Orchardcrest (Springfield, MO)

Tracking Rational Consciousness

Where in creation does this miraculous requisite for intelligent life commence? Humans can track it back to "dreaming" so far as we are concerned. Beyond that is anyone's guess. Old rumors do make sense that it is sourced at-large, maybe in those abstract "thoughts of God" mentioned by medieval philosophers. Some kind of "pantheism" seems plausible too, from even older times; although that word spooks western theologians. (Sounds too "pagan.")

All these words can be workably synthesized—for now—by simply saying that rational consciousness springs surprisingly from some superior Source. Obviously. The ultimate mystery can be left at that as human sensibility is traced back to a rather shadowy start.

A saying from German philosophy is that "the world is my dream." At least that narrows the problem down to a grist of human experience. In any event the mystery of consciousness starts making sense with personal perception.

Left-handed artist in a mirror

 

A Working Hypothesis…

was prompted by a psychic's involvement in a missing-person case which my colleague John Huey is investigating. It concerns triangulations apparently occurring in her impressions to locate an area to be searched for possible clues. She said it would be distant from the subject's apartment in some multiple of "three." We did locate a likely area .3 mile therefrom.

The psychic has preliminarily confirmed by own investigation of the subconscious to the effect that perceptions are formulated in virtually simultaneous phases: 1) the dreamy appearance of archetypal symbols—somehow signifying "three," for example—as basic building blocks. 2) These ingredients are assembled into mental pictures of "actual" scenes. 3) The tricky task is translating resulting perceptions into language, which tends toward distortion; with epistemological implications to follow:

 

Pictures Congealed From A Continuum

I experienced a eureka insight 30 years ago during a sundown walk among trees in California. It suddenly seemed that surrounding scenes were . . . "pictures, of course." They appeared within my mind, but conceivably were not out there independently—in-themselves—prior to the processing of whatever raw data (from outside) by my whole nervous system.

Beehive (Sonoma County)

The pictures were seemingly finished products of the internal process. My own perceptions were at least somehow completing their appearance (perhaps "holographically"); and even solidifying their surfaces. All of this was occurring within a permeating medium, which suddenly became shimmeringly visible enough to indicate electromagnetic composition; and an ethereal presence as well, considering the enhanced color scheme showering everything in sight.

This medium fits uncannily Northrop's concept about an Aesthetic Continuum of nature which is appreciated in the Orient. (THE MEETING OF EAST AND WEST ((around mid-century).) An initial impression—hypothesis—is that the continuum actually permeates both the internal and the external in such a way that pictures are seen through and conceivably reflected onto this medium. Things appearing in the pictures are differentiated by relations of duration and distance among them—time and space, in short—all of which are thus closer than they deceptively appear (with roughened analogy to image distortion by side-mirrors on some autos).

Now shift the context back to "Selected Scenes of the Ozarks" (excerpted from my "Catalogue"). This is the "Land of the Bows." Evidently early French explorers called it "aux arcs," perhaps after fleeting glimpses of Indians among trees with bows upon their backs. Included scenes range from hometown Springfield, Missouri ("Queen City of the Ozarks"), where the great plains break up into foothills, to the highest elevations in northern Arkansas.

Mountain View, Ark.
(Painted to simulate the oriental Aesthetic Continuum)

(Calico Rock on horizon)