Each day I awaken from sleep and go about preparing for my day. I get dressed, use the bathroom, make my bed, meditate, then write an entry into this blog. Each of these actions seems unconscious at times, but I know the cells of my body are acting by some unseen force. They go about guiding my spirit through the universe so I can accomplish goals and contribute to society, and for this I am grateful.

All of my actions are coordinated. My thinking is guided by clear ideas and my body is activated by these thoughts to do what must be done. Every moment is filled with a routine that I can believe is my own, but in essence it comes from a greater guiding principle that governs all existence. When I think about undertaking a task, I permit my consciousness to coordinate each of the steps to achieve a result.

Coordination is defined as the neurological process that organizes sensation from one’s own body and the environment, thus making it possible to use the body effectively within the environment. In many ways, this is like a feedback loop, where the universe influences the actions of the individual to create the forms it requires to continue a process. We are always absorbing the coherent energy around us and focusing it onto the tasks we undertake.

Some individuals are involved with the coordination of vast networks of people and actions. Others organize their thoughts to achieve complex mathematical sequences and computer programs. Still others experience sensory related disorders that prevent them from coordinating their actions precisely, and there are those who argue that their condition is an integral part of our culture.

As we grow older, the processes within our bodies slowly break down and we become less physically coordinated. For some, the mind deteriorates and reality becomes difficult to discern. For others, the muscles are unable to support the function of the body. But in every situation it is the one pure energy of all that is.

How ever these organizing processes take place, there is only one underlying energy behind them, which is the spirit of all that exists. The same truth that guides a seed to sprout and a plant to grow is the universal consciousness behind all thought and action. Coordination is the flow of the universe manifesting itself in the material world.

Centering is the opening of mind and heart to the ultimate mystery, beyond thoughts, words and emotions. We know by experience that it is within us, closer than breathing, thinking and feeling. Even closer than consciousness itself. The root of all centering is interior silence and peace.

Though we think of prayer as thoughts or feelings expressed in words, this is only one expression of centering. Meditation is a prayer of silence, an experience of divine presence as the ground in which our being is rooted, the source from which our life emerges at every moment. With all centering we allow the full potential of being to influence our existence and manifest in right action.

Both physical scientists and metaphysicians agree that the physical world is in constant change. Since the physical world is the result of invisible ideas, we must come to the conclusion that there is a constant flow of changing ideas in the mind that are ours for the asking. With daily practice in this mode of awareness we are integrated with the flow of change and brought to the true reality of our existence.

The uniqueness of this state is a source of creativity.  It is a holistic experience that most people rarely experience in their fragmented lives. Essentially, meditation gives us an openness to ideas that others do not possess us.  As we practice centering and openness the perfection of the universe shows itself and provides clarity for all thought and creativity. 

The fundamental underlying unity of all creation and one’s full human potential are revealed when we are centered. Out of of this space we are able to engage in all levels of reality, from the superficial to the transcendent, from the dark corners of the psyche to the infinite bliss of oneness. It is spiritual process enabling the ordinary person to enter and receive a direct experience of union with all.

It has been stated that all things are possible when one is centered and immersed in awareness and contemplation. A conjunction with the flow of existence and the awareness of one’s place in a greater scheme of reality takes place, and from this is revealed the natural order of things.

Some proponents of meditation and centering believe that much of the conflict and aggression that exists in the world could be eliminated using this heightened state of awareness. It has also been suggested that the true nature of human existence is preserved and revealed in this profound state of awareness and wholeness.

Recently, I’ve become interested in gourds. As part of a fund raising event in the area, local artists are requested to fashion decorated items from gourds and submit them for auction during an event during September. Last weekend, I went to a gourd workshop and learned about how to prepare, cut, decorate and finish gourds. As it turns out, gourds have been used around the world for thousands of years as lightweight vessels for carrying water, storing perishable items, as utensils for food and as musical instruments.

One of the uses for gourds that I found quite fascinating was its purpose as a koteka, a codpiece traditionally worn by native male inhabitants of ethnic groups in western New Guinea to cover their genitals. It is held in place by a small loop of fiber attached to the base of the koteka and placed around the scrotum. There is a secondary loop placed around the chest or abdomen and attached to the main body of the koteka. It is worn without any other clothing.

