Monday, August 28, 2017
Where is the Well
“However people
may differ in disposition and education, the foundations of human nature are
the same in everyone. And every human being can draw in the course of their education
from the inexhaustible wellspring of the divine in human nature….but we may
fail, in our education, to penetrate the real roots of humanity and remain
fixed in convention, or collapse and neglect self-development.”*
The limited
definitions that go with the labels and categories can’t begin to describe the
360 degrees of experience or the deep well of human potential. Images do it
better. Our feelings choose what we see, so our choice of what we look at
reflects our current inner world. Words may be markers for the types of things
we talk about but, except in literature, don’t convey the nature of experience.
Art is an opening to the well, the connection to what will nourish in a way
that develops the individual. It communicates through the universal metaphor of
where we are and the condition illuminated is understood by all human beings
because we’re built to move around in the world for the same reasons and by the
same mechanisms. We see the state of balance and the trajectories of moving
objects and know what to do in relation to them. The parietal lobes are
dedicated to the core consciousness of where we are, processing a visual/kinesthetic
understanding. From infancy, we learn the way the world behaves in a commonsense
physics that becomes so automatic it’s taken for granted, yet it’s a complex
multifaceted intelligence at the foundation of conceptual knowledge. Cultivating
that level of understanding is a way to build on our commonality. Human
differences are just the skin of who we are. Labeling all the differences emphasizes
divisions that are small given the foundation we share.
The particular
details of every person’s life are varied, but they are structured by shared
ways of living. The locations of our memories may look very different but the
similar patterns of satisfying basic needs are common to us all. The pattern of
home, the pattern of school, work, social gathering, create common circuitry
through the way we function within them. Given an image of a nest, we
understand its meaning by the condition of the nest, what is or is not there
that is significant. Understanding the meaning of surroundings and the metaphor
of where we are is developed by looking at art. This builds the circuits of
visual sensitivity and triggers personal reflection that connects with
universal human meaning structure. It needs no translation and creates bridges
where words cannot.
*from Hexagram 48
Ching The Well
Thursday, July 27, 2017
Roger Federer and Art
When I heard that Roger Federer liked
modern art, I was immediately curious about what, and though I never found that
out, the search itself was interesting. Most of the listings you get if you put
his name together with art are paintings of him and articles about his playing
as art. The best is the 2006 David Foster Wallace piece in the New York Times
describing him.
Beauty is not
the goal of
competitive sports, but high-level sports are a prime venue for the expression
of human beauty. The relation is roughly that of courage to war.
The human beauty we’re
talking about here is beauty of a particular type; it might be called kinetic
beauty. Its power and appeal are universal. It has nothing to do with sex or
cultural norms. What it seems to have to do with, really, is human beings’
reconciliation with the fact of having a body.(1)
A decade later he is still winning grand
slams. Mihaly Czentmihali wrote that the creation of one’s own self can be as
exciting as writing a symphony. What moves me about Roger Federer and Serena
Williams is that they have done just that, created a work of art that sculpts
both body, skill and character out of the whole of themselves. Roger and Serena
are examples of embodied art in the realm of immediate intelligence.
When someone is centered and expressive of
the core of their being, that’s art. It takes skill to reach a relationship
with a mode of expression that enables it to be a natural extension of the
body, responses finely tuned to go where intuition leads. The body/mind knows
what it knows and can act before thought. This metaknowledge is part of the
initial feeling. Not just comprised of emotion, our feelings are as complex as
we are, responses from the whole picture of our background in combination with
our current state. Because Roger Federer has developed so many ways to hit a
tennis ball together with all he’s seen about how the opponents play he’s
developed a body/mind response that’s highly sophisticated yet unencumbered by
analysis. Like any artist he extends the range of what tennis can be.
In a short
piece in Art News, Andrew Russeth quoted a Sports Illustrated interview with
Roger Federer saying he liked modern art because it helped him keep an open
mind, that as he gets older it gives him inspiration. Watching tennis at its
best inspires me to stretch my own capabilities. Excellence is always inspiring.
Modern art
opens the mind by pushing the edges of perception. This enlarges the scope of
choices. Looking at art increases sensitivity to intuitive response and
awareness of how we’re led by underlying overall adjustments, the inclinations
that move us before we’ve figured them out. Art attunes our feelings to
meaningful form and so builds the scope of understanding. The brain is
structured to mirror the spatial world and understand the meaning of things by
how everything looks within it. The more in harmony we are with ourselves and
what’s happening around us the better we can flow with it. Focused attention
comes after immediate attention reacts.
Tennis is
a demanding and artful sport. Players styles are unique and bigger doesn’t mean
better. Women’s tennis is treated with the same respect as men’s and provides
just as many opportunities to be amazed.
The players we like best are as personal as the art we like, each with
an individual style of meeting the challenges posed by another. This year’s US
Open will include record setting players, still at the top of their form. It’s
an opportunity to be both impressed and inspired.
Friday, June 30, 2017
Deep Perception
Perception is continuous, the mediator of our relationship
to the world and in that role, the place where meaning starts. Our sense of
where we are is built from the ongoing dance of body in environment that leaves
impressions we crudely label as “uneasy” or “tense” or “calm” or “uplifting.
These automatic adjustments are shared by all beings that move around in the
world and though as humans we may have gained some power to articulate them,
each of us knows how specific and perhaps never to be seen again the fleeting
qualities in any given moment. Yet in the moment the meaning is clear to us.
Deep perception is where the rich inner life takes place, the anguish of a
secret tragedy hidden behind the smiling selfie, confusion and uncertainty under
the surface while projecting mastery to those around you. The contradictions of
being human are the stuff of drama, literature and art. It’s an area that goes
ignored by the compartmentalized demands of life until art comes to resuscitate
it. The play or music unlocks the feelings that come from that level of
knowing. But visual art has several advantages. First it is not time based.
Revelation can be immediate, an insight born of the change in perception
created by the image.
Because vision is always directing attention behind the
scenes it can lead our thoughts forward. What we see initiates associated
images triggering thoughts and ideas that underscore what the image means to
us. It helps us see the personal pattern that led us to a particular painting.
The stronger the feeling we have about what we see, the deeper the connection
to individual emotional themes revealed by the artist’s expression of this
sense of life. By boiling down essential patterns art offers the structure by
which many analogous ideas can be constructed. Put an elementary school child
in front of a painting and ask them what they think is going on and you’ll see
this generative imagination work. That’s why talking about art has been shown
to be so effective in building a child’s intelligence concretely demonstrated
in higher test scores. (http://www.vtshome.org/)
Since there are no wrong answers there is free use of language and expression.
Perception is so important to our navigation of being,
developing our sensitivity to deep level patterns can only be a benefit to
human intelligence.
Though meditation is best for training attention in the
present moment, looking at a painting can provide a personally chosen
enrichment to reflection, to add a level to the meditation that gives room for
associations to flow and change. Whether you choose from visionary art that
transcends the purely human or a modern portrait that resonates with
existential confusion, the choice is led by deep perception of your current
state and clarifies what you need to see.
We navigate the world
guided by perception in the moment and haven’t had to give the visual level
much thought because it does its job so well without conscious attention. But
the world has become too complicated for linear processes to handle. We need
the speed and overview of perception to see the patterns in the whole that
guide attention to what is out-of-balance. Developing the range and sensitivity
of immediate reactions to the overview means becoming more attuned to visual
structure. Allowing room for deep perception gives us time to pause and reflect
on the meaning of what caught attention and allow space for a more thoughtful
response.
First posted in July 2015
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