The Origin and Question of the Eyes
(poem, paintings and commentary)

         I recently wrote a poem on the "Origin of Eyes" which I present below.  My poems have tended to become more literal and based on realties of what I see and experience rather than on imagination and high flown generalities. I no longer see myself as part of the romantic or gnostic school of poetry that developed in the 19th century or even of the "prophetic" gnosticism that developed out of the Beat movement. My writing of poetry is not about longing for an imaginary beyond, an unattainable love or some other Zen void or Sufi fiction. I use poetry as a means of meditation of real things and beings instead. I do not train my poetic imagination to look away from the earth, but rather, towards the earth.  So this poem on the "Origin of Eyes" is another effort to express a certain sort of wonder about how part of the human body came to be.  I had written a poem about "Sun and Sunlight" and then "Origin of Milk" shortly after my baby was born that is a sort of companion piece to this poem about eyes. Both poems are to some degree a meditation on an aspect of evolution.  The production of milk for babies by mammals is certainly an amazing thing. The eye too, is incredible. How did it come into being? It is clear that eyes were not created by a fictional deity. Eyes originated through evolution, beginning with light sensitive cells in worms or simple animals and developing by natural selection into complex eyes with retinas and lenses. What an amazing thing to develop the ability to see light and color! So here is the poem about seeing and eyes, I include some details of paintings of mine which feature the eyes of a squirrel a a finch.

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          The poem is composed of pictures and aphoristic fragments. These are meant to be read almost as separate Haiku, yet at the same time to echo each other. Perhaps the main point of the poem is this line  to "enter into another’s being---and see the world from their seeing."  I was trying to say that in the eyes of animals one can find a relation with other beings of the earth-- a "trust of hidden bonds" was changed to "a braid of hidden bonds" to echo the earlier line "To hold life's braided vine, made out of rainbows", which is a visual metaphor for  "life's sweet song". Animals are different than humans, but they also share much in common. I want to appreciate their differences as well as their solidarity with me. Of course, the fact that I have been a vegetarian for many years helps in this process. I find that those who still eat animals often have difficulty forming an identity with animal's point of view. Eating animals subtly influences how they think without their being aware of it. They might still insist, for instance, on calling animals "creatures", "critters" or 'brutes" or other such demeaning terms. I never use the word "creature" to describe any being. It implies a subservient relationship to a "Creator" who is inevitably pictured as a human male. Anthropocentric or even impersonal deities don't interest me.

