners to materialize in your kids' real worlds!
Mar 3·edited Mar 3Liked by Mary Poindexter McLaughlin
Yes & no. We have forgotten how brutal life was before technology.
The primary drive is to just plain survive. This is true of all life forms.
Technology reduced infant & child mortality dramatically. We needed more than "an heir & a spare" just to maintain population levels. Early on, humanity spent considerable time on the brink of extinction.
Technology has taken us so far from that reality that we have forgotten.
And I've also forgotten where I read something ..somewhere in substack most likely, about the deliberate creation back in the 1800s or early 20th century, of formal sports & entertainment by the elites to channel & subdue that drive.
For sure. There are extraordinary benefits to technology, and I'm not advocating we reject it all. I'm zeroing in on the pieces of it that distance ourselves from our own divine resilience and make us more and more susceptible to control.
However, I'm not sure where that line is. I think of technology as a tool. You can use a knife to cut food into bite-sized pieces. Or to stab someone in the carotid. You can hammer a nail or a head. And so on.
I don't really know, either. I think that's part of the real problem -- no one does, so we just keep allowing it to proliferate. I know I've said this before, but some tech is clearly not designed for anything but one use. Guillotines come to mind.
Mar 5·edited Mar 5Liked by Mary Poindexter McLaughlin
Ban guillotines & they'll return to axes. Ban axes & they'll return to spears. Ban spears & they'll return to knives. Ban knives & they'll return to poison. Oh, wait a minute...
When I worked in high tech in the 80s, we "knew" that by freeing information to everybody, we would free the world. We had insider seats to the fall of the iron curtain, with our software people in direct contact with soviet software people.
Afaik, none of us ever imagined or warned us that perverse people would take that technology & use it against us all.
A couple decades later, one of the scientists that developed CRISPR told an interviewer that they considered not publishing, but burying their creation for fear of how it might be used. "We had "grown up " They figured sooner or later someone else would figure it out & decided to go ahead & hope for the best.
My chemistry instructor told us about her chemist father. He was drafted into the army & forced at gunpoint (metaphorical since the gun wasn't actually pointed at them) to design bombs. He & his design partner were pacifists. They also were very, very smart. Smart enough to know the limits of their military supervisor's scientific limits. So for x years, they spent their days designing bombs that they knew would fail tests.
To quote Shakespeare, the problem lies not in our stars (or reaching for them) , but in our selves.
Makes me wonder about the Amish, and how their rejection of technology -- beyond a certain point of usefulness -- is based in their devotion to community-wide religious beliefs. Without some sort of moral underpinning that inherently and immovably imposes limits, we'll just keep saying yes to every new invention.
We don't all say yes. Those in power say yes. I don't use the majority of features on my "smart" phone. But to have a phone I don't have much choice. My 40ish Kenmore washing machine just died. My replacement options have a zillion "smart" features I most certainly have no use for ( & which create a zillion points of sw bugs). But it's that or what?
And I certainly have zero input into our development & use of weapons...including "medicine."
It's the psychopaths who worship the god of mammon & have stolen control of everything who are using technology to create monstrosities.
That was just great Mary! I too loved that book and loved reading it to my kids. Well, I had no idea of the depths and truths right there on them pages. Thank for that beautiful rendering of simple wisdom.
I agree with you - Mother Bear getting ready to take it all back, and that's okay.
You do a knack for finding wisdom in so many places.❤️ Such a pleasure to read.
Thank you.
I'm so glad, Kathleen. I want to thank you, because it sprang as a direct result of your comment on Tereza's post. I just love how sparks keep the fire going and going...
Grateful for you!
I love that too. 🔥😊
My first response to this was a deep sigh. You often elicit that from me, Mary. A sense of all being right with the world because you're in it, and you're making a soft sense of it--not soft-thinking but thinking softly, with love and care. And later in the piece, corny as this is, my eyes teared up, wondering what I had done in my life to have this perceptive, well spoken woman responding to my thoughts and completing my sentences.
There's something deep in me that sings in resonance with this. There's also a particular timing that makes it especially significant (and isn't that always the case?) I'm going to post an episode in response after the relevant person in the story wakes up, so I can ask permission to tell it. Thank you for this! And someday, I'm hoping you and my oldest daughter will meet. You'll give me so much street cred with her, as another person off the scale in emotional intelligence.
Oh, Tereza! I'm so grateful for our connection. I described you to my husband as a whirling dervish of intellect and truth-seeking, qualities I appreciate because I always learn something in your presence -- and because they inspire my own truth-seeking journey.
