Kellianna “Ancestor’s Song” youtu.be/TnX0aPOAZEE
Tangerine Dream “Kiew Mission” youtu.be/ZPcglRBYfu0
An interesting question, would you rather be blind or deaf? I can say with absolute certainty that I’d rather be blind! Admittedly, though, I might be a bit biased.
Scarily, it is indeed possible to be born without a sense of touch, according to this article that I’ve just found.
news-medical.net/news/20210 … touch.aspx
Two individuals are described, one who was born without the sense of touch, and one who lost it in adulthood. And to be honest, the thought of it makes me feel a little bit queasy. Once again, though, it’s clear that those who are born with the condition are much better off than those who acquire it.
Trying to describe to a sighted person what it’s like not to see anything is a fundamentally impossible task, I think, despite a whole load of possible analogies. And believe me, I’ve tried many times. So here’s yet another analogy, but I can’t say if it will help or not. If you had been completely deaf from birth, what would you hear?
Yes, everything is subject to change, and that’s the truly exciting, wonderful thing about the world. Imagine if were not? The workings of fate are mysterious, and awesome too. So don’t try and second guess yourself, and worry that you might have done the wrong thing. As long as you do your best, it’s all fine in the long run.
Here’s something interesting. It’s called kulning, and is an ancient Swedish method of calling cattle home. I find it particularly evocative.
youtube.com/watch?v=nc7F_qv3eI8
I’ve never had any problems using JAWS, but I can fully understand how it would be a daunting task to learn it if you lose your sight as an adult. I would advise a person in that position to try one of the simpler screen readers.
It’s not uncommon for blind people to have moving eyes, usually completely involuntarily. They would certainly not be prosthetic ones, though, which hardly move at all.
All we can do here is to think about the life that we live from day to day and try to imagine if we were born deaf or born blind. How would it be different? What, given the parameters of the world we know, would be the “for all practical purposes” consequences? But it still comes back [for me] to the part where you are born with or without a particular sense. If you were born blind, it is less likely that you would choose to become an artist. But if you are an artist and lose your sight, that would almost certainly be more of a calamity. Unless, as with the sculptor in Blind Beast, you reconfigured your art from vision to touch.
Yes, and that brings us around to someone like Helen Keller. Born both blind and deaf. But suppose in turn she had been born as well, like Kim in the article, without somatosensation? In The Miracle Worker, Helen Keller makes the connection between what fingers are telling her about the world and the world itself. Shudder to think what her world would have become if she was born without the sense of touch as well.
I couldn’t help but Google “born without any senses”: waitbutwhy.com/table/person-with-no-senses
Yes, I am very much beginning to realize that. But, who knows, maybe someday you or another might actually bring me a bit [or a lot] closer to understanding it a better.
In Children of a Lesser God, James is able to bring sound a little closer to his students by connecting the dots between sound and vibrations coming from speakers. In a performance at the school they are seen dancing given the way in which they understand music.
Or, in watching movies, there are subtitles that the deaf can connect to what they see on the screen. Or they can learn to read lips. What is the equivalent of that for the blind?
Here though, for me, it always comes down to the actual experiences of each of us as individuals living particular lives. Change can be exciting, true…but also disturbing, even terrifying. And for most people in discussing the best way to raise their own children, they have come to convince themselves that there are in fact right and wrong ways to do so. It just doesn’t work that way for me anymore. I can’t help but second guess myself because of how I have come to think about value judgments as rooted in the lives that we live as individuals more so than in an overarching understanding of the world derived from religion or political or deontological assessments.
Only in this exchange with you that is of less interest to me than in understanding your world as you understand it. More in the way of what might become a virtual friendship than a philosophical exchange.
Wow, that is really, really beautiful! If I were a cow, I’d come to her.
Do you have a way of having the video here described to you? Does JAWS [or some other technology] allow you to do this?
Ellis Paul “Washington D.C. 5/91” youtu.be/ExRefj_rfUA
Nanci Griffith “There’s a light beyond these woods” youtu.be/8YZ3yvXpMOw
Well, yes, I doubt if I’ll be winning any prizes for art! Not impossible though, as the following list of ten blind artists proves. Only one of them, however, was born blind. Perhaps you can tell me if their paintings are actually any good.
everydaysight.com/blind-painters/
The idea of being born without any senses at all is just unthinkable, to be honest. As indeed is the thought of being deaf as well as blind. Most of us are far, far luckier than we ever realise.
The equivalent of subtitles for the deaf in films and TV, for blind people, is audio description.
rnib.org.uk/information-eve … escription
It’s always good to make new friends, so feel free to message me with your email address and I’ll email you. And if my life and understanding of the world is interesting to you, then I’m always happy to talk about it. I’m always conscious, though, of the possibility of starting to sound a bit boring by going over the same old stuff all the time.
There is no technology that I know of that can automatically generate descriptions for videos, though there may be prototypes. Here’s an extremely lengthy and technical article on the subject.
dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.1145/3355390
So if I want one described, and it doesn’t come with audio description, I have to ask someone. If you wish to describe the kulning video for me, please do so. And also, perhaps the fire leap scene from the Wicker Man? I’d be very interested to know the exact details of the ritual they used for the film. Thanks.
youtube.com/watch?v=9jAJQsq4ZOU
By the way, is it my imagination or has ILP got a lot more active recently? It seemed to be virtually dead at times in the past.
Well, my daughter might be able to make a more qualified distinction between good art and bad art but, truth be told, I’m still deeply ensconced in the “I don’t know what’s good but I know what I like” school of art critics. Almost all of the paintings here are more or less abstract, the art genre I am least drawn to. So much here is about the swirl of colors and shapes and spaces. And I am color blind for starters.
The painting by Eserf Armagan, the artist born blind, appears [to me] to be a more or less abstract nature scene: flowers, trees, bushes, a stream, hills in the background. But in the middle are three “things” I’m not sure about. What would be fascinating to me is to be with him as he painted…listening to him explain why chooses to paint what he does; never having seen what he is depicting. He can touch flowers or trees…he can roam up and down hills and experience a stream of water. But why the colors that he chooses?
