For the last few months, I have been working with a behavioral vision therapist to cure my (minor) double vision. I thought this would entail eye muscle exercises, but I was wrong. Week after week we are working on changing the way my brain focuses on my peripheral vision. It is as if my brain has learned to look forward, interpreting items in the peripheral as negligible or perhaps dangerous.
Our brains evolved to keep us safe in a dangerous world, especially the things at the edge of our vision. And yet business coaches tell us to “Keep your eyes on the prize” and “don’t be distracted from your goal” as if anything in our peripheral vision is useless and to be ignored.
And yet, synchronicity and serendipity do not lie on the straight road before us, they dance around the edges of our vision, waiting to embrace us with delight when we notice them. Much like shooting stars we cannot see them unless we open our minds, and our eyes, to the edges of our lives.
Without our peripheral view we neglect to see how our work helps and supports others; how our life mission is part of a larger universal web. We find ourselves committed to the one way we believe our dream must look, and the only way it can come to pass. We ignore all the unseen hands ready to lift and open doors in mystical ways, because we are overly devoted to the one-true-and-right path.
As I exercise my brain to see broader and wider, I feel the world of opportunities opening around me. Road-side attractions have become more inviting. I feel alive with potential, and joyfully awaken to greet each day, as if the corners of the world are reaching out to invite me on a new adventure, in a lovely circuitous, meandering way.
Dr, Robyn’s comments are on the mark.
As a visual artist I make work that brings into consideration this kind of awareness of what is the broader context surrounding the specific focus we look at. Having made my life in the great American Southwest for over half a century it has become clear to me that westerners who have lived for years in the more rural areas often have a specific peripheral vision. This is the capability, developed over years of western living, to “look horizontally”, from left to right, as well as see the deeper spaces that the clear atmosphere of specifically the vast, open, western spaces of the high plains provides. This is in contrast to the more vertical and densely saturated landscapes of the eastern portion of America… not better or worse, but distinctly different. Metaphorically I feel this horizontal, expansive way of seeing the world has given many living in these western areas, distant from urban centers, a gift of seeing and perceiving much that is often missed by many in today’s world.