Gaia Community: AlexNoble's Blog

NOTES: Small Towns

http://alexnoble.gaia.com — Thu, 29 May 2008 21:48:04 GMT

We are losing our small towns, the same way we are losing family farms, topsoil, and a feeling for what Christopher Alexander calls "human scale." I had almost forgotten how a small town works, until today, when I had an urgent need to get some information from a teacher I had studied with many years ago. All I remember is that he moved away, to Sagebrush, which is a very small town about two hours north of the not small town I endure, because it is on the ocean. Arthur, the subject of my search, is a tall, tall man who loves jazz and used to be a force in the jazz society here. He is kind and gracious. Emboldened by my memory of what a thoroughly good person he is, I had a feeling that someone in Sagebrush would surely know if he still lived there and how I could find him, even though I had forgotten his last name. And so, knowing that I was entering small town territory, which is different than not small town territory, I did what seemed to be the obvious: I called the County Sherriff's Office. Deputy Robbins answered. Realizing I might sound like a nut case, I jumped right in. "I am trying to find my former teacher Arthur, who moved up your way about 20 years ago, but I have forgotten his last name. I can tell you that he is very tall, perhaps 6'6" or so, loves jazz, and is a kind and good person. Do you happen to know him?" Deputy Robbins, being a classic small town sherriff, didn't miss a beat. "Oh," he said, "You must be looking for Arthur Blake. Lovely fellow. My grandson is in his Fifth Grade Class over at the elementary school. Here's the number." Small towns. Big hearts.

Alex Noble

Photo by Alex Noble

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NOTES: Being Nice

http://alexnoble.gaia.com — Thu, 29 May 2008 21:19:08 GMT

Our culture places a premium on "being nice," and this leads to a lot of falsity, fakery and insincerity. How often do I step aside from an honest response in order to be nice? How often do I deprive another of my honest and heartfelt response, in order to be seen as nice? I wonder, as I watch myself now in awkward situations, if any genuine good is ever done by failing to be true to my real feelings. While it takes discipline, courage and self-awareness to risk being seen as a "not nice" person, surely there is a benefit in being able to be authentic in the moment, if this is done with love and integrity. There is freedom in knowing that while I do not always have to be "nice," I can always be loving and truthful.

Alex Noble

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NOTES: Self Help Books

http://alexnoble.gaia.com — Thu, 29 May 2008 17:26:27 GMT

I have an addiction, it seems, to self help books. With each new secret, solution, answer, method or system that comes available, I have to read it, or at least have it on my bookshelf for a rainy day. The buying of self help books is a guilty pleasure, because there is always the hope that this new book will provide The Answer to Everything, and that my life will be, somehow, magically transformed by whatever words of wisdom live in these pages. I often wonder why I am so hungry for wisdom and ideas that promise transformation. Am I not good enough as I am? What if there were no self help books available to me? Would I be able to become a better person just by entering deeply into my own experience, observing it with clarity and precision, and learning from the very stuff of life itself, unfiltered by someone else's perception and process? I love what George Bernard Shaw said when someone asked him what books he would take with him if he had to spend a year on a desert island. Shaw replied: "Blank ones." Is the book I write for myself, perhaps the best self help book of all?

Alex Noble

Photo by Alex Noble

Tags: alex noble, notes, self help books

NOTES: Learning to Write

http://alexnoble.gaia.com — Thu, 29 May 2008 16:16:14 GMT

In spite of all the writing I have done, I always feel as though I am still learning to write. Always the blank sheet of paper, like a vast open desert... Always the haunting fear that says I have nothing more to say. Always the hesitancy to just jump in and start the flow of words: a dream, an encounter, a moment of beauty, a concern, a special joy, or just a haiku moment in nature. So I wait. And if I wait long enough, patient as a fisherman casting his line into the deep blue, words will float to the surface of consciousness, at first shadowy and indistinct, then I see their shapes, and then I can catch them, one at a time. When new friends ask the inevitable question, "What do you do?" I gather my courage and reply:"I am a writer." Then, of course, they brighten up (everyone it seems wants to write these days) and ask: "What do you write?" And I gather more courage and answer:"Very short paragraphs. I am a very short paragraph writer."

Alex Noble

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NOTES: Shamanic Encounter

http://alexnoble.gaia.com — Thu, 29 May 2008 01:07:24 GMT

I noticed today when I met F. how completely at ease I felt. It was as though he saw me, and understood immediately who I was and why I needed to talk to him. I felt as though I was meeting an old soul, or perhaps a shaman. I did not have to apologize for my ignorance. I was impressed that, instead of just brushing me off on the telephone, like most bureaucrats would have done, he came down to the lobby to speak to me in person. When I told him that I had actually prayed for some help, and asked for an angel, he laughed and blushed. His presence was that of depth, power, and control, yet there was also great kindness. When I explained the problem I was trying to solve, I felt that I had his absolute attention. I said: "I am a get it done person, but I do not know what to do in this situation," I knew that he would do everything he could to help me.

Alex Noble

Photo by Alex Noble

Tags: alex noble, notes for myself, shamanic encounter

HAIKU: NOVEMBER FIRE

http://alexnoble.gaia.com — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 02:58:39 GMT

november fire

flickers in the plum tree

full moon tonight

alex noble

photography by alex noble

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PHOTOGRAPHY & ART GALLERIES

http://alexnoble.gaia.com — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 08:48:53 GMT

Please come and visit my Photography & Art Galleries, a quiet oasis of peace, color, and

light for your enjoyment...

