Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Old Growth Forest: Loving Bliss Neurochemistry as Winning, Musical Forms, Studies of Gatheredness

If, after all these tens of thousands of generations, the neurochemistry of loving bliss is highly desirable, and may be freely and easily attainable or accessible, say, over decades, when and as we want, in conjunction with the great visions of the 1960s and early 1970s {environmentalism, sustainability, social justice, civil rights, peace and anti-war, communitarianism, equity for all, freedom, et al.}, and the pragmatics of daily life (whether this be as a father, a mother, a philosophy professor, or a wooden boat builder, for example), would accessing this when and as we want be a kind of 'winning' in life? The bodymind and brain are biological systems, so we may be able to figure how to create our own ecstasy {viz. MDMA}, naturally, freely and easily. In the context of a kind of evolutionary biological, love-life nihilism, I think accessing the neurochemistry of loving bliss, naturally, with contentment, when and as we want it, is 'winning.'

And what's the 'musical form' of free and easy love all the time, in a kind of structural sense - but without the musical notation - so, through practices {so, code or thinking, e.g. Tibetan Buddhist chanting, which I've seen to have a transformative effect - e.g. a Tibetan man in a shop in Berkeley, California}? If such musical forms, like some of Mozart's arias, can give rise to loving bliss neurochemistry {as they do for me}, what's the form to do it, without listening to these arias, for example? What's the thinking?

And how would one begin to study this anthropologically, as well as share this, besides via the World Wide Web?

Could I, for example, as an expression of this code, begin to play my bagpipe to give explicit form to qualities of loving bliss? (The great pipers Donald MacLeod and Duncan Johnstone played in ways, for example, that created aspects of these qualities for me}.


*

Here's another e-mail I sent to a nontheist friends email list recently.

If we wanted to develop or pursue a scientifically-grounded, related, nontheist friends' study of 'gathered meetings,' I think communicating with Harvard cardiologist Herbert Benson MD, at the Massachusetts General Hospital, who wrote "The Relaxation Response" in 1972 would be a good first starting point. His research from that time showed that oxygen intake lessened with the relaxation response (he was looking at meditation in the context of Transcendental Meditation, at the time, I think). This approach might not, at first, address questions of Quaker discourse, or nontheist friends' discourse vis-a-vis 'gathered meetings' - what is said during and after, and the historical context of Quakerism or nontheist friends - but it might be able to address 'group' aspects of the 'relaxation response.' I'm not sure how we might begin to examine scientifically questions of "gatheredness," vis-a-vis this nontheist friends email list, but let's explore this.

I find the ability to elicit 'gatheredness' facilitated richly, on my own, in warm pools, like at Harbin Hot Springs, or in my own bath tub. The warm water and releasing help.

With friendly greetings,
Scott

No comments: