New Eyes For Ourselves. . .

“..rapport with the marvellously purposeless world of nature gives us new eyes for ourselves – eyes in which our very self-importance is not condemned, but seen as something quite other than what it imagines itself to be. In this light all the weirdly abstract and pompous pursuits of men are suddenly transformed into natural marvels of the same order as the immense beaks of the toucans and hornbills, the fabulous tails of the birds of paradise, the towering necks of the giraffes, and the vividly polychromed posteriors of the baboon.” Alan WattsNature, Man and Woman

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Courtesy of Dave Grant

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jruthkelly

I live... for love... for truth that liberates... for growth... for beauty... for intelligent, soulful connection and so much else.

2 thoughts on “New Eyes For Ourselves. . .

  1. You know, while reading Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy a few years back, it dawned upon me suddenly, as a bolt of lightning entering my heart, that I am an individual, something separate from everything else around me. (Most people would laugh at this thinking it a self-evident and given fact.) I stood in awe and amazement staring at my hands and fingers and body. How could I not have been aware of this earlier, I thought. Everything is One and yet I am “me.” It was only then that I began to understand what unity means, what it means to be human. It was then that I experienced the first ‘real’ surge of poetry. It was then that I began to feel Nature through my roots. And the feeling has been culminating to levels of feltness (your word) supreme. It is inexplicable what I experience. And more and more I’m becoming sure and certain that this is what it means to be alive. I feel it. When I feel it, nothing else matters. The pompous pursuits of men aren’t appealing anymore. What I have tasted (what “corrupted” me), is not found in the cities of thought and concrete which man has built. These have nothing to offer me any longer. My heart and soul lay elsewhere.

    1. Nothing else matters…so true. I think the thing to pursue, while enjoying the feltness supreme (i imagine i read “feltness” in a Watts book or Moore book but i really don’t know…:0)), is the fulfillment of those natural capacities and talents unique to the individual to the fullest measure and in celebration of being alive. So, if a painter, then in painting, if a statistician, then in the analysis…our “ambition” becomes more about unfolding to the fullest measure of our capacity in that same aliveness. That expression to the fullest measure will deepen joy, strengthen feltness and make the world a better place simply as a by-product. We take the worst of ego out of our pursuits and cooperate fully with our own abilities in honor of life and it’s a whole different story ‘though it may appear “ambitious” on the outside. Some would say that feltness supreme is Divine Presence… :0)

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