Yes, even lucky can be a matter of perspective. And the article basically noted that if one is born without any senses at all, how does one even come to have thoughts that can be shared with others. And these sort of things always bring me back to why God or nature or whatever is behind existence itself brings things like this about at all…and why for some and not others. The seeming lack of an overall meaning and purpose “behind” the “human condition”. What some call the “brute facticity” of what just is. Period. But then the parts where we do have the capacity to make thngs better. Once we can all agree on what that is the closest to.
Thanks. I should have thought of this myself but I didn’t. Though, of course, even here back to that distinction between someone who could once see hearing “inside the dark house, Hopper walks down the hallway with a flashlight” and someone born blind hearing it. Like one of the people says, “I’ve never had audio description on life” itself.
Okay, I’ll do that. I’m really fine with continuing our exchange here. One thing about a “public exchange” is that you can touch on subjects that others here at ILP might be familiar with…or are interested in. You can get insights from those in different situations. And that’s always what intrigues me the most. How, though we are all part of the same species, as individuals, we sometimes have very different thoughts and feelings about exactly the same thing.
It seems [to me] that audio description could be used for videos as well. It probably revolves around costs and the gap between a large audience watching TV shows and movies and what can be a tiny audience viewing things like music videos.
Okay, I’ll give it a shot…
It opens with a young woman wearing a long dress walking in a vast field of grass with what looks like a river and hills in the background. The camera then begins to zoom in on the woman. The woman, who would be described as very pretty by most sighted people, looks back at the camera smiling. Then she turns to what appears to be a farmhouse in the distance. She calls for the cows. One cow slowly approaches her. She touches the cow in greeting and then calls out to the other cows. Four or five in all. She interacts with the cows to convey a bond with them. She appears to feed one with the grasses around them. Next the cows are out of the picture. It is her farewell to them as she runs through the grass toward the river. The last shot appears somewhat enigmatic. She is alone staring out toward the water…but we are not certain as to what comes next for her.
The scene starts with young women approaching through a field toward a particular spot. Again, as with most popular films, the women are young and what most sighted people would describe as very pretty. Then what appears to be the main character in the ritual comes forth. Ten to twelve women are sitting in a circle. At the center is a stone circle with a fire in the middle. The leader signals the dance to begin by placing what appears [to me] to be a plant tiara around the top of her head. The fire in the center surges upward. The women then stand and dance in a circle around the flame their arms and their bodies moving in closer and then farther out from it. The rest of the video clip shows Sergeant Howie approaching the home [it looks like a castle to me] of Lord Summerisle.
Then this dialogue between Sergeant Howie and Lord Summerisle:
Sergeant Howie: But they are . . . are naked!
Lord Summerisle: Naturally! It’s much too dangerous to jump through fire with your clothes on.
Sergeant Howie: What religion can they possibly be learning jumping over bonfires?!
Lord Summerisle: Parthenogensis.
In other words, though the puritanical Howie no doubt has witnessed any number of rituals in regard to his own religious denomination, the only thing that matters to him is that the women are naked. Though in this “made for all audiences clip” the women are clothed. All rituals are important to all religious/spiritual communities because they are used to reinforce a reality that becomes part of one or another sacred truth. But for any number of Christian denominations, anything having to do with actual sexuality – clearly a part of nature – is taboo. For the people on Summerisle island, however, sexuality is anything but taboo. It’s, well, natural.
As for the meaning of parthenogenesis, it is defined as…
"Parthenogenesis is a natural form of asexual reproduction in which growth and development of embryos occur without fertilization by sperm. In animals, parthenogenesis means development of an embryo from an unfertilized egg cell. "
In the film it can only be understood to the extent that you understand it as Lord Summerisle wants to convey it to Howie. In other words, you would have to be a part of the island community itself.
Yes, it has gotten more active of late. But, unfortunately, for those like me, fewer of the threads seem to focus on issues that actually pertain to what, as a discipline, philosophers in the past have tended toward.
You’re colour blind? That’s something we both definitely have in common then!
My guess is that Ersef Armagan had sighted help, especially in his choice of colours. But the fact that he is able to paint pictures at all, of things he knows by touch, reminds me of that technical article about dreams that we discussed before, where a group of people who had been blind from birth were asked by researchers to draw things from their dreams, in order to show that they do indeed imagine shapes in their minds, albeit without any visual component. Had these researchers considered, you know, just asking them? Doesn’t make such a nice academic paper then, I suppose.
I’m very thankful for the luck I’ve had in life, but as to what luck actually is, it’s the mysterious workings of fate, the guiding principle of the universe. The fact that we don’t know how that works might sound a bit frustrating at first, until we consider the only possible alterntive, namely, that we do know, and therefore know exactly how our life is going to pan out from beginning to end, with so surprises and nothing to strive for.
Yes, I’m happy to continue our exchange here, though I can’t guarantee I’ll always have something insightful to say! Also bear in mind that with the lockdown coming to an end in the UK, I’ll likely be out more. And it would indeed be nice if other people wanted to chip in to the discussion too. Assuming anyone else is still reading it, that is.
Audio descriptions can indeed be used for videos, but it will always have to be done by a person, and as you say, in films and TV the money for doing this is less of a problem, but even then, it is by no means universal.
Thanks for the descriptions of the two videos. The woman in the kulning video, by the way, is named Jonna Jinton, and she has put out quite a lot of videos about her life in rural Sweden. Seems quite idyllic to me, pretty much perfect, in fact. I would never want to live in a hot climate.
Parthenogenesis, in the Wicker Man, is being used in its original mythological sense, rather than the modern biological one, and simply means virgin birth. It features in many ancient myths, including, for example, Greek ones. Parthenos means virgin, and the Parthenon, in Athens, was so named because it was the temple to the virgin goddess Athena. The chant, or song, used in the Wicker Man, Take the Flame Inside You, was written by Paul Giovanni, along with all the other wonderful songs in the film, but the ritual itself is based on actual ancient rituals. And yes, in this version, the sexuality of the ritual is no doubt deliberately emphasised, or overplayed, by the makers of the film, in order to fit in with their conception of the hedonistic society of Summerisle, in marked contrast to Sgt. Howie’s puritanicalism. But in fact, the ritual is not, in origin, sexual at all. Indeed, it is the very opposite, because its participants are vowed to celibacy and virginity, hence the virgin birth theme.
