Peter, say more about the birds and the bees!

[Yoda]

Peter,

 

Your mentioning the "birds and the bees" was intriguing. Please say more.

 

I've heard it said that music can setup neural patterns in the brain. For instance that listening to Beethovin's late string quartets just once establishes neural patterns for processing emotional energy, etc. Is that what you meant by listening to birdsong as formative for jing structuring?

 

-Yoda

 

PS I did listen to the late string quartets just once, but didn't notice anything transformative.

[peter falk]

yoda,

 

this could ahve something to do with the same influence of music. birdsong or music, what's the difference? i plan on spending more time withthe birds this week. i think they have a lot to teach me about this. as it unfolds i'll continue to post more.

 

i know that the northern cardinal has had a tremendous influence on my psyche. it's song is one fo the earliest memories i have. others include blue jay, titmouse, mocking bird, crow, and mourning dove. others too, but those stand out to me right now. the result is that the songs zap me back into that sp[ecial place of innocence, wonder and mystery.

[Tenguzake]

Peter,

 

Are you familiar with Jon Young's Wilderness Awareness School? Jon was one of Tom's first students. He has his own school in Oregon now and also runs a home study naturalist training course called Kamana. He has some tapes on learning bird language and how it enables you to more easily tune into concentric rings. He also says that learning awareness skills like the various aboriginal peoples causes a person to use more of his brain potential than do modern "civilized" peoples.

 

Tenguzake

 

http://www.wildernessawareness.org/

[peter falk]

i am familiar with jon young and WAS. i've listened to all his bird language tapes. unfortunately, kamana wouldnt do much for me here. certainly the principles would be of tremendous benefit, but the program is heavily dependant in north american field guides and his instructors dont know anything about chinese wildlife. i'd end up schooling them. there is also a severe lack of field guides available for china. i spent six weeks scouring bookstores in the US and could only get a very excellent bird book and a few bird books that are ok. there are some field guides here, but they're all in chinese.

 

today i had this red-billed blue magpie in my sights. it was so silent. it was eerie and mysterious the way it moved. i relaxed into alpha, slipped into wide angle vision, and dropped the nocs, and just watched it for a while. a pair fo them. this is what the magpie had to teach: the birds you dont hear are more significant than the ones you do.

 

there was a corollary to this that emerged in my psyche--in silence there is magnificence. or was it, magnificence is found in silence. something like that. i think its going to be a while before i get all levels of this teaching. and it was the perfect bird to give it.

 

 

 

here's something else straight out of jon's book: there are birds here that correpsond to tbirds in N.A. the magpie robin looks, sounds, and acts like a mocking bird. the great tit looks, sounds and acts like a chickadee. the bird language and concentric rings translate very nicely.

[Tenguzake]

Peter,

 

Brilliant. Great post.

 

I've done Kamana I and have Kamana II sitting my my bed waiting for me to start it. I think it is a nice supplement to the Tracker School training. It is actually sitting on top of the back issues of the Razor's Edge that I bought after Philosophy I that I am slowly working my way through.

 

It sounds like you are in an area in China where you actually have wildlife which must be nice.

 

I lived in Japan at the edge of the Tokyo sprawl for about three years and I would occasionally just go nuts because trees were few and far between and excessively pruned. Thank God for the Budo and the booze.

 

Be Genki,

 

Tenguzake

[peter falk]

you'l recall then that one of the first exercises, perhaps the first ex. in K1 is to draw a robin and then compare it with the field guide. what would a person in china draw? a bulbulb? which one? a magpie robin? a black collared starling? so you see what i mean. and having chosen a bird ad drawn it, how would the people back at WAS evaluate the work? is the drawing ok? did i choose an appropriate bird for th eexercise? and so on and so forth.

 

one thing is certain, that by doing a sit spot everyday or getting out in nature on a regular basis doing wide angle vision and fox walk, or whatever, does attune you to the local external qi in the environment. but there is a shortcoming to kamana--while putting you intune with the natural world, it never translates any of this to the urban environment. i have yet to see a program from tracker school or WAS that focuses on urban settings in the same way. now kevin reeve, former director of the tracker school, has started a new school called on point tactical and does address this in a couple of classes. you can see his website for further info: www.onpointtactical.com.

[Tenguzake]

Some of Kevin's classes look like fun particularly the Urban Scout and the Urban E&E. Tom has a weekend intensive couse called Urban Scout on his schedule as well. I haven't yet taken the Scout class, which is a prereq to these, but am looking forward to doing so. I have to get the Advanced Tracking out of the way first and unfortunately my deal flow is too heavy this summer to get away from the office for it. Hopefully I can swing it next year. I have a friend who I think had signed up for one of Kevin's classes. I'll email him and see if I can get any feedback.

 

The wide angle vision is great for being in nature and for budo. I had an insight at Phil I when Tom sent us out to do the long form in our sit area with our eyes open. Many years ago I had learned how to "disappear in a mirror" from Glenn Morris and while cool I never really felt like it was very important. When we came back in from the open-eye meditation and Tom told us that the strange visuals we got were the beginnings of being able to see into the force and spirit realms I was floored. I need more practice on this for it to be really useful, but it is something I enjoy and don't practice often enough. Do you have any insights?

 

Thanks,

 

Tenguzake