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Friday, January 27, 2006

Gelassenheit, Tine!

Tine has been bedridden for much of the week, sad to say. Her wanderings have been largely confined to the unexplored corners of her bed -- and of her mind. While Tine hasn't been able to take her daily walk with Rubob, she has had an opportunity to reflect on many things -- for instance, her sneeze in the meadows on Tuesday's walk. (A Sneeze in the Expanse of That-Which-Regions.)

Enowning commented recently, "The writings of Heidegger have been classified as a Schedule I controlled substance." Tine might add that Heidegger's writings become even more mind-altering when taken with multiple doses of cough medicine.

When she was out strolling in the meadows, on the edge of Heidegger's "abiding expanse of that-which-regions," Tine thought about how her sneeze sounded -- well, not exactly sounded, because it sounded like a sneeze, but seemed -- like the opening of "that-which-regions."

In "Conversations on a Country Path," Heidegger wrote: "That-which-regions is an abiding expanse which, gathering all, opens itself, so that in it openness is halted and held, letting everything merge in its own resting. "

He wrote that we are released into the region of meditative thought -- released from calculative thought -- when the region, the "Gegend," opens itself to us. It is a mysterious region, "the region of the word," of the Logos. It is an expanse of thought -- and being -- that truly defines our nature, as wondrous, reflecting beings, not as calculative beings.

"Sniveling, conniving, calculative beings," Tine thought -- not unkindly, but with a chuckle to herself -- when she saw that a certain being, one in all likelihood named Rubob, had finished off her cough medicine.

Releasement into the region of meditative thought is called "Gelassenheit" by Heidegger, and its relation to the Gesundheit of a sneeze is that it's somewhat involuntary, Tine thought in her sick bed. The region opens itself to us when it's good and ready, and when we are ready to release ourselves into it -- all in all, not unlike a sneeze.

"Gelassenheit!" Tine thought.