In our last Post, our first Practicum, we looked at the symbols for planets. We also introduced a concept most often associated with harmony—the Alchemical concept of octaves—and we suggested some planets are ‘higher octaves’ of other planets. Neptune, for example, is considered the higher octave of Venus.
Octaves resonate one with the other because a feature of their relationship is harmony. The astrological ruler of Music in the Western Mystery Tradition happens to be Neptune. The human voice, astrologically speaking, is associated with Venus. Communication of all kinds is a role reserved for Mercury. The singing human voice, therefore, conflates three distinct astrological channels to accomplish the uniquely human inspiration we understand as the singing voice. These astrological protagonists are Mercury, Neptune, Venus.
Next: when we encounter mundane Love and Beauty, Venus is close at hand. Neptune, as love’s higher octave is different in kind and quality. Neptune is our portal to Beatific Love, that locus of deep personal experience we characterize as “the usummoned quanta of meaning”.
In a life’s journey, we return to the temple from time to time–to reconnect temporarily with the unsummoned meaning, as Love, we sense at a deep level to be present in every detail of our waking and non-waking experience in the world.
Beyond the temple, where we spend the majority of the Time we are allocated, love and beauty are also present– as Cupid, desire, attraction, and an array of urges and appetites aimed at holding and acquiring.
Drama, misdirection, long suffering and ambiguity prevail outside the temple.
The realm beyond the temple (below the level of Neptune) all meaning is summoned–we command it as if our desires and urges were empowered on some cosmic scale. Left unchecked, we devote a lot of energy practicing the faux art of “getting what we desire”.
Enter: Venus–the magician as conjurer. The etymology of two terms come to mind: manipulation and sleight of hand.
Meanwhile, at a deep level we know: there is no magus beyond Neptune. Only Universe. Only “Our Father….” or “Our Mother…” (as your Venus requires).
Venus may be found everywhere we live, work and “have our being”–as a mundane, Time bound, expression of Beatific Love where entropy as premise has a seat at the table. In this context of what we hold to be possible (or not) it is natural to dream about building larger courtyards within the confinement of our lives. You know this is what is going on if the irony of the folly is lost in the moment.
Neptune, on the other hand, is as unbounded as music and unsummoned as Love itself. How might we get there?
Consider how little children love to play music.
We can close our eyes and imagine the voice of a young Pavarotti en route to becoming maestro Luciano Pavarotti. Following decades of training the music little children play is transformed. The difference? The adept musician becomes the wisdom of devotion as a practice.
Devotion as a practice is the capacity to fall in love with repetition intent upon self-mastery; it is self-mastery that moves the harmony and beauty intrinsic to Venus in the direction of Neptune.
Prayer, even silent prayer, gives voice to devotion as a practice.
Prayer, and music express higher octaves of devotional human experience leading to self-discovery and adeptship.
In the West, the Lord’s Prayer has been recited for thousands of years by unnumbered persons in many dialects, language groups and settings. While it is notionally considered a foundational prayer of practicing Christians–the rudiments of the Lord’s Prayer are Hebraic in origin. And, truth be told, some day, would it surprise us to learn, the Sumerians shared it with the Hebrews? We digress (prayerfully).
Today we are going to read a latter day version of the Lord’s Prayer to see what it may tell us about prayer as a devotional practice.
An elderly Richard Buckminster Fuller is featured along with the title of today’s post, “Ever Rethinking the Lord’s Prayer”.
Not everyone who is aware of Bucky’s life and work also thinks about him as a man of prayer. On many occasions he commented it was his practice to fall asleep each night reflecting on the Lord’s Prayer.
Bucky’s version of the Lord’s Prayer, over many decades, adapts to reflect the observations of a very special “average man”. In Bucky’s hands the house becomes a dome; and the geometry of Natures becomes Synergetics. It should follow, unsurprisingly, the Lord’s Prayer, under Bucky’s prayer shawl, is a living recital.
Today, for your pleasure, we present Bucky Fuller’s, “Ever Rethinking the Lord’s Prayer” as he memorialized it on the occasion of his 84th birthday, 12 July 1979.
First, for the reader’s “safety”, we begin with a riff of Bucky’s prayerful thinking. Organized as excerpts and snippets from the longer recitation of the Lord’s Prayer the reader encounters Bucky’s special temperament—in both its seriously reasoned and playful forms.
“wherefore my first meaning for God is”: —Bucky prays to God in a voice of reverent familiarity. It has a special charm–like young children playing their music.
If you are an experienced reader of Bucky’s written word—great. If not, breaking the reading into two parts—his actual prayer narrative preceded by our “edit” may prove helpful.
Note: at a few points, for editorial clarification, we highlight using a colored font.
