Ielse Slager

Movement between

soul and surroundings

Ielse Slager

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Epitome

Dear those who haven’t decided to start reading yet,

This little book is filled with words that are trying to raise awareness of our understanding of our self. Answers are being looked for and found again. Searching for the things already found before is a search again and again and it is in the most literally sense re-search. This book is for me a re- exploring of places, experiences and thoughts bringing them together in a walk north.

The reasons for me for starting this project are founded in the necessity to have to write and to look for change. The need for writing comes from a need to be able to communicate my thoughts well for you and also for me. I look forchange because I am critical about the present and I wish to share hope. During writing I am influenced by my surroundings and writing has influenced my surroundings as well. For example; writing gives me ideas for drawings and sculptures. Making, conversations and travel give me ideas for writing.

If you read the titles of the upcoming chapters you try to connect them to find a topic. There is a common ground or meeting place of these topics, which I wish to find together with you. The main question for me is: What is our position in our surroundings and how does the interaction work between the self and the path we are on?

Bon Voyage. I wish you a good journey.

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Act I Prelude to a journey

Scene I. To the north

Enter One and Two meeting each other

Two. Good to see you again, One!

One. It is good to see you, too!

Two. Where have you been? Haven’t seen you in a while. We should catch up again, sometime.

One. We should indeed! I just arrived from a journey. I went back to the North for a while. Hope you are doing well, too.

Two. I am ok. Have you found what you were looking for since the last time we talked?

One. Yes, I found it again! Well I was expecting it, I can always find it again, but it is not guaranteed. I still fear that it will be gone and the North will be just a space.

Two. I wish to see what you find there…

One. You can find it too. I could find it because of the solitude there.

Two. It is not solitude I am looking for just some rest from this place.

One. Solitude there is different than the solitude here. Within solitude there you can find rest.

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Going

The title says going, but in a sense we already have left. As the writing started, you have also started reading and together with the anticipation for what will happen we are on a road. A journey started with the meeting of One and Two. With text at the sideline I, me the writer, would like to take you, dear reader, with me on this journey. We will follow One and Two and discuss their paths and we will most likely drift away from their paths as well. One and Two will be our guides and our subjects for experiments and conversation.

One and Two decided to go north, or more precise they were made to choose to go there by the author. It is not going ‘to’ the North, but more going ‘back’ for One. This theater play is most literal a re-search in the sense that One is going back to search for the things he/she already found before. Going back to explore the something left behind adds a sense of already knowing that there is something to be found and to be shared. For us too we know now we can expect something to be finding as well.

One speaks about going back in search for an experience of a place and something else not defined yet. The following conversation between me and you is similarly undefined and initiated.

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Two. What you find was there, because it was not here?

One. There is different. There is rounder. There the earth feels like an orb. As I traveled, the world changed and it was as if I could feel the curve of the earth and I could feel the presence of things glooming below the edge.

Two. Glooming below the edge?

One. In a positive way, you’ll see! You should join me. In a month I will leave again. That place has enough space and thoughts to share.

Two. I would love to join even though I do not know if I can find what you find or feel the way you do, but I do need to get out of this place, for my own good.

One. I’m excited already to go back! It is always traveling ‘back’ never traveling ‘to’, strange huh.

Two. That place holds the things you seek. It has become a

home and you go ‘back’ home not ‘to’ home.

One. You are right. It is my other home.

Two. Thank you for asking me to travel with you.

One. No thanks needed. I am really happy to share this walk with you.

Ending Scene I. Prelude to a journey.

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Continuation of going

To travel and to talk is to share a place and to share thoughts in conversation. Even when silent together we share. We become aware that the other is seeing the same things you see while trying to find a common walking pace.

This willingness to share, which is the reason for going north for One and Two, will be the beginning of the conversation for them and also the beginning of their re- search. Like them I am going, or at least trying, to share knowledge, thoughts and questions with you during our walk. By addressing you I can imagine what you ask me and what questions you might have for me or for One and Two. The next topics on this journey will be imagination and traveling. I would have liked to hear what you have to say to me or to One and Two as well, but for now I will imagine your input in the conversation.

Although imagination is abstract One and Two and I will try our best to make things clear to you. The text could be longer and could have more depth, but I find it better to leave space for your own contribution.

The path we are let on by One and Two is not straight and we will hopeful reach the place where One is talking about to understand the reasons for the route taken. For now I would like to ask you kindly to follow me and join One and Two for a walk.

