On Authenticity

“To describe this in words, that’s the realm of poetry and art. It’s a resonance, we know when we are authentic. So certainly that might be the aim, even if I should fail. The aim must be that I be authentic, in this moment only. Always. This moment only.”

Andrew Jordan in discussion with Carol Sill

A: If what we’re talking about is “Authenticity” … authenticity is something that when it happens we just know. We know. We can’t fake that. Our dog would know. Our lover would certainly know. Our children definitely know when we are authentic. And that one thing is true in every moment, no matter what. So in that sense, it could be said that it’s a constant.

C: I’m thinking it might not be a constant, because, yes you can be authentic, but to be continually as a human being in the flow, always 24/7 with that right time, right place, right circumstance, right series of electromagnetic whatevers, always on. Is that possible for us as human beings? Or can we just rise and fall and be authentic in our feelings and our approaches? You know, there’s the two kinds of authentic, if you know what I mean?

A: I do. Well its too much to ask for a human being to be always authentic. We look at these Olympic gymnasts, the Olympics are happening right now and we look at the top gymnasts and they are almost perfect, but to ask perfection is a bit too much. But I think it’s not too much, or the least I can ask of myself is to be authentic in this one moment. Just this one moment, that’s all. That is the minimum I can ask of myself, and of you, is to be authentic, to have a conversation. Otherwise, why bother? Just this one moment.

C: But what is authentic, what do you mean by “authentic”?

A: To describe this in words, that’s the realm of poetry and art. It’s a resonance, we know when we are authentic. So certainly that might be the aim, even if I should fail. The aim must be that I be authentic, in this moment only. Always. This moment only. If only I’m responsible for this one moment, I cannot promise or commit to being authentic all my life. But I must say yes I am absolutely committed to being authentic this moment. What else?

C: Okay. What about that thought: “I’m going to be authentic in this moment.”? Is that a veil between authenticity or is that a helper, or training wheels so that authenticity occurs spontaneously?

A: That’s a direction. That’s a commitment, that’s a direction, in the language of Kaballa it’s kavanah, It’s a direction, physically a vector. ..If I sit down to write an exam, I aim for 100%. 50%’s a pass, 80% an A, whatever. But I know what my intention is: to do the absolute best. That might be the intention. So all I’m saying is that I must be committed to that authenticity, and that’s an intention. That’s choosing a direction. What direction am I choosing? That means being awake, and often of course I’m not awake. But I’m clearly a committed student of aiming towards authenticity in the moment.

C: Right. Yeah. Okay!

A: Now somebody might listen to this and say this is nonsense. To me this is not nonsense. I think it’s valuable. It’s almost like adjusting the rudder of the boat, where are you going, where am I going? It only works out if the direction is towards authenticity, committed to authenticity. I may fail, but that’s another story, that’s irrelevant to the discussion….

C: How do you tell when it’s on? Or, how do you tell when it’s off? What’s your sense?

A: Maybe this is when the teaching of Jesus becomes relevant. When, I just mentioned in a previous discussion, “I am the way.” I have to know, and I have to be okay with it. And when somebody with force comes down and tells me otherwise, I don’t…. I am the way, I have to know. That’s a very personal thing. It’s between me and God. And that should be good enough.

C: Right.

A: And whether you, the other, know or not that’s another story. If you get it we can probably be friends. If you don’t – well that’s a different relationship. So it’s a resonance. I have to be anchored in my own truth, and I have to know. Now, can you say that publicly to everybody, I don’t know, maybe politically it’s not acceptable to propagate such freedom for individuals…..I don’t know. For me, it’s being anchored in my own… I have to know. And if I know that’s good enough.
And then of course I’m always searching for tribesmen, and I would define tribe where people resonate similarly. We can meet in that place, that place when it happens.

C: It is.

A: So I’m not claiming that I’m better than the other guy, I’m just saying that’s my focus. You know why? Because I can’t think of anything better. If I could, I would. Being authentic is the best for me. I’d be happy to exchange it for something better. If there was one. I haven’t found one yet. It’s not about morality, even.

C: No.

A: … healthier and happier and more fulfilling life. That’s my personal belief at this time, until I change it.

C: That’s great. Thanks Andrew.

View the video of this conversation.

Authenticity

Andrew Jordan and Carol Sill in conversation.

