Apr 10, 2016

mixing mind with miksang

My first miksaang experience, so far loving it, an online class taught by Miriam Hall.  Now we are at the lesson on space. And then on to dot in space.
Like Alexandra Horowitz in her book On Looking, i walk around my block that i've walked so many times, but now with each lesson i walk with new vision, or with new aspects calling to me. Colors, light and shadow, texture and pattern, noticed for themselves, not as an attribute of something else.
   Experiencing space and photographing it are two different things. The sky...easy!  And so seldom boring. A field -- not so easy. It becomes a photo of a tree, or of tufts of grass, or a hill. The road, looking down it, is still a busy picture of things. But looking straight down at it...there is space!  Is space in a photo just sameness?
   We're talking about what you see in the picture. I looked down AT the road at my feet and did not exactly experience spaciousness, but did experience not-thing, not-object, not-pattern. It is surface, but not texturey nor patterny. It is a dusting of powder and sand ground down from mountains and boulders by the miles high ice of the glacier over thousands of years and piled by our rivers and lakes to be dug out and spread on this dirt road. There's space for you! But is there someone who can show that in a photo?
   Still, the photo i take of the road is quite calm, easy on the eye, pleasant, even nice, a spacious experience.
   Ok i will try some more today. I only took 75 pics on my walk around the block yesterday (one mile half on dirt road and half on 2 lane paved road.
   Oh, and also, the idea in my mind of Dot in Space brought to my attention several astonishing things i had never noticed before on my block -- pictures that are not space nor dot in space really, but hmmm maybe in a way they are.