        I thought about eyes often during the years I spent at Heroes Wetland. I thought of both my own eyes and the eyes of other beings. I thought about the meaning of seeing, light and space. The use of the eyes by humans has had many implications for animals and the earth. When I looked at animals and birds in their natural homes I could see that they feared my gaze and did much to avert their own eyes form seeing into mine. They fear being observed or watched by humans. Indeed, human observation over the centuries has hardly been a harmless affair. The inquiry into nature, from the point of view of animals and birds, has been more of a bloody Inquisition than a harmless exercise in curiosity.   Though my purpose in observing nature has been not just benign but seeking to defend nature's rights and advocate for nature's restoration, this is by no means the case of many others of my species. Daily the lives of many species are threatened and in decline, due to corporate rape, hunting, exploitation, over fishing, trapping, displacement and habitat destruction.
     Science is not entirely guiltless in supplying means and knowledge to harm or exploit non-human animals. Science, to some degree, is a hegemony of human eyes, a human centered empire of the 'observer'. Descartes' project of having science push back the darkness of human ignorance had as its corollary that nature and animals were unjustly threatened and harmed. It has been said that modern philosophy and science are "ocularcentric".  For instance, Chomsky's philosophy is ocularcentric because it is partly based on the evolution of the eyes as a metaphor for the growth of language.  Michel Foucault speaks of the human "gaze" as a metaphor for all seeing power. " Christ's saying "if thine ye be single" is about such a totalistic vision that tramples all else beneath it. The Church of the 12th century which created the Inquisition is such a totalistic institution.  I have come to question the assumption that human vision has a right to hegemony and empire. The scientific empire of the human observer is brought into question by my awareness of the point of view of non-human beings. Animal's eyes in some way hold the key to limiting corporate and scientific hegemony. If we can see into nature with both science and sympathy, there might yet be hope for us and or animals sisters and borthers.
       Animals and birds of all kinds sense human intentions and know to fear us. While I watched animals and birds at Heroes, I could see their fear of my eyes and felt badly about that. I felt ashamed of my species and what we had done to animals and birds to make them so afraid. My awareness of this increased with time. I felt more and more the need to protest the dictatorship of the human eye.
     There is no doubt that the use of human eyes as a means of measured inquiry into nature has often resulted in horrible atrocities, extinctions and harms, from global warming to destruction of rain forests and plant and animal populations. But once this is understood it would be a mistake to blame the eye itself. I used to like William Blake's saying that  " I see through the eye and not with it" since it implied he had some 'higher vision' that mere a view to economic plunder. But now I think that Blake was mistaken in his own way too. The narrow vision of an imaginary world is not a good way to see either.  There is no "spiritual" world that is somehow higher than the natural world. There is no "spiritual vision" or "eye of wisdom" , "third eye" or other such magical inventions of bygone eras. Such fictions are images meant to magnify a certain way of perceiving advocated by some institution or religion. Since there is no such thing as spiritual vision, there is only the eye itself and the mind that is part of the eye, the mind and the body not being separate in any real way.  In contrast to Blake I am not ashamed of seeing "with"  the eye. My mind is not superior to nor inferior to the eye itself. The eye itself is an amazing thing and vision is neither owned by gnostics like Blake or those who see with mercenary eyes. True, Blake's concern with the poor and the suffering is admirable and I love him for that. But the eye is innocent in itself, indeed, it is a wonder.
      Yes I have often felt ashamed of my human eyes in the presence of non-human animals. But it is not my eyes exactly that I am ashamed of. I am ashamed of how and for what purpose human eyes have been used. We need to change how we use our senses, especially the eyes. I do not mean by this that we need to learn to see or sense like another kind of animal. It would neither do me or nature good if suddenly I could smell as well as a wolf, a Bloodhound or or Vulture, or if my eyesight were as keen as a Peregrine Falcon. The senses of every being are suitable for how that being lives. An otter depends on musk and scent for many of its relations to others of its kind. Humans rely less on scent, perhaps. But that scarcely matters. Seeing is a very important sense, to both otters and humans, whatever may be the value of the other senses.
     The main thing is humans need to relearn how to see animals and birds, nature and the world before it is too late. But what I mean by 'seeing' is not exactly what someone with predatory or mercenary purposes has in mind with they talk of seeing. What is clear is that the use of human eyes as a kind of inquisitorial tool to dissect and dominate nature has not been ultimately good for either man or nature. The process of inquiry was too separated from a decent ethics, or a way of seeing the world with sympathetic understanding. It is not enough to know. One must also care.

 

So, as I walked around Heroes wetland seeing this or that bird or animal, I often felt shame for my human eyes. I did not want to be a predator, like others of my species. I was not there to harm anyone, on the contrary, I was concerned to understand them and what they had to say about their lives and their rights. So at various times I found myself trying to look with different eyes. Trying to change the quality of my eyes form the inside, as it were. Looking with peaceful eyes that sought to understand but not appropriate. Refusing to look out of my eyes with any selfish need to own, possess, colonize or appropriate, I found myself being changed by what I looked at. When I refused the eyes of a hunter or a user, or even the eye of the behaviorist or the detached scientist,  I started seeing the most amazing things happen before me.

       Learning to see for me has been partly an exercise in being willing to be taught how to see. Watching animals or birds in their world is perhaps one of the best ways to learn compassion for different beings. I do not mean watching with the intent to kill, or watching with the intent to win a scientific award. I mean watching with the intent to learn from animals who and what they are.  I began trying to train myself to see through animals eyes as much as I could.  The way to do this is to watch the animals and try to imagine how the world looks form their point of view.