“To describe this in words, that’s the realm of poetry and art. It’s a resonance, we know when we are authentic. So certainly that might be the aim, even if I should fail. The aim must be that I be authentic, in this moment only. Always. This moment only.”

Link here to read the text version of this conversation.

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Sharing Your Gifts

“One of the most important things to get through any blockages to creativity is to really understand that the gift is not yours. Your job is to channel, to express and as you said, the glimmer comes to you and its your job to embellish and make it more beautiful and make it more real and to bring it into expression in the world through your mind and consciousness, which makes it unique.”

Spirit, Creative Life and Sharing Your Gifts: Jim Van Wyck and Carol Sill

C: Hello Jim, let’s talk about some of the ideas we wanted to explore for today. I know that you’re thinking a lot about talent and gifts and creativity, and tell me what you want to explore with that.

J: We have this idea of gifts and talent and creativity. Artistic people are often very spiritual people, and I think there’s a real connection there between creativity and spirituality and living a spiritual life.

And the first thing I wanted to say about the way I think about gifts is they’re not ours. They come from the universe. They come from God or the great spirit or whatever created us. If you think of the gifts as yours, it gives you a certain sort of thing, but if you think of your life and love, talents, as a gift, then it frees them up and ….Clinging, grabbing, holding is the opposite of open source and I think it’s the opposite of true spirituality too, that these things should be expressed.

The other thing I want to say: I’ve thought about this word “gifted” a lot, some of my children – two girls – have been described as gifted, one as an athlete and one intellectually. I think gifts are something that mostly people think in the world a little differently than I do. Some people think gifted means God gave you something.

My take of gifts, to be gifted, means that you have something to give away, something to express in the world. Giftedness doesn’t mean you’ve got a lot of stuff, it means you have things to give away, to share. So when you have gifts that doesn’t mean spirit gave you the gifts, but that rather, you have some gift to give to the world, to the people that appreciate your work, to the community that you live in.

That’s what I think about gifts, what do you think, Carol?

C: I agree with you, and I think it’s something that we should always be thinking about. And maybe what we should do is think about the flow, which is that when you have a capacity to express something, then you almost have a responsibility to enter the flow to enable that expression.

But it’s never really what you think it is, it’s something that maybe is larger than your idea of what it is. So the gift is an ability to open into what’s required of you. So there’s a bit of responsibility there, you’d don’t just toss it to the winds.

On the other hand I think everybody has something, everybody has come with something, some purpose in their life to be evolved or discovered. I would hesitate to name this person as gifted, and that person as without something to offer, because you never know. Once the circumstances, the place, the time, the atmosphere is correct, something pours out. And it could be simple or it could be complex: we have no way of assessing it.

J: Yes, every human is a unique expression of spirit and every human has, I think, things to share. If it’s just simple love, what could be more important or significant than that? Or if it’s an expression, an artistic expression, or an expression in commerce or business or relationships or making people happy, making people laugh, everyone has some way of expressing their own divinity, for sure.

C: And also we know there is the muse, the communication that comes to you, that enables you to have an inspiration, to follow that, to be inspired. I think that’s an important part of what we’re talking about, not simply that you have a gift…

I guess I’d say that you’re given an inspiration which doesn’t necessarily take you all the way. You get the beginning of it and then you have to follow that through. Follow it, then the gift is given. But if you don’t follow it the gift stays wrapped in its package.

J: You know, people, creative people especially… I work a lot with writers and writers talk to me about challenges and writer’s block and stuff, and I had a whole course on that at breakthroughwriting.com.

One of the most important things to get through any blockages to creativity is to really understand that the gift is not yours. Your job is to channel, to express and as you said, the glimmer comes to you and its your job to embellish and make it more beautiful and make it more real and to bring it into expression in the world through your mind and consciousness, which makes it unique.

But if you clamp down and try hard, “My Writing” “My Painting” “This is mine, I have to…” If you clamp in it tends to make it more challenging, more difficult. Still things can happen but it’s sort of constipated, it’s tight, you know? And if you really relax into the expression, then it flows beautifully.

Some people really know how to tap into this better than others. Mozart could write the most beautiful music very very easily and fluidly because he had a good access channel. Different people have different ways of doing it.

One helpful way to meet a creative challenge is to know its not yours, and relax and open and express – that’s my take on it.

