“People see what they
wish to see. And in most cases, what they are told to see.”
--Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus
To see is an essential part of existence for most of
humanity. We constantly look and
take in visual information, only when we close our eyes do we shut off this
vast river of input. As an artist
I think a lot about what I see. I
know that much of my job is to
simplify visual input and organize it in pleasing or useful ways. There is the saying that a picture is
worth a thousand words, and I imagine there might be some writers out there who
would happily argue that point.
But unfortunately, maxims and clichés exist because there is truth to
them.
So let us consider a meditation on sight.
First a bit of background: as a druid and a farmer as well as an artist, and I think a
lot about how humans interact with the non-human. I read a fascinating book called Sight and Sensibility by
Laura Sewall many years ago. She
is a researcher into cognitive psychology who has become a researcher into
ecopsychology. If you don’t
recognize that term I wouldn’t be overly surprised, it’s a rather new branch of
psychology that argues that human psychology evolved within a matrix of
non-human input and species and that we should consider that as part of
pathology and optimal development of the human psyche. In Sewall’s book she talks about going
to Africa. In her journeys on that
continent she disovers, to her shock, that she no longer needs her prescription
glasses for near-sightedness. Her
long distance vision had improved vastly while she viewed the wide-open spaces
of the savanna. When she returned
home to the United States her vision again deteriorated. This drove her to think about how
our environment affects our selves.
When she had the opportunity to look out on the wide vistas she could
see, but when she came back to the closed in walls and cities here, she could
not.
We laugh at our “first world problems” the cell phone trap
at the restaurant table, the struggle to live our lives, but we downplay the
significance of these things. We
are animals, just as much as a fox or an otter. We are animals who have kenneled our selves, tied our
collars tight to the side of the walls.
We walk our days seeing human things; surrounded by our own ideas like a
strange variant of Being John Malkovich. We have built ourselves a very pretty prison. But lets face it: I’m not jumping ship
and neither are you if you’re reading this on your phone or computer screen.
Here’s what I’d like you to try:
Go outside or find a
window, any window. If you can
find one high up, that might be better. Take a deep breath, and another, and
one more. Look up. Look to the sky and see if you can find
a cloud. If you can’t find a cloud, pretend there’s one there. Do your best to focus on that cloud and
let all distractions fall away.
See the color of the sky and the whiteness of the cloud. Notice how your eyes react to looking
so far away. Then after a time of
looking up, slowly bring your gaze downward to the edge of the earth. Note if the color of the sky changes or
if the texture of the clouds is different there. Focus on the horizon that you have found for a time and
allow yourself to rest in that ever present moment of wondering what might be
on the other side. Take a deep breath and exhale completely. Take stock of how
your eyes feel, how your body feels, and how your emotions feel.
I find this kind of exercise to be so relaxing. If you can go outside and lay in the
grass to do it, by all means do so!
I’ve just given you solid reasoning for the importance of lying in the
grass watching the clouds. You can
thank me later. Not only is staring off into the distance good for your
overstressed eyes, it’s also good on a spiritual level.
David Abram, an eco-philosopher, argues that the horizon is
the physical representation of the future:
“The visible horizon,
that is, a kind of gateway or threshold, joining the presence of the
surrounding terrain to that which exceeds this open presence, to that which is
hidden beyond the horizion. The
horizon carries the promise of something more, something other.”
When I was in high school I used to look off into the sunset
through the picture window in my parent's living room. It seemed somehow more profound than it really ought to have
been. Sometimes I had strange
moments of clarity and knowing when I stared off into the horizon. If the
horizon is the future rooted then it is also a representation of fate and maybe a way to access it.
Interestingly, in Lithuania the goddess
of the dawn, Aušrinė and Laima, the goddess of fate are connected. According to the scholar A. J. Greimas,
Laima is seen as Aušrinė’s godmother who blesses the dawn at her birth. The rainbow is the symbol of Laima and
is likened to the colors of the dawn as well. As Aušrinė begins the day, so
does Laima prophecy the fate of babies at the dawn of their lives.
So we have this idea of fate and future, dawn and the
horizon that comes together from multiple sources. It is something to think about, at least. Maybe if you find that you need to know
the future of a thing (and make sure you really need to know) you should find
yourself in that liminal space between night and day and seek out the line
between land and sky. In the moment
between one breath and the next you might find that you know the answer you
seek.
No comments:
Post a Comment