Yes, now that you mention it, we do. Of course, being color blind does not mean I see no colors at all. Only that I can’t distinguish closely related colors. I look at a map distinguishing crops as yellow and orange and red, and the corn, the wheat and the rice all look the same to me. Or, while driving, and approaching traffic signals, the red and the amber look exactly the same to me. Same with blues and purples and violets.
But it’s the world of colors themselves that would still be beyond the reach of him. Someone sighted – and who was not color blind! – could make the proper distinctions for him, but that probably wouldn’t make color itself any clearer. And sometimes researchers who are not themselves blind are so wrapped up in assembling their “scientific” explanations they forget any number of “person to person” paths that might be considerably more direct.
And even most sighted people have almost no real understanding of the colors they see. The complex relationship between the eyes and the brains. Between what our senses perceive and what our minds conceive about what is perceived.
Consider this article: modus.medium.com/the-mystery-of … 5ab2faa6a4 “The Mystery of Color”
“The first thing you need to know about color is that it’s bigger than you. It’s an ancient language, older than English or Fortran, and almost every creature on earth speaks it. The colors of a coral snake say “I kill.” The colors of a ripe fruit say “I am sweet and nutritious.” Your ancestors may have learned to see colors more than a hundred million years before their first steps on dry land—and they had their damn priorities straight. Colors are powerful symbols by which you live or die; they’re worth paying attention to.”
So, even in being sighted, color itself is, in some ways, almost unfathomable. And, as well, for the sighted, the mysteries embedded in the gap between seeing colors and seeing nothing at all. It would interesting to listen in on those born blind discussing what they imagine the world of color is. Is this something you have ever been a part of yourself?
It seems [to me] this will always be understood by each of us individually depending on the role that luck and fate play in our actual lives. And then the extent to which we have options available to us to either take advantage of the luck…or not. And fate…the things beyond our control…are perhaps the most baffling aspects of our, at times, inexplicable existence. But, yes, it is the ultimate mystery of how everything in our lives has come to fit together one way rather than another, that seems most mind-boggling of all. All we can do is, to best of our ability, communicate how “things” in us and around us seem to be. Knowing there will be gaps in that communication given the, at times, very different lives we live.
Well, from my frame of mind, you are intelligent and articulate. And curious and passionate about many things. And you seem to possess the emotional depth and the social skills that lend themselves to always being somewhere in the neighborhood of insights. Besides, who can really pin down what an insight is? It means different things to each of us.
And the more you are able to go out into the world again the more you can tell me about in regard to your interactions with others. It’s my own world that, in regard to contact with others, is now more or less virtual.
All we can do is to see what unfolds here in our own virtual exchange. Not really knowing for sure what that will be.
You’re welcome. And if you ever come across any other videos or film clips you’d like to “see” through my eyes, just bring them here.
From Google:
“Jonna Jinton lives in the woods in Grundtjärn in north of Sweden. She practices ‘kulning’ which to her has become a form of art. Besides kulning, she works as an artist, photographer and is running one of the most popular blogs in Sweden.”
She is clearly one of those people who has managed to put together a life that is bursting at the seams with both accomplishments and fulfillment.
Well, that goes to show how, as you noted above, even within the different Pagan communities, there are, in turn, different understandings of things like hedonism and sexuality. And the rituals that revolve around them. Above you noted that…
“The path of spiritual purity, as a priestess of the goddess, which I have pursued for over three years now, involves swearing off sexual activity completely. At least it does for the particular path that I’ve been called to, anyway. It is my own personal sacrifice.”
Just out of curiosity, how do you imagine Lord Summerisle reacting to that? How does your own thinking here fit or not fit into what you imagine the people on the island regard as an inherent aspect of nature?
Here’s one take on it: sacredwell.org/sex_pagan_perspective.html
It would seem the most important concern here is, as you note, the way in which it is all tied up in spirituality. And not just sex for procreation and pleasure.
You might also find this link interesting: mentalfloss.com/article/836 … wicker-man
Dead Can Dance “The Host Of Seraphim” youtu.be/7iqxzURgQWg
Grand Funk Railroad “I Can Feel Him in the Morning” youtu.be/B42OGxmsepA
I have indeed tried to imagine what colours are like, my whole life in fact, but I can’t, just as with seeing in general. That’s why I have to rely on linguistic pairings, as I mentioned before, to attribute meanings to colours, such as blood red, snow white, and so on. And there are, of course, many possible linguistic pairings for each colour, so it can also depend on context. Another system, used in Pagan rituals, is to attribute meanings to the seven colours of the rainbow as follows.
Red = strength (Mars, Tuesday)
Orange = power (Jupiter, Thursday)
Yellow = happiness (Sun, Sunday)
Green = life (Venus, Friday)
Blue = healing (Moon, Monday)
Indigo = change (Saturn, Saturday)
Violet = communication (Mercury, Wednesday)
White is for purity, and also contains all the other colours. So basically, to go back to your question, this is the only possible way I can imagine the world of colour, that is, by analogy. Incidentally, Pagan practice allows one to categorise anything in the universe according to this system. So a phone, for example, is all about communication, so comes under violet.
An interesting article, for sure, and needless to say, I’m familiar with the physics behind colour, as well as its huge importance in human culture. It’s also interesting how different cultures organise colours differently, which rather tends to show that they’re all in the mind anyway, which obviously, they are. Welsh does that too, with the same word (“glas”) covering both green and blue, although they also have another word (“gwyrdd”) just meaning green.
