Elders Week 1 – March – Seeing

First day of term.

We were back. After a three month break.

Gabrielle came for a short while, enough time to bring with her and present the fired pottery to Roy. Two fine clay pots: They will do for my olives, said Roy. And the other for the stones, added another.

We opened our eyes, to explore our sense of sight. Walking around the wood, we noticed cockerels had arrived, and stretched our eyes, over the Blyth valley to a place called Wenhaston, where some of us lived. Back at base, we shared what we saw:

Water level had arisen since last week
Moss – vibrant green
Catkins on the hornbeam
Shoe leather of an old shoe
having recently had a cataract operation, I can no longer see two blue vans on the Bungay straight
The WW1 coat with a nest inside its sleeve
An odd orange field over the valley – is it sprayed?
While one looked up to see the naked top branches of the trees, another looked down to Dogs Mercury, and another to Rosamunds feet!
A colourful compost heap

We looked into each others eyes. They may have started as dishwater, but they became something quite different as we kept looking. Which eye was I looking at? Pippa reminded us that actors were trained to look at the middle bridge between the eyes, but if a more emotional scene was need a look moving from eye to eye was called for – Ay Ay! For some the eyes were windows to the soul, for one they were the key to getting their cholesterol tested (as advised by their optician). We say, in our minds eye.

Jo invited us to explore some eye yoga, in which we found eye muscles we had no idea were there. We massaged our eye brows, and tapped around our eyes. Naomi would be pleased with our tapping, said Jo

Using our eyes, aided by binoculars,we looked at the detail of moss and lichen, and saw their beauty, their magnificent trumpets.

Then, after scones and tea, we ventured to India, to the feast of Holi, a festival of spring, here in the wood a display of throwing colour was manifested by Kally, Jo, Nicky and Rachel. A high to leave the woods on.

‘You have lifted my spirits!’ said one as they left.

We looked at two examples of how we perceive colour differently. The Dress – Viewers of the image disagreed on whether the dress was coloured black and blue, or white and gold. The phenomenon revealed differences in human colour perception. The Duck Rabbit illustrated the same,