I’m frequently impressed when I remember sayings adages, things my mother used to say which are often related to bodily states

When I couldn’t find my glasses I was searching nervously or frantically and only found them when I gave up…..

I remembered my mother saying

You can’t see, for looking.

This is very interesting because like language itself and the developments from it these are coming from the lips of ordinary People. And they’re recognisinhg something which is only in the last hundred years been scientifically described I believe.

There are two kinds of seeing

Very focussed seeing.. narrow purposive vision… This is when we’ve got some thing which our mind is pinned on to and we ignore everything else apart from that very narrow bit of the world that we see very intently. We can also switch into this when we’re under stress, severe stress sometimes.

Then there is the way that the owl must look when it is looking from the tree for something to eat

Wide vision where you’re not focusing sharply on any individual spot in the landscape but your eyes widened and you’re scanning the whole at once. When the owl sees something then he or she must switch into the sharply focused mode and swoop down to catch the little beast that was spotted so the owl could have something to eat

I think artists also will be familiar with this. The eye muscles have to be relaxed which  will happen spontaneously when necessary or sometimes you can do it deliberately. There are breathing techniques and relaxation techniques which can switch into this mode

Going back to the adage

You can’t see for looking.

See refers to broad vision with the eye muscles relaxed

And ,cleverly, looking refers to sharply focused vision

So if you’re looking too hard you can’t see

Well it took me 48 hours to find my glasses

I had taken them off in my bedroom to put some sunscreen on my face and then I couldn’t find them

I was looking in the bedroom for them

But when I found them they were downstairs in the sitting room

I wasn’t even trying to find them them and I’d given up completely

My old ones are adequate for most purposes but nevertheless if you if you wear glasses you know that having the ones you’re used to especially for reading is really very important and some of us feel incomplete without them.

I’m always grateful when I find something and I often look up at the sky and say

Thank you.

And thank you to all those human beings that came before us and left us wisdom in these sayings. And this was long before they were schools and universities and other learning organizations.

I sometimes think that we are getting less intelligence as time goes on.

The face that was familiar is no more
Lost like butterflies that wind destroys
And I sit alone by this closed door

From this anguish take me,I implore
Hoping that my prayer will not annoy.
The face that was familiar is no more

All the years have vanished from my store
With the empty future ,love destroyed
As I sit alone by this closed door

As days pass by, truth and pain conjoin
Love is never evil but conveys
The face that was familiar is no more

With nature’s rhythm, we touch on the benign
Loss and even sin are cast away
As I decide to open this closed door

So I travel down the path of day
Good will, acceptance come, I pray
The face that was familiar is no more.
Kindness, love and courage can restore.

My old blue fountain pen allows

The ink across the page to flow

Like wet paint from the artist’s brush,

And words come in a rush.

Enchanted by the hand that writes,

Bewitched by art, beauty alights.

The script is like a music score

Through which we pass as through a door.

Imagination’s home.

As,mysteriously.to you, to me,

The spirits of our hearts are tamed,

By rhythms of pen,of brush,of mind.

They enter vision quite unplanned,

Like moths to flutter softly round

Fire joined heart and hand.

The pen slows down,the hand goes still

And just as dreams at daybreak will,

They shrink,they disappear,they’re gone.

I almost caught that one!

I  miss you though I’ve never met you yet.

I miss you though we’ve had no tete a tete

I dream of you at night when I’m in bed

I wonder what it is we haven’t said.

imagine I could love you should we meet

I invented you and think you look quite neat.

You must have feelings for what is the good.

Aristotle Plato said we should.

Ethics and the principles of love

Guide us like the stars do from above.

Those who cannot read stars fall to sin.

Sometimes Satan and his forces win.

If I got to see you I would know

The eternal Life is now for those who’re low.

From above I saw the TV set

Our life is just a moment on the net