And browse through my poetry and reflections in

Notes from the Soul Country

an online journal.

Photo of butterflies by Alex Noble

Overcome writer’s block and discover your Inner Writer: DIVING DEEPER: A Writing Workshop.

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GREAT BLUE AND ME

http://alexnoble.gaia.com — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 19:54:27 GMT

His name, in Latin, is Ardea herodias. He is shy and mysterious.

I never know when he is going to show up, or how long he will stay. Months can go by, and I will not see him at all. Then, one day I will look down into the creek, and he will be there, patiently waiting for just the right frog or fish.

He is also partial, when luck permits, to snakes, turtles, and rodents. He is extremely fond of bright red koi, but rarely has access to them. My neighbor had to put a screen over his koi pond to prevent midnight raids on his pricey fish.

I call him by his proper name: Great Blue.

Great Blue is a solitary feeder. He usually dines standing in water at dawn or sunset, preferring to hang out at water’s edge, but capable of wading farther out than other herons because of his long legs.

His habitats are many: fresh and saltwater marshes, flooded meadows, shorelines, mangrove swamps, and creeks like mine. On those rare occasions when he chooses to speak, it is a harsh croak, and then he will lapse back into a regal silence, as though he wishes he had a voice more congruent with his physical beauty.

Great Blue seems to know he is free to come and go in my life, and that he is welcome down there in my creek. We give each other space. I think he knows I will not intrude on his sanctuary. I believe he feels safe here. I do not try to capture him, contain him, interfere with his enjoyment of my meadow and stream, or tell him where to dine.

Others might try to claim him and clip his wings, consigning him to a miserable life leashed to a barbeque in a backyard, an “exotic pet.” But Great Blue is wondrous in his freedom, his beauty, his graceful demeanor and exquisite style. To make a prisoner and pet of him would be demeaning, and would consign him to a life of servitude to other people’s vanity and need to be “close to nature.” For those who seek to learn from such wild creatures as Great Blue Herons, he is a teacher of Taoist love, the open handed love that continuously lets go, lets go, lets go.

He knows a great deal more than I do about what works for him, and I respect that. We exchange long appreciative looks. I make sure I do not cross any invisible boundary, marked in the space between us by a primal instinct on his part as to what is safe and what is no longer safe. When I am watching him, I sit very still.

Once, a few years ago, Great Blue spent a week standing motionless on the roof of a tall shed. I never saw him going back and forth to the creek, though at night he must have taken time outs for snacks. He was magnificent, like a heron in a rare, Japanese painting. Every so often, he would spread his wings, as though to fly away, but something about the rooftop vantage point appealed to him. Maybe he could see where the mice were, who knows.

He seemed to enjoy looking down into the house, watching me come and go. I felt that I was being honored with a visit from a sky god. I was careful not to do anything that might disturb or frighten him. I made sure that he felt welcome, but also safe. I gave him space.

I think he was enjoying himself, up there. Maybe he was indicating his trust. I wanted to take a picture of him, but somehow, that seemed like a violation of the bond between us. For that week, he owned the shed.

He was here for awhile last month, and now he is gone again, off to some other stream, or lake or marsh. I like the way he comes and goes. There is surprise in it. There is a kind of indefinable inter-species camaraderie. There is also a certain intimacy and affection: he seems to know that he is always welcome, and that he will not be scolded for being about his mysterious, necessary Great Blue Heron life. He knows that it is all so OK, or at least I like to think he knows. Love may mean never having to say you are sorry, but I believe it also means never having to apologize for who you are and what you have to do.

It is perhaps a fantasy to think that there is any real understanding or communication between us, and yet, the fact that he comes back here again and again, seems to like hanging out here, and never seems to mind my observation of him is perhaps a vote of confidence. Who knows?

I am, in these reflections, reminded of the words from Poet David Ignatow:

I should be content

to look at a mountain

for what it is

and not as a comment

on my life.

I never know if I will see him again, and experience his calm, wild, extraordinary and deeply healing presence in my life. Great Blue is, after all, a wild heron, meant to explore many horizons, many ocean shores, many woodland streams. I should not think too much about this, or miss him, or even hope that he may one day be back for a hello.

But there is a quiet joy in hoping I will see him again. And again.

Isn’t this, after all, what the best friendships, and unconditional love, are all about?

Alex Noble

From “Notes from the Soul Country”

Please visit DIVING DEEPER: A Writing Workshop

Tags: alex noble, alex noble blogs, 23CN, 23CN-NSC, great blue, unconditional love, Taoist love, nature

PHOTOGRAPHY: MACAWS

http://alexnoble.gaia.com — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 18:39:58 GMT

Photography: "Macaws" by Alex Noble

From "Notes from the Soul Country"

Please visit DIVING DEEPER: A Writing Workshop, and CAMP HAPPINESS: Being Better Bloggers.

Tags: alex noble, alex noble blogs, 23CN, 23CN-NSC, photography, macaws

PHOTOGRAPHY: FLAMINGO

http://alexnoble.gaia.com — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 03:35:45 GMT

Photograph of Chilean Flamingo Feathers by Alex Noble

Copyright C 2007 by Alex Noble. All rights reserved in all media.

