We have eyes, not to see the light, but to cry. Among the animals, only we can weep.1
Not the unblinking gaze of the ever-recording eye, but the pathos.
To undo the autocracy of knowledge, the way light has been used to mean power, imperialism, right, might, truth, revelation, enlightenment.
When we cry, the forms of the world blur and we forget what we have learnt to see. We move by touch, by the feeling under our fingers, by sensitivity, by silently hearing.
I write when I am almost asleep or just waking, when I can't see; I write in the dark.
When we can no longer see the forms around us, we forget the eternal forms, the eternal light. In blindness, we become visionaries.
Weep for the world; weep for yourself; weep because you can weep. Your heart will open; it will be raw, painful, and blissful, ecstatic: you will be the whole of who you are. There will be the other; there will be meaning in the closeness of connection.
We cannot see the images displayed, on view. We must move through life by touch, by scent, by listening. Only then can we see each other - through the veils of our tears. Our tears break down the walls of our imperialisms, our isolations, our losses. Our mourning and our joy: tears. Tears that implore.
When we have become immured, blinded to the world of cast light, our eyes will open to each other, our fingers will touch.
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1Jacques Derrida, Memoirs of the Blind: The Self-Portrait and Other Ruins, trans. Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1993), p. 126.
Sheath of feeling. Words groping to touch air.
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Woman with Flowers 7.1
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Your site is more deep and beautiful every time I come. It's like entering an ocean, letting it seep inside me, deep, powerful, beautiful. I need to come here more often. ... I also need to do the Spinal Flex Yoga of which you spoke. Something to start me in the morning. With a cup of tea. If you care to, think of me, pray, or send energy my way to encourage me to start a morning habit of meditation, stretching, and warm fluid. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteIF there's ever a Don Quixote award for writers...i'm sure i'll win it...LOL
ReplyDeleteUNLIKE you, most of the powers-that-be hold the atrists in contempt!!!
What a composition of brilliant communication~a teaching! In effect, these words you have written reach into the spirit of what it is we search, but rarely realize, until the soul has wept from the deepest, most profound and most human depth. It takes the healing of having wept into a spiritual realm, where what was lost is suddenly gained, but in a higher, more clear sense.
ReplyDeleteThe ending of this piece sums up its' purpose. It is the sum total of healing~to see the Light, to reach from that Source and to truly, without pretense, connect.
Blessings~
ahh Brenda - you are in a flood tide of creativity, of productivity, and of bravery... time and invention and what is it that makes us human? what pushes us to create? what makes us sleepless? humans are not only the only animals to cry, they are the only ones to work when they don't have to, and the only animals that keep themselves awake through irrational fears and irrational desires...
ReplyDeletedoes that make light different for us? does it make touch different?
RYC: Thanks for the vote of confidence. I don't think I'm all that brilliant all the time. I think I play well off of others, so maybe I need a partner in crime for my muse to flourish. Blessings to you! Also, I was looking at information on elephants yesterday. I don't think they shed tears, but I know they mourn. I think I wrote a poem in French in high school about how they grieve.
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