Healing Images

My brother Bill is a true contemplative, can see deeply into nature and appreciate its soul nourishing beauty more than anyone I know. He can step out of the “hurry-up” pace of modern activity to watch the birds, or the movement of the wind in the trees, currents of water in the stream, and enjoys being part of where he is and giving it his full attention. When he pulled over to see the field of sunflowers blooming in bright sunlight, the pleasure was extended by seeing so many other people doing the same thing, pulled to a stop, arrested by beauty, taking pictures to send to their friends. We want to share beauty and the pleasure we take in it. And we have more ways than ever to share things with others. He said the people who had stopped were talking to each other about it. It was an experience that unified strangers. He and I had a wonderful conversation about the power of beauty to demand attention and to bring people together in wonder. It got me to thinking about how we can all be each other’s gurus, sharing whatever makes us feel and think more deeply. People are tired of the superficiality being emphasized by so much media and welcome opportunities for more satisfying life experience.
When we feel pleasure at the sight of sunflowers it’s evidence of the endorphins, our natural opiates reinforcing what’s good for us and combating our pain. Connecting is good for our health, drawing attention out of ourselves and into our surroundings. We begin by connecting to the beauty we see and extend the connection as we share it.
I heard Dr. Herbert Benson on the radio recently discussing his newest book, “Relaxation Revolution”. An enormous part of the body/mind reciprocity is the way we visualize our condition. Diagnosis exacerbates a condition because its definition creates a set of expectations, images of the form the disease will take. He used the phrase, “remembering wellness” for picturing the healthy condition you know from experience, visualizing a time when the problem wasn’t there. He emphasizes the need to do it every day to rework long held negative images. Even more effective might be our memories of moments of connection, people talking about a field of sunflowers. Pain separates us. Remembered experiences of beauty in all of its forms restore our connection and can be used for self-healing.
Images of growth, in particular, fortify our vitality, and are a favored subject for artists and photographers. The process of growth is the experience of extending of ourselves, reaching beyond our previous limits, applying our learning, experience and outlook in our interaction with the physical world. Emerson spoke of the value of work as in, not the results or profit from the work, but the increased power as our skills are developed and improved. As Erich Fromm wrote, “Living is growing” which may be part of why we’re attracted to growth in nature. Images of nature reinforce our participation in cycles of growth and our identification with the life-force that could also be seen as spirit. Dylan Thomas imagined spirit so beautifully as “that force that through the green fuse drives the flower.” Remembering the images that pulled our attention out of ourselves and into the world may be more restorative than we realize.
(Sunflower photo by Bill Waters)

Convergence

Safety

I recently read in “The Body Has A Mind Of Its Own” by Sandra and Matthew Blakeslee that for the Himba tribe in Namibia, each person is born with a self-space like a bubble extending beyond the body that is always mingling with the self-space of others in the community. Because of this they felt they were never alone, and felt very sorry for westerners who thought of themselves as isolated in space. Our cultural mindset of an individual consciousness encased in a body creates a painful separation between our environment and ourselves.
We think of personal space as something that can be invaded or trespassed. Keeping the body and personhood safe is a high priority. Though people generally think of safety as physical, avoiding threats to the body, psychiatrist James Gilligan, who has spent his life working with prisoners, said that a threat to one’s dignity is just as serious. Since punishment is a threat to both he sees the increase in violence as due to the increasingly punitive nature of American society. He said a common statement among repeat offenders is, “I never got so much respect in my life as I did when I pointed a gun at somebody.” Feeling respected is part of a sense of safety, deeply rooted in our physiology. Just seeing a contempt face or someone rolling their eyes in relation to something you’ve said or done will make your heart beat faster. Physiologically, ridicule and mockery have the same effect as violence and can be the cause of violence. Nietzsche said, “Distrust anyone in whom the desire to punish is powerful.” The media revels in the thought that Roger Clemens might go to jail for lying, and that violates my sense of proportion. Obedience has become more important than justice, mechanically applying the same penalty, regardless of context. As the amount of rules increases, more and more of us find ourselves lawbreakers, transgressing codes designed to protect us. I’m often guilty of not wearing my seatbelt, but I feel I’m a better driver without it. If I do what I feel is right I can get a ticket.
Overemphasis on rules implies disrespect for the common sense of the populace. It communicates dangers that might not have been worried about before. It increases walls between people and stirs negative mental states like suspicion and worry. The labyrinth of barriers and limitations is part of a way of seeing built on separation. Every protection is another wall in the fortress between ourselves and others. Our safety is secured by our greater isolation. A new way of visualizing our place in the world might relieve this estrangement.
To envision ourselves as a part of a field of consciousness that includes us would help us accept the life lessons that are thrown our way as part of the knowledge we’re best suited to provide. We are, after all, unique places in space and time with a particular view that adds to the big picture. Trust is a precondition of safety and if you trust the overarching order as instructive you can be aware but not over vigilant. David Bohm, from his perspective in quantum physics, talked of beauty, art and creativity as acts of “fitting”, discernment of what’s works with the larger pattern unfolding in a given context. Since at a quantum level we’re all a continuous field, it might be time to let go of the cultural idea of ourselves as so separate. A change of image would lead to a change in attitude toward the world we’re immersed in, our systems and patterns of movement intricately woven through the totality of life experience. As part of our environment, it would be natural to act in harmony with it.