Please visit DIVING DEEPER: A Writing Workshop, and CAMP HAPPINESS: Being Better Bloggers.

And now: Alex Noble’s “Notes from the Soul Country”

Tags: alex noble, alex noble's blog, 23CN, 23CN-PICS

POEM: LOVE IS...

http://alexnoble.gaia.com — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 13:01:13 GMT

Love is what you find
when you stop looking for love
and follow your bliss.

Love is what you gain
when you let go of the past
and embrace your life.

Love is what you feel
in the quiet morning hours
when you are alone.

Love is who you are,
when you forget who you are
and lose your small self.

Love is when a poem
reaches out and touches you
beyond words, like this.

Love is the mirror
in which you see who you are
beautiful and complete.

Love is like these leaves
like a heart learning to trust
swimming into light.

Love, not what you think,
or ever thought it would be:
perfect emptiness.

Alex Noble

An Excerpt from 23CN:

“The Book of Notes from the Soul Country”

Photography, "Spring Leaves," by Alex Noble

Please visit DIVING DEEPER: A Writing Workshop, and CAMP HAPPINESS: Being Better Bloggers.

Tags: alex noble, alex noble's blog, 23CN, 23CN-NOTES, love, love is

BLOGGING PRACTICE: GETTING STARTED

http://alexnoble.gaia.com — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 16:32:42 GMT

So you want to blog! There are some basic books you must have on your shelf if you are serious about your Blogging Practice. I will be adding to this list as time goes on, and welcome your own suggestions. There is a wealth of material, references, and sources in the books I list below to help you get a sense of the scale and power of this new digital universe. And what is most exciting of all is your potential role in this vast new frontier for positive social change. Of course, because I view both Blogging and Writing Practice as essentially spiritual disciplines, I recommend that you immediately establish a positive vision, motivating purpose and realistic goals for your work. There will be more about vision, purpose and goals in future posts in this series. But right now, surf, sail or fly on over to your nearest bookstore and get ready for summer cyber-camp. There is a special ‘campfire’ where you can meet fellow bloggers to discuss your blogging practice and share your adventure through the blogosphere. GO!

Recommended Coursebooks:

The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet is Killing Our Culture. Andrew Keen. Doubleday, New York, 2007.

Blogging for Dummies: A Reference for the Rest of Us: Set Up, Publish, and Maintain a Blog That Draws Readers. Brad Hill. Wiley Publishing, New Jersey, 2006.

The Rough Guide to Blogging: Navigate the Blogosphere. Jonathan Yang. Rough Guides, Ltd., London. 2006.

BLOGOSPHERE: Best of the Blogs. Peter Kuhns & Adrienne Crew. Que, Indiana, 2006.

BLOG: Understanding the Information Reformation That’s Changing Your World: Why You Must Know How the Blogosphere Is Smashing the Old Media Monopoly and Giving Individuals Power in the Marketplace of Ideas. Hugh Hewitt. Thomas Nelson, Tennessee, 2005.

*******

Alex Noble

An Excerpt from 23CN:

“The Book of Blogging Practice”

Please visit DIVING DEEPER: A Writing Workshop

Tags: alex noble, alex noble's blog, 23CN, 23CN-BLOG, blogging practice, cyber-camp

POEM: TWO FEATHERS

http://alexnoble.gaia.com — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 16:57:01 GMT

Two Feathers

…plant something foreign in me, a deep quiet,
a mad freedom: my heart laughed when the bird
raised his soft wings.

Thorkild Bjornvig

Two feathers drift onto my desk.
Pale morning sunlight
heralds another hot June day.

Native Americans regard
fallen feathers as favorable signs.
I think of them as angels.

My heartbeat quickens. There,
against the rising sun
a lone eagle is flying.

The eagle knows I am here,
and sends his salutation.
One lone warrior greets the other.

He is on a journey into light.
But he keeps watch and circles.
He knows I know he is there.

I hold his gifts in my hands.
They are both blessing and prayer.
Now, there are two eagles flying.

Alex Noble

An Excerpt from 23CN:

“The Book of Notes from the Soul Country”

Please visit DIVING DEEPER: A Writing Workshop, and CAMP HAPPINESS: Being Better Bloggers.

Tags: alex noble, alex noble's blogs, 23CN, 23CN-NOTES, flight, eagles, feathers

BLOGGING PRACTICE: THE BLOG REFORMATION

http://alexnoble.gaia.com — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 20:13:11 GMT

The Blog Reformation:

Where Creativity+Technology+Mastery=Leadership

Want to be a leader? Whatever your field of passion and expertise, to be an effective leader today you need to master a wide range of creative and technical skills. You need to know how to think creatively. You need to know how to express yourself with compelling words and images. You need to have fire in your belly to be the change you want to see in the world.

And now, you also need to master a range of internet skills to connect with, learn from and influence others. Enter the Blog!

Law Professor and Syndicated Columnist Hugh Hewitt has written a best-selling book on what can be called the Blog Revolution: BLOG: Understanding the Information Reformation That’s Changing Your World. (See www.HughHewitt.com) BLOG is all about “Why you must know how the blogosphere is smashing the old media monopoly and giving individuals power in the marketplace.”