C: You know art itself is a path, it is a spiritual path. Those who follow that path, and have that calling, are doing enormously deep and creative work that may not be recognized as “beautiful” in the eyes of society today but later on in the future it starts to become clear that this was actually extraordinary work. And the same with – like the Andy Warhol show that we just saw in Victoria, just extraoridinary how he embodied what it is.

I know you were talking about these challenges, and you said you might have some idea of how to face some of these challenges?

J: Like I was saying before, really it’s about opening to the experience, opening and giving up your ownership of whatever it is you’re trying to make or create, and to give that ownership up to the universe and just act as a unique channel or unique expression. You can do that by meditating, or relaxing, or even just making a psychological shift away from “me” “my” “mine” into “ours” “express gift” “share”. At least that certainly works for me.

And you were saying something about artists not always being recognized, or the creative and the importance of creating. I’d like to really make a point that an administrative assistant to an executive can approach his or her job as an artist and to express it with creativity and talent and craft and experience, too. Or you can be an auto mechanic or a tennis teacher or… you can be an artist – a person who creates with craft and intelligence and beauty in any condition.

And I think it’s really important to affirm that each person can be creative and wholesome and helpful and bring their own unique expression to their work, whatever that work is. It doesn’t have to be daubs of paint on canvas.

C: I think you’re talking about the art of life, or the art of personality, the development of character, the development of a full and whole human being as well as acting in your life as a whole an individual as much as you can. I think that’s the thing: to live in the totality.

Now, with the troubles in the world that we are facing, I know you do a lot of thinking about these things, I’m just wondering what your take is on this?

J: It’s of the theme of what we’re talking about, Carol. Because of the media, we really do have a lot of news about things that happen in the world.

By most objective measures, this is one of the safest and most peaceful times of all times to live in, in any urban environment, or in a rural environment. There’re less murders per 100,000 people than in any time in history. And yet because we have the media and the news, there is the voice of fear.

And sometimes, as creative people, and people hoping to live spiritual, wholesome lives, it can feel like there’s not enough or that we’re separate from other people in the world. That voice of fear, that voice of scarcity: I think nowadays the buzzword for that is “ego”.

That’s your ego talking, the separation, the smallness, the me. But we really used to call that the devil – all the fears and unhappinesses of the world. We can transcend the voice of me, me, me, mine, worry, fear, something bad will happen, because I think this universe is dying for the expression of happiness and love and creativity.

C: I think that one of the things people need to do, and pardon me for saying “should” is to really examine..

J: You say it better than “should” you said “need”.

C: It’s because we are being bombarded by - I don’t know how many, 36000 messages a second or something – that are telling us that we need a certain thing, we are inadequate in certain ways, that there are areas to be afraid of. So our entire desire-body is being pushed and pulled in every direction, leaving us very little self-understanding.

So it’s good to look at our media ecology, the environment that we’re swimming through on a daily basis, to understand who we are. Somehow to clarify that, then to clarify where you stand as an individual: the only way to do this is to remain open to the inner sources. Because then you get some strength.

J: And when you say open to inner, are you talking about open to intuition, or are you talking about practicing some kind of meditation or prayer on a regular basis?

C: Whatever you need to do, whatever kind of approach that you need to take. Both of them work. But basically relying on your inner intuition and refining that. And trusting yourself.

You have to learn that there is a voice inside of you that’s telling you who you are, what you’re to do, what your gift is, where you’re going, how to do it, it’s all there for you and it’s your own, and it’s our birthright. And that’s what we’re going for all the time, to connect there, and then to express out from that. From there you find a way out of the forest of influences.

J: Yes.

C: You wanted to talk a little bit about something to do with the miracle of the loaves and fishes. Can you tell me about that?

J: A metaphor, a way of thinking about it in the form of a story, of everything we’ve said today. All four gospels talked about the miracle of loaves and fishes, and they expressed it very similarly. There were about 5000 people there, listening to Jesus talk. In another version there may have been 4000 – there may have been 5000,4000 two different events, it’s not really clear what happened, but there were five loaves of bread and two fishes in a basket. And they passed the basket from person to person and every person was fed.

And remember when I said earlier the ego is my, me, mine, scarcity and that might be considered another way of thinking of the devil? Think of the miracle as Jesus somehow created an environment where those people kept passing the basket. Just think, if one person gets a basket and thinks, “Oh my god, there’s only two fishes here, I need to grab it and hold it and seize it.”

