Adam's Potential
If you recall your days in early science classes, you'll no doubt remember the solar-system looking structure that depicted an atom: a nucleus in the middle surrounded by electrons at different energy levels. Well, as we've discovered more and more about atoms, we found out that atoms are further reducible to elementary particles. Deeper still. What are these particles? Energy. So far as we can reduce down what matter is made of, it collapses down to measuring wavelengths. The Universe is a collection of wavelengths, literally nothing but energy. Stop and think about that. We used to think that atoms were like those vortexes we see in the desert, an interaction of wind energy and sand particles. But, no, atoms, as we zoom in on them and measure them from the quantum perspective, are nothing but energy. As soon as we try and measure, for example, the location of an electron our data collapses and either we can know its momentum or its location, but not both. This is the uncertainty principle. And yet here you are, reading these words with that matter that constitutes your eyeballs and optic nerves.
Since we are all energy, we all radiate wavelengths. Plants, and all living things, give off their own frequency of energy. Depending on the states of those wavelengths the moment a photon from the sun interacts with the cell walls, the photon will find some points of entry that have less disturbance than others. When a photon from the sun strikes a leaf to initiate photosynthesis, each individual photon has a mysterious capability to experience all possible pathways at a single point in time as it's taken up into the plant to be converted to usable energy. If we were to come along and measure with our Newtonian-based tools, the path that photon takes collapses down and before our very eyes, picks one or the other. Something about interacting with the quantum realm makes things behave as if it were in the Newtonian realm.
This phenomena was discovered in the famous double slit experiment. We discovered that light and electrons travel and behave as both waves and particles, energy and matter, potential and actual. But what was it that made something behave as a wave suddenly behave as an individual particle? It was the measuring itself. All other things being equal, when the human being contended with the space between potential and actual, that action was what brought about something mysterious into something concrete.
In classic physics, we can know how objects behave when we know its starting point. If we know its position in space, mass, velocity and its resistance, we can, with 100% certainty know where it's going to go. Newtonian physics uses the term "potential energy" to describe the energy contained in an object with a particular mass at a particular height above the ground or the "potential" in a coiled spring. Knowing the force of gravity and air resistance, we can plot an object's trajectory without fail.
But I would suggest that "potential" is not the correct word here. If we know exactly how it will behave given these parameters, it's not potential, it's completely known. The action of releasing the spring or dropping an object is of no consequence because the outcome has zero Mystery attached to it. The turning of "potential" into kinetics has already been "done" in the equation so acting it out with concrete objects is no different. It's equally as concrete to mathematically describe the behavior of falling rocks as it is to observe falling rocks under identical conditions described in the numbers. Converting the numbers into objects with properties is not an act of converting something unknown into something known. At best, it is a lateral shift in description of being. If all the world were fully governed by Newtonian physics, free will collapses. We could theoretically reduce human behavior down to Newtonian "potential" and plug him into an equation and out pops deterministic philosophy. All human behavior is nothing more than a lateral transfer of inconsequential action, vanilla entropy. There is no meaning because everything may as well already be known. There is no true conversion of unknown into know, it is merely an alteration in types, from paper equation to falling rocks. To find meaning, we must traverse the Ontological Triangles (pictured below) up and down, not left to right.
Something with potential, as I define it here, is something that is not fully known and has an element of Mystery and that Mystery, from the perspective of Adam (which here refers to all humankind as the Hebrew Bible defines it), can be converted from something with greater uncertainty into something with less uncertainty. Our Dreams turn to Poetry. Our Poetry turns to Action. We metamorph disorder and unknowing into order and knowing. The unknown of the electron as a wave becomes the known of an electron as a particle the instant Adam contends and interacts with the quantum Mystery. Simply by existing and having consciousness, Adam's atoms transmute into concrete matter from potential wavelengths. Observation from an agent collapses the Universe's energy fields from potential into actual.
The quantum realm is so mysterious to us because it's that realm where nothing but potential exists. It's what is prior to the action of Adam converting a Dream into an Action. The deeper we gaze into the nature of what we're made of, as we peel back the layers of Mystery, that Mystery collapses into a singular concrete thing in the event of an Action. The coalescence of Dream converting to Action or true potential converting to actual is the moment Richard Hammond steps onto a miniature lake of custard and so long as he keeps moving, he won't sink. The Action of engaging with what was once liquid, unknown, chaos, converts that essence into something you can walk on, concrete, ordered. Adam cannot grasp both at once (uncertainty principle) in exactly the same manner as Adam cannot dream of something in the same instant as he acts that same something out into existence.