I'd love to meet your daughter! But why do you need street cred??
And I've decided that tears are NEVER corny. ❤️
What a profound reminder of how technology of all kinds can mask our true self and make us dependent upon outside sources for perceived safety. Our reliance upon such impermanent stuff leaves us feeling ever more unsafe in a hostile environment, desperate for a gentle and wise cosmic mother to hide within.
Paradoxically, we can find profound safety in a desolate landscape after a mirage we’ve clung to dissolves. Like trampled grass, we spring back into life after death, disaster and disappointment and somehow we rise up to greet a new day. Resilience is our superpower, but as a condition of life, we must accept that we will meet death again and again.
Impermanence will topple all of our dreams eventually, even the beautiful and inspired ones. But it’s by the trustworthy light of the soul shining through the cracks in a flawed human vessel that we can navigate to relative safety, secure in the knowledge that the maps we need were installed at birth and get updated in real time.
I love the usable gems of inspiration you mine from the simplest things, Mary!
Wow. What a gorgeous, truth-filled, lyrical comment. I'm gobsmacked, Katie. Thank you for this addition to the comments; it's poetry in itself.
"But it’s by the trustworthy light of the soul shining through the cracks in a flawed human vessel that we can navigate to relative safety, secure in the knowledge that the maps we need were installed at birth and get updated in real time."
Damn, that's good. And wise. Thank you.
I loved reading Little Bear books to my son in the mid 90s ! He about to turn 30, still some valuable lessons.
Haven’t come across that book yet, but if it’s as warm and cuddly as you describe it, I suppose Frankie and I will have to read it. I see my local library has it. 🤗
It's a classic, for a reason. The other ones in the series are warm and cuddly, too. Get thee to the library! (Like you have nothing else to do 🙄.)
😂
I loved this, Mary, and I loved "Little Bear" back in the day! I think Else and Maurice would approve of your wise words, as well. So would Mother Bear. :) I find myself aware of needing less, especially technology-wise. Simplifying my life as much as possible.
It's a balmy 55 deg.! here and I'm headed outside. Who knows, maybe I'll meet up with a Bear coming out of his or her slumber. 🐻 XOXO
You are actually a role model for me in the simplification department, Barbara. xox!
Aww, thank you, Mary. It's a process, that's for sure. And, a lot easier, I might add, while living alone up on a hill at the edge of the woods. :)XOXO
correction..."You will have nothing and be happy"
Well...I think that maybe Klaus Schwab is the embodiment of Mother Bear, and that when he says "you will nothing and be happy", he is giving humanity a great gift! It's hard to imagine Klaus as altruistic though. Running alongside the Klaus narrative I have noticed a different emerging narrative that looks a lot like like Mother Bears offering of love. I experience this emergence as an undercurrent to the Klaus like dominant narrative, and this appears to me as an awakening of love and connection; a realization that we have what we need and have always had what we have needed, and it was and is our birthright that no one can take from us. I am blessed to be able to swirl in this undercurrent with you Mary. I so appreciate your offerings of connection and love!
I'm experiencing that same emerging narrative. It seems like an example of the equal and opposite reaction phenomenon -- and probably the only way we could find our way back to true awakening.
Thank you for your presence here, Denni!
Mary, you thanking me for my presence means more than you can imagine to me. It is always with some trepidation that I will myself to comment to your wonderful weaving of thoughts, musings, insights, and ideas. A big part of my childhood trauma was being diminished by my father in many ways; being told repetitively that I was stupid in so many ways for so many years. I shut down at a very early age, stuttered for some years and was mostly invisible. Zero confidence in myself. So, I am often moved to comment on your writings and in that process I pass through a gauntlet of fears of poor spelling and poor punctuation, being seen as bumpkin and whatever else my mini-me critic conjures up. And so I push on through. Your thank you for my presence is a balm for me and it touches me deeply Mary...Namaste
I'm sorry to 'pipe' in here, given the comment was for Mary.
RE: "I am often moved to comment on your writings and in that process I pass through a gauntlet of fears of poor spelling and poor punctuation, being seen as bumpkin and whatever else my mini-me critic conjures up."
Those early childhood imprints can be so stubborn.
But you are already SO much bigger than any story and that wounded kid is being subsumed by that larger YOU already, which is clearly insightful and kind and very intelligent. You've already pushed through. :-)
Best.
What she said! ❤️
"I experience this emergence as an undercurrent to the Klaus like dominant narrative, and this appears to me as an awakening of love and connection; a realization that we have what we need and have always had what we have needed, and it was and is our birthright that no one can take from us."