Hewitt writes: “Millions of people are changing their habits when it comes to information acquisition. This has happened many times before – with the appearance of the printing press, then the telegraph, the telephone, radio, television and the internet. Now the blogosphere has appeared, and it has come so suddenly as to surprise even the most sophisticated of analysts.”

Hewitt continues: “Change isn’t coming. It is here. Information is being absorbed in new and startlingly different ways from new, and until recently, unknown sources. Your customer, your congregant, your critic is changing. You need to think that through. I can help.” I highly recommend this book to anyone who would like to get a sense of the new territory out there, and the opportunities it brings to our desktops.

No longer do you need to feel powerless in the face of environmental destruction, human rights violations, corporate fraud and malfeasance, escalating violence against women and children, political scandals, rampant globalization, poisoning of our food supply, and the destruction of constitutional principles upon which our country is founded.

Nor do you need to feel that your voice does not have value in the global, ongoing human conversation that the blogosphere now makes possible. You have something to say, and you now have powerful technology on your desktop to enable you to say it, whether to an audience of one, of hundreds, or of millions.

Well over ten million people have visited Hugh Hewitt’s web site and read his opinions.”Why does this visitor traffic matter?” Hewitt asks. “People’s attentions are up for grabs. If you depend on the steady trust of others, suddenly you have an audience waiting to hear from you.”

Anyone can speak out today, and if they have ideas that are exciting and useful, the audience will gather.

Thousands upon thousands of bloggers have developed dynamic, lively communities, and are ready to “swarm” around current issues of significance when the need arises.

There are many examples from recent years of the history-changing power of a “blog swarm.”

Again, from Hewitt: “You should thus be persuaded that the last couple of years have been important for blogging. But it is much bigger than that. That’s like saying that 1517 was a big year for Martin Luther. Both statements are true but do not communicate the scope of the change that was initiated in those years.

“ To get a glimpse of what is coming, try examining what followed Luther’s challenge to the authority of Rome. As Luther was to Leo, so bloggers are to Main Stream Media, and Luther’s impact wasn’t limited to the Vatican.”

In the exponentially expanding influence of talented and persuasive bloggers, and the very size of this new blogosphere itself, I am reminded of Future Trends Analyst John Naisbitt’s predictive book: Global Paradox: The Bigger the World Economy, the More Powerful its Smallest Players.

This time is now here, and the opportunities for positive social change powered by passionate thinkers and bloggers are unlimited.

True self-publishing has come of age, right now, in our lifetimes. It is no longer enough to master just print and graphic media and turn your work over to a magazine, newspaper or network

You can now be your own publisher, network, and distribution system. The unimaginable power of the internet is right in front of you, on the same screen that you are reading from right now.

So what does all this mean for you if you want to be a thought-leader in today’s world? It means that you have to have a clear vision, purpose and passion, and are willing to do your homework. It means you must know how to write well and persuasively.

It means that you are willing to keep learning, reaching, stretching and growing so that what you have to say will be relevant, compelling, unique, useful, provocative, elegant, and strategic in terms of your vision and message.

It means that you will do whatever it takes to master the computer skills needed to become cyber-literate.

Scary, frustrating, crazy-making as it may be, you will buy guidebooks, take online courses, file help tickets, and call on friends and sometimes strangers, to help you become a Wizard. And it means that you will continue to learn, ongoing, everything you need to know to master the medium

This is exciting, and also motivating, when you really grasp the potential audience for your words. The numbers are beyond anyone’s imagination in terms of the audience you can reach. But you will not reach them unless you have mastery both of creative content and leading edge communication tools.

Your opportunity today to become a leader in world peace, politics, environmental reform, human rights, social justice, health, social responsibility, education, sustainable agriculture, spirituality, transformational media, the arts, or literature (and all areas of human endeavor) is bounded only by your energy, enthusiasm, and desire to contribute to a positive change of consciousness and right living on our planet.

Welcome to the blogosphere. History has been waiting for you. There is no better place to start speaking up than right here in our Zaadz community. GO!

*******

Fine tune your writing skills:

DIVING DEEPER: A Writing Workshop

Keep in touch with resources for more effective blogging and writing:

CAMP HAPPINESS: Being Better Bloggers

Now go do the ‘shining your Light’ thing!

Tags: alex noble, alex noble's blog, 23CN, 23CN-BLOG

NOTES: WRITING AS CELEBRATION

http://alexnoble.gaia.com — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 13:41:36 GMT

Writing as Celebration

There was a time when I reached out to the process of writing the way someone drowning in an Arctic sea would lunge for a life-line thrown from a rescue ship. Writing was a way of affirming my life, a way of assuring myself that somewhere deep inside I was alive and well, and that if I could just keep in touch with my inner life long enough, I could survive the wilderness, the storms, and the trials. Now, writing has become something new: it is not so much my salvation, as an ongoing celebration – of me, of you, of life itself.

Being Alone

Being alone is not such a bad thing as most people believe, especially when you can use your solitude to nurture strength and wisdom. Even when I have felt most alone, I have intuitively understood that profoundly useful things were happening to me. I have always known that someday, in some way, my suffering would make a difference, and that from the shadows of anguish and despair, great joy and wholeness would emerge, however long this might take. “And the heavens shall open, and pour you forth a blessing, such as you shall not be prepared to receive it.”