Here’s another video from Jonna Jinton, which has almost no talking, and I’d be interested to know what she’s actually doing for her morning routine, if you can describe it please.
youtube.com/watch?v=nyuRRWC5GY8
With regard to Lord Summerisle and the people of the island, it might at first appear that my chosen path might be quite anathema to them. But the path of the priestess that I’ve chosen to follow (there are, of course, this being Paganism, a whole load of other ways of being a priestess) only ever appeals to a tiny minority, anyway, and I have no objection whatsoever if others wish to follow the lifestyle of the people of Summerisle. The article on sex in Paganism makes it clear that Pagans take very different views on the subject, but almost all, in one way or another, see it as sacred in some way.
As the article on the Wicker Man attests, it seems to have developed a folklore and mythology of its own over the years. I’ve read Ritual, by David Pinner, the novel that it’s based on, and it’s rather good, though the story bears little similarity to the film, except in its initial setup. A policeman is sent from London to investigate the mysterious death of a girl in a remote seaside village in Cornwall. While there he gradually discovers that the villagers are all Pagans, and meanwhile more murders take place, but he gets increasingly confused, suffering periods of lost memory, believing that the villagers are responsible somehow. But at the end it emerges that he has actually gone insane, and has been committing all the murders himself. Except the first one, that is, which turns out to have been an accident. Perhaps it’s a pity that they didn’t actually make the film like that.
If you want to know just how problematic color is in the context of “all there is”, start here:
“That dress isn’t blue or gold because color doesn’t exist”: pbs.org/newshour/science/th … our%20head.
Not only can and do different people see the same thing as different colors but, as the article notes, "‘there’s no such thing as color.’ Color is, quite literally, a figment of your imagination, Lotto said. It only exists in your head…‘There’s such a thing as light. There’s such a thing as energy. There’s no such thing as color.’”
And:
“Bevil Conway, a neuroscientist who studies color and vision at Wellesley College, explained it this way: ‘Color is this computation that our brains make that enables us to extract meaning from the world.’”
You were born blind. So, it would seem, the meaning of color…the meaning of anything that can be seen by sighted people…comes to you in a different way. The way in which it is explained to you by others who see. The way in which you grasp and/or intuit the world around you through other senses. But mostly through what you read, come into contact with, and experience through your own unique existence.
On the other hand, color is, for all practical purposes, as real as sighted people need it to be in order to interact with others from day to day. Most times it never comes up at all. Other times, however, for some, as with the color of one’s skin, it can make all the difference in the world.
Me, I don’t see the colors I’m supposed to see because for whatever reason the connection between my brain and my eyes – my “cones” – are “defective”. On the other hand, color-blindness is not exactly rare. So who is to say what is “natural”. It’s like the mystery embedded in left and right handed people. I’m a lefty. Why? Why aren’t we all the same?
This is a very strange and evocative video. It starts in a world of ice. It appears to be a frozen lake. Jonna, with her beautiful long blonde hair down to her waist has her back to the camera. She removes what appears to be a fur coat and there she is – wearing only what I would describe as a bathing suit. Barefooted, she walks forward toward a hole that has been cut in the ice…about six feet long and 3 feet wide. She reaches the opening. She bends down. She skims the water with her fingers and then proceeds to lower herself down into what can only be frigid water. She pauses with just her head above the water and looks about her. The expression on her face is one of wonder.
Then like a seal descending into its water world down into the lake she goes. The camera is now underwater with her. Then the camera shifts focus. Going back and forth between her under water and events occurring above the ice – the aurora borealis light show in the sky, snow falling in the land around the lake, a waterfall.
Then everything in reverse. She rises up out of the hole. Lifts herself up onto the ice. Then the invigorating reaction that you heard as she voices her satisfaction with the ice bath experience.
Then the ccamera shifts to a small fire on the ice. Chunks of wood ablaze as she, sitting on her coat, drinks from a mug. She lifts the mug toward the camera – toward us – and vocalizes a toast. There is a very light snow falling as she puts more wood on the fire and warms her hands.
Then the camera pulls farther and farther back to reveal an expanse of wilderness…nature in all of its glory. In a way, perhaps, as though to emphasize that mysterious gap between one particular experience that one particular woman has had in the vastness of all there is.
Again, from my own frame of mind, it is almost impossible to sift through all of the countless variables in our lives in order to pin down with any precision why we choose some things and not others. Especially given all of the factors that are largely beyond our understanding and control. For example, the part where our worlds are shaped and molded entirely by others for years as children.
With sexuality however we are dealing with that part of the brain that would seem to be closest to the more primordial components of human existence. The sexual libido is fundamental to the species because it is through copulation that the species reproduces. But along with this biological imperative are all of the different ways that each of us as individuals comes to discover and then act out our own sexual choices. And how all of that is entangled in historical and cultural mores.
And then the part where sexual interaction is not about reproduction at all. But revolves more around the pleasure that it provides us. Both before and after the orgasm. Also, the role that sexual bonding plays in allowing us to embody the love we feel for others in a romantic context.
Wow! That is far removed from the movie. But that’s where I always go here. The author of the book, the writer of the movie’s screenplay, the director’s “vision”…they all come from an existential understanding of the world rooted in the way in which their own lives predispose them to see the world one way rather than another. In regard to nature and spirituality and sexuality and so many other important aspects of our lives.
You think and feel what you do. Here and now. But had your life been very very different you would almost certainly be thinking and feeling other things instead. Or if, circumstantially, your life becomes very, very different – think the covid pandemic – you can find yourself changing in ways big and small. So, it would seem, it can only come down to being as tolerant of others as we can, aiming to cause as little pain and suffering in others as we can, and attempting to the best of our ability to communicate to each other how we have come to understand ourselves in this particular world around us.
Like we are doing here.
I remember all the furore over the dress, and how it led to other facts about colour, which had been known to scientists for years, becoming more widely known, as detailed here.
bibalex.org/SCIplanet/en/Ar … s?id=10304
For example, while one in 12 men are colour blind, only one in 255 women are. Even more interestingly, about 2% to 3% of women have a extra capacity to see colour. Whereas most people who are not colour blind can apparently distinguish between a million different colours and shades, these women can distinguish a hundred million. Literally mind boggling!