There is little correlation between the size or length of the koteka and the social status of the wearer. Kotekas of different sizes serve different purposes. Very short kotekas are worn when working, while longer and more elaborate kotekas are worn on festive occasions. The koteka is made of a specially grown gourd. Curves can be made in it by the use of string to restrain its growth in whatever direction the grower wishes.

The gourds can be quite elaborately shaped in this manner. When harvested, the gourd is emptied and dried. It is sometimes waxed with beeswax or native resins. It can be painted or have shells, feathers and other decorations attached to it. It is the only item of clothing worn by men in the tropical environment of New Guinea. Many tribes can be identified by the way they wear their koteka.

It is commonly assumed that there is a sexual display element to wearing the koteka. However, kotekas are worn only to cover and protect the penis. Any male that has ever left their genitals exposed while running, working or cooking food can understand the value of the koteka in an environment where men wear no other clothing and are required to run through the dense underbrush of a tropical forest to hunt for food.

Men choose kotekas similar to ones worn by other men in their cultural group. For example, Yali men favour a long, thin koteka, while men from Tiom wear a double gourd, held up with a strip of cloth, and use the space between the two gourds for carrying small items such as money and tobacco.

Missionaries in the 1950s attempted to alter the local customs by forcing locals to wear shorts. Many of the New Guinea natives felt exposed without their kotekas and could be seen wearing shorts with their kotekas sticking out of them. Eventually the missionary effort and the Indonesian government’s campaign were abandoned. Kotekas are still considered acceptable attire in church, however.

In the 1970′s, the government launched Operasi Koteka (Operation Penis Gourd) which consisted primarily of trying to encourage the natives to wear shorts and shirts because such clothes were considered more modern. But the people did not have extra clothing, did not have soap, and were unfamiliar with the care of the clothes so the unwashed clothing caused skin diseases. There were also reports of men wearing the shorts as hats and the women using the dresses as carrying bags.

Gourd kotekas are increasingly popular with tourists, and certainly make for a novel souvenir for the folks back home. The tourists tend to prefer more ornate gourds, and a whole industry has grown up to cater to their preferences. Some natives even fashion novelty gourds out of Western objects, such as tin cans, rubber tires and old toothpaste tubes.

Kotekas made from gourds have also been the fashion in parts of South America and Africa. In the 15th and 16th centuries the codpiece was an important item of European clothing, and codpieces are still worn today in performance costume and in leather subculture. In Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation of  Anthony Burgess’ futuristic novel A Clockwork Orange, Alex and his droogs wear codpieces.

The Tukano live in the northwest part of the Amazonian rainforest in Colombia, near the border of Brazil. Their homeland is a diversified ecosystem which includes hilly uplands, some grassy savanna, and some tropical forest in the lower elevations. They hunt mostly small animals and birds and take an occasional deer, peccary and tapir as well. They also gather a large number of wild foods, medicines and materials from the ecosystem. 

The Tukanos’ deep knowledge of the life of their homeland indicates that they have been in this location for a very long time. Every feature of the landscape is alive with symbolic meaning for the Tukano, passed down to them from their ancestors. The Tukano area is sparsely populated but they are bordered on all sides by other tribes. There are no conflicts between the Tukano and neighboring tribes.

The Tukano believe that the creative force of the universe continually creates a limited number of plant and animal beings. Its energy causes plants to grow and bear fruit, and animals to grow and to bear young. Its power continually energizes and gives form. Its energy illumines and creates on both biological and spiritual levels. The energy of the universe is limited, and is determined by the creativity of the cosmos. This energy flows in a circuit through all beings, between people, animals and plants, between society and nature.

The Tukano perceive their universe as a giant flow system whose ability to produce energy is directly related to the amount of energy that it receives. They believe that an important way that humans can energize the system is to conserve, or repress, sexual energy. The conserved sexual energy returns directly to the total energy available to the whole of existence, enhancing its vitality. Human health and well being, attained by controlling the consumption of food, also creates an energy input to the system.