Patterns

I am aware of certain patterns in my life, and I am aware that when one pattern has served its purpose, a new form, a new structure for my energies appears. My patterns are not an end in themselves, but rather convenient structures for focusing purpose, emotion, time, space, and desire. My patterns provide convenient, albeit ephemeral, points of reference and relationship in the fast-flowing stream of events and circumstances swirling around me. My patterns are not my life. They can never contain me for long, because I am always reaching and growing beyond them. My patterns are simply a living architecture for containing and comprehending the essential process of change itself, which is what I believe life, at its best, is all about.

Alex Noble

An Excerpt from 23CN:

From the Book of...

“Notes from the Soul Country"

Please visit DIVING DEEPER: A Writing Workshop, and CAMP HAPPINESS: Being Better Bloggers.

Tags: alex noble, alex noble's blog, 23CN, 23CN-NOTES, writing, solitude, patterns

NOTES: STRESS AVOIDANCE & REMOVAL KIT

http://alexnoble.gaia.com — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 04:13:43 GMT

Stress Avoidance and Removal Kit – 101

1. “You got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, Know when to walk away and know when to run.” When in doubt, out!

2. Do not volunteer for anything for a minimum of one year from today. Repeat ten times until cured.

3. Take a sabbatical from all volunteer activities for a minimum of 6 months. This is your life and you get to live it your way. Do something original for awhile.

4. Say goodbye to the Stress Vampires: Guilt, Compulsion. Co-Dependent Behavior, and the worst of all, The Need to Be Nice All the Time to Everyone. You can do it!

5. Always, always have an exit strategy and know when to use it. Freedom!

6. Don’t allow yourself to feel responsible and guilty for someone else’s screw ups, and do not feel a need to fix them, or ‘make everything OK.’ You have plenty to do to fix your own screw ups. Got that?

7. Stop acting as though you have to rescue people. You don’t. They are where they are for a reason. Your own life needs you now.

8. There are closet psychopaths who will try to control you by always making you feel “less than,” or “never good enough,” no matter how good you are or how hard you try. Hit the DELETE key and get rid of these monsters. They are bad for your health.

9. Do not lend money to people. Decide how much you are willing to give as a gift and be done with it. Repeat regularly: “I am not a bank or a credit union.” “I am not a bank or a credit union.”

10. Never, ever, ever guarantee or sign your name on someone else’s debt. Learn to live debt and potential liability free. Try it! It’s fun!

Alex Noble

An Excerpt from 23CN:

“The Book of Notes from the Soul Country”

Please visit DIVING DEEPER: A Writing Workshop, and CAMP HAPPINESS: Being Better Bloggers.

Tags: alex noble, alex noble blogs, 23CN, 23CN-NOTES, stress removal

NOTES TOWARD A NEW EROTICISM - 2

http://alexnoble.gaia.com — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 16:34:38 GMT

Sandra: Shouldn't what I am referring to as “The New Eroticism” really be about sexual healing, at its deepest and most transforming level?

I totally support your thoughts here. I'm delighted that you included the James Carse quote from FINITE AND INFINITE GAMES, which I regard as one of the most important books ever written - and, thanks for that link to more information about him.

I have shared elsewhere, but it bears repeating, Poet Robert Frost's statement that: “If there are tears in the eyes of the writer, there will be tears in the eyes of the reader.”

So one of the things we might consider, and think about in our work, is a complementary idea in terms of any erotic writing that we may feel called to do.

We might ask:”Is there sexual healing in this for me? Does writing this story, poem, or whatever put me in touch with some of my own unfinished sexual healing or unresolved issues around sexuality in my life? If I write this, will I feel more complete, whole, and balanced? Does this opportunity to write connect me to the deepest part of who I am as an erotic human being?” This of course is not the current, commercial or even conventional approach to erotica, but I am neither current nor commercial here. I want something better.

As in all things, if we write from a center of personal passion and authenticity in terms of who we are as evolving souls, if we write to connect with that which needs healing in our own lives and then do that healing work, we will create writing that I believe can be of genuine transformational value for others.

A New Eroticism, such as I envision (and invite all of you to consider), will find its purpose, motive and expression ultimately in unconditional love, powered by Divine Love. This New Eroticism will flow outward from a place of loving, forgiving and compassionate connection to ourselves and a transcendent purpose of sharing our own sexual healing with the world.

I have started to post sections of my Eco-Fiction adventure titled MINAMATA: POWERS OF TEN, (one of the books included in 23CN) which is all about starting a planet-wide healing process to support all efforts to clean up the environment, using small actions which can be magnified to “the power of ten,” and the role that artists, as the new shamans, and their art can play in this. In the Introduction, (which in the interests of non-linearity I have not posted yet) I use the alternative title for the work: EROS.

The Introduction opens with this statement, defining my comprehensive vision for this work and the Trilogy of which it is part;

***

“WELCOME TO EROS, the first interactive global multi-media survival game! This online game is a personal performance adventure, an exploration of familiar and unfamiliar territory, in which you play the role of the Shaman/Artist. You may use this material in any way you find appropriate for the healing of yourself and your planet.”

***

MINAMATA/EROS is part of a Trilogy, titled “Hero's Journey: Life Game: An Exploration into the Nature and Purpose of Divine Love. “ In the front of each of the three books in this Trilogy, I have placed one of the definitions of the word “eros,” which I feel is germane to our discussion here, as it brings forward a little known aspect of the erotic: This partial definition is from The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language:

EROS: The sum of all self-preservative, as contrasted with self-destructive, instincts.

