“The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.”
― Robertson Davies, Tempest-Tost
Almost every morning I sit/stand on my yoga mat in my home office to practice easy yoga stretches and twists. Towards the end of the routine, there are a few moments of meditation (“sit in simple cross-legged pose”), and soon the view out the window through the slats of wooden blinds reverses to look like those children’s blocks that stack to make a picture. My picture is getting greener every day, with veins of light-red dogwood blosoms beginning in the forefront of the many shades of green and the grey which, for the last few cloudy days, makes up the background. Sometimes a bird flies through the path of my eyes, and everything flips back to trees and sky through the open blinds.
It’s a nice trick, that altered perception, and at this point in my life I much prefer Rodney Yee to Aldous Huxley as a companion and guide. Sometimes the switch happens on its own. Although despite my good intentions I can’t seem to avoid strong first impressions of the people I meet, sometimes a few words, a gesture, or an act can cause my feelings to reverse, just like the view through the window. That annoying woman becomes insightful. How could I have found that man attractive? This situation offers an opportunity rather than a threat.
Being open to these kind of changes is one of the benefits of aging, I think. I feel more able to let go of my own opinions, up to a point, and to let them re-form. It’s another kind of flexibility. It’s a kind of power.
One has not only an ability to perceive the world but an ability to alter one’s perception of it; more simply, one can change things by the manner in which one looks at them. — Tom Robbins