We are energy but the moment, called the present, Adam contends with that energy it becomes matter. Slap that custard. We cannot contend with all things at all times, thus the vast majority of the Universe is glorious potential. Most of what is is a Dream and our lives are the beautiful enactment of Dreams to Actions mediated through Poetry.
Dreams, Poetry, Action
If we want to know what someone is up to, what their story is, what they're doing in their life to turn potential into actual, we look at what they're doing right now, right this instant. We find someone stacking brinks, which means they're taking action on a Dream to build a cathedral. There are intermediates to this process that I refer to here as Poetry, or art if you like. Poetry is the first pass at articulating a Dream into reality. It's an in between step from Adam's Dreams and ambition to Adam's acting things out in the world.
The closer we get to concrete Action, the higher resolution we can describe that Action and the Mystery of what you're up to collapses into bricklaying, typing on a keyboard, or oration. Those are the fine tipped points at the bottom of the red triangle pictured below. The moment a child is born, you can see right there in the delivery room Dreams coming into reality and Mystery falls away. The moment you embrace your spouse in a pure, loving kiss, all time concentrates in that space and there is no question about your connection, about your being. Your trajectory as parents or lovers on this Earth is the most real thing there is. Action following a Dream articulated through Poetry in an instant of time is our truest reality of what is.
The moment the Christ was born, there could be no greater Mystery. A fine tipped point in time for God maximized the Mystery of what He was up to, represented by the bottom of the purple triangle. It's the exact reverse of Adam's contention with existence. If we want to see what God is up to, we look to history and the more history that encompasses our view, the clearer the picture. God's story is a photographic mosaic, understood best at a distance. Why else would most of the New Testament tie itself in with a story that was thousands of years in the making? "This was done to fulfill what the prophets said," is basically saying, take about 10 steps back and look at the picture now. The highest resolution of what God is up to is seen across the greatest span of time possible, His Dreams.
For Elohim - which here refers to the spiritual nature of existence: God, the divine counsel, and the image of God in man - the least amount of Mystery resides in Dreams themselves. Before the beginning, everything that existed was a Dream. "We declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began" -2 Corinthians 2:7. To Elohim, the most real thing, or perhaps, least Mysterious thing or the thing with the greatest amount of articulation and definition, is a Dream. With time in the equation, to know what Elohim is up to, we look to that Dream as the spirit's greatest level of instantiation over all history. The more time is considered, the further we step back from the mosaic, the more of Elohim that is instantiated, represented by the purple triangle below. For Adam, the closer he is to the present moment, the more instantiated he becomes, represented by the red triangle in the diagram.
To "instantiate" across all time may seem to you incomprehensible - how can spirit be the most fully articulated across all instances? But I would argue that to instantiate, or to be maximally articulate into a singular moment is equally as unknowable. As soon as it's here, it's gone. How much time exists in the "present"? At least we can attempt to write all history down across the world's libraries and take a crack at a collective understanding of the fullness of Creation's Dreams. It's the present moment that's slippery. The present is represented in the Ontological Triangles where the red triangle's point meet's the purple triangles' bottom. "All History" is represented by the reverse of that, or the top portion of the red triangle.
 |
| A Holy Echo: Ontological Triangles |
Connection with the Word
There seem to be three articulated divisions that move us from Dream to Action. If that is true of reality, we should see this pattern everywhere. I see it right there in the trinity: The Father, the Dreamer, the Holy Spirit, the Poet, and the Christ, the Actor.
Consider how the Father Dreams and the Christ acts out those Dreams in a submissive manner. "It is only for the Father to know." As the Christ was acting out the Dream of the Father during his time on earth, even this person of the trinity didn't have full knowing of the Dreams of his Father. It was Christ's role to demonstrate what it looks like to transmute Dreams into form. At creation, the Elohim of Elohim took what was ostensibly full order and form and breathed it into something that was formless and void. He created Adam to contend with the task of turning formless things into those things that are formed and He sent Christ to show us how it's done. A holy echo.
