Innocence and experience

William Blake wrote a poem, The Clod and the Pebble, which was included in the collection Innocence and Experience (1794).

In the poem, Blake looks at love from two points of view: selfless and selfish. We see love from the points of view of the clod of clay, soft, pliable happy to be adjoined to the foot of the cow and part of its experience. Then Blake contrasts that view with the idea of the pebble, seeking its own pleasure and pleased in creating discomfort in another.

The poem makes no moral stand. It simply shows two points of view, that of the clod of clay, and that of the pebble.

As I ponder this poem, especially through the lens of New Thought, I wonder about the how we interpret experience in different ways. We have a notion of what love is. We probably first learned in the concept through whatever religious lens we were raised in. If we were not raised in a religious household, then the lens of philosophical, or psychological. The word “love” is almost always associated with emotion. I love you. I love that movie. I love this meal. Each use is related to a feeling of joy.

In New Thought, we are introduced to the notion of love from God’s point of view. God, the ALL, Creator, Universe, Presence, Source Consciousness, the Father, choose your noun, is seeking experience. All experiences provide an intimate connection with itself. Whether the experience produces a response of joy or pain, it is nonetheless an experience of creation. It is the non-judgemental freedom to see that all experiences contribute to our knowledge of ourselves, to God’s knowledge of itself. That is a broader application of the word love.

Innocence and Experience

My wife and I were discussing how experience challenges us. Our responses to occurrences can create conflict inside of us. An insensitive encounter at the grocery store, driving in heavy traffic, and the cat not using the litter box, can elicit an emotional response where not only do we have an initial reaction, but ideas of rights and wrongs can be overlaid on top of the initial response. It’s a soup of feelings, and teasing out the subtle flavors in a complex soup can challenge all but the most refined palette. Teasing out each emotion in our feelings recipe can be quite a challenge. What we know is we are feeling. And the feelings are an experience.

I love that Blake called his collection Innocence and Experience. There is an implication that experience challenges and modifies our innocence. We all have an idea of what innocence means. Don’t we? A child playing. The joy of a puppy. Children try something. That something brings them joy or pain. The joy and pain are felt, expressed, and fade in a minute. The experience is stored in memory and they continue on. It is an experimentation process. There is little reference to dos and don’ts. Everything is playing.

One of the dictionary definitions of innocence is a lack of malice. The clod of clay had no malice. There was no ill intent. It was a perfectly satisfying experience from the bottom of the cow’s hoof. The pebble, on the other hand, had a bit of malice. “Joys in another’s loss of ease” indicates no desire for what the other wants. Love, to the pebble, resides solely in the meeting of its own needs and desires. Is the clay’s interpretation right? Is the pebbles’ interpretation wrong? Or is it realistic? Does experience beat the innocence out of us? Is our selfless stance challenged when we encounter others that take a different stance?

So, here we are. We may side with the clay. We may side with the pebble. Perhaps we experience both points of view, depending on the situation. Perhaps we become the pebble when we are treated disrespectfully. We become the clay when we admire the sunset. From Source Consciousness’ point of view, it’s all experience, all permissible, all informative, all intimate.

Practitioners of New Thought practice a ritual called Keeping the High Watch. It means to consciously hold the point of view that everything that is happening is being of benefit in the larger view. Conflict and contrast are part of the learning process. Two opposing points of view can create emotional discomfort. Why? Maybe it’s because a lot is riding on the outcome and the stress comes from the fear of making a mistake.

The discomfort may originate from associating our sense of importance too closely with one of the ideas. When the idea is threatened, we feel threatened. Rupert Sheldrake talks a lot about how dogmatic science has become. The scientific method, which started as innocent, unbiased exploration, has turned into scientists defending their discoveries even in the face of conflicting data. In this way, Sheldrake contends that science has become a religion itself.

Regardless of whether we are the clay or the pebble in any given moment, experience is taking place. Whether that experience is pleasant or unpleasant has a lot to do with how we are interpreting it in that moment. I hope, dear reader, that you have the freedom to change your point of view, as you need, without too much difficulty.