This Morning’s Inquiry

The inquiry’s thread was long–it’s still occurring as I write this. It moved from the Rosanne Cash blog, to the Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, to a photo of my niece, to the photos on my bedroom wall, to discussions with my parents in the weeks before their deaths. They all are related–each looking at the same thing from a different perspective. Each morphing into another.

The inquiry began with the concept of truth versus fact. Most of us don’t realize that they are vastly different. For example here are some facts about me: I’m from San Diego, CA, the third of four sisters, have no children, and never married,  in my 50s, with wavy black hair, brown eyes, and wear glasses.

With these facts can you picture me? Do they express who I am? All of the facts are true, but they don’t take other factors into consideration. First of all, what may get in the way of knowing who I am from the description are your own perceptions of what a woman in her 50s may look like. You may picture your mother, a teacher, or someone you work with. You may see someone who dyes her hair and has a perm, although nothing was said about either. You don’t know whether my face is wrinkled, if I’m healthy, or if I smile.

They’re also based upon my own perceptions of what to tell and what I may think defines me. I could say that I’m overweight, That may be a fact because I weigh far more than I did when I was younger, but it doesn’t mean that I’m fat in comparison with other women my age. Upon meeting me some of you may think that I am overweight, yet others will disagree.

So let’s move beyond appearance. We all carry around stories in our minds. These stories are both real and perceived. They are about our pasts and our futures. This goes along with how you can ask different people who were all in the same place at the same time what happened at an event and you’ll get three different versions. We all bring things in that color or pollute what we think is.

This is where the difference between fact and truth is. First of all, Truth is in the present. You may be telling a factual story about your childhood, but it may not be the Truth. It could be tainted with misunderstanding or blame. It could be that it’s not the full story–only one side.

I’m told that I have an incredible memory, but I don’t remember everything. For example my middle sister talks about a horrible fight between my mother and her mother when my mother announced she was pregnant with my younger sister. Perhaps I wasn’t there; perhaps I didn’t understand what was going on; perhaps I didn’t want to remember it. But her memory of the fight doesn’t acknowledge the later relationship between my grandmother and my sister. In itself it doesn’t explain the relationship between my mother and my grandmother.

So what we have is a lot of gray and what may be. As I described in my Inquiry post there is a specific feel to the Truth. It really does show itself and can’t be denied.

I woke early this morning and laid in bed inquiring into truth, honesty, and facts (see yesterday’s blog).  More came up to add to the list–belief, knowing, and perception. They’re all related and often confused.

I’m going to write this in multiple posts. I’ll add to each in the future since none of this is fixed.

Inquiry

I’ll begin with the inquiry process. Inquiry is an open-ended look into something. It flows. Often it has a strong current, so it may be a rough ride. At other times it is smooth sailing. There is a thread that goes from one thing to another, yet is connected like a spider web. When inquiring I often have what I call Aha moments or epiphanies when I reach the truth. There is a sense of knowing (in a deep, fundamental way) as well as openness and support or grounding. That means that the head (knowing), the heart (openness), and the belly (support) are all open.

Knowing, openness, and support are important since we often regard what’s familiar as being our truth. But what’s familiar is more often a distorted story–a story that misdirects and misguides us through life and has us reliving the same thing again and again as in the movie Groundhog Day. It can keep us stuck and prevents us from growth and fulfillment.

Over the years I’ve saved articles that apply to Capturing the Soul. One article is a blog by Rosanne Cash that was in the New York Times May 22, 2008, “Measure for Measure, How to Write a Song and Other Mysteries–The Ear of the Beholder“.

Rosanne Writes:

The “truth” (or “honesty”) and the “facts” are not necessarily the same, they are not necessarily equal and one often requires the suspension of the other. This may not be the case in higher math or on Wall Street (or, actually, it may work there as well, but I’m clueless about that) but it is an immutable “truth” in art and music that facts are not necessarily the best indicators of the deepest human experience….

But in the space where truth and fact diverge, a larger question arises: if the facts don’t lead us to meaning, what does? Perhaps a willingness to live with questions, not answers, and the confidence to ascribe meaning where we find it, with our own instincts as guide. I should approach my writing as if I am meeting someone for the first time, and have no idea what he will say or what kind of mood he is in. If you already know entirely what you want to say, and want to document an “honest” rehash of what happened and why, then I still maintain that you are better off taking up jurisprudence.

I appreciate my readers’ instinct to protect my songwriting students and their attempts to stay honest, but in songwriting, as in painting, photo-realism is only one style; it is not the litmus test for everything else. In many great songs a larger, universal modicum of truth is revealed and resonates on a personal level with the listener, even when the facts make no sense at all. Sometimes especially when the facts make no sense at all.

Not only is Rosanne talented (and spells her name correctly), but she understands the fine line between truth, honesty, and facts. By staying with intuition and sensing the experience allows us to move beyond the facts–to move out of our heads and into a deeper experience. That’s why we cry when we hear a song or see a movie that deeply touches our experience. That is when we really sense the truth–it is beyond the facts and doesn’t pertain to the “honesty” that’s associated with those facts. That is what truly captures us and touches our souls.

Here’s the link to the song  April 5th that she discusses in the article, written and performed with Elvis Costello and Kris Kristofferson.