The energy of human well being influences the stars, the weather, and other components of the system which are neither plants or animals but spirit forms. A fundamental tenet of Tukano cultural instruction is that human beings should never disturb the equilibrium of the finite flow system, but should return whatever energy they remove from the system as soon as possible.

For example, when an animal is killed or when a crop is harvested the energy of the local fauna and flora is thought to be diminished. However, as soon as the game or fruit are eaten by humans the energy is conserved, because the consumers of the food thus acquire the productive life force that previously belonged to the animal or plant.

This cosmological model of a system which constantly requires rebalancing in the form of inputs of energy retrieved by individual effort constitutes a religious proposition which is ultimately connected with the social and economic organization of the group. In this way, the general balance of energy flow becomes a religious objective in which native ecological concepts play a dominant organizational role. To understand the structure and functioning of the ecosystem becomes a vital task to the Tukano.

Three important practices help to maintain balance within Tukano society, and between the Tukano and their environment. These are population control, control of the exploitation of the natural environment and the control of human aggression.

Population control is maintained by oral, herbal contraceptives, long nursing periods, abstinence, and by abandonment of the aged and infirm. Because food and sex are so closely related in ecological symbolism, control of conception is quite well regulated. The Tukano are fully aware of the balances between their population and the carrying capacity of the land area that they occupy.

The medicine people of the tribe regulate human impact on the environment and act to control social aggression. Illness is considered by the Tukano to be caused by personal, cultural or ecological imbalances. Such imbalances might include overhunting, waste of resources, or meddling with certain types of sexual energy discharge.

The Tukano observation of the Natural world has aided them in maintaining a culture of sustainability and equilibrium. They exhibit very little interest in acquiring the type of new knowledge which would aid them in exploiting their environment for short term gain, or in obtaining more food or supplies than they actually need. 

However, there is always a great deal of interest in accumulating more factual knowledge about biological reality and about knowing what the physical world requires from them. This knowledge, they believe, is essential for survival because beings must bring themselves into conformity with nature if they want to exist as part of nature’s unity, and they must fit their demands to nature’s availabilities.

The Tukano, like many native cultures in the western hemisphere, believe that the world is running down, deteriorating since its time of initiation. To assist the universe in recreating itself and in maintaining its vitality, they regularly participate in ritual ceremonies where past, present and future generations are joined together. These rituals, in which plant and animal spirits are also believed to participate, appear to reinforce the motivation of each Tukano tribe member to walk in balance on the earth.

We picture reality and its meaning through language. The inspection of the languages of different cultures reveal that each lives in radically different worlds. The languages of the western world contain pictures. They contain specifications of what a human is and contain specifications of what each human should aspire to become, in a linear manner. 

On the other hand, the Hopi belong to a loose language group called UtoAztecan. Their language reveals a world that is much different than our own. It is closer to the concepts in Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. According to some physicists, the Hopi language could have been used to express Einstein’s theory which at present can only be fully described in mathematics.

To the Hopi, there is the reality of the here and now manifest material world and then there is the unseen, unmanifest world from which this present world came. In this part especially, the Hopi view reflects the basic pattern of our ancient cultural view that the material world is manifest from an unseen spiritual world with which we can be in communication and which we can influence according to our behavior.

In any language to which these words could be successfully translated, there will be the concept of linear time. There will be past, present and future. This is the very psychological cornerstone of the myth of linear increase. Nonetheless in the time that is measured by distance of planetary travel, the earth doesn’t really go anywhere but around in circles. Our mental appreciation of time that we gained from that measurement is turned into a linear progression that we think of mentally as starting in the remote past and moving through to a remote future in a linear manner.

The Hopi metaphysics imposes upon the universe two grand cosmic forms, which may be called manifest and unmanifest. The objective or manifested comprises all that is or has been accessible to the senses, the historical physical universe, with no attempt to distinguish between present and past, but excluding everything that we call future. The subjective or unmanifest comprises all that we call future.