What about the Holy Spirit as Poet? Poetry rings with the truth with something akin to articulation bred with song and flow. I think the artistic nature of the Holy Spirit allows us to experience the bridge not so much between Elohim and Adam, but between Dreams and Action. Where Christ is the door to knowing the Father, the Holy Spirit is the chaperone. Why else is music, dance, or simply, worship so universally recognized as an innate magnet that draws us to something beyond ourselves? Poetry is the rhythmic ceremony that marries Action to Dream. Poetry tells us that our bricklaying has meaning, that there is a Dream of a cathedral that we are actively participating in. A symphony orchestra is so evocative because it's frequency speaks to our hearts.
Humans are energy that create matter out of meaningful contention. Our very heart space emits an electromagnetic frequency that speaks to other people. We can tell others have a good or bad vibe based on the frequencies emanating from their hearts. Every cell in our body has a membrane coated in receptor proteins that serve as antenna and send messages through the cytoplasm via effector proteins and speaks to its organelles. Some of these proteins pick up on invisible environmental energy wavelengths and once received, send messages out to the rest of the body for an appropriate response. A holy echo. A relationship is formed out of a sounding through of one another flowing into a deeper knowing over time. Modern living has numbed us to these supposed superpowers that humans have always possessed. Phones replace our microscopic sensory abilities in large part.
Our hearts are covered in these receptors and its very own nervous system sends messages to the brain in the forms of positive or negative emotions following our sensory cells picking up subtle messages found in the environment, from someone's vibration to their micro-expressions on their faces. The heart space is the intermediary between something Mysterious, like the first reaction to interacting with another human, and the Action we take following. That's why it's written, if you seek me you will find me if you seek me with all your heart. (Jeremiah 29:13) Descriptions of the heart and emotions should not all be written off as merely word play. The process of seeking is done right there at the center between high and low resolution. Poetry is the art of nesting with the divine. That's were we seem to find the Holy Spirit.
To engage with the trinity, I think addressing each person at each level of Time and Mystery can open up the way we relate to the divine. The Christ is there to be a lamp to our feet, showing the very next Action but nothing more. The breath of life fills a room when we worship by uttering melodic Poetry as we adjust our heart frequencies. The Father is who we go to when our Dreams are too small. When in doubt, rest in the Holy Spirit, where meditations are born, a portal to peace.
As we zoom in on our atomic nature, it's almost as if we're taking a trip starting with the Christ holding the electron microscope, appreciating the structure and physics of seeing and receiving as we peer into the lens with the breath of the Spirit, and as we break down Newtonian laws and the Mystery of energy and matter reach their maximum point, there's the Father smiling right back.
A holy echo.
The Center
In my diagram one triangle lies above and separated from the other but they are still part of the same Being. What is it that connects Adam's being with Elohim's being? What meshes these two things together? It's something like the same thing that wove Eden with Heaven. The Genesis story is one that tells of mankind spreading order throughout the world. Eden itself did not cover the entire Earth. That became man's job. From the beginning, we turn the Dream of an "Earth filled with His glory" into the high resolution Actions that spring from our individual talents. As we resonate with our talents, there we find heightened meaning.
But we're not in the Garden anymore. What meshes these two planes of being now? It's intercourse. It's a merging of hearts. There is no better description than that that I can find. It's marriage. It's precisely marriage, a covenant. That union between the nature of God and the God-nature of man is manifest in something like "spiritual intercourse." Why else is the church described as Christ's bride? I don't think that's a metaphor. When we engage in "spiritual intercourse" we're joining in the flow that takes a Dream and forms it into meaningful work based off each person's talents. Finding meaning in the work you dream about is precisely what it means to nest your divine nature with Elohim.
Why should we be scared to call that a spiritually erotic relationship? To enact in tune with a God-given purpose is to be as intimate as can be with your creator. When we're engaged with meaningful work, we can't help but fall into what's known as flow state, where all other sensory input falls away and we're putting our full effort into transforming Dreams into Action and it's a type of ecstasy. The chemical cocktail released through your veins during flow is not dissimilar to our onboard love potions released during sex. The union of Elohim and Adam is played out in the fractal pattern of the covenant between man and woman. That point where they meet is precisely the point where new life is created. Intercourse is that place where unimaginable potential meets with actuality, where a Dream is fully realized in the birth of something beautiful, where wavelengths become material atoms, where the things humanity Dreams about become living cathedrals.
Would you like whipped cream with your egg custard?