        I wanted to reverse the tendency of humans to create an all seeing, god-like point of view.  I wanted to try to see the lives of animals through their own eyes. Of course, this is not possible in any complete sense. But with sympathy, intelligence and intuitive identification one can approximate the lives of other species. Someone has asked me why not study the other senses of animals as well. Of course, studying the scent mounds of beavers, or the spraying of scent by wolves is a very interesting. But  I am an artist, and eyes are very important to me. There is no point in setting up the senses in competition with one another.  Seeing is enhanced by smelling, touch, taste and hearing.  One way to try to overcome human centeredness is to try to look though he eyes of other beings and the purpose of that is to try to feel what they might feel. The eyes tell the story of what they are interested in and what they want to know, fear or love. To try to see through their eyes is a very valuable thing to do.
    
      For instance, I watched birds fly through he forests at Heroes. Certain birds, like nuthatches, warblers or grackles, could negotiate through very dense thickets and hardly touch a feather to a branch as they flew through. The capacity of brain eye, body coordination among birds is extraordinary. Their abilities to negotiate through space are far greater than humans. I began to see that humans are not exceptional, not better than other species in any generic way.
    
     One year I saw a female Snapping Turtle going inland from the pond to lay her eggs, and I got a good look at her eyes.  She was not really afraid of me exactly, but cautious.  If I moved right, she moved right. If I moved left, she moved left. She was protecting herself. But I found it very difficult to see into her eyes, as I could see into various bird's eyes, or geese and deer. Snapping Turtles spend allot of time underwater and their eyes are different than land mammals. But I didn't think this through, and wondered instead if the snapping turtle is rather simple minded.
     This judgment came into question the following year. One day when I was at the pond I noticed a flipper like leg coming out of the water occasionally and then another. I walked to the shore of the pond and looked closer and two snappers were having a sort of mating dance or ritual a few inches under water, Intermittently one or the other would put its leg or tail up out of the water.  They were circling and touching each other. The exact nature of this activity was beyond me, of course. But what I learned is that my original perception that Snappers might be simple minded was wrong. There is much more to these beings than I could see judging just by its eyes, certainly. But clearly its eyes made it able to see its own kind very well and to move though the water in a kind of loving dance. Looking into its eyes was different than seeing into a mammals and birds eyes. I judged the turtle on the basis of what I was used to with mammals. But once I recognized my mistake, I had learned something about the world of turtles.

        One of the birds that I spent allot of time studying at Heroes is Green Heron. These small, beautiful herons are able to stay still for many minutes and to move so slowly that their motion is undetectable to the naked eye. One year one of these birds got used to me coming to Heroes everyday and for some days used me as a foil to catch tadpoles or pollywogs. As I walked around the pond the bird noticed I scared frogs and pollywogs into moving and it positioned itself quite close to me so that as I walked by it would catch the moving pollywogs. This enabled me to study the bird form a very close vantage point. Looking into the birds eyes made me able to see how patient this birds can be, and how much control it has over its body's movements. I watched the birds take a few minutes to move two steps.

      The Green Heron lost its fear of me because it saw me so often at Heroes. The lovely Wood Ducks were a different story. They nest high in various trees around Heroes . They are nervous and skittery. I could see their fear of me every day, and even over the course of a few years their fear did not seem to decrease very much, even when they saw me everyday.  I suspect that this fear is due to an ingrained fear of people due to hunting over many generations. The female Wood Ducks were especially wary when their babies had drifted down from the trees and joined her in the pond, where they would follow her in an amazingly tight and responsive little group, turning at her tail in every direction she turned.  The female Wood Ducks eyes has a bright white circle around it. The males eye is the most brilliant red imaginable.

