Contact with Reality
It has been a truly beautiful fall season. The clear, crisp fall air is magic, bringing out the colors of the rich tapestry of leaves with a loving hand. This light has been greatly helpful with all the obvious challenges of this season—the pandemic, the election, a heightened sense of anxiety.
When Sage and I take a walk in the woods, more often than not we come back with some treasures from the woods, or we make something there—a little ephemeral land art. This day I gather a bouquet of big leaf maple. Layering them, I notice how these leaves grow, from three to five fingers, the internal logic of their intricate designs. Such order and elegance. A pattern and a rhythm—organizing principles—always emerge when we pay close attention, a pleasure for our sense organs to perceive, including our minds and hearts. They were always there, yet only revealed to us when we pay close attention.
For many, contact with reality these days are fraught—to them it means turning on the news in the morning, seeing the Covid numbers and impact on our lives. Yes, these are real, and they’re also abstractions. Today’s world prioritizes abstractions and heady ideas as things that matter, and de-prioritizes the physical, sensory world—our bodies, the dirt, the shoes by the door, the kitchen table and the flotsam that appear on and disappear from it. These are the domains of women and children and those less valued in a society like ours.
“It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.”
—Oscar Wilde
Things are never what they seem; and they are exactly what they seem. When we truly see, unhindered by concepts, we perceive more. Yet, what we perceive has not changed; it is us who have changed. This could be called enlightenment. The physical reality has not been more or less than what they appear as. This is true of visual phenomena, and also of people, situations, all things.
Years ago when I traveled extensively and took photographs, I have a peculiar repeated experience. I felt I can stare at almost anything, and when I spend enough time perceiving, an indescribable feeling of beauty will arise, then if I take a photo, the photo is more beautiful than if I didn’t spend that time. I’ve tried to explain this experience to photographers and have found few that connect with it. Recently, I heard His Holiness the Dalai Lama talk about art—that great art is beautiful because of the transformation the artist experienced while making it. This is it. Beauty for me is a felt experience of transformation. Then I can express something of this-- my glimpse of existence and therefore my transformation, and something greater than the sum of the parts can be transmitted.
This is truly mysterious, woo woo stuff. One of the main questions of my life, that has always lead me towards a creative life. What is that something that can not be measured, but can be felt? And once felt, needs to be shared? A book I love has the idea that someone in the family always brings a “pebble” back to share when they’ve been out, a tiny experience of concrete life. I’ve picked up these pebbles for as long as I can remember—the blue morning glories like stars on the ground on my walks to school in the morning, the way the sycamore maples seemed to form a grand arch on my evening returns—but the adults in my house were too preoccupied to take these gifts. Pebbles are not food, can’t solve real problems, they say, and brush them away as frivolous, childish things.
“The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside by a generous hand. But- and this is the point- who gets excited by a mere penny? But if you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact planted in pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days.”
― Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
So I discover as an adult, through the generosity of writers and artists, what I call an open secrete of life —that openness to concrete reality and simple connections with people are the keys to vitality, to resilience in the face of seemingly insurmountable problems. Where pebbles are welcome at the kitchen table, a kindness and love flow from interactions, an energetic surplus can be created in one’s home from humble materials, and from this surplus creativity can arise. And creativity sees challenges differently, than the linear, uptight mind seeking relief from stress. This surplus reduces the impact of pain and the need to seek short-term pleasure as an escape, and instead of negative cycles, a positive cycle of enjoyment, richness, and vitality arises, a healthier ecosystem in one self and one’s family, extending out to greater circles infinitely.
I want to draw one more distinction. Our culture has become too sophisticated in marketing and packaging, that media images become what we think with. If I bring up a kitchen table with a family around it, or a scene from nature, it’s almost easier to envision something from TV, Instagram and the like, rather than one’s own table or what’s outside one’s window. These packaged experiences are abstractions— symbols that imply values of this culture, at a remove from reality, and in a way, a dismissal of reality as too humble, not color-enhanced nor glossy enough. Spend time in unmediated, authentic experiences—in nature, with physical materials, with food, and less time with mediated, packaged experiences. Nothing wrong with drawing inspiration and learning from them, but know that primary, authentic experiences nourish us in a different way. I binged on my share of fashion magazines as a young woman, and I can still see the merit of those beautifully crafted images, yet I can also feel, physically, their similarity to junk food. What part of you can feel the difference between a packaged meal and one made by the hands of someone you love? Trust that sense.
In times of difficulty, come back to your senses. This is a physical and sensory world, and we have the magic of being able to perceive our absolutely unique facet of reality. Embracing that process, we integrate with life, transform ourselves, which in turn transform everything. Nothing is too humble in nature, all play a vital role—the same for transformative experiences.