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In-between

What presumable happened between the first and second act:

We can imagine:

A train is moving. As we zoom in to the train and zoom in further at one window we see One and Two sitting across of each other cramped against the window with others sitting next to them. We can not hear them talking or laughing from the outside, but we see them as the camara moves with the speed of the train.

We can imagine:

A moment later One and Two get out onto the platform and they look annoyed at the crowdedness at the station as they were relieved before to escape the crowded compartment. One beckones Two to follow, because asking is impossible with the clutter of sounds made by trains and people. The noise is to much for us too and we mute the video at this point.

We can imagine:

After trying not to shove people away and following in the wake of others towards the next train and then towards the next bus. They are close to where their official yourney will start; in the rural part of the world.

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ACT II Imagination

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Imagination of the reader as a stage

Act I, Scene I; this beginning implies a theater play and thus it implies a narrative or a telling with possible entertainment. A theater play is mostly fiction in our collective knowing, even though it can stem from facts; it is performed with actors and with a stage of some sort. The setting is in-between times two, the one of the reader and the one of the play. The theater play is projected to the world of the present of the reader as the imagined line is projected on the road of the world of One and Two.

One and Two are on a road, there is a sky and there is grass, but we do not know what else surrounds them. The place One and Two are is a place given by the writer without much reminiscence and without a clear description of the place itself, it is left to the reader to imagine a surrounding.

The written play uses, even more so than a novel, the imagination of the reader. The theater play becomes even an imagined world by One and Two’s conversation about their own effort to share imagination, playing with the imagination of you the reader.

The stages shift continuously. ‘There’ becomes ‘here’ in just a few pages. Words influence our imagination. ‘There’ is different than ‘here’ and they can be imagined as opposites. If the north is calm, ‘there’ is probably not calm. Words create pictures of imagination.

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Re-search Movement between soul and surroundings

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Awareness of being a reader

We imagine a line. The experiments of thought and imagination performed by One and Two are also performed by the reader and also by me the writer. As I ask the reader, too, to imagine a line which may, or may not, be the same line as One and Two imagined. We are aware of ourselves as readers and image creators when we read about One and Two as they imagine lines. We know One and Two are fictional characters, because of their names and the setup, so when they ask each other about fictional powers; this imagination, they themselves are proof for being imagined in our own minds.

One and Two are personalities without a face, without age, but they are not without a voice. The reader gives voices to One and Two each voice imagined differently. The voices resonate with the voices they have in their own mind and remind the reader of voices they know, another’s or their own. We can only dream or imagine things we have seen before and combine them, right? While reading the theater play we become aware that we imagine different voices for One and Two than another reader would.

If I write a letter to ask a deaf born person to imagine the sound of thunder or the sound of the song of a bird what can he or she tell me? Would that person combine thoughts of vision with thought with feelings to get close to the sound? If I ask you to tell me how One and Two would look like and sound like to you, what will you tell me?

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Two. Maybe… Maybe I know something more about an imaginary line, One.

One. What do you know, Two?

Two. I can imagine a different line.

One. Which line? Please tell me. Walking has become a bit tedious without much change in the surroundings. I want to imagine something.

Two. Ok.

We are walking towards the place or line you called horizon right, One?

One. Yes, I believe we are still walking towards there. Two. Please, stop for a minute.

One and Two stop

One. Two?

Two. Sorry, I can’t explain otherwise.

One. No problem, I was growing bored of walking.

Two. One, please imagine the gravity point below your feet on the road.

One. Yes.

Done.

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The Guide

One seems to take the role as the guide, which is a teaching role. One talks about imagination and how to share one’s own. Two as the tourist asks questions. The thought experiment started by One as a form of explanation for the horizon is further developed by Two’s questions and finding another experiment. Two asks One to imagine something and thus turning around the roles. A guidance role is not solely a role of teaching it is also about giving space to the other’s input. To teach is also to learn; to learn is also probably to teach.

“To approach the Other in conversation is to welcome his expression, in which at each instant he overflows the idea a thought would carry away from it. It is therefore to receive from the Other beyond the capacity of the I, which means exactly: to have the idea of infinity. But this also means: to be taught.” [1]

To be thought is a form of the infinite. By understanding that we do not know everything, we understand that there is infinite knowledge still to be obtained. Part of this knowledge wanted, but not asked, is found in the other. We do not know what we want to learn before someone else tells you about it. One and Two are aware of the other as knowledge vessels. By listening and speaking they both get further in understanding the topics talks about and they too get a better understanding the relation between the self and the other.