Of all birds I have ever seen I think perhaps the Wood Duck is one of the most beautiful in its diverse visual designs and rainbow coloring

      So, I have been trying for some years to change the way I see by looking at how animals see and live. I have found that if I try hard enough, most animals will grant me some trust, if not entire trust, if they learn my eyes mean no harm. But then, one does not want some animals to learn to trust humans too much. Deer and ducks are two species that are mercilessly hunted by pleasure seeking sadists. So I often held myself back from getting too close to these animals, so that they might retain their fear and perhaps survive longer.

     The eye is an important window to the world. Only some human eyes are predatory. Hunters, like corporate entities, see nature as a place for humans to take unfair advantage of other beings. One must carefully distinguish between human killers and animals as predators. Animals kill because they must to survive, like the hawks above, which I saw int eh Oregon Great Basin.. Humans were not evolved as meat eaters, as is proven by our teeth and our digestive system which is like the vegetarian gorilla and chimp. Killing for humans is a cultural creation, like religion or corporations. The killing off of many species and populations is the result of a culture of piracy and plunder combined with human centeredness that derives form religious fictions. This can all be changed. Corporations must be brought into question and their powers dismantled and their charters withdrawn. Not all humans are lacking in remorse and care for other kinds of beings as corporations and other institutions are. More and more people are waking up to the destructive effects of corporatism and religion. As more and more humans look with well meaning there is greater and greater hope for the future of the earth.
      I wrote in "Nature" section of the Philosophical Drawings that
 

 "The structure of the eye does not signal a message of harm in itself. Indeed the eye, any eye, from that of a cow to a fish, is a wonderful image of cells formed into a global shape that combines sky and sun with water and light in an inverse image of the earthly sky. I can't think of a more marvelous example of the wonder of existence the evolution of consciousness on earth than the globe of the eye and its rainbow relationship to the globe of the earth."

  Yes, I wrote this about a year ago and still agree with it. The eye is the shape of the earth and the horizon. It brings the earth closer to us. Without the earth there are no humans or animals or eyes. We are products of evolution. We owe the earth everything. Other beings are our relations. Their eyes like our eyes were created by ages of interaction with the earth and the sun. In a certain way the earth is us the earth see itself through us and other beings. We are the seeing of the earth. We need to care for all that we see. This is our world and belongs as much to Whales and Wtters as Humans and Eagles.
        I believe that real seeing is the root of caring. Chomsky suggests in his writings that there may be an origin of the sense of justice in the genetic makeup of organisms on earth. Certainly children show an instinctive grasp of fairness, as do many other animals and birds. It would seem that somehow seeing is the root and origin of caring. I suspect that the deeper one sees into the process of the natural world the more we will become aware of the earth having a sort of conscience. This is not to say that nature is "moral' exactly, but rather that there nature has self regulating abilities that Henry Thoreau referred to when he said that "in wildness is the preservation of the world".
       Close observation of nature is does not separate one from the need to stand steadfast for the preservation of other species, even to the point of acts of civil disobedience. Seeing is not merely an act of indifferent scientific recording. Seeing creates empathy and compassion. The more one knows about nature in an intimate way, the more one comes to care for other beings, forests, estuaries or the earth itself. Seeing ultimately is a  political act because one begins to recognize how institutions and corporate entities rape the earth without remorse or conscience. Opposing this rape becomes the duty of anyone who has learned how to use their eyes. Nature does not exist as a "resource' for humans. Rather, nature is independent and autonomous and must be accorded its own rights to exist and thrive unmolested. No one can own nature or  other animals, just as no one has the right to own humans.  All patents taken out on genes and organisms by corporations should be abolished. The animal trade in all its forms should be stopped. No one really owns land either, without respecting the beings that live there. One has the right to merely care for land in a sustainable and reciprocal way.
     Seeing is the beginning of understanding a world that exists for millions of beings each one having a right to be here. Looking out from animals eyes is the meaning of life on earth. Humans are animals, and realizing we are all related is what will save the earth. This is what I
see when I look into animals eyes.