***

Finally, in creating this material, I discovered something of tremendous interest to me, inasmuch as the trilogy seeks to define territory for personal and planetary healing.

This of course includes sexual, environmental, emotional, physical, and all other kinds of healing that will enable us to escape from the bondage of sin, disease and death which characterize so much of life on our planet today.

I must mention that I approach life, in all its dimensions, as a Heroic Journey. And I believe that a key part of this journey that we are each on is the need to bring our inner masculine and our inner feminine into balanced wholeness: this is where Divine Love comes into the picture as a meta-context.

So, imagine, if you will, my delight when I discovered what is hiding in the word “Heros”:

Here it is, and I have made a graphic out of this as a cover illustration:

HE + HER + EROS = HEROS

There is a message here from the Metaforians, I suspect.

***

Planetary healing. Civilizational healing. Cultural healing. Personal healing. Sexual healing.

For those of us who aspire to be New Erotic writers of the deepest and most effective kind, I offer the idea that sexual healing is at the very core of our potential as humans. Until we come to grips with our personal issues around sexuality, and then transcend them into wholeness, we will not be of much use to ourselves, to our friends and lovers, to our culture, or to our planet.

Never have the words of the Hopi Elders seemed more relevant than they do for this calling to a New Eroticism:

“Now is the time, and we are the ones we have been waiting for.”

Onward.

Alex Noble

An Excerpt from 23CN:

“The Book of Eros”

Art by Alex Noble:

“The Shaman is a Gifted Artist” – Xerox Collage from MINAMATA: POWERS OF TEN

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Tags: alex noble, alex noble's blog, 23CN, 23CN-EROS, eros, erotic, erotica, new eroticism

NOTES: TOWARD A NEW EROTICISM

http://alexnoble.gaia.com — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 18:01:31 GMT

(Re-Posted from a Discussion in The Writer's Tree House over at DIVING DEEPER: A Writing Workshop)

(Response to Gabriele: Going Erotic in Writing)

Gabriele: Thanks for bringing the God Eros into the room here! He has been lurking outside and wondering when we would invite him.

This is a splendid discussion and I am wondering if maybe we should maintain a special forum of its own for both musings and creative work in this modality, so the faint-hearted would be warned in advance that, as it used to say on the ancient maritime maps, there be dragons here.

I went through a dilettantish and quite hilarious delusion for awhile that I wanted to be an erotic writer in the genre of Anais Nin, (who for me stands as one of the great writers of all time). I loved Henry Miller's adventures, along with the erotically charged works of D.H. Lawrence and John Donne.

But I kept coming up against a unique problem: Erotica qua erotica gets real boring real fast for me. Perhaps that is simply a function of the fact that I live more in my body than in my mind and I can only deal with the abstract for so long before I check out entirely, even in the best erotic writing.

As Korzybski reminds us (and I love quoting this):“The map is not the territory.” I found the “territory” much, much more interesting than writing about it…:) In fact, I believe that writing erotica can often be a substitute for having a healthy and healing sex life. Maybe one of the missions of erotic literature for our time would be to see that it is more supportive of sexual healing and play, rather than sexual violence.

What tends to happen now, it seems (and I study this stuff from time to time, as a Cultural Anthropologist must do!) is that writers, to hold on to their readers, find it necessary to continue to escalate the strange, the harmful, the violent and the bizarre - for sheer shock value.

But what goes on in these books, (revealing and mapping in often nauseating detail some of the more extreme and sick sexual practices of our time), is neither sane nor healthy, and more often than not ends up in a most grim and depressing place, with suicides, murders or extreme physical mayhem. (Tie in here perhaps to the rising and deplorable tend toward extreme violence toward women in recent films.)

Some of the most acclaimed erotic writers of our time have been totally mixed up, sexually confused, without boundaries, and have ultimately ended up in very sad and bad places, and dead of AIDS.

In my own experience, I found that as a writer, I was much more suited to be what I might call an “Erotic Satirist.” After all, there is a lot that is just plain silly about the sexual act when it is relentlessly mapped on paper. Is this all there is, one must eventually ask?

Soon after I started trying to be an amalgam of Nin and Henry Miller, I got crashingly bored, and couldn't not write funny, which my friends thought was marvelous, but even that got old soon and I moved on to what we might call “Referential Erotica.”

Referential Erotica, for me, is perhaps a more tantric, tasteful and Victorian approach, in which you work at the metaphorical level, playfully, and enjoy the literary game of having fun with the oldest game in the world. Even the Kama Sutra, after all, has its limits. You will see Referential Erotica having some juicy fun in my story THE KING AND QUEEN OF ROLLER DISCO - 2, “They Met on the Net.” and there is more to come (no pun intended).

But Referential Erotica is a challenge, as it calls for skill, style, imagination, subtlety, taste, humor and a touch of mischief, along with literary sensibility that you cannot achieve when you are basically documenting full frontal effing. Yawn.

I would suggest that the REAL challenge (and opportunity) here for us Deep Divers is to see how much true art and writerly craft we can bring to those places in our writing where we want to add a pinch of curry and a dab of deliciousness to a poem or a story.