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Two. Now, imagine another point where you will walk to in the future. Then you draw with your imagination a line in between that point in the future and the one under your feet. It is an imaginary line towards the future, right?

One. No, it isn’t. Only if we walk there will it become a line towards the future, but we can’t know what the future holds. That is the reason why from my position towards where I could go is a line of expectation.

Two. What could happen to prevent us from reaching the imaginary point in the future?

One. We can find out by trying to walk the imaginary line of the expected future. Two? Will you please lead me to your imaginary point of the expected future?

Two. Why not yours?

One. Because I imagined my expected line going across the horizon and I think your imagined path line is shorter.

Two. It is. Follow me, One.

One and Two walking

One. Now I will not reach my imagined point across the horizon. See! Anything can happen.

Two. Asking me to go towards my imagined line was just because you wanted to say that.

One. Yes. Let’s make your imagined path towards the expected future real.

Endings Scene I. Road towards north

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Sharing imagination

“Will you please lead me to your imaginary point of the expected future?”

One asks Two to follow Two’s imagined line, because it is closer. It can make someone curious about how One knows that Two would imagine a point nearer than One’s imagines point across the horizon. This guessing is related to our ability to plan and choose direction. We are used to picking a direction we can see when we walk in an unfamiliar place. You can guess what is behind the next corner of the road, but you cannot know if you have not been there before, because there can also be a death end.

When One imagined, or picked a point across the horizon, we wondered how he or she could do this. How does One know that Two picked a place closer by? That is because they know their own thinking is different than the other’s imagination and also because One has probably already been to the location across the horizon.

Empathy is a combination of knowing a person’s reactions from the past, facial expressions, placing oneself in another's shoes, but mostly it is about guessing what someone else is thinking. Empathy is possible because of our imagination, because besides our knowledge of a person we have to estimate what is going on in someone else's mind.

To share imagination you need understanding of the other. To get an understanding of another you need to talk to them and find empathy towards the other. Only then can

we try to find out how this ability to share through imagination works.

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Scene II. Nowhere

One and Two walking

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Division

You could say that a line exists in a division of spaces. One and Two are wandering, not in real life, but they are creating an imaginary path in your mind. This line grows and lengthens in space and time. The narrative is also a line of time and distance, because it takes time to read, to watch it grow and to trace it with your thoughts.

This line is made by choice of heading towards one direction and not to another. We can choose to follow the guideline of One and Two’s path. A choice is a division.

The road we are walking on together with One and Two is also a division of space. We imagine land on the left and right of One and Two’s path. The line of the horizon is a division between heaven and earth, only seen from a distance. As One and Two question if the horizon is a line or is a space, we also create lines in our mind dividing earth and air to create a horizon. We create lines to make things more clear even though the lines are not there. Cartographers imagined lines in geographical maps to divide the land and sea even though the border between them is not there.

In the conversation between One and Two there is an understanding of the separation between the self and the other. One and Two are trying to cross those borders that aren’t imaginary. They are trying to unimagine the line between them.

While trying to converse my thoughts and opinions I am aware of the division that doesn’t permit me to talk with you. By using the power of imagination I can try to find the words needed to break some of this division between writer and reader.

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Re-search Movement between soul and surroundings

One. …No?

Two. No…uhm. Don’t think about the line, but think about a point?

Two. Not thinking is the same as forgetting.

One. Maybe… Maybe this works?

Try to imagine ‘to see’ the road between the imaginary points you took in the past.

Two. And then? I am trying.

One. Are you seeing?

One and Two stare at the road below.

Two. I see the road, I see stones and the grass growing in between them with a couple of flowers, dandelions I believe.

One. Is there a point under your feet, Two?

Two. I can feel the stones of the road under my feet. Yes it worked, One! It worked!

One. Imagination can change our thinking and feelings can change our imagination.

Two. Sound like bogus, One. Let’s move on. Will you lead again?

One. That way!

Both start walking

Endings Scene II. Division

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Imagination and dreaming.

Can our inner selves be seen as an aspect of our wandering minds that we cannot force?

