Eyes and Hearts
“I think one of the most exciting things (about life) is this feeling of mystery, feeling of awe, the feeling of looking at a little live thing and being amazed by it and how its emerged through these hundreds of years of evolution and there it is and it is perfect and why.” Jane Goodall, Famed gorilla scientist
One day while in New York City, I treated myself to a visit to the Modern Museum of Art. I only had an hour but I wanted to see a new exhibit of painter Georgia O’Keefe’s work. At the doorway to her show, a guard and I stood facing a huge canvas on the opposite wall. We were both silent. Then the guard said, “What is it supposed to be?” He smiled. “It’s very pretty; I mean, I like it but I don’t know what it is,” he said.
The long rectangular painting had a pale blue background and was filled with fluffy looking, cotton candy white and pink floating forms. It felt mysterious and serene. I felt like I could walk into it.
“But what is it supposed to be?” Mr. Brown insisted. We decided to check out the label we could see near the painting. As we did, we both started to laugh.
The sign read: “Clouds as seen from my airplane.”
O’Keefe, whose huge paintings of flowers helped make her a famous artist, was asked why she painted little things sometimes yards larger than they were in real life. She said she painted them so large because most people didn’t really look at or see the world’s smaller things; that they missed seeing them. Isn’t it true that we miss so much of what we pass each day? That we don’t take time to see our world?
Terry, a friend, is an artist. Each time she would walk with her young son, she would stop here and there and say, “Oh look at the bark on that tree. Aren’t the shapes incredible?” Or, “Look at that spider web. Isn’t the way it’s spun amazing?” Or, when she taught summer camp, she might say to six year old students, “Just look at that flower. Isn’t that color gorgeous?” Her son would joke with his friends, “Watch out for my mother; she will make you stop and look at every leave on every tree if you let her.” PS He grew up to be a very talented photographer. Is that so bad?
Meditation for the Day
“Everything has its beauty but not everyone sees it.” Confucius, Chinese philosopher & reformer (551 BC - 479 BC)
Action for the Day
Today and every day, I’ll spend five minutes really seeing what surrounds me.
[ ]
Comments
Leave a Reply
