Magic, then, in its perhaps most primordial sense, is the experience of existing in a world made up of multiple intelligences, the intuition that every form one perceives--from the swallow swooping overhead to the fly on a blade of grass, and indeed the blade of grass itself--is an experiencing form, an entity with its own predilections and sensations, albeit sensations that are very different from our own. -David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous
I am reading this book currently and I am spellbound by it. It makes me think, makes me feel. My brain is being stretched into new realms of thought. It's opening me up to new ways of understanding and perceiving. And sometimes it's simply putting to words what I've already been experiencing and feeling. As I sat outside reading today, I started to think about perception. I kind of touched on this in my blog post These Moments, written over a year ago. Basically the idea that what I perceive only exists by the very act of me perceiving it. The perceiver and the perceived cannot exist apart from each other. Abram says it more eloquently, "...perception...is inherently participatory...always involving, at its most intimate level, the experience of active interplay...between the perceiving body and that which it perceives." There is a dance going on here. We are engaged by the things we are perceiving. Those things, whether we term them as animate or inanimate, are actively engaging us in the act of perception. For me, this gives dynamic life to everything!
So I sit here, on the swing in my front yard, perceiving or being engaged into the act of perception, by the tree in front of me, the squirrel cautiously observing me, the grass under my feet, the cool rain drops falling on my skin. And I can't help but wonder...is the rain perceiving me? I can more clearly see that the squirrel or the birds or the crickets and especially the mosquitoes (!!!) obviously perceive me. My presence is engaging them into the act of perception, as they are engaging me. But how about the other forms that make up the totality of nature? Nature is alive with perception. If the tree can experience the gift of the sun or a thirst quenching rain, surely it experiences my body as I lean up against it. If I can experience the shift in energy in the woods when the sun sets, then surely the woods experiences my energy, the energy I bring into that place with me.
My imagination begins to roam wild with the possibilities. As I perceive the sensations of the earth as I walk with barefoot feet, is the earth perceiving my footsteps upon her? As I perceive the rain falling on my skin, is the rain perceiving this warm body it lands upon? As I perceive the ocean surrounding and engulfing me, does the ocean perceive this dense body floating through it? As I perceive the air gently swirling across my skin and through my hair, does the air perceive this resistance to its flow, this object it must move around? Does any of this exist without me? Do I exist without it? It's exciting to me and adds a whole new dimension to my time spent in nature. As I hike through the woods, as I watch the honeybees, as I hang out in my yard, as I sit quietly in nature, I am the perceiver and the perceived. In the moments I experience nature, nature is also experiencing me. Maybe not in the same way I experience, but in its own unique way. It surely is magical!