“Hades “smiled grimly and did not disobey the commands of king Zeus.” He tells Persephone to return to her mother, but

first he secretly puts a pomegranate seed in her mouth, ensuring that she will never be completely free of his realm. She will spend one-third of her time with him, and the rest with her mother.

A studentonce pointed out to me that these are the proportions of sleeping and waking. Internal images and emotion of the night can be difficult in quality from those of the day; they may be particularly vivid and disturbing. We get a glimpse sometimes in our pleasurable night dreams of the lovely hundred-headed narcissus which has a beauty beyond what is natural; but we may also feel the terrors of the dark underground of Hades. At least a third of life, too, seems to belong to the lord of death, as we feel the pain of lost relationships, fading hopes, and failed endeavors.” [2]

Maybe dreaming is a part of our imagination, but only on the subconscious layer. Imagination can be the equivalent of unreal and the unreal leads our thinking towards our dreaming and wandering thoughts. Dreaming is part of our nature as it has been for as long as we can remember. Our imagination and dreams are part of us and they can have a dark side to them which is best to not get lost in. To see reality can be healing as daydreaming can be healing too. We need to balance both.

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Stargazer

It was strange as we did see the old stargazer gazing through behind the few clouds that where hovering above us. He lived only in the nights where the constellations were to be seen. He lived as his consciousness was projected through behind this veil of the ozone layer. We saw, in the dim light of the stars, him closing his one eye with a smile as he gently put his other eye against the telescope. His eye seeped through his device and he saw through the atmosphere and his eye seeped through to his heavens.

It was even stranger to know how the stars he saw and the stars and planets he had seen came together in the space of his head. The universe copied itself in his brain and consciousness and the lines of the constellations moved through the lines of his cranial nerves. He vanished in his own gazing.

It was in the past where he had measured the distances between his favorite stars where he saw them and where he knew them to be. He had calculated the distance the light had traveled before it reached his eyes. He had also even guessed if the stars he saw had already died.

It was not strange for him now how he had overcome these distances, his calculations and the hope for the existence of those lights and planets. He had overcome them and he found himself in the reality of space and it was not strange for him how he ceased to exist here and moved to there.

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Scene III. Edge of the first horizon.

One and Two standing

Two. Yes.

One. Maybe?

Enter silence

Silence exists

One. Yes, maybe it is.

Two, I think so too.

Silence again

One. I thought this place would be different.

Two. Yes! I imagined it being different than this; different than the place we had left.

One. Aren’t the place we left behind and the place we are in now not sort of the similar?

Two. I suppose so, but I can’t remember the place we were in this morning well enough.

One. It looked almost the same as here.

Enter space

One. Look, Two!

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Placement

Are you able to fully submerge into the things you are reading? While daydreaming can you eliminate the other thoughts popping up and can you block your surroundings distracting you?

Honestly I try to enjoy a good book in a place of quietness away from others. Sometimes I can almost fully lose myself in the story until an idea pops up in my head or I start following a conversation of others in the train. I once biked against a wall because I was daydreaming, but the surroundings: scraping my elbows against the brick wall, brought me back from my dreaming. Our sensory activity works even though sometimes we try to shut it down to read, imagine or think. Our senses will bring us back into the world over and over again.

‘No one can eliminate her or his own presence from where the past is conjured up and the time in between that past and the now. You can only approach the past from the present.’ [3] quote by Rousseau

If you daydream, if youwander about the past, if you imagine, it is still the ‘you’ from the now who is imagining and without this ‘you’ from the present, there will not be anyone imagining. The ‘you’ who imagines things, wonders

and dreams, can do this with the knowledge and experiences you have accumulated.

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Two. Yes… I see what you mean. You do not need to explain. One. It is strange.

Two. Yes. Indeed.

Endings Scene III. Placement

Scene IV. Where?

One and Two standing

Two. We are still here, One.

One. We are? Yes we are always ‘here’, but I thought we were away.

Two. We are still away from a lot of things. What do you mean?

One. Away, but not physical. We were away in thought. Two. Away in thought?

One. Yes, at least I was. Remember we talked about the imagined line, Two? Away in thought is similar as in we imagined being somewhere else.

Two. Yes, One. I believe I was imagining being somewhere else.

One. Me too.

Two. Then we where away together.

Ending Act IV. Where?

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Wandering in a mind palace

‘Where?’ is the title of another scene in the continued play. The question mark indicates that One and Two also question their surroundings.

