Iconic artist Joseph Albers invented Color Theory. His most influential paintings were a deceptively simple series called “Homage to the Square”. One example: A square set in a square, forgettable yellow within a dull gray, looks like a con job – until you stare into it for a few minutes. Suddenly a glowing, vibrating afterimage of neon purple appears around the inner shape. What? Neon purple??? Was it there all along? Is it there at all? Although all our eyes apparently function the same, most of us need to be taught to see Albers’ magic. Our awareness is handicapped, perhaps by a barrier of rationality and busyness. Visual deficit disorder?
It’s late afternoon now. Swaying trees to the west cause the sunlight coming over my right shoulder to flicker. My eyes constrict, dilate, constrict again, forcing my pen to continually pause above the page. Behind my back and outside the window, red oaks wobble with the wind, but inside I can’t feel the bite of that breeze or the relief, when it lays down, of the sun’s faint warmth. I don’t see the icy blue sky or the burnt sienna leaves sailing by. There may be birds arguing at the feeder, a chipmunk prowling beneath, but no sound comes through the glass (until the cat knocks to come in). I’m missing a lot. My perception is limited by another invisible barrier.
Some other built-in gaps in my own discernment (and yours) include ultraviolet light, solar magnetic waves, the movement of the earth beneath my feet, and that of the electrons in my brain. Barometric pressure? Maybe – although I think my sinuses usually know more than I know. There is much I’m not aware of; the best I can do is channel Ram Dass and “Be Here Now”. My customary route to that mindfulness lies outside in the natural world.
Our best nature writers are students of awareness. “When we are with nature, we are awake” – John Muir. Awareness is conscious attention; to record one’s impressions while outside can aid that psychological process. Muir, Eisely, Teale, Abbey, Blake, Wordsworth all describe the world, and by doing so reveal to themselves their own emotional response to it. That’s why and how it speaks to us.
Joshua’s Trust will host a Writer’s Workshop in May,
with several more to follow. If you have the urge to express yourself, come out this spring and give nature and a notebook your conscious attention for a while. See what happens to your imagination without barriers. Maybe we’ll “live deliberately” as did Thoreau, at least for 45 minutes. Maybe we’ll be aware of our awareness, like Annie Dillard. Want to find out? You won’t really be learning to “write” (you may already write) but reminding yourself how to be in the world, engaging purposefully with the living mystery hidden in the living details. The act of writing hopefully nourishes your insight, intuition, and intimacy with a particular time and place, or perhaps with yourself. That’s why we’ll do it. Not so much to write, but to SEE. Call it Enviro-Sensory Perception.
Stay tuned, George Jacobi
Thank you for your stunningly elegant words once again.