Unmanifest also includes everything that exists in the heart, not only the heart of man but the heart of animals, plants, and things, and behind and within all forms and appearances of nature in the heart of nature. The unmanifest embraces not only our future, much of which the Hopi regards as more or less predestined in essence if not in exact form, but also all emotion, the essence and typical form of which is the striving of purposeful desire toward manifestation. 

Manifestation is much resisted and delayed, but in some form or other is inevitable. It is the realm of expectancy and purpose, vitalizing life, efficient causes and thought thinking itself out from an inner realm into manifestation. It is in a dynamic state, yet not a state of motion. It is not advancing toward us out of a future, but already with us in vital and mental form, and its dynamism is at work in the field of eventuating or manifesting, evolving without motion from the subjective by degrees to a result which is the objective.

That which is unmanifest exists in potential, in a world that is yet to work itself out into the objective hardness of this world. The Hopis in their effort to maintain the balance of the world, work on the inner subjective. Then they do the same in the elaborate ceremonials in the village plazas. They do this in order to help that which will become made in the objective world. 

A fundamental understanding of Hopi, and generally most natural cultures, is that each person is a conscious participant in the consciousness of the whole world. Thus the thinking, intention and balance of each person has an effect on the balance of the life of the whole. This is one of the aspects of what the Hopi mean when they say they are keeping the world in balance. The meaning of this statement is not that they are keeping the north and south poles in their places. The statement is a simplification of a vast complex of meanings involved with the balances and manifestation of life.

The cosmos is energy in motion. Some recent physicists say there is no actual thing in matter. The things we experience, such as neutrons, electrons, quarks and so forth are simply energy in motion at such speed that to us it appears hard and real. Nothing rests, everything moves, everything vibrates.

Form is held in consciousness by the memory power of mind. Just as the operations of typewriting or piano playing are at first highly conscious but then become habits on a less conscious level, it is proposed that biological form exists in cosmic consciousness as habits of mind.

Rupert Sheldrake, a British biologist and author, has created a body of thought concerning fields leading to the creation of biological form. Sheldrake participates in a school of thought called Morphic Resonance. The biologists of this school say that biological form is created by immaterial morphic fields, fields of force that create forms.

Sheldrake says that fields are non-material regions of influence and he points to gravity as an illustration of this. Gravity holds us to the earth. Because of the precise force of its pull our own bone structure is engineered. If our bones were longer or thinner or of weaker substance we would not be able to function on the surface of the earth. In this manner we and all other things on the earth’s surface are structured by this field.

Sheldrake says:

The nature of fields is inevitably mysterious. According to modern physics, these entities are more fundamental than matter. Fields cannot be explained in terms of matter; rather, matter is explained in terms of energy within fields. Physics cannot explain the nature of the different kinds of fields in terms of anything else physical, unless it be in terms of a more fundamental unified field, such as the original cosmic field. But then this too is inexplicable, unless we assume it was created by God. And then God is inexplicable.

In Sheldrake’s thinking, the shape of each organism is guided by a morphogenic field, and the coming into being of form is morphogenesis. The morphogenic field of that organism resonates with the other fields of that species of organism that have gone before. Form resonates with form irrespective of the time frame in which it occurs. In his thinking, these fields are beyond our normal experience of space and time.

Each individual organism is in a guiding field that resonates with all others of that specific form that have gone before. Here Sheldrake says that the inherent capacity of memory and habit is instrumental. Just as many of our daily routines were learned with conscious attention but have now fallen below the level of conscious awareness and become habit, Sheldrake says it is memory and habit that are essential to the functioning of these formative fields of living things.

The forms of organisms are in continual flux. As the flow of biological life goes on, new habits are slowly formed and go on to be incorporated into all newly developing organisms of that species. This begins to explain transformative thinking and how it can change consciousness and influence other forms around it. When we radiate the abundant goodness and perfection of the universe, everything in our consciousness reflects back to us what we experience.

Cycle and balance are the basic processes of the universe. Events are circular, cyclical and vibrational. They travel from one pole and back around to the other. We are born into cycle and motion. From the time that the reproductive cells are formed in each of our parents, we are in motion. When we are later carried in the womb, we are in a sea of motion. After the cycle of gestation, we are finally born out of the body into a world of motion where winds blow, seasons cycle, and cycles of our own growth occur.

