Hi all
sometimes I felt a little euphoric about this clear separation(me, I, subject) from the objects, which came, got into my conscious observation.
In this week I visited with some friends a special art exhibition” Bonjour – Russia” famous pictures, painted between 1890 and 1920, from the four most important museum in Russia. Worldwide famous pictures,(Renoir,Matisse, Cezanne,Malewitsch……) 120 pictures – 120 objects with special effects on me.
After some pictures I get tired – and from here starts a good experience. With more relaxation, less “conventional art looking” I could better pay attention on the “interaction”, between me(subject) and the object. Is there at all an interaction? What happens, where happens anything? Do the pictures radiate at all that, what comes into my head, consciousness?
These lots of information, stories, art-historical contemplations and descriptions are coming from my memory bank, audio system, whereever. With strictly examination I see, that I am the first and last source of all of these “interactions”. The objects trigger ideas, thoughts, sensations, reactions in me.How? These objects are “dead”, colors,wooden frames, structures, nothing else. The “interactions” are running in me like in a hamster wheel. But why happens in front of the next picture another process? Different pictures have different effects on me.
I was so fixed on/by this process, to understand more of these different projections, interactions- at the end I was dissatisfied, full of confusion.
Some days later I read the text. There was a big astonishment about “actually, all this is an incredible tour de force of time”, or “Great time is the self”. How does “time” come into the play?
My process(while exhibition) was a process to understand the “interactions” on a pschological level.I was catched by the effects of these”highly charged dichotomies”. Slowly I suspected: it has to do with experiencing, not so focused and fixed with understanding. My exhibition visit was an act of understanding, more outside of the range of experiencing. I lost access, better, I wasn`t aware, in the presence. I don´t believe described good enough. It sounds very strange: as if I was out of time. Is something understandable?
Arthur
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Hi Arthur,
I think you said it well regarding the confusion you felt, “My exhibition visit was an act of understanding, more outside of the range of experiencing. I lost access, better, I wasn’t aware, in the presence.”
I’ve been thinking about Jack’s question at the opening of Week 2: “Is it possible to sense some background sense of ‘being bewildered’ operating in all our perceptions and engagements? Note that the word ‘bewilderment’ is closely related in meaning to the word ‘labyrinth,’ which is where we find ourselves in this course.”
I’ve been watching for this ‘bewilderment’ to see how it shows up. It seems to appear before many decisions. It also appears before I post here, when trying to gather my thoughts and I’m unsure: What is the exercise asking of me? What do I say? How do I say it? Approaching each question there is this ‘unknown’ anxiousness, an insecure ‘not knowing’. I become aware of this discontent and uneasiness just prior to the struggle to decide what to do about it – reread the readings, inquire within, put it off and do something else.
From the readings I understand…
Bewilderment → confusion over infinity of time’s presentation → ‘time’ is lost sight of resulting in the subtle forming of disturbing resonances → an uncomfortably vague emergent awareness → can result in further narrowing of and oscillating between particulars → evidence of the self in operation → a gateway opportunity for opening space, time, and knowledge to experience a new clarity by recognizing through presence that items are not separately interacting.
At times there seems to be a sea of resistance to this opening opportunity, but I ask myself what am I seeking? I look again at all my senses feeding in (sound, taste, touch, smell, and visual), and I open the particulars by noting them, as if adding them to a wider focus but not weighting them. They seem to meld and lose particular meaning and expand to include more at the same time; a swoop and sweep feeling. There is no remembering of what caused what or why, there’s just ‘feeling’ that encompasses everything. I don’t necessarily have answers to that which I was originally seeking but somehow have a wider perspective.
David