If...Then...

When my dear friend Cat and I cleared out her home to make space for the renters, she offered me lots of books. Since Cat is a Hypnotherapist, I gladly accepted several boxes knowing there would definitely be some jewels of information from which many of them (I was certain) would make me feel good all over. Information has a way of doing that. Certain information feels good, and the rest, doesn’t. Interesting thing about “information feeling good” is that it never changes. Throughout our existence we each know how “good” feels – we come equipped to know.

Clearing the last book from the box, I knew I was holding something special, even though issued in 1999. I paused and opened Seven Life Lessons of Chaos, written by John Briggs, writer-educator-journalist, and F. David Peat, a Ph.D. in physics. What I experienced was joy within 175 pages. It was a wonder I didn’t underline every sentence.

“Seeing the Art of the World” was “Lesson 5” (no chapters in this work). “Seeing the art…” is a pretty cool consideration when illuminating Chaos Theory. “What’s art got to do with it!?” I heard from my internal-sound-system. Upon reading the first paragraph, I melted (“…and did they know I write an IF…THEN column for WISDOM Magazine’s online news-portal!? Dana get a grip! ” played loud and clear…), I settled into my chair for a second time and read,

“If you have ever lain on your back to watch big puffy cumulus clouds boiling across the sky, if you have stood on a coastline enveloped in the sight of the ocean swelling and uncoiling breakers against the land, if you have ever contemplated the mountains, then you know.”

I can’t think of a better “IF…THEN” way to welcome in our newest year, than considering and experiencing that, “IF…THEN”! Chaos Theory has become a new pleasure. It feels so darn good to receive information robust with integrity; there is so much otherwise streaming through.

Another sizable gem absorbed from the book… IF, “…our brain self-organizes by changing its subtle connectivity with every act of perception.” (p.19) THEN, whatever information is being “self-organized,” integrated and understood, is as “good as it gets” at that moment! “Self-organization” of information of greater integrity, and one’s experience must reflect that! Become educated in “seeing the art of the world…” and that is the experience! (Yes! I want more of that!)

And IF, “Mental illness occurs when images of the self become rigid and closed…” (p.29), and IF, “…a heartbeat becomes increasingly mechanical and regular, that’s a signal of problems…” (p.65) THEN, it is seems imperative that we humans accept that “…a healthy organism…is a strange attractor—jiggling, moving, shifting, filled with positive feedback loops that push the system into new directions and negative feedback loops that keep the process from flying off into merely random oblivion.”

Chaos Theory feels like an adventure in discovering the flows, interconnections, entanglements of everything and, once educated in its organic “art”, at that moment we “know.” (Yes! I want more of that!)

So who do you think you are now?

Your “Comments” continue motivating the exploration of “who we think we are,” now that we know more. Glad you’re joining me in hot pursuit of information... D. B. Lichtstrahl. Read more at www.danalichtstrahl.com , info@danalichtstrahl.com   D.B. Lichtstrahl © 2013