![\"photo:](\"http:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/wordsintobytes\/photos\/LichenPot2.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
My friend +nomad dimitri noted that I have a “consistency of vision”. Looking over at my coffee table, I see he might have me pegged; together sit two objects, that I acquired more than a quarter of a century apart, from different continents, one natural, one manufactured\u2014and they match. Perfectly.<\/p>\n
Over the winter holiday in 1989, I travelled to Kyoto with another teacher. We hit all the typical tourist attractions we could in three days. As we waited for the train home, I did some last minute shopping in the station arcade and found a tea set that I had to have. I thought it looked like a stone covered in lichen. I couldn’t believe at first that it was actually pottery. My companion was unimpressed with my choice and complained that the teapot didn’t have a proper lid. To me it was a work of art. To her, it was not fit for purpose.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A year ago today, I was walking alone along an empty gravel road outside Porvenir, on the island of Tierra del Fuego, Chile. As is my habit, I looked around for a stone as a keepsake. The first few I picked up turned out to be just gravel imported in when they laid down the road. Not of the place. So I wandered a bit afield, near a little stream, trying a few until one felt right in my hand\u2014a touchstone, a worry bead.<\/p>\n
![\"photo:](\"http:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/wordsintobytes\/photos\/LichenPot3.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
When I arrived home and unpacked, I set it on the table. When I turned to pick it up again, I noticed that it matched perfectly the color and textures of the Kyoto tea set. Like mates separated at birth who had finally found their way to each other.<\/p>\n
![\"photo:](\"http:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/wordsintobytes\/photos\/LichenPot1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\n\n
Mar 19, 2016
nomad dimitri<\/p>\n\n\n\n
+1 I would argue that this consistency, this \u03cd\u03c6\u03bf\u03c2, extends past objects, to aspects at our core. On a beach at Koh Phangan a few years back, I run into emotions from another beach, in Greece, when I was 8 years old. Or, if you will, I run into the little boy I still was.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Mar 19, 2016
M Sinclair Stevens<\/p>\n\n\n\n+1 +nomad dimitri Oh, I like that idea. I have a strong sense of place and am sensitive to how environment can affect our emotions and perceptions. You’ve just reminded me of something, on recurring themes, I wrote elsewhere, in which I think I expressed it better.
“The objects of the present remind me of objects in the past. As such, they take on a depth unseen by other people. Every object has two natures. An object is simultaneously itself and a symbol of something else, an association made by the person perceiving the object.”
“If I expand the concept to include events as well as objects in this discussion, then it explains why I often experience the world on multiple levels. I experience the past and present simultaneously. The past intrudes verbally as an echo or visually as ghost image. These shadows of the past provide dimension, give a greater depth to experience than when I perceive it on the singular plane of the present.”
“Does my layered worldview create multiplicity and fragmentation? No. What it does is provide a connection with the past so that I am more whole. The scope of my experience is not just the present moment but a larger moment, where the past, present, and future are interwoven.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nMar 19, 2016
nomad dimitri<\/p>\n\n\n\n+1 +M Sinclair Stevens we are so fluid, made from fluid, feel like fluid, ephemeral, changing and yet…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An object is simultaneously itself and a symbol of something else, an association made by the person perceiving the object. <\/p>\n