The scene starts with One and Two talk about here. To call a place here is already a description of your own position in the world. To have a ‘here’ you have to have a ‘there’ and for a ‘there’ to exist you have to have memories of that place.

Can the ‘where?’ of the title be a place where One imagined him/her-self to be while thinking? The ‘where?’ is not a physical place, but it is a place of thought. ‘Somewhere’ can be a space of imagination.

Wandering is walking around aimlessly with the purpose of rearranging thoughts taking in partly the surrounding. Wandering is a Romantic thought of being connected to nature, while being lost in the space of your own mind.

One and Two wander around in the landscape before One breaks the silence, saying that they were lost in thought. It is difficult to be fully aware of your own thoughts and the surroundings at the same time, perhaps even impossible.

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ACT III Navigation and the self

Scene I. Night

One and Two standing next to the road.

Two. It is getting darker?

One. You are right. It is night

They stop.

Two. What I meant was to ask you what we should do?

One. We cannot continue now, because we can’t see if there are holes in the ground with only the appearing light of the stars. We could wait for the morning?

Two. Ok, One. Now, where should we wait? Waiting is good. Waiting should help me organize my questions I would like to ask you. The ground looks softer over there?

One. It is a place as good as any. Here, we could sit on my coat.

Two. Thank you, One.

One. I will also collect the thoughts that have been floating around me that I would like to share with you. Questions are there to be asked, but good ones take time to find.

One and Two sitting down. Waiting.

Ending Scene I. Night

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Imagination and soul

Previously we have followed One and Two with their thought experiments of the horizon. We have wondered how we imagine lines and the presence of One and Two. In the meanwhile Two and also One are thinking about questions to ask each other. They are probably thinking about how to help each other with their ideas. Talking together has helped them with their understanding of imagination. They know they want to help each other, but not how.

How come we do feel the need to share our thoughts and wonderings with each other? Can sharing be as simple as to share a coat to sit on? Thoughts float around without shape and understanding and I wonder how thoughts become words. Our expressions are not only the fruits from our mind, they are also stem from our body and perhaps even though from a core; a self. What is the self One and Two are looking for? Is it a soul?

In this paragraph you probably look for answers for the questions above. I do not know them, but we can guess. To get an understanding on imagination and understanding of the self you foremost have to look foryour own vocabulary of imagination. To understand someone speaking, we need an understanding of the language. To understand these questions and find the answers, we need a better understanding of the words: imagination and soul.

Each and every one of us imagines things differently than another person would. How, I wonder, can we find the same meaning of the words we use in a conversation?

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Re-search Movement between soul and surroundings

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Navigating the space of thought.

While walking over the earth our thoughts can wander freely in the sky. It is easier to connect to our surroundings without a roof blocking the space of thought. For poets, writers and the like, it is good to walk as walking stimulates the thought process by setting the body in movement. It is not only the walking in itself and the movement of it that is good; it is also seeing the surroundings and seeing the distance your feet have traveled.

One and Two talk about how the light has traveled a long distance to reach earth. This imagined line of distance, from the stars to their eyes, has copied itself in the mind. Imagining a kilometer for example creates an image of a kilometer in the mind. With measuring we give shape to estimation. First we imagine an outcome and with testing we can prove it.

Imagination can broaden our perception of the world. With traveling we create memories in our heads. By traveling the world and creating memories of different locations we create a better structure in our minds and also the awareness of your position as the one traveling. With traveling a map is formed in the mind.

Navigating is looking for a goal of movement by understanding the place you are in and the place you want to go to. For understanding the position you are in, you need to understand your relation with the here and now. With nautical navigation you can calculate your position at sea. For nautical navigation you need two measurement of time and the knowledge of the position of the celestial bodies; stars, sun or moon. You need to relate to your surroundings to find your position and goal.

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Silence waiting for the other to speak first.

One. Two? Do you know the name of that constellation over there?

One points somewhere north.

Two. Constellation? You mean a combination of lines drew between certain stars? I have difficulty remembering, but someone told me before.

One. Do you see those big stars I am pointing at? Connect them to those smaller ones and that string of stars over there.

Two. I know. What was its name again?

One. It is the Great Bear. I always wonder where that name comes from.

Two. I don’t know where the bear came from. Aha, Ursa Mayor, right?

One. Right! Do you see these bigger stars from the great bear? Draw a line with your imagination between them and make them longer. Then you will see another clear star from another constellation you will know.

Two. It is the smaller bear right?