Thanks for the description of Jonna’s video. It does indeed sound very evocative. I asked because I have a morning routine myself, which I’ll come to below. It does not, however, involve ice baths in frozen lakes! I understand the attraction though, as I’m always more focused when I’m outside and it’s cold, rather than when it’s warm, which, I must admit, tends to make me rather lazy. And I think you’ve probably gathered by now that if there’s one thing I really don’t like, it’s being inactive.
The subject of sexuality has been surrounded by religious and social taboos since the very first humans, I’m sure. Such taboos are the actual fabric of human society. For me, abstaining from sexual gratification is an essential part of the path of spiritual purification that I’ve embarked on. Serving nature, our goddess, is more important to me than my own physical pleasure. I dedicated myself to this path at the winter solstice of 2017, after thinking about it for a long time, and it’s a pledge that I take seriously. I should emphasise again, though, that I do not regard sex as in any way bad. On the contrary, it is sacred.
Yes, we are all shaped by the lives we have led. If I had been born sighted, for example, my life would have been totally different, and basically, I wouldn’t have been me, but somebody else entirely. A scary thought indeed, to be honest.
This morning I went for a walk down to a very magical place. I won’t mention its name in public, but will email it to you, in case you want to look it up and see what it’s like. It’s an oasis of nature in the midst of the city, and within its boundaries it’s almost possible to forget that you’re surrounded on all sides by endless suburbs. Almost, but not quite, unfortunately, as the hum of traffic in the background is ever-present, albeit muffled by the trees somewhat. And there are often people there too, walking their dogs, for example, but they tend to stay on the established paths. It’s basically a forest, with lots of streams and waterways running though it, and wooden walkways laid down in a bewildering pattern that it’s very easy to get lost in, if you’re not familiar with the place. Some of the trees are huge and ancient, with knarled roots sticking up out of the ground, and may well survive from the primeval forest that once covered vast swathes of the country. But the place is no stranger to human habitation, either, and contains burnt mounds dating from the Bronze Age, the remains, archaeologists believe, of sweat lodges. There are other remains too, of more recent origin. Part of the site, for example, has the ruined foundations of Victorian outhouses, now reclaimed by the forest. In another part, someone has built a wooden, cone-like shelter out of branches. There’s also a pool, now mostly dried up and stagnant, sadly. Once you’ve made it from one side of the wood to the other, you reach a wooden staircase, leading to an area of higher ground which is also mostly wooded, but here the wood is new, with young trees and a totally different atmosphere. Not ancient and mysterious, but fresh and vibrant. There are a number of clearings, and in the middle of the largest one is a circular enclosure surrounded by a very low bank, and in the centre of this is a place for a bonfire, often used by local Pagans. But no one was around this morning, since I went really early. I told you before that I have a daily exercise regime. This begins at 6am, and is also an act of worship, kneeling in thanks to mother nature for all that she has blessed me with. Because of this, I always do it outdoors, though the actual location can vary, and may often just be my own front garden.
For me, of course, all of this comes back eventually to “why?”. This part, for example:
“Based on Dr. Neitz’s estimates, there could be 99 million women in the world with true four-color vision. However, before they pat themselves on the back for their superior evolution, he said, it is important to note that humans are just getting back to where birds, amphibians and reptiles have been for eons.”
The starting point for vision – being color blind or totally blind – is embedded in the biological evolution of life on planet Earth. Is it all just as a result of random mutations and adaptation to environments…genetic pathways that “mindlessly” created all of these variables in nature? Resulting in each of us basically having “the luck of the draw” at birth? Or is there something else “behind” it? Whether from the perspective of most religious denominations, or from the perspective of all the many different Pagan communities. Or, instead, is it more in sync with my own “fractured and fragmented” conclusion: that it is all just “what it is” for no overarching or underlying reason. Or, rather, none that I can now discern. Taking into account, of course, the vast gap between what individual human beings see or don’t see and what individual birds see or don’t see.
Yes, that is very apparent. And, now, inch by inch, with the lockdowns coming to a end, you are once again able to become more intertwined in the world around you. And quite far removed from my own considerably more imploded world. But of late I have come to accept that. Even [in my own way] to revel in it. I live more and more “in my head”. And now nestle quite comfortably in my books and films and music and philosophy.
Anyway, when you do find yourself interacting with the world in particularly intriguing and fascinating and provocative ways, please let me know about them.
Again, this is a frame of mind that I am not myself able to experience. But then, of course, I am not myself you. If you feel this commitment strongly and it makes your life all that much more meaningful and rewarding, then, by all means, go where you feel you must. And as you go down this path you will encounter new experiences and new relationships that strengthen that commitment or take you in other directions entirely. That’s what I always come back to. The part where you never really know what is around that next corner. The part where you never really know what might yank you into a whole other world.
This part in other words:
Scary at times, true. But for some [like me] it opened up a whole new way to look at life itself. A way of recognizing that, since, in a world of contingency, chance and change, you never really can be certain what’s around that next corner, what’s around it might take you to places that otherwise you never really would have known about at all. Your options may well explode. I know that mine did.
Thanks.
Now that was really an exceptional description!! And it reminds me somewhat of one of my own favorite places in the world: Rock Creek Park. I would go there time and time and time again when I needed to get away from it all. But it too is by no means a wilderness area. It’s a “large urban park” not far from the monuments in Washington D.C. and from Baltimore.
Also, your description reminds us that any place we happen to be at is only the way it is now because of all the ways it used to be going back hundreds of years. Others were where we are now living lives that seemed just as real to them as ours seems to us. But in very, very different sets of circumstances. Somehow we are all connected by the fact of being human, but being human in whole other worlds.
It’s a very interesting question. Why? Why anything? But I don’t think the two main stances are necessarily incompatible. Namely, the idea that everything is just random, and has come about for no reason whatsoever, and conversely, that there’s some underlying meaning to it all, even if we don’t know it, or know it yet. I think it’s perfectly possible that the universe came about through complete random chance, but in the process, over time, has developed some underlying meaning or purpose. And furthermore, this meaning or purpose isn’t necessarily fixed, but itself may change, or evolve over time. It all comes back to fate again.
I’m always happy to tell you about my experiences, and things that I do, if you’re happy to listen. And please don’t feel inhibited if you want to ask about something.
