the shape of your eyes

rene magritte
le faux miroir, 1928


the first eyes i would have seen would have been my mother's. crystal blue like her own mothers. with the sound of her voice would have come the first understanding of how comfort, security and the eyes are linked. a connection that extends through all other like circumstances, where the intimacy of connection that includes the considerations of need, have arisen in my life.

you have heard the phrase, "the eyes tell stories".

stories hover in and around the eyes, as paul eluard's 1926 poem "the shape of your eyes" attests . . .

the shape of your eyes goes round my heart,

a round of dance and sweetness.

halo of time, cradle nightly and sure

no longer do I know what I've lived,

your eyes have not always seen me.

leaves of day and moss of dew,

reeds of wind and scented smiles,

wings lighting up the world,

boats laden with sky and sea,

hunters of sound and sources of colour,

scents the echoes of a covey of dawns

recumbent on the straw of stars,

as the day depends on innocence

the world relies on your pure sight

all my blood courses in its glance.

there are even greater stories . . .

the eyes are like the waistline of an hourglass. at either end of the narrowing there is an infinite perceptual opening. each moment, each atom is similarly constructed.

though the worlds are eighteen thousand and more,
not every eye can see them.
every atom is indeed a place of the vision of God,
but so long as it is unopened,
who says, "there is a door"?
[I, 3756; 3766] rumi

and so it is that other stories the eyes can tell are deeper, richer. in the telling of these stories, the eyes are like alice in wonderland's tunnel: "the rabbit hole went on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down a very deep well.

either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her and to wonder what was going to happen next."

when the mirror of your heart becomes clear and pure,
you'll behold images which are outside this world.
you will see the image and the image-maker,
both the carpet of the spiritual expanse
and the one who spreads it.
[II, 72-3] rumi



kristine schomaker
"down the rabbit hole"

at the end of the tunnel, "alice opened the door and found that it led into a small passage, not much larger than a rat-hole: she knelt down and looked along the passage into the loveliest garden you ever saw. how she longed to get out of that dark hall, and wander about among those beds of bright flowers and those cool fountains, but she could not even get her head through the doorway;"

it is in being available to the moment, to the door that presents itself, to the intuition that unfurls into insight that awakening takes place.

deer fence

isaac levitan the watermill at sunset 1880.

sound.

there are so many magical sounds. lying inside a tent listening to the sound of rain. the wind whistling through a little opening. leaves rustling in a summer breeze on a hot day. i have a long list . . . .

walking through the nearby woodlot i hear voices - children riding bikes, climbing trees, building forts, playing chase games. what i love is that i can’t see the source of the voices - just the voices, muffled in the leaves and undergrowth. so, even though i know i’m sharing the woods with countless other people, i still feel alone. sharing a space.

wang wei captures this experience in his beautiful poem “deer fence”.

deer fence

in the empty mountains


i see no one,


but hear the sound


of someone's voice.

slanting sunlight


enters deep forest,


and shines again


on green moss.

wang wei
 trans. greg whincup

intoxication

rene magritte

the month of the grape harvest . 1959

in this painting, a group of similar looking men stare into a very sparsely and plainly decorated room. they are looking through opened windows. each face bares a similar expression.

what is it that they see?

how many can see beyond what they see?

in 1860 emily dickinson was intoxicated by the beauty that binds this world and wrote, "i taste a liquor never brewed".

i taste a liquor never brewed --

from tankards scooped in pearl --

not all the vats upon the rhine

yield such an alcohol!

inebriate of air -- am i --

and debauchee of dew --

reeling -- thro' endless summer days --

from inns of molten blue --

when "landlords" turn the drunken bee

out of the foxglove's door --

when butterflies -- renounce their "drams" --

i shall but drink more!

till seraphs swing their snowy hats --

and saints -- to windows run --

to see the little tippler

leaning against the sun

beyond the relational surface lie riches such as are seen and felt in these words from fiona robyn

a triangle of wine left in the glass

darker than the night window

where the reflection of fairy lights

are light rain on a clear pond.

intoxication in all its forms, physical, emotional, spiritual . . . are metaphorically braided in rabindranath tagore's words . . .

take my wine in my own cup, friend.

it loses its wreath of foam when poured in that of

others.

the words of hafiz take us deeper still . . .

where have you taken your sweet song?

come back and play me a tune.

i never really cared for the things of this world.

it was the glow of your presence

that filled it with beauty.

and finally it is rumi who offers the ecstatic rendering of the experience of intoxication when he declares "you only need smell the wine!"

you only need smell the wine

for vision to flame from each void--

such flames from wine's aroma!

imagine if you were the wine.