Almost six months since this blog found its feet, only to trot off into the wings of my life. Other stories crowded in and had their time on-stage: the summer came and went in a slick of sweat, the website associated with this blog - was begun and grew into a creative project so much larger than I imagined that I hardly recognize it (www.theawakenedeye.com), and the whole scenario revolved around the urgent needs of my two very precious and ancient parents. One of whom has just passed away.

I’ve never before had the experience of being so close with a life as it leaves. To hold that small sparrow who was my once-intimidating-fearsome-father as his breathing faded to those last tiny gasps … To wonder at the way his mouth became shaped like that of a newborn babe … To be still and silent and without wish for any other version of reality except the drenching beauty of the moment … To feel my heart so empty, so beyond emotion, that only Love was there. Love was my Father, and I, his daughter, was Love. The nurses were Love, there was ONLY Love.

J Krishnamurti spoke about how, in the state of creation ”there is no action of the ‘me’ at all.” And he asked: “ Is it possible for the mind to be in that state? … because that is the door to love; all other doors are activities of the self.”  (The First and Last Freedom)

I found the doorway to Love in the last place I expected it to be. At my Dad’s deathbed. It is a blessing and a wonder that has taken over the centre-stage, side-stage and wings of my life. But nevertheless, I hope you’ll enjoy the website …

 
“The meaning of life is to see.” 

Rather than artist, sculptor, writer, or philosopher, Frederick Franck liked to call himself an image-maker. He was a true Renaissance Man, writing books and creating images until his death at 94. His first book The Zen of Seeing was my introduction to drawing-as-meditation, as something much much more profound than the end product called an artwork. He went on to write over 30 books, including The Awakened Eye, which the title of this blog pays homage to.

Many years after that first introduction, I was blessed to attend a 4-day Easter Zen of Seeing retreat with Frederick Franck in Cornwall. Perhaps I’ll write about that in another posting. But here I wish to bow deeply in gratitude to a man who knew what it means to be fully human, and who was able to awaken me to authentic seeing and drawing.

It wasn’t just any old seeing that he referred to in his quote above; he knew what it meant to encounter non-dual awareness. For him it was a direct impulse from heart-seeing to hand-scribbling with no loop through the labeling and categorizing part of the brain. It was seeing without the shadows of conditioning, and marvelling at what turned up on the paper.

Dove

City: -5 degrees

Unkillable Human

Find more info about Frederick Franck here.

the awakened eye is the eye that perceives without labeling - we could also call it the innocent eye, or the eye of beginner’s mind.

Many artists and artisans have understood that the practice of drawing and engaging in creative encounters in the visual arts can - by making obvious one’s conditioned reactions - open the mind to another way of seeing, a way that transcends habitual dualistic assumptions.

There have been, and are, many wise teachers who speak of this transcendence of duality as one’s original or true state - a state which we seem compelled to seek and reject simultaneously. Their teachings are sometimes referred to as advaita, which means ‘one without a second’ - or more simply, non-duality. In this context the awakened eye is synonymous with the awakened I; this topic forms the wider agenda of this blog.

This blog - and the website (in-process) - have been conceived as places where ideas and teachings on this topic put forward by artists, educators, scientists, philosophers, sages and saints, can be accessed. There will also be personal notes from she-who-scribbles, and hopefully plenty of useful links.

The title offers a bow of respect and gratitude to Frederick Franck, a true Renaissance Man, and one of my most influential teachers.

As this blog develops (slowly, please be patient) I hope you will find inspiration and encouragement here to support your inquiry, and that you realize that your awakened eye and your vast, open, non-dual understanding are here, this very moment, reading these words…