Producing expanded consciousness through heightened awareness and feeling . . .

Humphry Osmond

I am reminded that my mind is not the only mind.

I feel an increased confidence in my ability to imagine the experiences of other people and accept these as valid. I feel I exist on a continuum with other people: what is in them is in me and vice versa.

My capacity for language is reenergized. My internal language (the language in which I think) gets richer, more specific and adroit. I find myself liking the world more, taking more loving notice of it (this is related to that reenergization of language).

I feel luckier to be here and more aware that someday I won’t be.

George Saunders, Swim In Pond In Rain

“You must pay attention to what the ancient mosaicists did with color. It may not make sense to you, but stand back and squint.”

I follow her instructions. It’s true; what appears illogical or abrupt close up, blends from afar. A chartreuse tessera that jars my eye when it’s close becomes a glint of light on the dark green stem.

It’s as though sunlight has entered the room.

Placement of tesserae is not perfect, but they are perfect in their overall effect. From this distance, they provide geographic relief to an otherwise flat motif of one-dimensional figures.

My eye is growing more acute in recognizing patterns that serve the whole. I am learning to watch and study.

I am also learning to trust the motion that comes through color and interstices—not in the controlled, static placement of each cube but in the joy of odd arrangements and unpredictable moves of choice.

I believe in the beauty of all things common.

Lilies. Stone. Cut glass.

I believe in the beauty of all things broken.

Terry Tempest Williams,
Finding Beauty In A Broken World

My baby, my baby, my baby is the chant in my head as I pull myself up into this towing inferno. Then nothing.

It is an indescribable nothingness that can perhaps be best described as nothing. Just as the concept of zero was revolutionary in the history of mathematics, so must the concept of nothing be understood by future humans sometime in the future.

I am experiencing nothing, which on the surface might seem oxymoronic: the notion of experiencing the negation of experience. But I am indeed, and I shall attempt to communicate it.

Imagine a vast room with nothing in it. Go on. Now subtract the room. Now take away yourself imagining it. Now take away yourself imagining you’ve taken away yourself imagining it. Now repeat that process again and again and again. Now take away the concept of time that allows for the notion of “again and again and again.”

This is nothing.

Charlie Kaufman, Antkind

I am growing more comfortable with waiting, watching, being patient and impatient until, in the middle of the night, when most people are asleep, the hours when owls fly, I make my move.

What I once believed to be madness I have come to see as night vision—what every animal knows as it remains vigilant in darkness, moving freely in the shadows.

I will find my way into new country that beckons me to take unexpected risks, which turn out not to be risks at all, but the next step.

Terry Tempest Williams, Erosion

My thoughts are popping like lightning.

It is a sign that I am finally excited about something.

Charlie Kaufman, Antkind