One. Yes, and the clear star is Polaris: The star in the tail of the small bear.

Two. Polaris?

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Culturally imagined

“Walking has been one of the constellations in the starry sky of human culture, a constellation whose three stars are the body, the imagination, and the wide-open world, and though all three exist independently, it is the lines drawn between them-drawn by the act of walking for cultural purposes- that makes them a constellation. Constellations are not natural phenomena, but cultural impositions; the lines drawn between stars are like paths worn by imagination of those who have gone before. This constellation called walking has a history, the history trod out by all those poets and philosophers and insurrectionaries, by jaywalkers, streetwalkers, pilgrims, tourists, hikers, mountaineers, but whether it has a future depends on whether those connecting paths are traveled still.”

[4]

Even though cultures differ in many ways, everyone has a form of imagination. All over the world humans imagined lines in-between stars, creating imagined constellations.

A constellation becomes a constellation, because more than one person called it by its specific name. A path became a path because it has been traveled by more than one soul. To have a worldwide change happening, more than one person is needed to believe or to imagine this change.

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One. The North Star has been used by a lot of people, mainly mariners, to navigate. It always is located in the direction where the north is.

Two. We are also walking towards there?

One. Not really, because we can’t walk all the way to the north. It is too cold and the land will stop sooner or later.

Two. It will stop?

One. Yes, because the sea will begin.

In silence they lay down still looking up.

One. Is it not great how they exist? Constellation I mean. The lines do not exists in reality, but it is great how they have become part of a common culture.

Two. The existence of stars is great. I cannot point any constellation out to you, but I can still make my own constellation by imagining lines in-between stars. Creating constellation is similar as the lines we imagined right?

One. Yes. The constellations are possibly just made by travelers navigating a path below the night’s skies.

Two. We could even try to follow one star and then another star and then another… Until we have copied a constellation while walking.

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Creating distance with the real world

There is a need to distance ourselves from the real world: One and Two fled from the crowdedness and the stargazer also fled in his research of the stars. The old stargazer immerged himself into the universe of his own mind and the world around him vanished. We can imagine the happiness of the old stargazer as he found a sublime like experience in his imagination.

“Indeed, as Gustave Flaubert wrote, ’The better telescopes become, the more stars there will be.’ But Flaubert forgot to

mention the fallout from this sudden optical expansion; the more perception of the other world develops, the less there will be of the world, of a whole earth.” [5]

Imagination can be an escape. We could lose our own position in the ‘here’ if we would lose ourselves in our imagination. Is it good to look up at the stars and forget about the whole world? No, probably not. It is the relation between fiction and non-fiction that is good for one’s self.

It makes sense that the more stars we see the smaller the world becomes. The awareness of the world around you while looking up at the stars could make you feel small, but while doing so you can also become aware of your own position between the world and your imagination.

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One. A trace will never be the same as the constellations itself, because we cannot copy the distance. A scale cannot honor the immensity of reality. Let’s not forget that the distance between those stars in that constellation over there are so much further away from each other as we think. The stars in a constellation distance three dimensionally and the depth usually far exceeds the distance we draw from one star to another.

Two. They are so far away, a distance so great we cannot fathom.

One. Isn’t that great? Seeing those stars so far away makes us aware that the universe is so big.

Two. It makes me feel small.

One. By trying to imagine such a long distance we expand the space in our own mind. The imagination grows and grows beyond our bodies.

Two. Yes, it feels great.

One. That is why they are beautiful; they exceed above our own ability to visualize and to understand

Two. Things greater than use ask for a tribute in a sense of awe and when we are aware that the things greater than us are not threatening we can see them as beautiful.

Ending of Scene II. Stars and distance

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Experiment: Motus Exterioris

It has been a couple of years, I remember, that Motus Exterioris was sent. The whole construction of the launch station could contain a couple of houses. The spaceship shined brightly; reflecting the dim light of the sun on its white polished surface. The rocket was launched into the atmosphere and it would not return for a long time, if it would return at all. The people on earth who had seen the spaceship launch into the boundaries of air had hugged each other in excitement of the success. The astronauts looked at each other with mixed feelings, but neither of them talked about their own. The ozone layer has been surpassed and they cannot call earth their own again as they have crossed the border.

