The Oosumich of
Open Form: Writing as Vision Quest
Poetry can be a mode to deepening one’s consciousness, this I know from personal experience and from the stories of how one’s life was turned around by a self-guided exploration of the tradition and practice of poetry. The case of Jimmy Santiago Baca who taught himself to read and write in prison, used his imagination to help overcome being abandoned by his mother and the abuse of an alcoholic father, is one of the more remarkable cases (Baca). Hearing the words of poets reinforcing, or even becoming his conscience at one point in prison when he was about to commit murder, but pulled back, is a particularly vivid example of the power of poetry to aid in the process of developing a deeper consciousness. Noted poet and translator Sam Hamill, who has a similar experience with poetry, refers to the wisdom tradition the ancient Chinese and Japanese, especially, have taught him (Hamill).
Yet the word consciousness is a difficult word to use without some perspective. Robert Ornstein in his seminal book The Psychology of Consciousness points out that textbook definitions are problematic, that consciousness is experiential. He does provide an interesting chart he calls: “The Two Modes of Consciousness: A Tentative Dichotomy.” One mode can be described as “Intellectual and Active,” while the second “Sensuous and Receptive.” The first is, in his words, “lineal” and the second “nonlineal and intuitive” (Ornstein 67).
More
recently, John Upledger, whose studies of consciousness
have been in the experiential mode with the healing modality he pioneered known
as Cranial Sacral Therapy, writes: “I
don’t think we’ll ever be able to fit an understanding of consciousness into a
provable model that would be considered scientifically acceptable – a model
that could fit into our concept of an investigation that obeys the rules of
experimental design, and that is able to be duplicated by others (Upledger 36).
Interestingly, the American public seems to be able to be more open to more holistic approaches when confronted with chronic medical conditions such as back problems, anxiety, depression, and headaches. According the a study cited in the Journal of the American Medical Association, between 1990 and 1997 there was a 47.3% increase in total visits to alternative medicine practitioners, from 427 million in 1990 to 629 million in 1997, thereby exceeding total visits to all US primary care physicians. These folks were paying out-of-pocket, which makes the results all the more telling (Eisenberg, et al. 1).
Yet the models for
an holistic paradigm are ancient. Of those indigenous
to
“Keesta himself as a whaler would practice what we’ve called
Oosumich…that is a method to acquire knowledge. A method to access knowledge from the spiritual realm. And
so for that purpose he would isolate himself for long periods of time and fast,
and pray, and deny himself the physical pleasure of the world in order to focus
on the spiritual concerns that he had, assuming that the spiritual dimension
had power, had knowledge, had treasures that he could access through a correct
methodology. Now the fundamental requirement in successful scientific
experimentation, the classical form was neutrality. Scientists attempted to be
neutral in their observations so as not to bias the information that (was
gathered in the experiment. Objectivity.) …Now this
has been challenged by feminist theory, and rightly so. However, there’s a lot
of credence to the classical form of research (which) created this form of
technology…It has served classical science and scientific methodology very
legitimately. Oosumich is also a methodology. When
it’s practiced, the critical stance, according to our origin stories, is
…humility. Objectivity is the proper stance in science. If we merge the two
together, and make a more complete knowledge acquisition system, scientists
will have to buy in to the humility aspect, because without humility, there is
no seeing in the spiritual realm… The word Oosumich
has in it the root Oo which means “be careful” and so
it’s based on the view of reality that perceives it as along a spectrum which
might be divided in two. On the one side, we might call it the dark, evil,
destructive aspect of reality and the other side, the beautiful, the creative,
the glorious, the harmonious, the balance. All of those things that can
describe Qua-ootz – Owner of Reality…We create
ceremonies and we create teachings to manage this reality as we perceive it
through Oosumich. We cannot perceive this reality
with our physical eyes, but more with our spiritual eyes through Oosumich. Physical eyes will corroborate what we see
through the spiritual realm, but the spiritual realm will give you a greater
kind of certainty about the nature of reality…” (Atleo.)
I am reminded of
several things here, first of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, which
suggests that total objectivity in an experiment is not always possible. The
researcher can have an effect on the outcome. The second,
is the application of an Open Form writing practice to the deepening of one’s
consciousness. In one of the most comprehensive outlines of this writing
stance, Charles Olson writes if the need to get: “rid of the lyrical
interference of the ego and also to achieving an humilitas sufficient to make him (the poet) of use” (Olson
247).
The work of a poet may be rewarded through publications, occasional paid readings or workshops, but the poet who earns a living simply from poetry is rare, and is not usually of the caliber that stands the test of time. So the rewards of writing tend to be of the spiritual nature. Yet, like the Oosumich practitioner, one cannot use the linear, the rational/intellectual consciousness to access those deeper realms of existence. It is why Olson suggested a process which “engages speech where it is least careless – and least logical” (Olson 241). Perhaps it is one modality that has replaced ceremony in Western culture. Again, while the Oosumich practitioner uses the spiritual eyes the Open Form practitioner uses the spiritual EARS, as language that has more in common with music than with linear thought is for what the Open Form practitioner is aiming. And it is partly in developing the trust of a process with its nonlinear gaps that allows a deepening of consciousness available to the open form practitioner. To trust the odd phrase because it sounds good and to have verification of the deeper meaning years later, is an experience all writers should have. The experience of Eileen Myles in the composition of the poem Milk, written BEFORE the 911 terror attacks in the town she has called home for many years is telling:
Milk
I flew into
and the season
changed
a giant burr
something hot was moving
through the City
that I knew
so well. On the
plane though it was
white and stormy
faceless
I saw the sun
& remembered the warning
in the kitchen of all places
in which I was
informed my wax
would melt.
These kinds of things (coincidences?) come from a stance deeper than Ornstein’s Phase One of consciousness. The Open Form practitioner, at best, is like that Oosumich practitioner, seeking to tap into knowledge that is mysterious and greater than him or herself. It is not subject to the rules of linear time. It is in, perhaps only fleeting moments between medical appointments as in the case of William Carlos Williams, achieving a different kind of mind of which Krishnamurti knows:
“A
mind that listens with complete attention will never look for a result, because
it is constantly unfolding; like a river, it is always in movement. Such a mind
is totally unconscious of its own activity, in the sense that there is no
perpetuation of a self, of a “me” that is seeking to achieve an end” (Krishnamurti 2).
The
proof that an Open Form practitioner uses this method to deepen his or her own
consciousness may not be duplicatable in a traditional scientific
methodological way, but to Krishnamurti: “…there is no arriving, there is only the
movement of learning – and that is the beauty of life” (Krishnamurti
2).
Works Cited:
Atleo, E. Richard. Tsawalk: A Nuu-chah-nulth Worldview Vancouver: UBC Press
2004
Atleo, E. Richard in an interview
recorded with the author on
Baca, Jimmy Santiago.
Eisenberg, David M., MD; Davis, Roger B., ScD; Ettner, Susan L., PhD; Appel, Appel, MS;
Wilkey, Sonja; Van Rompay, Maria; Kessler, Ronald C., PhD JAMA. 1998;280:1569-1575.
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/280/18/1569
Krishnamurti, J. Can
Humanity Change?
Foundation Focus, the
Newsletter of the Krishnamurti Foundation of
Myles, Eileen.
Skies
Olson, Charles. Collected
Prose
Ornstein, Robert. The Psychology of
Consciousness.
Upledger, John. Cell
Talk: Talking to Your Cell(f).