The miracle was that everyone took just a little bit and passed it on, and that they expressed and kept the flow going. They didn’t grab and they weren’t fearful that there wouldn’t be enough. They were open. And the miracle is that the basket kept getting passed from person to person. There was this openness, this flow that you express.

And I think that, when you have a gift – whether it’s your ability to coordinate your boss’s schedule well, whether your gift is to fix up cars or to manage a rock and roll band, whether your gift is to give your clients the best health insurance that is appropriate to them in their situation, in their company – if you really let your gifts flow, if you don’t stop that basket and think “I’ve got to get mine, I’ve got to get those fishes, I need to put another loaf in my pocket for tomorrow.”

If you can really continue to pass it on, then I think that is one of the real messages that Jesus came to give us, and that the Bible is written for: this sense of openness and sharing, passing things along.

Giving your gift, whether the gift is a basket or something more intangible. That can be a real miracle in our life and in the whole world.

And that may be the solution to our ecological problems too, if everyone really was more open to share and express.

C: That’s great. I know, it is – that’s what open source is all about.

J: And that ties us back to open source, thank you for doing that. Anyone viewing this, we’d love to have you on our little video camera and talk with you about your experiences and your understanding. Write your email down below and we welcome you to join, to sign up for the email up dates, or to get in contact with Carol and I and talk with us about that.

Taken from the video.

Source

“It’s a huge thing to talk about because the source isn’t separate from us and we’re not separate from the source, but we feel we have to go back to it. So all of the quest stories and the tales of going to the source, or going to the source of the Ganges, finding the mountain of Siva where the source of the water flows from; all of this is a metaphor for us to go inside ourselves and make those connections.”

Conversation between Jim Van Wyck and Carol Sill

C: Let’s talk about Open Source Spirit a little more, and today we’re going to talk about the word “Source”.

J: Right, it’s interesting to think about the source in the context of spirituality but also in the context of what we’re doing here which is “Open Source” Spirit.

And of course we’re making the assumption that everyone has access to the source. In the software world, when they say “open source” that means everyone gets to look at the root code, or the secret kernel of the code; an in our model we’re assuming that every person, and especially every person who speaks with us, but every person has access to the real source of spirituality, and that it is our goal here to have people share their version of their connection with the source.

C: Yes, and having that connection with the source and being able to share it with others openly is part of our purpose. To develop that, for people, to be able to sense that for themselves as well.

J: Exactly. So if you are watching this video for the first time or if you are new to our website, I would encourage you to:

1. Look and feel and think and be open to the source of spirituality, the source of love, and life and light and laughter, and if you feel the call at all to click one of the buttons below here, to send us an email or make a comment on this blog and we’ll have a conversation with you, either in video or writing or such, and we’ll share your feeling and connection, with the source, with us.

C: That’s right. And the whole idea of being connected with the source and then finding ways to express that, I think is really important in these times.

The more that we can empower one another to do that, I think, the better off humanity will be. So, connect directly to the source as close as you can, and see what evolves as a result of that. That’s what we’re doing, right, Jim?

J: Yeah. I’d like to tell you a little story.  I was a devout little boy, I was an altar boy, I was interested in religion but it was always in my head, I never had any real connection to it.

As a young man and a teenage boy I read all kinds of books. I read books about Buddhism, and I read books about Catholicism and books about Jesus and nothing ever worked for me. I was interested in it, but I couldn’t feel like I had anything.

And one day when I was 17 years old, I was in my first year of college and I was lonely and I was far from home. I was living with some friends and I took a shower. And for some reason – and I have no idea where this came – I had this most miraculous experience of absolute joy and oneness and all these fancy words that people use to describe experience. It came out of absolutely nowhere.

I was just absolutely transported to a sense and a real, a felt sense that everything was perfect and I was connected to the whole world and I have no idea where this feeling came from. I got the idea, somewhere deep in my gut or belly or heart of somewhere, that enthusiasm was a big part of it. I got a subtle sense of guidance to go and look up what the word enthusiasm meant.

I suppose the experience happened for me for quite a long time, maybe 15 minutes or so, and at the end one of my buddies was banging on the bathroom door and wanted to get in, said I’d been in the shower a long time. I kind of snapped out of it, but I walked around in sort of a daze.