They explore from the mouth of space onwards to the insides of the universe. Now at this very moment the spaceship is still there moving away from the earth. Regret is what they would feel if they would allow themselves to feel anything. They keep their hands and eyes busy with the tasks at hand. They face their destination; the outer realms, but they too keep another eye on the diminishing world.

As the light of the sun is reflected on the surface of the earth an image is projected into space. This image of earth is cast into the eyes of the astronauts. Traveling without time is impossible. It takes time for this image of earth to reach their eyes and because of this travel time earth is seen as slowing down.

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Act IV Silence

Scene I. Here

Enter One and Two sitting waiting for the morning

One. Is there something wrong, Two? You are so silent…

Two. I was thinking and I found the questions I was looking for: Questions that had seemed to be sleeping for a while now. Can I ask you them, One?

One. Yes, of course.

Two. You said, before we went to here, that you always come ‘back’ and you never come ‘for’, a visit to here. For what or for who do you come back for? What is it you find here, or have you found it already without telling me?

One. I have been a poor guide, haven’t I? I would have liked to have explained earlier, but I do not know how to formulate it correctly. What I come back for is a feeling or a vague thought. You have chosen a good time to ask me because during the night I was wondering too about it. The question you ask is; what is the reason for us to be exactly here, right?

Two. Yes. Why are we here? And what makes ‘here’ different for you than ‘there’?

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Distance and time.

At sea being able to navigate meant the difference of being death or alive. To calculate the latitude was a crucial challenge. The exact time of the location, but also the time of the fixed location was needed for this. Calculating the exact time of the position could be done with different means, but keeping a time of another location was difficult. Only after years and years of research, the first watch was made that was exact. You need the time of here and there to calculate the latitude position, because the difference of these two times calculates the distance between those two points.

The distance we traveled while reading is the time One and Two traveled together. The distance they have traveled is only made possible by the time they spend walking. Without time distance cannot exist, because otherwise it will just be places without connection. Time without distance will just be an eternity if you are not going anywhere.

The present is a multitude of senses and not a frozen slice of pizza in the timeline. Molecules also never stand still. Being in the present is noticing the flow you are in; noticing the distance you travel. We see the past as something gone by, a nostalgic place to escape to when we think it to be better than the present times. Around us we hear also that you should not dwell in the past and live in the now, but is the past really gone? Could the future solve any problems which made us go towards any destination? Present, past and future are just moments of time and they cannot be accountable for problem solving or an escape.

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One. The difference between ‘here’ and ‘there’ is visible, but it is the relation I have with the ‘here’ that is the ‘it’ I am looking for; an invisible relation.

Two. Is it similarly invisible as in how we imagined the horizon as a line?

One. Yes and no…

Two. What is it if not a yes or a no?

One. It is a feeling I have when I am here. It is as if this place heals me or as if it cares for me. Ridicules, right? This is just a place, but also a place where I can feel at home. I can feel the echoes of the barrenness and emptiness in my own self as if it portrays me. It is cold and empty with the land as minimal. The land is giving space to the sky and my thoughts: It gives me time and distance to think in.

Two. For me it is cold and empty as the sky with its stars which press against the earth weighing it down. I do not feel at home here, the world is too big to call my own, but I too can feel its abstraction.

One. It is not that I call this place my home, but it is as if I slide into the rhythm of ‘here’.

Two. It is because of this rhythm that you come to this place?

One. Yes, I think it is. Thank you for finding it together with me.

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Here and there

What is the rhythm of ‘here’? Can ‘here’ have a different sense of time for us than ‘there’?

‘Here’ is a place close by oneself and it is a projection of yourself in the surroundings you see. Your ‘here’ is

different than another’s ‘here’. When One and Two are talking about ‘here’ it is their ‘here’ and you imagine a place different from where you are at the moment. The ‘there’ One and Two are talking about could even be the ‘here’ for you, but when One and Two are talking about ‘here’ we are

with them in imagination and it becomes a ‘here’ too for us the readers of the scene.

Scenery noun, plural sceneries.

1.The general appearance of a place; the aggregat e of features that give character to a landscape.

A place can be given character to; it can have a face and/or carry an emotion even. We can say that some landscapes look gloomy or joyful. The landscape doesn’t have character, but we project our thoughts and imagination upon the land, creating a scenery.

‘Here’ or ‘there’ are features given to the landscape by us

and by One and Two. One is talking with Two about how the land feels like a home more even than One’s physical home. Can a landscape hold our projection on it and can it be shared with someone else? Yes, but even though Two can understand One it will not be as if ‘here’ has become the same for him/her. Everyone projects a different imagination and memory on a landscape.

