Sea change

I can tell you the exact moment it happens. The exact moment is now, right now, right here. What is happening?

I change my mind.

This is no chump change. This is a change of life beyond climacteric or andropause. I'm not talking about the calculated change of pace of f(x)/x. This is not merely an ex-change, a substitution, or an alteration. This isn't simply a transfer, a variation, a unidimensional modification.

This is an essential difference, a change involving loss of original identity. This is transformation. This is a complete reversal, not a mere rehearsal. This changing mind is a change of heart.

I like to call change at this level of profound transformation "sea change." We have heard this expression bandied about by politicos of late. But it is not a new expression. The first usage happened in the early 1600s, from the golden throat of William Shakespeare. In the last play he wrote before he died, "The Tempest", Shakespeare created these words to flow out of the mouth of his spirited character Ariel. Ariel is a sprite who is the eyes and ears of the play, homonym named for the complete aerial perspective that is his privilege. How could he be anything but storm (hence the play's title) creator? Heart mind change, like tempests outside of tea pots, cannot be easily ignored.

Ariel uses the words "sea change" in the second scene of the play's first act. Here he is invisible voice, guiding the ship-wrecked Ferdinand. Ariel gains Ferdinand's complete attention by referring to the process of change that the sea has exerted over the body of Ferdinand's drowned father. "Full fathom five thy father lies,/Of his bones are corals made,/Those are the pearls that were his eyes,/Nothing of him that doth fade,/But doth suffer a sea change,/into something rich and strange…." The sea has worked its magic on the drowned body.

But what does change of body, no matter how profound, have to do with change of mind?

To approach this question we must first ask, what is mind anyway? I don't mind wondering with you. Bear in mind that the word mind comes from the Greek word menos, which means spirit. Then in Latin we bring to mind the verb

monere, meaning to re-mind, with the connotation of a warning. From these roots of blithe aerial spirit and insistent call to attention, it seems that mind is of the essence of calling all to mind so as to be mind altering, mind bend- ing, mind blowing, mind reframing. The essence of mind is kaleidoscopic play. The play, like pretend dress-up, like theatre, changes both the inside and the outside.

The most amazing aspects of mind playing, both Shakespeare's and our own, is that the mind playing itself is the infolding of inside and outside. It is like the gentle folding in of beaten egg whites, mixed but not overly mixed, to create delicious space for maximum emergence of feasting possibilities.

It is mind boggling to realize that the mind reminding itself, re-creating itself, has effect far reaching. When I change my mind, I change all the objects of the mind's perception. When I change my mind, I effect sea change upon the body of the entire universe, upon all that I see and upon all that I imagine. Lines that were meant to define and to separate discretely, like lines created by academics struggling with the mind-body question, begin to waver and pulsate like rainbows gone psychedelic.

My mind change is Ariel singing to the universe, waking up the all. My Ariel mind change creates tempest and forms not only itself, but even the very fabric, the very cellular corpus, of all that is perceived. This sea change, like the waves of the sea itself, happens in each moment, without ceasing. I cannot take my mind off the tempest of emerging which I continually claim out of the ever possible fog.

This change of heart that is change of mind extends beyond the reaches of time and space. By its nature change of mind-heart is change of all, in this very moment, as each moment declares itself. I can do nothing else. This is the legacy of being pirate.

Do we want to change our mind?

— Rx is the FloridaW eekly muse w ho hopes t o inspir e pr ofound mu tiny in all those who care to read. Our Rx ma y be wearing a pir ate cloak of in visibility, but emanating fr om within this shado w is hope that readers will feel free to respond. Who kno ws: You ma y e ven inspir e the muse. Make contact if you dare.