Seeing Through The Looking Glass

Fair warning that this is likely to make little sense to anyone but me, thereby revealing how quirky I really am. There are moments when my life feels downright mystical.

Yesterday morning I sat at my table surfing on my laptop. It was a glorious day -- sunny, low 50's, gentle breeze. The trees are now in their full, lush green, filtering the sunlight down to a verdant hue.

The great room has three large windows that frame the scene. The maple trees are well over 50 feet high so the image through the windows is a complete background of rising trunks and green leaves.

I chose Loons in the Morning Mist for some peaceful listening, and set back to surfing on the computer. One particular track of music included the sounds of a gentle rain. I looked out the window at the sunny day and yet heard the sounds of a rainy day. The juxtaposition seemed mystical - I could feel a tremor in my inner core.

How often do we experience the world in a very uni-dimensional way - almost with a type of tunnel vision? It is as if to gain our footing we deliberately zoom in to the simplest understanding of what we are experiencing. We like to have resolution and feel that all is within our grasp and understanding. I think this is the usual manner in which we move through our days.

What made yesterday mystical was that chance juxtaposition of visual and auditory that blended into a broader experience. I looked through the window and could see both the sunny day and the rainy day -- I listened to the music and could hear the rainy day and the sunny day.

Not long after, Zoe, my baby-girl Bichon, wandered across the great room and her reflection in the window appeared to have her wandering out on the porch. This too struck me as mystical - looking through a window and at the same time having that window function a bit as a looking glass. Thus, once again multiple layers of experience, what we like to call reality (whatever that really is - think "reality tv").

This post is likely a prelude to a later post I will write on how we see each other - how much of what we think we see as people is really nothing more than symbols with human faces. How do we perceive our experience in the world? One might say, "Well, I know what my eyes see and I know what my ears hear -- that's all that matters. (harrumph!)" However, what and how we see depends on many factors. How many versions of an event do police obtain from witnesses? How do magicians entertain us? Think of the many optical illusions whereby our vision is tricked by the image. And what of hearing? Identifying sounds, voices, etc. is even less straightforward.

To further muddy the waters of our logical interpretation of experience, there are individuals who have wires crossed a bit in their brains and actually have visual images in their brains for different sounds, or images/colors have a unique smell. Try explaining to a person blind from birth what blue is or what green is.

Our world is such a complex place that it is perfectly human to want some solid ground to plant ourselves in in order to feel some safety and security. Many of us are uncomfortable with ambiguity. Roses are red, dammit, and violets are blue... Perhaps we need some mystical moments to loosen up our experience.

Take a moment and experience your favorite landscape, embellish it with a glass or two of your favorite wine, do this alone. Now experience it on many levels at once - clear sky, cloudy sky, rainy sky, cold, mild, muggy, blustery or quiet - it is all out there in your mind.

Now pick a particularly challenging person in your life and do the same...

Peace.