You will have a chance to read the Lord’s Prayer from 12 July 1979 in Bucky’s words in its entirety following “the excerpts”.
Here goes.
“wherefore my first meaning for God is: —
all the experientially explained
or explainable answers
to all questions
of all time —
I mean: —
All the mystery inherent
in all human experience,
which as a lifetime ratioed to eternity,
is individually limited
to almost negligible
twixt sleepings, glimpses
of only a few local episodes
of one of the infinite myriads
of concurrently and overlappingly operative
sum-totally never-ending
cosmic scenario serials
Your [God’s] eternally regenerative scenario Universe
is the minimum complex
of totally intercomplementary
totally intertransforming
nonsimultaneous, differently frequenced
and differently enduring
feedback closures
in which naught is created
and naught is lost
and all occurs
in optimum efficiency.
Since omni-experience is your [God’s] identity
I define Universe as
all of humanity’s
in-all-known-time
consciously apprehended
and communicated (to self or others)
experiences.
In using the word, God,
I am consciously employing
four clearly differentiated
from one another
experience-engendered thoughts.
1.
scientifically explainable answers
may and probably will
eventually be given
to all questions
as engendered in all human thoughts
by the sum total
of all human experiences;
2.
the possible existence
of a total comprehension
of the integrated significance —
the meaning —
of all experiences.
of what had previously seemed to be
entirely uninterrelated experiences
3.
everyday, naked-eye experiences
as well as of the multi-millions-fold greater range
of only instrumentally explored
infra- and ultra-tunable
micro and macro-Universe events.
to be in eternal
omni-interconsiderate,
omni-interaccommodative governance
of generalized principles —
cosmic laws–
thus far discovered and codified
4.
All the mystery inherent
in all human experience,
which as a lifetime ratioed to eternity,
is individually limited
to almost negligible
twixt sleepings, glimpses
of only a few local episodes
of concurrently and overlappingly operative
sum-totally never-ending
cosmic scenario serials
With these four meanings I now directly address God.
Since omni-experience is your [God’s] identity
Your generalized principles
adequately accommodate any and all
special case developments,
Yours, Dear God,
is the only and complete glory.
By Glory I mean
Radiation is plural and differentiable,
Gravity is unit and undifferentiable
the a priori energy potential
of both radiation and gravity
are initially equal
but whose respective
behavioral patterns are such
that radiation’s entropic, redundant disintegratings [as REASON]
is always less effective
than gravity’s nonredundant
syntropic integrating [as LOVE]
[REASON as metaphysical radiation] is focusable, beamable, and self-sinusing,
it is interceptible, separatist, and biasable —
ergo, has shadowed voids and vulnerabilities;
[LOVE as metaphysical gravity] is comprehensive
inclusively embracing and permeative
is nonfocusable and shadowless,
Your eternally regenerative scenario Universe
is the minimum complex
of totally intercomplementary
totally intertransforming
nonsimultaneous, differently frequenced
and differently enduring
feedback closures
wherefore Your absolutely courageous
omnirigorous and ruthless self-testing
alone can and does absolutely guarantee
total conservation
of the integrity
of eternally regenerative Universe
Wherefore we have absolute faith and trust in You,
and we worship You
awe-inspiredly,
all-thankfully,
rejoicingly,
lovingly,
Amen.
You may now read the Lord’s Prayer as Bucky wrote it in July 1979. We hope the utility of the warm up reading becomes apparent.
EVER RETHINKING THE LORD’S PRAYER
July 12, 1979
R. Buckminster Fuller
“To be satisfactory to science
all definitions
must be stated
in terms of experience
I define Universe as
all of humanity’s
in-all-known-time
consciously apprehended
and communicated (to self or others)
experiences.
In using the word, God,
I am consciously employing
four clearly differentiated
from one another
experience-engendered thoughts.
Firstly I mean: —
Those experience-engendered thoughts
which are predicted upon past successions
of unexpected, human discoveries
of mathematically incisive,
physically demonstrable answers
to what theretofore had been misassumed
to be forever unanswerable
cosmic magnitude questions
wherefore I now assume it to be
scientifically manifest,
and therefore experientially reasonable that
scientifically explainable answers
may and probably will
eventually be given
to all questions
as engendered in all human thoughts
by the sum total
of all human experiences;
wherefore my first meaning for God is: —
all the experientially explained
or explainable answers
to all questions
of all time —
Secondly I mean: —
The individual’s memory
of many surprising moments
of dawning comprehensions
of an interrelated significance
to be existent
amongst a number
of what had previously seemed to be
entirely uninterrelated experiences
all of which remembered experiences
engender the reasonable assumption
of the possible existence
of a total comprehension
of the integrated significance —
the meaning —
of all experiences.