This is just my personal preference for my own work, and anyone can have at it in any way that defines erotic writing for them. But as aspiring literary folk here, and sincere change agents, I suggest that the challenge of maintaining some discretion and refinement in our work trumps “getting it on.”

One of my favorite Cultural Anthropologists says, often: “ART IS LANGUAGE ABOUT CULTURE.” What we see in our art today, whether we like it or not, is language about who we are, how we value life and each other, how we love, how we see ourselves in community and in the world. In the books, stories, films, songs,videos and other media that focus on the pornographic, the perverted, and the depraved, the “language” does not have very much to report that bodes well for the future.

Perhaps the most vivid symbol of where we are right now is in an institute in San Francisco, in a crash course geared to bust people out of their inherent sexual taboos. It is called the “Efforama” (fill in the blank) and consists of days and days of dawn to dusk watching of films of every imaginable sexual act, practice, perversion and posture. Days and days, nine to five. Hello? This is supposed to help people? Has it gotten this bad?

I suspect that the victims of this sex-crash therapy stagger from the experience like dying wasps on a summer windowsill and end up taking vows of celibacy in Cistercian and Poor Clare monastaries and convents. But there is perhaps a message here for us about the sorry place at which we have arrived in terms of rock bottom. We need to start coming up for air.

The landscape is not pretty. It is generally grotesque and bloodied. From the horrors of internet predators and child porn, to the aforementioned extreme violence against women in film that is becoming so prevalent, we live in a culture that is coming apart at the seams, and there is a need for a few brave souls to step up and try to fix things.

Are you perhaps willing to be one of them?

A real good place to start fixing things is in this whole shock-jock environment of pornography and its cousin, erotica. We are writers, we have the power of the word at our command. Are we going to write words that lead to healing, understanding and compassion, or are we going to just “go with the flow,” and write trivial titillation that will only demand escalating extremes to hold its readers and sell books?

What is our deep purpose as writers, anyway? How we define our purpose will have everything to do with how we move through the world on a mission of healing and transformation.

Writers today who wish to include the erotic in their work have a unique opportunity, and it is nothing less than the much needed transformation of our culture. Only a few brave souls will venture forth into the Kingdom of Eros with a higher purpose than characterizes most erotic writing today. But I believe there is a need for a New Eroticism, an eroticism which heals, not sets lovers against each other. We need a new eroticism, an eroticism of love. (Eros is, after all, the God of Love.) It is time for an eroticism of refinement, play and innocence...an eroticism of Paradise Found, not Paradise Lost.

To this end I would suggest a reading of James Carse's remarkable FINITE AND INFINITE GAMES, with special attention to the section on sexuality as an Infinite Game. As Carse writes, Finite Players play to win. Infinite Players play to keep the game going. Shouldn't our sexuality be more about 'keeping the game going' than about 'winning'? Sex really is not about a battle to be won or lost, but about a game of loving, communing, healing. Do we dare, do we dare, mirror this in our writing?

It is, perhaps, time for the New Erotics to change our current worn out, sorry and dysfunctional paradigm that is taking our culture down into a very dark, Satanic place. New Eroticism, as I would hope for it, will map and model a healthy sexuality, and create sexual healing in its compassionate, caring and awakened approach.

This may mean that those who would be New Erotic writers have to do a lot of homework in terms of more refined sexual practices and sacred sexuality, in order to know how to map a new literature of erotica, but why can there not be stories, novels and movies about a higher, kinder, and more loving relation between lovers than we have now? Are not lovers supposed to love? Is this a radical concept?

The Poet Robert Bly tells us that the word “stories” comes from the word “store.” Our “stories” are where we “store” our culture. Look around. In terms of sexuality, what are we “storing.”? Is it any wonder that things sexual are in such a mess these days?

Bottom line: Are we as writers interested in creating some new ways of being with sexuality in our work, when that is appropriate to a literary objective? Are we willing to pioneer some ground that just may help restore balance into the “life out of balance” that we are dealing with today? Are we willing to put forth into the world words that will bring sexual healing rather than sexual suicide?

What we might call the path of New Eroticism is not for everyone, but it may be for a few of us. It surely is something to consider as we move forward with work that we intend to share with the world in order to bring greater compassion, healing, awareness, respect, and unconditional love.

How we handle the erotic in our work is always a choice, nothing more and nothing less. How we handle the erotic will no doubt reflect, au fond, who we are and how we understand ourselves and walk the world as spiritual beings in sexual bodies. But we do have a choice, and if we are purposed with higher goals of service to humanity and transformation of culture, it is worth some thought and quality time in discussions like we are having here.

All of you, your thinking here is powerful and much needed. it is an honor to get to hang out on a Saturday morning with such distinguished folk. I thank you!

May the God Eros dance you to the ends of love!

Alex Noble

An Excerpt from 23CN:

“The Book of Notes from the Soul Country”

Art: “The Kiss” by Gustave Klimt

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Tags: alex noble, alex noble's blog, 23CN, 23CN-NOTES, new eroticism, erotic, sexuality

POEM: COME WHERE THE CRAZY PEOPLE ARE!

http://alexnoble.gaia.com — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 13:48:07 GMT

It is a new day! Come over here with me,

where the crazy people are!

Dance with us! Dance! Dance!

Enough of this gloomy responsibility!