Beautifully said, I think you're hitting on such an essential thing - the upside off this illusion-shredding is we deepen into ourselves. And remember. Thanks.
Brilliant!
Thanks, Kathleen!
Lovely to revisit this beloved childrens' classic.
What do I think? For me, first of all, it brings to mind all the jabbing.
I get that...
Wise words. I do think certain thoughts can be helpful. Two substack blogs worth exploring for new ideas going forward: the whole social and threefolding.
Agreed! I've enjoyed The Whole Social, and I'll check out Threefolding. Thanks!
Wait! Threefolding is you! I missed that first time around... 😂
Beautiful articulation of the modern dilemma. Tech safetyism has always been a parenting challenging for me. Two smart, eccentric kids who live a lot in their heads and don’t find socializing easy unless it’s with their “tribe” of likeminded friends. As kids it was too easy for them to fall into texting with their buddies as opposed to getting out in the real world and seeing them in person — or even better, making friends outside their circle. And now I watch them trying to find romantic partners with these $&!@ apps! Ugh. It all seems designed to insulate from those awkward moments and rejections you have to go through to find meaningful relationships.
Ugh is right. A young life with no awkward moments practically guarantees an adult life filled with them. I'm sorry for the pain you experience on their behalf. Ah, parenting!
I recently read a post about freelance writers that led with the title, "Let's Get Rejected Today." Should be encouraged for all of us, in all things, but particularly for young people.
Thanks for the comment, Johanna, and I wish for the perfect partners to materialize in your kids' real worlds!
Yes & no. We have forgotten how brutal life was before technology.
The primary drive is to just plain survive. This is true of all life forms.
Technology reduced infant & child mortality dramatically. We needed more than "an heir & a spare" just to maintain population levels. Early on, humanity spent considerable time on the brink of extinction.
Technology has taken us so far from that reality that we have forgotten.
And I've also forgotten where I read something ..somewhere in substack most likely, about the deliberate creation back in the 1800s or early 20th century, of formal sports & entertainment by the elites to channel & subdue that drive.
For sure. There are extraordinary benefits to technology, and I'm not advocating we reject it all. I'm zeroing in on the pieces of it that distance ourselves from our own divine resilience and make us more and more susceptible to control.
Agreed.
However, I'm not sure where that line is. I think of technology as a tool. You can use a knife to cut food into bite-sized pieces. Or to stab someone in the carotid. You can hammer a nail or a head. And so on.
I don't really know, either. I think that's part of the real problem -- no one does, so we just keep allowing it to proliferate. I know I've said this before, but some tech is clearly not designed for anything but one use. Guillotines come to mind.
Ban guillotines & they'll return to axes. Ban axes & they'll return to spears. Ban spears & they'll return to knives. Ban knives & they'll return to poison. Oh, wait a minute...
When I worked in high tech in the 80s, we "knew" that by freeing information to everybody, we would free the world. We had insider seats to the fall of the iron curtain, with our software people in direct contact with soviet software people.
Afaik, none of us ever imagined or warned us that perverse people would take that technology & use it against us all.
A couple decades later, one of the scientists that developed CRISPR told an interviewer that they considered not publishing, but burying their creation for fear of how it might be used. "We had "grown up " They figured sooner or later someone else would figure it out & decided to go ahead & hope for the best.
My chemistry instructor told us about her chemist father. He was drafted into the army & forced at gunpoint (metaphorical since the gun wasn't actually pointed at them) to design bombs. He & his design partner were pacifists. They also were very, very smart. Smart enough to know the limits of their military supervisor's scientific limits. So for x years, they spent their days designing bombs that they knew would fail tests.
To quote Shakespeare, the problem lies not in our stars (or reaching for them) , but in our selves.
Excellent points, all.
Makes me wonder about the Amish, and how their rejection of technology -- beyond a certain point of usefulness -- is based in their devotion to community-wide religious beliefs. Without some sort of moral underpinning that inherently and immovably imposes limits, we'll just keep saying yes to every new invention.
We don't all say yes. Those in power say yes. I don't use the majority of features on my "smart" phone. But to have a phone I don't have much choice. My 40ish Kenmore washing machine just died. My replacement options have a zillion "smart" features I most certainly have no use for ( & which create a zillion points of sw bugs). But it's that or what?
And I certainly have zero input into our development & use of weapons...including "medicine."
It's the psychopaths who worship the god of mammon & have stolen control of everything who are using technology to create monstrosities.