Portraits of animals part 03

Looking straight ahead

Conversation

Frog, you were attracted by the lights of the car, which went on you. And now you are dead flat.

Sneaking around?

Happy to be with you

From the most familiar to the less familiar.
Since we were born our relationship with anything is dictated by familiarity. Familiar the face of our mother, father, members of the family; we will remain attached to these images, portraits in particular. We will frame them and keep them on the piano, the furniture or inside our wallet.
Portraits of dogs, cats, hamsters, any pet which has become part of the family, part of the familiar. We will become soldiers to defend them, and cry when they are gone. But we keep their portrait.
The rest, which is not familiar, is foreign, strange, scary at times. See this little boy, he run to his mother and want to hide in her dress, because he has seen a stranger, unfamiliar being, different from what he knows.
And he knows so little.
The same with this dog; familiar with his master and relatives, and barking to the new visitor, human, animal, whatever.

We derive a feeling of security with the familiar. It feels at home. The unfamiliar, we don't know; it requires attention, observation, energy.
But as we look, a transformation take place.
The unfamiliar slowly become familiar, as we learn about it. By Looking, Listening, our brain Learn, there is a curiosity that we share with all species. This curiosity makes us look, listen.

At the other end of the line is the most unfamiliar, the most different from what we are used to know. The world that is ignored by the eye. And because we neglect to look at it, it remains very unfamiliar, and thus sustains the feelings associated with fear.
If it hasn't one head, two legs and two arms, and remains in a scale similar to us, it is not part of our family, of our community, of our species.
So why should we pay attention?
Well, wrong question.
Or better said, immature question.
As we mature, we learn to look, listen, come closer to this unfamiliar. It maybe risky, if we go to fast. And as we come closer, we go through the wonderful transformation of maturation. This learning, observing silently, understanding, are freeing our mind from its ignorance, its fears, its obstinate attachment to the familiar.

When you mature, you feel that you are not going to spend the rest of your life with always the same familiar objects, which don't disturb you anymore and give a permanent sense of comfort.
When you start to mature, you feel that you want to learn from what is NOT familiar. Which has not one head and two to for legs. Which is of a completely different nature, different shape, different color, different movement.
Can this be familiar?
Can my sense of family expand so much that it will include all beings on this planet? Tremendous challenge, one may think!
Well, ultimately, can the whole universe become somewhat familiar, or at least not so unfamiliar ( since our life won't be lasting forever, we guess...) ?

Painters will tell you that looking from every angle, under different light sources, at an apple, is necessary to be able to paint it correctly. More one look, more the image become alive in the brain, full, complete, rich. And as this apple start to be so familiar, it is so easy to paint it. But to paint is not the main point. The main point is that this apple which was a bit unfamiliar in its details, is now so familiar that the distance between the apple and you is not anymore, therefore the apple is you and you are the apple.

No more division.
Simple.

Next time you'll see an apple, it will be part of your family too. One might smile, yet isn't it wonderful that, just by using our senses and letting our curiosity (together with vigilance), "surf" the unfamiliar, we can merge with the whole universe, and leave fear as a thing from the past.
And now that the present is so rich with all that is unfamiliar being looked at, listened to, and learned from, what is the use to cling to a dusty past with all the same familiar routines, and old venerable portraits?

Now, go off the track, just a little bit.
Transpose, invert, change, look from a different perspective, listen to what you never noticed before. Look not with the eye which is expecting the familiar, but with the eye of curiosity for the unfamiliar. Can you look at things which have no names, hard to describe. Not categorized objects, familiar and evaluated, but to the light, the colors, the curves and shapes, the textures, the movements, and the relationships with all neighboring things. Observing the relationship is of great importance, to discover why things and creatures are what they are, and to learn from our false conclusions, prejudices, distortions.

Me, my family, my friends, my pets and familiar objects stored in my room, my house and my car, my land and my country, apes and mammals, animals and plants, animal/vegetal/mineral, our planet Earth or Gaia ( as you wish to call it), the other planets, the sun, the galaxy and many other galaxies, and... the UNIVERSE.
And perhaps beyond the Universe...
All these categories, a kind legacy from Aristotle and followers, show how words conditions the way we look.
Looking without naming is a great Art.
Looking with our eyes and not just with our knowledge.
Looking deep with our heart to be able to learn what makes this life worth.
Looking and Listening to be part of the great family of Living things.
Living together, related, in a dynamic ever changing flow, not stuck in this old portrait in the dark frame, which - by the way - has its own charm and charisma.

Portraits... of animals.

L'Homme d'Art