Enough of being someone else,

someone you don't even recognize

in the mirror.

Time to step into your own skin

The skin God gave you before

you were born…

The skin with tiger stripes on it,

blue feathers, gold spangles, and diamonds

that reflect the Universe

It is a new day, and school is out

if you want it to be.

I left school long ago

to wander in the bright wilderness

of the joyful and the insane,

the ones who call forth the Mysteries

and kiss our Sister Moon as she flies.

It is a new day, and no one is looking!

No one cares! You can at last

leave that ancient baggage behind.

Hide it over there, just behind that planet.

Someone who needs baggage

will pick it up, but you will be free,

free to fly into the vast landscape

of your soul's eternal remembering.

We are all celestial birds

at home only in the heavens

of our wildest dreams. Fly!

It is a new day, and we hear it

that strange, sweet music,

hymns and psalms spiraling up

from secret caverns in the Heart of God

We can hear it!

It is a new day, and we the crazy people

are waiting for you.

We send you this jug of ancestral wine,

for your journey into the LIght,

and this loaf of fresh baked bread

with rare olive oil and crushed garlic.

It is a new, new day, and we the crazy people

are here to guide you home,

dancing in the renewing ashes

of our old worn out lives.

We are waving to you,

laughing and sending you our love.

Can you see us now?

Just over here, over here!

We are saving a place for you, your place,

the place that has had your name on it

since before time.

Alex Noble

An Excerpt from 23CN:

“The Book of Forbidden Poems”

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Tags: alex noble, alex noble's blog, 23CN, 23CN-BFP, come!, freedom

POEM: COYOTE POEM - 2

http://alexnoble.gaia.com — Wed, 30 May 2007 23:38:33 GMT

Xanadu Database: Planet Metafor Expedition :Camp Metafor Archives.

Description: Partial Folio of Four Poems, Titled The Coyote Poems, printed on sand parchment, cover lettering in silver. Author unknown. Five illustrations. Provenance, Camp Metafor Great Hall.

The Second Poem

Coyote is standing at the edge of history.

This is her chosen place.

She is carving this niche for herself in Eternity.

If you wish to find her and hold her in your heart,

try to find the turning point, that moment

when velvet night turns into golden day,

the iridescent line of foam in the sand

just over there, where the tide and Forever meet,

or the moment when the full moon sinks below the horizon

just as the sun rises to the east. This instant of perfect balance

between the old world and the new is Coyote’s home.

For you see, if you haven’t guessed by now, she wants it all,

with no mortal compromise. She wants the full moon, the changing

tides, the rising sun and Love big as the sky. Coyote needs

to dance to the ultimate music of the Universe, and draw it in,

hold it in her hands, her ears, her eyes and her life.

See how she tilts her head and follows your thoughts,

listens as a creature who knows the voices of the wind.

In the moment between your indrawn and exhaled breath,

Coyote hears the spinning and evolution of galaxies.

In this bright morning of distant stars and deep time

Coyote is playing with forces that send sunlight

to shine upon your sacred quest into the Dreamtime..

When you are feeling safe, cared for, and watched over

by some numinous goodness, power and love,

when you feel finally at home in the Great Seas and Skies,

send back a smile to this faithful guardian of your secret Soul.

The Light Coyote sends is not hers, but she is a mirror,

who finds Light in the darkness, and sends it as a gift.

Reflections, reflecting reflections, reflecting…you.

It is Coyote’s wisdom to know that we are learning,

through our sadness and our pain, through our

grand victories and challenges conquered with Grace,

that it is not so much the content of our experience,

the raw data, information, and facts of things perceived,

as it is the essential structure of our knowing, those

constructions and personal meanings we put on our little worlds.

For example, think of how differently you feel today

from the way you felt a day ago, or a week, or a month,

knowing what you now know that you didn’t know then.

See how one determinative fact can create a life-shifting

change in perception that rearranges your entire world.

As in:” Who was I then, who am I now, and what will I be,

knowing what I know now, feeling how I feel on this new ground?”

These shifts are like earthquakes, and have enormous power

as the tectonic plates of consciousness rearrange themselves,

from one fleeting nanosecond to the next, and then the next.

What Coyote will help you understand is that we can reorder

our lives through prayer and our Way of Seeing, and that it is

how we choose to see things that results in what we see.

Increasingly, you will find that this is so, as you play with Coyote

and tell her your stories, and let her tell you hers. This is the

Divine Curriculum hour by hour, to tell our stories over and over.

Our challenge, which we accepted before Time, you and I,

is to See from the inside out, and to hold Absolute Form

in our hearts, the Absolute Form of Unconditional Love.

To learn to see in this way is Coyote’s chosen Path. To

do this, she stands at the edge of history, singing you her song.

Can you hear your own passions, echoing in these words,

reaching in and touching you in your deep life, where your dreams gather

into elegant shapes and structures, where your radiant future

waits to be born again? Look! The sun is rising, even as the moon

sets to the west. Coyote is calling to you, calling, calling you home.

(Poems Three and Four currently in Xanadu Database cataloguing. Please check back again.)

Alex Noble

An Excerpt from 23CN:

“The Book of Metafor”

Please visit DIVING DEEPER: A Writing Workshop, and CAMP HAPPINESS: Being Better Bloggers

Tags: alex noble, alex noble's blog, 23CN, 23CN-MET