A way within the analogical reality of resonant digression. A way outside of the educated jail for thought that linear training had reinforced and inculcated.

And the next day after that glimpse of what was possible, the linear mind staged a radical intervention, forcing all energies to focus on mathematical problems, computer sorting and issues to be fixed in a short timeframe or else….

Then adding to that, emotional waves were enlisted and summoned by the status quo – the clouds rumbled and thundered all day long, refusing to be ignored and refusing to rain and release. For a night or two, a colleague became more distanced, doubting my efforts.

I sank into a pool of despair, totally forgetting the glimpse of a world outside of the linear mind in the strong emotions of the moment. Helplessly seeing myself sink further and further from the magical island, there was only one alternative – to let it pass. I remember the way that had been so clearly revealed. For a while I didn’t put this event together – for how can technical problems aligned with emotional exposure be coming from the same source? Spock-like I traced the steps logically and my conclusion was clear: this event arose to intentionally divert me from that particular exploration.

I knew from studying the figure-ground relationships that McLuhan had so clearly elucidated, that once the ground becomes figure then the new ground takes its place. But what he didn’t say was that the old figure battles with the new figure. Once the rug is pulled out from under the former future, and he has “lost ground” he is lost and angry. The old ground doesn’t go without a fight.

For me, the emotions and logic weren’t at all ready to yield to a distributed shared intelligence that would wipe the hard drive as it upgraded. In a way, the old figure fights the new figure (which had been its ground) not for dominance, but to protect the old ground, to keep it in its place, return it to the ground again. For the threatening thing is not so much a new figure, which can be seen and known for what it is. Instead, the threat comes from the great unknown, where the new ground emerges from.

This new unknown becoming known is not, however, the new ground. Neither the old figure nor the new figure (former ground) has any awareness or understanding of the new ground or its effects. It complements the new figure so perhaps in seeing and understanding the new figure there can be a clue to the meaning of the old ground. Yet, each of these has a very different purpose in being, so the new figure may not at all resemble the ground it once was.

A way to approach this is to study the ground before it is transformed to figure. This means ignoring the figure and looking in places you don’t normally look,or even looking in places you know are there but that you can’t see. You will never open up the ground until it is ready for transition, but you can come to understand its nature when it acts as ground, in preparation for its future identity as figure. In fact, the act of doing this accelerates the process, and ground becomes figure more readily. It is a way of speeding up time and manifestation, of travelling into the future.

The ground was rumbling, making its presence known. I’d penetrated to another level of activity, one known more to the few than the many. The leap into the liminal on a person basis is well known. But the leap into the liminal in the shared consciousness is new and threatens the status quo. The ground sends out warnings, shockwaves, but these are ultimately powerless.