Posts Tagged ‘non-verbal communication’
Mind Bending
It’s like when you reach to flip a light switch and it doesn’t toggle all the way over, and you notice instantly that it didn’t. So you react instantaneously and flail at it a second time. But it still bounces back because you didn’t get any closer on your second flail. How ridiculous it is to find yourself spastically flapping away at a switch, three or even four times, to finally achieve what you successfully do dozens of times a day without a thought.
Yeah, that’s never happened to me.
Cyndie and I were out to dinner and a music show with Barb and Mike, and Barb brought up the Telepathy Tapes podcast we had told her about. She was listening to season 2. We told her we had already listened to the whole season. We listened to it right away after we finished the first season.
Except we hadn’t.
Funny that we both had the same incorrect perception. When we figured out that we hadn’t, it became a priority. I don’t know if it is fair to write about this podcast, other than to try to convince everyone else in the world to give it their full attention at the earliest opportunity. I’d love to share the wonder and glory of the concepts being explored with anyone who has already absorbed the mind-expanding possibilities it reveals.
The theme of telepathy is not a difficult one for Cyndie and me to reconcile, as we have both experienced it at different times in our lives. What weighs on my mind is how beyond my reach it is on the regular, despite completely believing the concept. One phrase that is used when they talk about communication with people who have died is that they are on the “other side.” I wish they wouldn’t use those words because it’s not really another side. It’s right here all the time, all around us, unconstrained by physical limitations.
If you have started watching the Apple TV series, “Pluribus,” that show depicts humanity joined in a hive mind; the telepathy realm is a little like that, and most of us are like the lead character, who hasn’t melded with the rest of the all-knowing others.
To the [mostly] non-verbal people featured in the Telepathy Tapes episodes, the “place” where telepaths commune has been dubbed “the hill.” I don’t believe that “hill” or the “other side” where past souls are speaking with mediums are separated from the rest of us. It is an energy of love that is everywhere.
One feature of the Telepathy Tapes stories that I particularly enjoy is the number of people whose stories start with their lack of belief that any such thing is possible. After instances with a non-verbal child mastering a letter board to communicate or an encounter with otherworldly energies in a near-death experience where they report verifiable telepathic situations, non-believers find themselves willing to consider expanding their understanding.
Yes, it’s a lot like religion, minus a human-translated textbook of confusing divine orders or finance-fixated institutions with power hierarchies controlling subordinate groups of followers. It’s imbued with the one thing all the various attempts at religion in the world seem to share: LOVE.
Try to bend your mind around that.
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Equine Perception
This weekend, our friends, Mike & Barb, visited for dinner. Before sitting down to a sumptuous feast, we took a walk around the property that culminated in a visit with the horses. Mike brought some apples, so I opened a gate to serve up treats from within the paddock. Being unfamiliar with horses, Barb was more comfortable waiting just outside.
When it comes to treats, the horses are never bashful. Cyndie, Mike, and I moved among the herd to assure each of the 4 received a fair share. After they’d eaten all the apples,
Legacy walked right up to Barb at the gate.
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I commented that he was probably fond of her color scheme.
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Especially considering the color pallet that Mike was sporting.
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Hunter seemed to pick right up on Mike’s playful spirit and soaked up his smell with big yawns and an outstretched tongue.
Cyndie pointed out that as herd leader, Legacy’s role is to make sure everyone is safe, connected, and part of the group. He chose to connect with Barb as a way to include her and acknowledge her reticence and sense of vulnerability over being among such large, and sometimes unpredictable animals.
As we discussed this, I was struck by the memory that I was in that very same place of unfamiliarity with horses when we bought this place. I would never think of stepping inside a fence with such large animals.
After one weekend of lessons on horse communication, and learning to understand my energies of mind, heart, and gut, I was significantly transformed. Before the end of the very first day of that weekend, I had moved from being completely naive about anything to do with horses, to finding myself successfully interacting with a horse I had no knowledge of, alone with him within the limited confines of a round pen.
It was monumental for me. It laid the foundation for everything I’ve learned since, now living as a co-owner of four beautiful Arabian horses.
I feel like I’ve come farther than should be possible in such a short time. I also feel like I still know so little. Every day there is more to grasp about the remarkable dynamics of equine perception.
More often than not, I get the sense that they know more about me than I do.
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Gushing Review
I don’t normally tend to watch movies more than once, but while Cyndie was out of town, I opened up Cameron Crowe’s “Aloha” which came in the mail from our Netflix subscription, and let it run without her around. I realized immediately, it was something Cyndie should see, which gave me a chance to experience it twice in a week. I was looking forward to it.
I got to show it to her last night, and despite critical reviews that disparaged the movie as “meandering and insubstantial, …most sentimental and least compelling,” we both found “Aloha” to be gush-worthy. I liked the mix of humor with drama and romance. It never dragged for me, and the actors (wonderfully cast, despite the “white-washing” of using Emma Stone in the mixed-race role) played the characters well enough to keep me from ever thinking of them in any of their other noteworthy rolls of efforts past.
The aspect of the movie that I found most engaging was the significant use of non-verbal communication. I am most often inclined to feel a story read in a book tends to be a better experience than a movie, but in this case, reading about the facial expressions wouldn’t produce the results that seeing the situations play out on the actor’s faces does.
They moved me to tears with their performances, especially young Danielle Rose Russell, as Grace. The use of conveying messages by mere facial expressions occurred throughout the film, sometimes subtly, and other times overtly to the point of awkward. It was powerful stuff.
I can’t gush enough to express my level of joy for having been able to watch this wonderful result of the work from this cast and crew.
Bill Murray, as billionaire, Carson Welch, gets to deliver this wonderful morsel, which is used in the trailer above:
The future isn’t just something that happens
it’s a brutal force
with a great sense of humor
that’ll steamroll ya
if you’re not watching
“Aloha” is a treat that I sure hope others who feel tempted will find a way to devour.
But I’m gushing. Stop me.
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Relative Something 