I wasn’t sure if it was a spiritual experience or if I’d had a mental breakdown or what, but it was so beautiful and so connecting and that was my first real experience with “source”. Just even talking with you about it now has made me kind of prickly and tingly and excited and happy.

C: That’s so beautiful.

J: That’s my first connection with the source, and it came out of nowhere. I hadn’t been reading, I was just working hard and going to college.

C: Yeah, well I think it’s so natural.

The whole idea of “source” connects with water, and connects with the flow of water and so it’s rather beautiful that it was in the water element that this awakening happened.

J: Do you remember a time when you had an experience like that, or some thoughts on what I did, what do you think happened there?

C: Well, I think you opened up. Basically that’s what happened, you just opened up and allowed the flow to happen.

So as the water’s flowing over you, you’re actually flowing through the water, so you opened up. So it’s not at all frightening, it’s more beautiful than anything.

J: It was not frightening, no.

C: No, it’s something to welcome. I’ll think about it next time we talk, something to talk about in my own experience. I’m a little shy about these things, I don’t like to broadcast inner things, but at the same time I think it’s important to open the conversation and let everybody know that we all have this stuff going on - all the time actually.

It makes me feel like when I’m in nature, I always feel like I want to just dive right into it. You know you see beautiful rolling green hills, I see them and I think , oh if I could just roll into them! But of course that’s a fantasy. I can’t physically roll into them in the way that I’d like – they’d probably be prickly and all of that. But the feeling is there, I feel like I want to rush through it, let it rush through me.

J: So tell me: if it’s true that source is not separate to us, I mean the very word source sounds as if that’s someplace different from where I’m at. Right? Because it starts at the source and comes to me, and yet I didn’t feel like that when I was, so many years ago in that experience. It felt like we were all in it together. Very strange sort of oneness kind of feeling that doesn’t translate into words.

What’s your take on the idea that source, well – talk about source and all is one, if you could…

C: It’s huge. It’s a huge thing to talk about because the source isn’t separate from us and we’re not separate from the source, but we feel we have to go back to it.

So all of the quest stories and the tales of going to the source, or going to the source of the Ganges, finding the mountain of Siva where the source of the water flows from; all of this is a metaphor for us to go inside ourselves and make those connections. Because it is all there, like an imprint, ready to unfold for us.

So from that point of view, it’s difficult to discuss it, which is why we have so many narratives and so many stories that help us find our way. But our way is already there if we’re here and alive in the moment.

That’s what we were talking about before, you have to be aware of the moment, open to that.

J: Um humm.

C: I mean, I don’t know what that little riff was about, I just started talking about it. I don’t know if it really makes any sense – it’s the way I think about these things.

It’s a lateral way to think about it, you can’t just go direct to the source with your rational mind. You have to approach it poetically, symbolically or humbly. You have to bow a little bit to get through that doorway so that you don’t bring too much of yourself with it. Then you can apprehend it more readily.

J: Source. For me, when I think about source in my mind, of course I always go back to these images of the sort of Catholic images of Jesus and Jesus’ Father who was never made image and of course we always had the Holy Ghost and I always wondered what he looked like. When I think of source my mind always goes toward those images. And then I think about suns and moons and stars and universe.

For me, I have no set image or experience of source other than a whole bunch of rolling huge images of nature and the world and universe that somehow start all off of my Christian and Catholic upbringing and thinking about God and Jesus and his third of the holy trilogy.

Do you see images in your mind of “source”, when you think of source, or when you try to think of source what sort of things happen in your mind, Carol?

C: Well, I think of something that is mostly uncreated. I mean the way I see it is source is something that you can’t see. Or feel. Or hear. Or touch. With everything. So all the images and everything are approximations and parodies of whatever that actually is.

So for me it’s a process of releasing from whatever it is that seems to have an identity, going towards the source that is undifferentiated and difficult to discuss with a word or with an image. Or anything. And yet we have to point to it.

So this is where the traditions are really helpful because the symbols that are used are really just to help carry your mind past some of your logical processes so that you can be ready to have a kind of a realization experience. That’s how I think about it.

It’s more of a realization, like a blip or an instant – not necessarily lasting only an instant but it’s an easier way to think about it because anything that lasts within time, right away you’re already stuck in something that you can’t make sense of, and I really think it’s way beyond our senses, and our mental senses as well.

