The Phenomenal Illuminations
Existence gives us gifts. Here we focus on the first of the three sets of Illuminations, that is, of the Phenomenal, the Cosmic, and the Technological.
Inside water, a water wheel turns.
The star circulates with the moon.
We live in the night ocean, wondering, what are these lights?
You have said what you are.
I am what I am.
Your actions in my head, my head here in my hands, with something circling inside.
I have no name for what circles so perfectly.
—Rumi, with credit to
I am. These two words contain multitudes.
“I” is a universe unto itself, or some would say unto themselves. Old mystics claim multiple selves (Executives) within each of us are vying for control. Yet there is a unity to Experience—a locus we call subjectivity, or “I.”
To study it, the phrenologist must put down his calipers. A behaviorist’s shocks and pellets won’t do. The neurologist’s axons, dendrites, and excitations are all very interesting. But the Phenomenal Illuminations, these gifts of existence, are yours alone. Only you can study them.
Welcome to the interocosm—the universe within.
“I” is not just a gift but a theater of the absurd. It is a gift because redness, sweetness, and form are feelings, not neuronal secretions, as are desire’s burning, an orgasm’s seizing, and love’s warming. I-ness is irreducible.
Experiri. Cogitare. Intendere.
The absurdity lies in this: I can never view your theater, you can never view mine, and neither of us has an actual theater. Yet somehow, within, we are illumined. It’s doubly absurd that we appear to have inner theaters simply because we are appeared to. The theater of illusion arises when Experience acts as a mediator between the Executives and the Exterior.
Now, to exchange our theaters’ contents with one another, we must send concept codes through fricatives and vocalizations (or, in this case, symbols and signs). Sometimes, we weave something akin to a shared reality by exchanging that code.
Let us not stray too far from the matter.
“Am” is a declaration of existence. There is something so fundamental about being that, in relationship to I-ness, it might make as much sense to write “Am I” because existence precedes experience. There is no “I” without being, no phenomenology without ontology. Of course, there is being without I-ness, a fact about which a chair might boast if a chair could boast.
To combine “I” with “am,” we reconcile subject and object. Still, it is an uneasy union. The subjective depends entirely on the objective to exist, but the objective depends entirely on the subjective to be contemplated. Otherwise, mechanical Turks would ponder our destinies, and ghosts could haunt our cemeteries and sanctuaries.
Therefore, “I am” might be among the first dialectics. As puzzlers puzzle over such questions, a celebration is in order.
Experiences are, after all, gifts of existence.
The “I” of “I am” is composed of experiences in flux—phenomenal states—that appear to a subject directly or, in some manner, compose part of the “I.” Our conscious experiences are the most real aspect of our reality, yet are a kind of illusion. Why? No one could open your head and find the words you’re reading now. The theater would vanish, and the procedure would leave a bloody mess. Indeed, the theater no show times without your head intact, and yet the theater is just a metaphor.
Your eyes are not portholes for some inner homunculus you call “I” to look out onto the world. The apparent continuity between Exterior, Experience, and Executives makes it seem that way. Perspectival shifts reveal different relationships among the relata, unique to each perspective. Such leaves mysteries to be explored, and Philosophia can invite Scientia for tea.
Happy paradoxes abound because at least we, unlike automata, have our interocosms—especially when we close our eyes or drink our kykeon. We experience all of life there, life being the sum of the Phenomenal Illuminations, whether painful or beautiful. Life is I-ness. Celebrate these gifts of existence as lower-order and higher-order consciousness states. Higher and lower are not ranks of significance but rather frequency and familiarity. The lists are not exhaustive.
Lower Order Phenomena
Visual
Olfactory
Interoceptive
Aural
Temporal
Affective
Tactile
Spatial
Cognitive
Gustatory
Proprioceptive
Linguistic
Higher Order Phenomena
Ecstatic
Sublime
Immanent
Transcendent
Ineffable
Noetic
Submissive
Connected
Somatic-Sacred
Enlightened
Revelatory
Passive
Twelve lower-order and twelve higher-order phenomena are enumerated. As time’s arrow moves as a line away from the past, calendar months mean we can cause time to loop as we observe and create cycles. The months become planters for seeds of ritual, ceremony, and memory to honor the Illuminations.
Each month, we shall celebrate one lower-order Illumination and one higher-order illumination. We celebrate the former because, assailed as we are with sights, scents, noises, and chittering thoughts, we don’t want to take these for granted. We shall celebrate the latter because these Illuminations are so rare.
What apparition lingers when a girl presses her fingers upon her eyes in the dark? What ecstasis floods the Sufi’s breast when he twirls?
Let us be grateful for the gifts of existence.
Inside water, a water wheel turns.
The star circulates with the moon.
We live in the night ocean, wondering, what are these lights?
You have said what you are.
I am what I am.
Your actions in my head, my head here in my hands, with something circling inside.
I have no name for what circles so perfectly.
~ Rumi
I especially like this bit "Now, to exchange our theaters’ contents with one another, we must send concept codes through fricatives and vocalizations (or, in this case, symbols and signs). Sometimes, we weave something akin to a shared reality by exchanging that code." This is the imaginal world of the psyche or soul. It transcends time and space and it is more real than the "physical" world.