Reality

On my desk, at work, I have one of those electronic picture frames that flip through thousands of pictures stored in their memory chip.

I’m looking at a picture I took on one of my many camping trips.

It is the view of a creek bank.

Water coming down, rushing through the rocks in white foamy waves.

A small waterfall is the center of my attention but the surroundings are as idyllic.

Majestic trees bend over the creek forming a surreal tunnel.

The light brakes through the canopy and in the patches of light on the grassy banks wildflower shine like bright colored jewels.

A young doe has stopped by the creek and is looking intently at the same view I am trying to capture.

I never thought of it before but now looking at this picture again, suddenly a question crosses my mind.

Is the doe just scared? As it somehow sensed my presence and her attention is an act of her instinct of preservation? Or is she just looking at the beauty of the view the same way I do?

My ego quips in: “Of course she is sensing the danger. An animal is not capable of perceiving beauty.”

“Is it?” My higher self replies

I grew up on a farm and I am an animal lover.

One thing I know for sure is that animals are not dumb and are not insensitive.

Animal are smart and capable of a large variety of emotions, some of them quite complex.

Any animal lover and pet owner already knows that.

We think we are the smartest thing in the universe because we can watch TV and we can read.

But judging by the way we vote or treat our environment we are the dumbest animals on this planet.

We are superior because we decided that on our own subjective criteria.

If the judges were monkeys and the measure of superiority was the ability to climb trees, who do you think would be the superior being?

There is a crazy scientist that played music for young plants – don’t ask me why, or how he came up with this idea considering plants have no years – but the results of the experiment were quite remarkable:

Plants show an affinity for some type of music like classical or elevator music and dislike to heavy metal or punk music. – go figure!

Do you want to hear an even crazier experiment?

There is a Japanese scientist Masaru Emoto, that played music for water. Yes for water!

He played music for the water while growing ice crystals.

Here is what he got:

What does it mean?

I don’t know, I don’t speak water but one thing is for sure:

We don’t know anything about how other beings or other things perceive reality.

We just assume we are the only ones perceiving beauty, harmony or meaning.

I’m looking at my picture frame. The doe is gone and now there is another frame of my past looking back at me.

I still wonder how the doe was looking, perceiving the reality of that scene.

I only hope that she was seeing it with an unclutter ego. Without having to think about going back to work on Monday. Without worrying about bills, health insurance and putting the kids through college.

I hope that other beings and things perceive reality in its fullest beauty.

Like I did for a moment that day when my soul was in awe and for a second my Ego was overpowered by beauty and for a brief second stopped clouding my perception.

For a moment I felt one with nature, and the feeling was magical and overwhelming.

That’s how I think beauty should be perceived, outside the human Ego.