J: Well I think Mohammed had something when he was transcribing the Koran from what he perceived to be the spoken word of God, which is they don’t want to make images of God and or even of man, because they’re afraid that those images just by their very nature, will limit people’s connection with the Divine.

My understanding is that Mohammed kind of has a good idea there to try and limit us from making statues of God or statues of holy figures, because it can so easily slip from there into idolizing the image rather than the content behind. I always thought that was interesting.

C: It’s true, but inside ourselves we have to create an image. We make an image inside ourselves. And what we know is that image transforms. As we mature, more is revealed of what this image is.

And so a loving mother, and a kind father and all that kind of imagery comes through us, but at the same time we also imagine or identify god-like beings or devas, spirits or any of these. As we go in our journey toward the source we experience all kinds of elementals and thought-memes and you name it, it’s all there in the mind world, in the heart world, in the angelic realms. They’re all there.

And we articulate them as we go forward but we don’t stay with them. We don’t stay. We don’t sleep with the faeries and end up waking up 75 years later, we keep on going, right? So that’s the thing: when you enter the forest, and you go through the forest pathways, you meet all the creatures but you have a destination, right?

J: Dear viewer, I would like you to put a comment down below and tell us what you think about your version of the source. And I think that’s all I have to say for this episode of Open Source Spirit. How’d you like to make the final comment, Carol?

C: Okay. I’d just like to say thanks for sticking with us throughout the length of this little video and be in touch with us. We’d love to talk with you too.

View the video of this conversation.

First Conversation

“Spirituality really appears to want to express itself, it seems to be popping out everywhere. Indeed, the whole world that we live in is just a particular experience and expression of spirituality in its totality.”

An early online conversation between Jim Van Wyck and Carol Sill on Open Source Spirit.

J: Carol and I are here to talk about a new project we have called “Open Source Spirit”  and Carol what would you like to tell us about Open Source Spirit at this time?

C: I think the best thing to say is that we’re applying the principles of open source to the spiritual life, which, actually, that’s been going on for centuries. It has always been part of the spiritual life, but it ends up getting codified and taken into particular streams and “marketed” that way through religious teachings.

J: Yeah, brilliant. Now what I think about open source is that it means that interesting combination between collaboration and individual effort. So that “Open Source” means that the subject, in our case, Open Source Spirituality, is available to all of us and shared between all of us in an open way, and yet individually expressed, and different people can make changes to the source code. The source code in this experience is their individual reflection and their individual expression of the Divine.

C: That’s exactly it. Each one of us is doing this experiment all the time, especially if you’re awakening your intuition or being in touch with some guiding spirit within, you start to develop yourself innerly and find resonance outside yourself that shows the collaboration of others who’ve gone before and use that to work more on your own interior self-development.

J: The way Carol and I have originally thought of this is that Open Source Spirit would have two sides. We have OpenSourceSpirit.org, which is a website and a place for collaboration which is and will always be free and non-profit, and for some of the contributors, or any of the contributors who wanted to promote their products or their seminars or their books or their sacred candles or whatever, there is a place for that at OpenSourceSpirit.com. Now I haven’t really talked with you about this Carol, but there is a lot of information about spiritual paths, the great holy texts that have been secret in many traditions for all the years, where do you think we should put all those texts – on OpenSourceSpirit.org or .com? We haven’t even talked about that, but we do want to republish many of the sacred texts, right?

C: I think we should point to everything in the .com, making it available to everyone for free of course, because it is already available to everyone. That’s what I think would be great: all the sacred texts, all the holy study that’s been done for centuries should be brought together in one place be made available – which it is in the great mind that we all share, you know, it already is all available to us.  As far as the .org side goes, I see that as a place where people are hearing what they are doing, what their development is, asking questions, working within this idea of a greater community of seekers of truth.

J: Yeah. One of my real hopes is to have really a lot of video; video talks, video things. Part of our change in consciousness is a shift more from the written word to visual expression. Just as most of the great spiritual teachers never actually wrote a book, they talked and then their followers later on, perhaps 150 years in the case of Jesus, or 300, 400 or 500 years in the case of Buddha, or really right away in the case of Mohammed, they wrote those things down. But Mohammed, Jesus, Buddha never really wrote a book. So I think that we can move back to, move forward actually to a different expression, by having people talk about their spirituality rather than write about it, although I think the internet is still a written medium but moving towards the visual. What do you think, Carol?