I do indeed feel the commitment to my spiritual path very strongly, and I know, that in this particular phase of my life that I’m in, it’s the right thing to do. It won’t be forever though. The commitment I made in December 2017, at the winter solstice, was for seven years. A seven year intense period of spiritual and physical purification, which I’m now, or rather very soon, next month at the summer solstice, half way through. After it’s finished I will consider myself free to either continue on this path, or take a different one. Prior to embarking on it my life had been in something of a rut for some time, and a few distinctly underwhelming romantic encounters (if I can even use that term, since they never actually got anywhere) had left me pretty disillusioned. Something needed to change, and change drastically, and that something was me. Apart from, you know, being blind, I didn’t think there was anything massively wrong with me, in the potential partnership stakes, but the only thing to do, I felt, was take time to step back, and examine myself, and at the same time concentrate on my spiritual development, which is equally important to me, while not worrying about anything else. What I didn’t know at the time, of course, is that this period of introspection would eventually coincide with the huge, worldwide catharsis and soul-searching of the pandemic. So pretty good timing there, on my part, I feel.
I looked up Rock Creek Park and it seems like a wonderful place. Over 2,000 acres, which is quite different to the place I described for you yesterday, which is apparently only 27 acres! And thank you for saying that my description of it was excellent.
Yes, absolutely right. When I go to a place, I feel a tangible connection to those who have gone before us, and have lived their lives there. I can walk in the same space, touch their buldings and monuments, and feel the same earth that they did under my feet. And the main thing I feel when I do this is a sense of continuity. We are all part of a greater whole, connected over vast ages, each inhabiting our own place within it, custodians for a time, until we pass it on to those who come after us.
For me it always comes back to the [ultimately] mysterious and staggering immensity of the universe. Captured best here:
"Light travels at approximately 186,000 miles a second. That is about 6,000,000,000,000 miles a year.
The closest star to us is Alpha Centauri. It is 4.75 light-years away. 28,500,000,000,000 miles.
So, traveling at 186,000 miles a second, it would take us 4.75 years to reach it. The voyager spacecraft [just now exiting our solar system] will take 70,000 years to reach it.
To reach the center of the Milky Way galaxy it would take 100,000 light-years.
Or consider this:
“To get to the closest galaxy to ours, the Canis Major Dwarf, at Voyager’s speed, it would take approximately 749,000,000 years to travel the distance of 25,000 light years! If we could travel at the speed of light, it would still take 25,000 years!
The Andromeda galaxy is 2.537 million light years away.”
And this:
“Dark matter makes up about 27% of the universe. The rest - everything on Earth, everything ever observed with all of our instruments, all normal matter - adds up to less than 5% of the universe.”
For all practical purposes, it is beyond the imagination of mere mortals here on planet Earth to grasp just how staggeringly immense the universe is. Let alone where “I” fit into it. Or even “we” here on this third rock from the Sun in the Milky Way galaxy.
Then this part:
“The best estimate from a 1999 study set that number at about 125 billion galaxies, and a 2013 study indicated that there are 225 billion galaxies in the observable universe. In 2016, that number was upped to 2 trillion, in large part because a new analysis included all the tiny, fluffy galaxies in the early universe.”
Each galaxy containing millions [billions] of stars with planets orbiting them which may or may not have intelligent life on them. Just like us. Only for some no doubt far, far more sophisticated in grappling with what may or may not be a teleological component to existence itself.
But that’s just me. This frame of mind is but the end result of all the variables in my own life culminating in how I “see things” here and now.
Sounds good. And I suppose the first thing that pops into my head will revolve around grappling with how you experience anything that you do without seeing it. A walk in the woods, for example. What sensations and perceptions are forming in your mind that makes it an experience for you that is different from mine.
Again, you have a real gift when it comes to describing things like this. A way of making the life that you live…come alive? It is something I tend to stumble about in attempts to accomplish myself. I’m always more adept in discussing things “philosophically”.
Yes, this is often how “life changes” unfold. You find yourself in a set of circumstances that are not taking you down deep enough into a world that matters. Something that is bigger than the more or less routine day to day reality is needed. I have been there myself time and again.
With me though, of late, I have been able to find that sort of commitment vicariously. My reaction to music and to film and to the books I read is nothing short of enthralling. I don’t even know how to explain it. I simply “fall into” the experience of what I react to “in the moment” and it takes me to worlds that, though an illusion, don’t seem at all illusory to me at the time. It all fits in perfectly with a real world that “beyond my control” has imploded anyway.
See what I mean? When I try to explain something like this to others, the words just aren’t there! Or they sound, well, “intellectual”
Not able to make the trip there anymore. But I do visit it online from time to time. Along with all the other places that Supannika – a true nature lover! – would take me in and around Baltimore. I sure miss those excursions.
Yes, back again to how we all fit into a world that evolves over time to make room for new relationships, new experiences, new understandings. The parts we can share, the parts that are always uniquely our own.
The universe is so mind-numbingly, incomprehensibly huge, that it would seem like an awful waste, if we were the only intelligent creatures in it. But, as we all know, nature abhors a vacuum, and life always finds a way, so I think it’s pretty much a foregone conclusion that the universe is teeming with life. And if it is, intellgent life has surely evolved countless times. On the somewhat related subject of whether these aliens are visiting us, we need to be more careful before we jump to any conclusions, I think, because the descriptions of these aliens, as given by witnesses, seem to closely resemble descriptions of fairies, goblins and other diminutive creatures given by people in earlier centuries, and in folklore. Not only their physical description, but also what they do. Malevolent fairies abduct people, subject them to odd, invasive procedures, give them tasteless food, and eventually release them, with far more time having elapsed in the outside world than it should have done. Others abduct babies and replace them with sickly fairy children, known as changelings. Even if the creatures claim to be aliens, which they occasionally supposedly do, that means nothing, since malevolent fairies are known to be deceptive towards humans. There are other, more helpful and friendly ones too, though, just as there are with what people today think of as aliens. Stories of creatures like these are found in all cultures and throughout history, so it’s hard to believe that they are not based on something. But are these creatures actually aliens, or inhabitants of the earth? The latter, I strongly suspect, if they exist at all, that is.