Each of us has been born onto a sphere travelling in space called the Earth, which is spinning around the central sun. The central sun with its planetary companions travels in a circle within our galaxy which itself is moving around a supercluster of galaxies. From the moment our first cell is created, we are part of the whole, and we never cease being in motion. 

We are a part of increasingly larger processes. There is no such thing as linear expansion toward some static security. The motion we experience is not random, but is cyclic. The circles of the Milky Way Galaxy, the solar system, our earth and the moon around us, occur in cycles so finely balanced and timed that they may be computed exactly, far into the future or into the past. 

These invariable motions are the Law. These impeccably tuned, harmonious cycles are imposed upon us by forces so powerful that there is no question that they are Cosmic Law. Within these celestial cycles the planet spins in a constant cycle of sunlight and darkness that is functionally a day night alternating current. Each point on the planet’s sphere is saturated with energy, then shadowed from it in precisely timed measures. 

Within this cycle and the energy cycle of the seasons, organic life on earth proliferates. The life of the earth was able to grow and develop because it remained in a state of dynamic balance. There is certainly change in the earth’s life but this occurs within a context of balance. If the earth tilted even a few more degrees or if there were any deviation of the earth’s orbit around the sun, the life of the earth would be greatly altered or non-existent.

The earth, this complex blue and white speckled egg, is alive, and its life processes vary constantly as it spins. Its colors change with the seasons, its cloud layers whirl and circulate in rhythmic cycles. Not surprisingly, an Italian chemist, Giorgio Piccardi, has discovered that the speed of the chemical reactions varies according to a number of planetary situations.

Uncountable numbers of organic events occur each second on earth, conditioned by celestial events within the body ofthe solar system. Everything is in relationship, everything flows in cyclic adaptation according to its nature and place in the universe. Organic events such as the metabolism of plankton in the oceans, the migration of salmon, the growth of forests, the annual migration of caribou and innumerable other events all are influenced by cyclic forces completely enmeshed in a flowing whole that is intricately balanced.

How often do I think there is something missing in life? How many times have I thought things would be better if I were younger, richer, busier or more creative? What if I didn’t have that strange birthmark in that weird place? Wouldn’t I be so much better as a person? Wouldn’t I be perfect then? If there were not so many things wrong with me then I could feel like a complete and adequate person. I would do so much more and accomplish everything I want.

But the truth is, I am already complete. In every moment I am a winning example of what creation has put here. I am a unique example of the billions of versions of humans on this planet, and I am the only one that is anything remotely like me. My consciousness has the ability to accommodate and adapt to every idea or concept that is presented to it, and perhaps that’s where the difficulty lies.

I am often told by people that I would be better if I spent more time being social, got married, had children, used different pictures, chose different colors, wrote something another way, drove faster or slower, went right instead of left, or any of a thousand evaluations and suggestions. And then there’s advertising and media that show me the millions of things that I need, and how I am not complete until I possess each and every one of them.

The big problem with this way of thinking is that I end up feeling as though there is something missing within me. It becomes habitual for me to think I need certain things to attain wholeness, and until I have these attributes I am ugly, poor, stupid and wasting my life. Rather than realizing I am a perfect and loving human being, I base my self image on what others think and how they will evaluate me, which is pretty dumb because they do not know what it’s like to be here in this body.

When I look at a baby I don’t stand there and think, oh wouldn’t it be better if this baby had bigger hands, less fat, curly hair or different eyes. The baby is complete and whole and perfect. I adore it and would never do anything to hurt it or think it should be a certain way. This is the way I must treat myself. Just as I was that baby once, I am still a precious and loving example of life. I must take care of that child, nurture it and allow it to grow.

It is important for me to stop believing there are incomplete things about myself. Once I get into a habit of thinking things are wrong I get into a rut that is difficult to get out of. When I start believing things are right I am able to transform and change myself, slowly improving in unexpected ways that usually having nothing to do with what people have suggested to me.