C: I think every medium has its own particular message. Marshall McLuhan was really aware of that. What we’re doing by taking this way of thinking out of the private realm of written language only and bringing it out into the video realm is really an experiment. Because the oral teachings were done face to face where you actually shared the vibration of the individual, of the whole, and of the whole audience while that was being given

J: Yes

C: Whereas now with video, video tends to flatten the energy. So we’re experimenting here to see just how much can be conveyed.

J: Of course. What happens is that I think what is conveyed is the same thing in a different way. Anyways…you are the McLuhan and media expert here and I think that’s great. Now you wrote a wonderful thing, to me, about “this is for you if…” and we should talk a little bit, I think, Carol, about who we would like to join us. So you wrote, “This is for you if you’re awakening intuition, seeing life beyond the material world…philosophical questions.” You wrote some other wonderful things, who do you think should join us. Who is this for?

C: I think anybody who just catches it and says, Open Source Spirit: that’s it. Obviously that’s who it’s for. There’s something a little bit inspiring in the name and I think that each person resonates it in their own way. There’s so much “open source” out now, there’s “open source sewing” for heaven’s sake. Everything is available “open source” now because we know, we recognize that everybody has something to give and contribute to the grand experiment.

J: Yes, those words are interesting: “open” – I think the key word is open. The other ones are grand and have their own resonance but I think openness is where we will find our friends. What do you think?

C: Yes but also there are others that are looking for the source, so that’s a big one.

J. Yes.

C: And the unseen, the fact that there is spirit involved, has to be acknowledged. Because we are going towards that which is unseen or unknown or not perceived by the senses.

J: Spirit, spirituality has this great urge to express itself. It may be the phenomenal world that we feel is just merely a spiritual expression, of spirit. What do you think, Carol?

C: Could you say that again?

J: I said: Spirituality really appears to want to express itself, it seems to be popping out everywhere. Indeed, the whole world that we live in is just a particular experience and expression of spirituality in its totality.

C: Yes it is. And we don’t have to do anything else other than experience that aspect of it. But nonetheless because we’re human and because we can’t see everything all the time and because we are part of this game we have to play hide and seek. That’s the fun of it and that’s the tragedy of it too. But there is art involved in that too. So the idea of playing with the concepts of open, source, and spirit is something that can really – I mean it really inspires me. I just feel like this gives a great model, a lot more scope.

J: Now if you’re looking at this video, and you’d like to contribute, please write. There’s a space right down here below the video somewhere for you to write your comments. Also there’s a spot there to email either Carol or I so that perhaps we can talk to you via the internet, via webcam, and perhaps make a little video interview like this.
Carol, in the bigger sense, what do you think we’re doing here? What’s your purpose for playing here in the world of Open Source Spirit and to help create it?

C: Actually, I don’t know what it is. I want to discover that. That’s why I’m doing this. I just had the concept and I thought I have to follow this through. I don’t know how far it goes, or really where it leads but I’m very willing to find out. I think there’s something really fascinating going on here, and I like the idea of being able to pull all these threads together, just to see how far we can go with it.

J: Great. Well, let’s call it a call here, Carol…

C: I have one more thing to say…

J: If you have a thousand more things to say… we have time.

C: The other thing to say is that everybody makes a difference. Every individual makes a difference. The real purpose of this is to create a basket or a capacity where everyone who is involved in a spiritual path, whether it’s acknowledged exteriorly or it’s an interior path that you only know yourself, everybody has an opportunity to express themselves within this. And this is a huge capacity, a great basket that will help us connect with one another in another way.

J: That’s a wonderful way to end.

Source

Jim Van Wyck and Carol Sill talk about the meanings of the word “Source”.

“It’s a huge thing to talk about because the source isn’t separate from us and we’re not separate from the source, but we feel we have to go back to it. So all of the quest stories and the tales of going to the source, or going to the source of the Ganges, finding the mountain of Siva where the source of the water flows from; all of this is a metaphor for us to go inside ourselves and make those connections.”

Link here for the text version of this conversation.

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First Video Conversation

In our first video conversation, Jim and I are exploring the very beginnings of the Open Source Spirit project.

“Spirituality really appears to want to express itself, it seems to be popping out everywhere. Indeed, the whole world that we live in is just a particular experience and expression of spirituality in its totality.”

Link here for a text version.