Mind Set Go

Are you sangfroid and do you possess neart?  Do you have “the ability to stay calm in difficult or dangerous situations” (Merriam Webster) and are you strong-spirited, possessing “inner strength, courage, or fortitude”? (Word Guru)  Neart is an Irish word, picked up by Word Guru, but is yet to make it to Merriam Webster as a word we use in American English.

I am reading a spectacular book entitled, Deep.  James Nestor, who also wrote the next book I plan to devoir, Breath, takes the reader to the sea in true stories of those who plunge deep on a single breath hundreds of feet below in sport and research.  He describes the world few have seen, yet inhabited by most of the animals on earth. 

We base our perspective on what we see at the top portions of the oceans and the area above the earth.  Nestor opens our eyes as we journey down, experiencing what he experienced learning to free dive as well as taking the opportunity to experience the world 2500+ feet below in a home-brew submarine he ventured to take a ride in.  The descriptions he provides, of our earth and the sport of free diving, will, no doubt, wow you.

From a submarine, he experienced an “endless swirl” of white flakes heading down, down, down, swirling past the sub.  He states, “In the ocean, anything that doesn’t float must sink: plankton, skeletons, fish feces, sloughed-off skin—whatever.  It all eventually ends up dissolving into smaller bits and falling to the seafloor in an endless swirl.” (pp 224-225) The vessel he was in, the Idabel, is owned by Karl Stanley who operates “The Roatan Institute of Deepsea Exploration.”  Roatan is an easy distance to the Cayman Trench where the sea floor is more than 25,000 feet below.   Nestor and his friend, Stan Kuczaj, a dolphin researcher, got to go to a spot where no man has ever been; while they were no where near the deepest parts of the Trench where there are hydrothermal vents, the “underwater volcanoes that spew toxic gas more than a half a mile up from the seafloor.”, (p 219) they were somewhere far above, however, yet far below where we ever go.

I highly recommend this non-fiction book.  His writing is unbelievably smooth and filled with information you and I are totally unaware of, no doubt.  I can’t stop thinking about this paragraph he wrote:

“The ocean depth sucks up not only all of trash but carbon dioxide as well.  Phytoplankton, the microscopic algae that make up at least half of all biomass in the ocean, absorb about one-third to one-half all CO2 and produce more than 50 percent of all the Earth’s oxygen.  As the oceans warm, phytoplankton will die off.  Carbon dioxide levels will rise and oxygen levels will fall.” (p. 225, Deep by James Nestor.) 

He went on to add, “From 1950 to 2010, the number of phytoplankton species dropped 40 percent—an astounding number.  As phytoplankton continue to die off, it will become increasingly difficult for animals on Earth to breathe.” (James Nestor, Deep p. 225)

He later describes in great detail the electrical energy we possess in figures that will blow your mind.    This book is about free divers and free diving.  But it opens our eyes and ears to our earth, to so much that is out there: things we affect, but know nothing of. Things that affect us, that, again, we know nothing of: animals and plants out there and the areas where there are only animals… where the sun doesn’t reach. Places and things so few have seen, let alone, researched.  We are each amazing beings.  Whether you borrow or buy, this book is sure to amaze.  It’s not just highly informative, but the writing, itself, is phenomenanol.

Which brings me, in some weird way, back to were we started.   We can be spunky and calm all we want, but what we really need in this world is the awareness that it’s not all about how we process, but also what we do and don’t do.  It’s difficult to wrap our minds to the idea not all about us.  It’s about balance, yet we often think only of the balance within our own bodies and how balance affects us, somehow with the misconception that balance is something we seek for us and about us. 

Ian Gawler, in another awesome book entitled You Can Conquer Cancer: A new way of living, describes the benefits of meditation.  He states, “Meditation provides a direct and reliable means to go beyond the speculation of the mind, beyond the ordinary thinking mind and to directly experience the truth of who we really are, what is in our heart’s essence.” (P. 309)   He tells us that in finding this inner truth, we learn that we are “inherently good, fundamentally pure and absolutely inviolable” (p. 309) and that awareness leads to deep confidence. He states:

“Meditation may well contribute to healing your body, emotions and mind, but even more, meditation can heal your spirit.”  (P. 310)

You don’t have to have or have had cancer to read this book.  Dr. Gawler is living proof of the value of a healthy lifestyle, but we need no proof.  We need inner confidence to see and know and yes, do what is right.  We all have what we need to contribute.  Gawler describes a path you may choose to take., a path that may take you ” beyond the speculation of the mind.” (Gawler)

I believe we should not act purely with the intent to become better people, filled with selfish ego and senses of pride for what we accomplish; I believe we should realize that we are already that better person here and now as Gawler suggests and helps us discover.  Finding this truth is not to open the door to good health for and about you, but to accept your inner purity, unleashing the bonds we… we attach to it, clouding and confounding the purpose of what we do and why we act. 

Meditation does produce sangfroid results.  But that isn’t (i.e., shouldn’t be) why we meditate.  We may feel that inner spunk and even become more creative as Julia Cameron describes and identifies in The Listening Path: The creative art of attention through meditative acts such as writing.

There is an ocean about us and within us.  We know very little of either, the oceans and ourselves.  It is time for you open your own book, the one of self-awareness.  Not for selfish reasons, however.  Not to become less stressed.  Not to become healthier.  Not because its in vogue to do so.  But because you are you a part of something much larger than yourself—something that transcends time and place and, yes, yours, and my, petty thoughts.  Because you matter.  We matter.  This World matters.

Before your body becomes part of the detritus, harness and unleash its energy.  That is something we share in spirit.  And in harmony.  You possess a brain, but as Nestor reveals, there are beings out there without what I will label a tool (a brain) communicating and sharing and harnessing their electrical potential.  Open your hearts, and you may very well heal your spirit, your soul, through no self-intention of your own.  Love.

(That is, no doubt, a concept, a word, in every dictionary.)

Nancy Marie Farley Rice