May the Force be with you
And also within you…
I recently watched five Star Wars movies… two of the later ones (earlier chronology) which I had never seen, and then the original three. Long battle scenes bore me so I tend to buff my nails or write notes to myself during those portions of the film, but I adore all the stuff about the Force. It’s my kind of spiritual.
It’s about interconnection, self-awareness and love. It’s creative energy that flows into all forms; energy that can be channeled and amplified by human consciousness submitting its will to the true nature of the Force.
Although the Force can confer great power upon an individual, the ability to use the Force requires profound interior awareness, seriousness, and submission to values that transcend the mortal self.
What Jesus said... The Kingdom of God is within you. The Kingdom of God = The Force. Jesus was a Jedi.
Just because I’m talking about Jesus, don’t get the idea that I’m a Christian apologist. There are a whole lot of so-called Christians who should be apologizing to everyone for taking the name of the Lord in vain.
You can’t blame Jesus for the fact that people will turn to any port in a storm of self-righteous, self-protecting, self-aggrandizing bullshit and call it Christianity. Jesus, as the proponent of a set of priceless values I can afford is right up there with Lao Tzu, the I Ching, Rumi, and plenty of other purveyors and practitioners of the Force.
My first conscious recognition of the Force was Lao Tzu’s Way of Life. Same awareness of energy, pattern, connection and meaning. Coming across that little book as a teenager (the Witter Bynner translation) was a life-saving revelation. I had not, until then, found a human voice expressing a wholeness I intuited but for which I had no direct affirmation. I thought I might be crazy. Reading this book was like diving into a deep cool body of water on a scorching hot day. It was like falling in love.
Tips on how to be a Jedi, by Lao Tzu… (don’t let the archaic gendered words fool you…man, men means everyone.)
Can you hold the door of your tent
Wide to the firmament?
Can you, with the simple stature
Of a child, breathing nature,
Become, notwithstanding,
A man?
Can you continue befriending
With no prejudice, no ban?
Can you, mating with heaven,
Serve as the female part?
Can your learned head take leaven
From the wisdom of your heart?
If you can bear issue and nourish its growing,
If you can guide without claim or strife,
If you can stay in the lead of men without their knowing,
You are at the core of life.
A while back when I was in a low-residency undergraduate program, I fudged the math requirement by studying sacred geometry, which I loved. You can take a compass and a ruler and make a complex drawing of interconnected shapes and lines. And then (after you make a few photocopies) you can color in your drawing in a variety of ways that will create different patterns all from the same original set of shapes and lines.
Try it yourself. Download this image, print out a few copies, and have at it! You can make many different designs from this template depending on what color patterns you extract from the underlying grid.
This is one way to understand how apprehension of the Force takes so many forms in human culture. You could say that every aspect of the material world is a time and space-based variation that emerges from an underlying field of energy patterns.
We are well overdue for a new understanding of energy, pattern, connection and meaning that honors the religions of the past while placing them into a larger context in which apprehension of the sacred is not separate from apprehension of reality—of sustainability, ecosystems and science. Of cause and effect.
And most significantly, of ourselves, not so much who we are, as what we are. We are the missing link in our understanding. If we can face and accept our grave potential for ignorance and illumination, carelessness and caring, fear and love, destruction and construction, then perhaps we can accept the responsibility to protect and nurture this beautiful fragile planet and all the life which it supports.
May the Force be with you, and also within you.
We take long trips.
We puzzle over the meaning of a painting or a book,
When what we’re trying to see and understand
in this world, we are that.
From Open Secret, Versions of Rumi, by John Moyne and Coleman Barks
SO FINE. Thank you.
May the Force be with you, Janina! Also may the floss be with you! And if you're planning on any picnics, may the forks be with you too! BTW, do you own a copy of 365 Tao: Daily Meditations by Deng Ming-Dao?