Thank you for saying that I have a good way of describing things. So now, at your request, I’ll describe how, being blind, I experience a walk in the woods, and the woods in question, of course, will be the ones we’ve already been discussing. Firstly, I have to get there. They’re not very far, less than half an hour’s walk away. I leave my flat really early and walk up to the main road. I have my cane with me, as always, but I’m also very familiar with this route, and it presents no challenges. Once on the main road I turn and walk in the direction of the woods. I cross over eleven roads branching off this particular road on the way, always listening for traffic, and the twelfth road is the one that I turn into. From here it’s just a short distance to the entrance to the woods. While walking, I always use echo-location, clicking my tongue, to avoid bumping into anything, and to get a better idea of my surroundings, along with my cane, checking the ground ahead of me as I go. There are a number of different entrances to the woods, and the one I use involves walking up a slope leading to a bank, alongside running water gushing to a pool, bubbling and hissing all the time. The smell of the water and vegetation hits me very strongly at this point, and I know I’ve reached a liminal area, a boundary between one realm and another. I will now leave behind the world of cars, petrol fumes and tarmac, for the world of nature, or at least insofar as this is possible, while still surrounded by the city.
On the other side of the bank are some wooden steps leading down into the woods. Immediately I’m surrounded by trees on all sides, they feel ancient and protective. Their leaves gently rustle in the breeze, and the early morning birds sing high above. The smells of the forest are overwhelming, filling me up with a million different sensations, all alive and vibrant and everywhere, all around me and inside me. Following the path, which has planks laid out on it, I turn right and very soon come to a bridge over a stream, the water flowing gently and quietly beneath, with just a faint gurgling sound. On the other side of the bridge I turn left. The path is wider here, laid out with planks again, and a wooden handrail on the left, which I place my hand on. This is the main path, which follows the stream deeper into the woods. I know all these paths like the back of my hand. Pretty soon I come to a place where the path widens out, and on the left, up against the posts of the handrail, is one of the ancient burnt mounds, low and flat. If I duck under the handrail and climb over the mound, which is quite rough with bits of stone sticking out, I can step over the stream, which is very narrow and shallow, to the other burnt mound on the other side. I won’t be doing that on this occasion, though. I continue along the path, passing a huge tree on the left, its roots sticking out into the path, which I always take the time to touch, exploring its cavities and bumps with my hands. Next to it is a rectangular stone and brick structure, almost waist high, with a solid metal top. Very shortly after this is a flight of wooden stairs, which I ascend, the planks creaking as I step onto them, leading up to the younger wood up above on higher ground.
The newer wood has a totally different smell to the old one below, fresh and damp, and the ground is often soggy, sometimes quite waterlogged. The wood I’ve just left below is very old, but this one above is much more recent, having been deliberately planted. I turn right, then after twenty paces leave the path and head left into the woods, through a short cut. The woods here are not dense, and are full of young saplings. The overhanging foliage strikes my face, and I have to go very slowly and carefully, to avoid tripping over some stray branch or some other item of undergrowth. I feel ahead of me with my cane, to check the ground, and with my other hand shield my face from the branches, and pretty soon emerge into a large clearing. I can’t hear anyone, or smell anything out of place on the breeze, but a quick check by clicking my tongue a few times tells me that the clearing is empty of people, exactly as I hope, and expect, at this time of the morning. I can easily judge the size of the clearing by the same method, though don’t really need to, as I’m very familiar with it anyway. I continue forwards, walking across the clearing. The grass is tall and uncut, left to grow naturally, and wet with morning dew. I soon reach a low bank, laid out in a circle, like an ancient earthwork, though it’s not actually very old. I clamber over the bank, the grass inside is much shorter, and walk to the centre where there’s a small patch of ash, and some half burnt logs and branches, partially turned to charcoal, which crumbles to the touch. The smell is acrid, but in the way of bonfires, not unpleasant. I wipe the ash off my hands on the grass, and walk out from the centre to the outer rim on the far side, and position myself in a gap in the bank facing north, which I’ve checked the direction of in the past with my talking compass. I fold up my cane, which comes apart in sections, and put it in my satchel. I kneel down, bare knees touching the damp grass and the warm, living earth beneath, absorbing its life-force through my skin, filling up my body. And then, having rested a few minutes, soaking in the sensuous, writhing energy, my watch announces that it’s 6am, so I begin my exercise, or morning ritual, placing my hands on my forehead, palms facing forward, slowing rising, standing, and kneeling again, repeatedly, while quietly singing a little chant to the goddess, giving thanks for the magical gift of life, and for all the blessings she has bestowed on me. I repeat this 600 times, keeping count as I go, and when I’ve finished, I sit cross-legged on the grass, drink some water from a bottle I’ve brought with me, and sprinkle some on the ground as an offering. I do this every morning, but usually in my front garden, which is surrounded by trees and more private than the back garden.
Well, I sincerely hope that was the sort of thing you were asking for! If you want more “diary of a blind girl” type stuff then I’m more than happy to oblige, as it allows me to exercise my own descriptive juices in writing it, which is always enjoyable. It’ll be easier if you ask about some specific scenario, which I can then describe in detail.
Yes, and here I am split right down the middle. A part of me is always fascinated with the staggering, stupendous reality of “all there is” . Ever and always delving into it as deep as I possibly can. But in acknowledging, in turn, that I don’t have a mind nearly as gifted as those who pursue these things professionally…astronomers and astrophysicists. I can only gasp at what they reveal and wonder how on earth they could have, first of all, figured these things out. How do they know that “each second there are about 100 billion ghostly solar neutrinos passing through the tip of your finger.”
But then another part of me has to admit I will almost certainly go to the grave never really being anywhere near to knowing what “all there is” ultimately means. I just don’t have that crucial religious or spiritual component in my life anymore. I don’t feel connected to something bigger than myself like I once did. All I can do now is to never stop trying to bring it back.