Building the Picture

Perspective

As I start to think about this year’s classes one of my chief excitements is meeting new students and learning more about the students I’ve had before. Working with students is an endless process of discovery, each a new source of knowledge. I often say that every person is a library, with different subjects in different areas housing the knowledge from personal experience. There’s a physical movement area, one person plays tennis, and another can’t get off the couch. Tastes and experiences in food vary widely. One might have been in and out of the hospital with serious medical problems. Another may research world affairs and agonize over injustice. Educational background tuned certain priorities. The personal mental life has a path all its own. The trail of choices each person makes in the cyber-realm, through phones, game consoles and computers, reflect what a person cares about and craft a highly individuated point-of-view and network of connections. And then there is a philosophy about being I can sense in a student’s art, that may have an intellectual or emotional history and cultural background that reveals a way of responding to the world. This perspective is the truth from a particular place in larger being.
Understanding that everyone’s perspective can add to our own, and that “gaining perspective” is always considered a good (even when it hurts) offers a way to have constructive discussions with people of widely differing views, appreciating what each has to offer our common understanding.
The competition to have the right idea is a construct of linear verbal thinking. Visual thinking can be cooperative because its hallmark is perspective. Building perspective is a goal that increases wisdom. In a wonderful talk by Dave McCandless on “The Beauty of Data Visualization” (http://www.ted.com/talks/david_mccandless_the_beauty_of_data_visualization.html) he points out how well designed charts of information can reveal importance and meaning far better and quicker than other methods of presentation. It’s an idea that’s time has come. The word “infographics” is starting to pop up in general conversation. We’re grateful when someone combs through mountains of data and designs it in an understandable form on a single page like McCandless did with health supplements. Amounts can be shown as size and instantly compared. Understanding is led by our sense of proportion, similarity and difference. Huge advances in the understanding of world problems could begin with visualizations of information about the most complex issues. Our visual skills are there to be tapped. Multiple maps within our brains record our personal history so we instinctively understand the one-to-one correspondence in terms of location. We can be shown what something means and point others’ attention to what we think needs it. We’re on the threshold of a visual revolution that will provide the necessary tools to navigate an increasingly complex world.
And in my personal world I’m looking forward to a new landscape of ideas created by the different views of a range of new students and what each has to offer our common understanding.

Suggesting Volumes

Envisioning

Anyone who doesn’t think of themselves as imaginative has only to look at the content of their minds when they worry. A big component of worrying is visualizing bad outcomes, from minor elements out of order to large-scale disaster. Worst-case scenarios are part of planning, whether intentional or of the self-doubt variety. On the positive end we daydream, and try out pleasant situations and invent new relationships. Clearly both are creativity at work. This capacity to project ourselves into the future and invent scenarios that develop the events that are currently unfolding is a triumph of evolution. A person who worries about the worst that can happen doesn’t think of it as creative, but the combination of future awareness and multiple possibilities is pure imagination. A certain amount of worry is an important aspect of planning. We need to visualize complex tasks and prepare for what’s needed. When we worry too much, we’re using our highest human powers to torment ourselves. I’ve read that excessive worrying is connected to superstition, reflecting an underlying belief that to think obsessively about a situation in advance can somehow deflect the adverse outcome. Though superstition is considered a thoughtform left behind in the course of mental evolution, its patterns persist under new names. We express our fears in mental images. My sister-in-law said she envisioned the worst so that whatever happened if it wasn’t the worst would seem good, and if it was then she’d be prepared. This is just one way we are always tempering, treating and modifying our emotions with images in our mind. Many modes of therapy have been developed that utilize this capacity, focusing on producing positive and healing images. What we see in our mind’s eye can have as powerful affect on the body as actual experience.
Imaging information aids intellectual understanding as well. I recently heard a woman on the radio who made her living fishing in the Gulf of Mexico call into a show about testing fish for oil contamination. She asked if they would publish where they’ve tested on maps, putting it “in layman’s terms”. Looking at a map one can see in an instant which areas have been declared safe. The endless stream of numbers that had been published so far did not make the overall situation clear. Since knowledge is mapped by location in our minds, seeing is understanding. I’ve heard visual thinking referred to as common sense. It’s the day-to-day life intermingling of the images in our head with the images in our surroundings. Plotting a new route to work when the regular road is blocked, sensing when an argument between friends is about to get out of hand and shifting their attention to other things. We can retrace our steps to find something we’ve lost because we have the space of our lives envisioned within us. Our ability to hold many relationships in our mind at once depends on locating them together in images.
We aren’t able to evolve this powerful capacity because, not happening in words, it goes unnoticed. A student said to me with assurance, “All conscious thought is in words.” But these mental images are conscious and affecting. We understand the meaning a situation has for us through the images we produce in relation to it.
The dominance of verbal language is diminishing as our connection to the cyber realm of information becomes more visual. Linear menus shift to sitemaps because a sitemap shows the relationship between the options – and seeing is faster than linear processing. Looking at art should be part of visual literacy. Since so much of the instant assessment we make with our eyes has to do with the feeling of things – what’s harmonic or off-kilter- attention to art will sensitize us to deeper levels and larger archetypes than we get from commercial media. Every one of us has a powerful imagination we’re using all the time. Cultivating it is a crucial part of developing minds that can cope with the future.