Thirdly, I mean:–
the only intellectually discoverable
a priori, intellectual integrity
indisputably manifest as
the only mathematically statable
family
of generalized principles —
cosmic laws–
thus far discovered and codified
and ever physically redemonstrable
by scientists
to be not only unfailingly operative
but to be in eternal
omni-interconsiderate,
omni-interaccommodative governance
of the complex
of everyday, naked-eye experiences
as well as of the multi-millions-fold greater range
of only instrumentally explored
infra- and ultra-tunable
micro and macro-Universe events.
Fourthly, I mean: —
All the mystery inherent
in all human experience,
which as a lifetime ratioed to eternity,
is individually limited
to almost negligible
twixt sleepings, glimpses
of only a few local episodes
of one of the infinite myriads
of concurrently and overlappingly operative
sum-totally never-ending
cosmic scenario serials
With these four meanings I now directly address God.
“Our God —
Since omni-experience is your identity
You have given us
overwhelming manifest: —
of Your complete knowledge
of Your complete comprehension
of Your complete concern
of Your complete coordination
of Your complete responsibility
of Your complete capability to cope
in absolute wisdom and effectiveness
with all problems and events
and of Your eternally unfailing reliability
so to do
Yours, Dear God,
is the only and complete glory.
By Glory I mean
the synergetic totality
of all physical and metaphysical radiation
and of all physical and metaphysical gravity
of finite
but nonunitarily conceptual
scenario Universe
in whose synergetic totality
the a priori energy potential
of both radiation and gravity
are initially equal
but whose respective
behavioral patterns are such
that radiation’s entropic, redundant disintegratings
is always less effective
than gravity’s nonredundant
syntropic integrating
Radiation is plural and differentiable,
radiation is focusable, beamable, and self-sinusing,
it is interceptible, separatist, and biasable —
ergo, has shadowed voids and vulnerabilities;
Gravity is unit and undifferentiable
Gravity is comprehensive
inclusively embracing and permeative
is nonfocusable and shadowless,
and is omni-integrative
all of which characteristics of love.
Love is metaphysical gravity.
You, Dear God,
are the totally loving intellect
ever designing
and ever daring to test
and thereby irrefutably proving
to the uncompromising satisfaction
of Your own comprehensive and incisive
knowledge of the absolute truth
that Your generalized principles
adequately accommodate any and all
special case developments,
involvements, and side effects;
wherefore Your absolutely courageous
omnirigorous and ruthless self-testing
alone can and does absolutely guarantee
total conservation
of the integrity
of eternally regenerative Universe
Your eternally regenerative scenario Universe
is the minimum complex
of totally intercomplementary
totally intertransforming
nonsimultaneous, differently frequenced
and differently enduring
feedback closures
of a finite
but nonunitarily
nonsimultaneously conceptual system
in which naught is created
and naught is lost
and all occurs
in optimum efficiency.
Total accountability and total feedback
constitute the minimum and only
perpetual motion system.
Universe is the one and only
eternally regenerative system.
To accomplish Your regenerative integrity
You give Yourself the responsibility
of eternal, absolutely continuous,
tirelessly vigilant wisdom.
Wherefore we have absolute faith and trust in You,
and we worship You
awe-inspiredly,
all-thankfully,
rejoicingly,
lovingly,
Amen.”
The New Testament version of the Lord’s Prayer, as adapted by Bucky, occupies only a few short lines:
‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” Matthew 6:9-13
After 1526 CE, a European adaptation of the Lord’s Prayer allowed one to substitute the word “trespasses” for “debts”. A detail that was unimportant to Bucky, seemingly, because it was vested in cultural concerns, not generalized principles of universe that were exceptionless and thereby, eternally reliable. Bucky was disinclined to put too much stock in human nature given its intractability. He avoided pondering…“what if human nature might improve…” On a deep level he knew, if we might fail as a species in this place, Universe would not blink. Our opportunity to perfect our role as observer would be forfeit–and if this turns out to be an inevitability, only then does it become a tragedy.
Bucky’s attention never strays far from an important predicate of the Western Mystery Tradition: “God is Love”, 1 John 4:8. We might add—“unsummoned Beatific Love”
Is self-improvement possible? Assuredly. Because “Love is shadowless”. Bless you, Bucky,
We bid you peace through practice,
Frater A
Should you have time to consider a musical reflection to accompany this post, we refer you to “Ava Maria” as written by Franz Schubert and performed by Luciano Pavarotti, live in concert with The Three Tenors in Los Angeles, 1994. Key word: worshipful.
A Reference of symbols, charts and definitions important to Western Mystery Tradition studies is listed as Post No. 900. Enter “900” in the Search box to be directed to this location.
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