Aliens seem plausible to me because as you noted it seems utterly remote that we are the only intelligent lifeform in the universe. And since we are as close as we can possibly be to knowing that we do exist – not just characters in a sim world or dream world or Matrix world – why not them? Still, what I come back to are the immense distances involved. Again, this part:
“Light travels at approximately 186,000 miles a second. That is about 6,000,000,000,000 miles a year.
The closest star to us is Alpha Centauri. It is 4.75 light-years away. 28,500,000,000,000 miles.”
So, assuming there is a far more advanced form of life on a planet orbiting this star, this alien lifeform would still be constrained by the same distance. Unless, of course, Einstein was wrong and there is a way to travel faster than the speed of light. Or…wormholes?
As for all of the other creatures that abound around globe in culture after culture, I can only react to that based on my own personal experiences. I have not myself had such experiences. So all I can do is to ask those who have to at least attempt to explain to me what their experiences were. And then to demonstrate how, what they experienced, I can experience to.
Thank you. Yes, this is exactly what I was hoping that you would convey. I knew of course that your own experience would involve reacting to what is around you through your other senses, but you were particularly accomplished here in allowing me to get a much better idea of why these trips are so important to you. The many, many ways in which the woods actually reach you, connect you to it, intertwine you in nature on a level that very, very few of us ever allow ourselves to experience.
My own excursions to Rock Creek and Gunpowder and Loch Raven Reservoir and Oregon Ridge and Deep Creek Lake were more about the experience of seeing what was all around me. At least as I think back on them now. The sounds from time to time and the smells occasionally, but nothing at all like your own interactions. So we shared this world in ways that we could more or less communicate to each other. But then also in ways we could only attempt to convey.
Have you ever considered writing descriptions like this for publication? You are really, really adept at capturing things around you in a way that I think others would be interested in reading about.
No, I am certainly not inclined to turn our exchange into something like that. To make it all about you being blind. And we have already covered many different subjects that go well beyond that.
Remember, however, what brought this exchange about: You posted this thread in relationship to dreams. I have a fascination with them so I clicked on it. But then I found myself thinking, as with so many other sighted people who have had little actual contact with those who are blind from birth, “how can those who have never seen the world around them dream about it?”
That led me to this: healthline.com/health/can-b … ople-dream
The rest is our exchange so far.
Yes, I am interested in the part of your world that is different than mine. That has always fascinated me. And not just in regard to sense perceptions but relating to all of the other ways in which the different lives we’ve lived have resulted in different ways of thinking about ourselves in the world. The part that [philosophically] revolves around my own understanding of human identity in the is/ought world as the embodiment of dasein.
There are things that, blind or sighted, we are all able to communicate with little or no problem. But it’s the things that become more problematic that most intrigue me.
This part for example:
“…so I begin my exercise, or morning ritual, placing my hands on my forehead, palms facing forward, slowing rising, standing, and kneeling again, repeatedly, while quietly singing a little chant to the goddess, giving thanks for the magical gift of life, and for all the blessings she has bestowed on me. I repeat this 600 times, keeping count as I go, and when I’ve finished, I sit cross-legged on the grass, drink some water from a bottle I’ve brought with me, and sprinkle some on the ground as an offering.”
What I wouldn’t give to have that sci-fi machine around enabling me to connect to your mind actually thinking and feeling this experience.
It is a frame of mind I am not able to experience myself. Not even close. So, yes, I am interested in probing the life that you have lived…a life that brought you to what, to me, is a truly mysterious understanding of the world around us.
Vangelis “Albedo 0.39” youtu.be/ygcBT87K6BY
Aphrodite’s Child “The Four Horsemen” youtu.be/QVExlaxaweo
My own feeling is that Einstein will be superseded, or perhaps tweaked is a better word, just as Newton was. For almost all purposes, Newton is still perfectly valid, and so Einstein will remain, I’m sure, but the idea that there’s an absolute speed limit to the universe just doesn’t sit right with me, on an intuitive level. In fact, Einstein’s theories have already started to fray at the edges a bit, with quantum entanglement for example, where two particles might be separated by millions of light years but are still connected somehow, and change simultaneously. With regard to Newton, it is interesting how for him, physics was secondary to his over-riding fascination with alchemy, and similar arcane pursuits. And as for quantum physics, this brings us to theories of multiple universes, all branching off from each other with every single change in the state of every particle in the universe. That sounds a bit excessive to me, to be honest, although it’s not the only theory out there.
I’ve had a few strange and apparently inexplicable experiences on my travels, while camping out at night, which might relate to creatures of folklore and mythology, or possibly ghosts or spirits, perhaps. Once when I was camping on the Malvern Hills a discarnate voice started speaking to me. It sounded like a normal woman’s voice, but there was definitely no one there. This had been preceeded by faint, ethereal flute music in the distance, coming to me on the wind, along with a sweet incense smell, like blossom (it was actually winter). I’ve had similar experiences in other places, too. I’m not prepared to categorically state that these were definitely non-corporeal entities trying to communicate with me, but the experience was definitely pretty intense, and has left a lasting impression on me.
I have indeed considered writing, either short stories or maybe even a novel, but I always get bogged down in trying to work out an interesting plot. And in any case, who would want to read a book that was lacking one crucial descriptive aspect, namely, what people and things look like? On the other hand, I might have a better chance at writing non-fiction, such as an exploration of folklore associated with stone circles, for example. I could go round the country interviewing people, assuming I could pursuade someone to drive, that is, a bit like what I did in Flamborough, which I told you about. Now that really would be interesting, I think. I suppose whoever drove could also be the official photographer of the project.
I’m glad you liked my description, and I wasn’t suggesting that I should do this to the exclusion of talking about anything else. I find it interesting to do, so don’t hold back if you can think of something you want to know about.
And in the absence of a mind-reading machine, we’ll have to fall back on language. With regard to what I’m thinking and feeling during my morning exercise ritual, it’s difficult to describe because I feel completely detached from my body and physical surroundings. It’s like an altered state of consciousness. And at the same time I feel at one with nature, with the universe. It’s pretty indescribable, actually.
There’s got to be a morning after…