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Another moment of silence

Two. I am happy for you for finding it, but…

One. What is wrong, Two?

Two. What is my place ‘here’? Why did you ask me to come if you thought it would be impossible to share this it you find ‘here’.

One. I was hopeful in being able to teach and hopeful to find it together.

Two. But you can’t or I can’t. Did you thought I could feel

too the connection you have with the ‘here’?

One. The journey is not over it is still possible. Or would you like to leave already?

Two. I am not leaving yet.

One. That makes me happy.

Silence

One. This place is a continuum of my own self. Walking together with you is a conversation for me with you and the surroundings. I wish it for you to be a conversation involving the relation between you and the landscape of the here.

Two. No.

One.No?

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Through our bodies we can think

I am because I think? No. We cannot think if we do not exist, but maybe we can exist without thinking. Thinking is not what defines a human being. I can think because I have sensed and experienced and I need these senses to exist. No brain can function without a body. With our senses we can experience, because of our experience we can think. We need a database or memory to understand language and to have images in our mind. If a brain doesn’t receive the data form sensory activity it is not capable to think. We can only think because we have a body, because we have senses.

“Weight of the body - lightness of the spirit. The spirit frees itself by losing the weight. Thought does not survive without experience of the force of gravity. The spirit does not think; it is the body that thinks.” [6]

One and Two walk together while talking about the here and the reason for going there. To perceive the surroundings there has to be a person that is, by looking, feeling and hearing, connecting with the surroundings. An imagined self is for One a continuation of the place where he/she feels connected to. We have to be connected to the surroundings to be able to think and to experience our self in the world. The body connects the surroundings with the mind.

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Re-search Movement between soul and surroundings

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Nature

“When I gaze at a sunset sky and spend hours contemplating its marvelous ever-changing beauty, an extraordinary emotion overwhelms me. Nature in all its vastness is truthfully reflected in my sincere though feeble soul. Around me are the trees stretching up their branches to the skies, the

perfumed flowers gladdening the meadow, the gentle grass- carpeted earth, … and my hands unconsciously assume an attitude of adoration. … To feel the supreme and moving beauty of the spectacle to which Nature invites her ephemeral guests! … that is what I call prayer.” [7] Quote by

Claude Debussy

You have the saying; you are what you eat and drink. We take in the atoms of the food, water and air nourished making it become part of us. Nature flows through our bodies. We are connected to life. We are alive and nature is too.

The landscape is in a sense an extension of the body. As we see nature with our eyes and walk over it with our feet we connect with it making the surroundings part of our senses. The landscape is also an extension of the mind as our surroundings become part of our memory and awareness.

Can something not natural become part of us? Writers have talked about the heartbeat and movement of the city and about how people become part of its organic fiber. A city can feel natural for someone if he or she feels connected to it, but it is not the material one feels connected to, but the people in it.

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One. It is partly because I have visited this place so many times and it has grown in my memory. I become more aware of my own self under the skies also because of the barrenness given space to my own presence.

Two. How do see your own self then? What is this awareness you have of your own identity?

One. Good question… good question…

Two. A good question, yes... I would also not know what my own awareness is of my own self. How does an identity look like?

One. I know I think and I feel, but I do not see my own self as only a combination of thoughts and feelings. Maybe it can even be that with thinking and feeling I can relate to this self that is hidden behind. It is a knowing without facts or proof that we have a self.

Two. We can both imagine our own selves. With our thoughts we can come close to our awareness of self.

One. You are right. Perhaps we will find our own selves if we relate it with each other in conversation and with our connection with the here.

One. The sea is to the north if we wish to go there we will and you will find your way there. As you have followed me to here I wish to follow you further as I do not have much to teach you or to show you.

Ending Scene I. Here

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The perception of the soul

It is a knowing without facts or proof that we have a self. This knowing is a way of perceiving closer to believing than reasoning. This self is what we can call our soul.

We can discuss if the soul is natural or if it is above nature. On the one hand you have the idea of the soul as changing and growing and on the other hand we can see the soul as a static unchanging core.

Where is your soul located? Or better asked: where do you imagine your soul to be? The soul is hidden and it is an imagination of the self. The soul is our imagined representation of our life force continuing after death in some cultures. A soul is something different for each and every one of us as it represents a person’s own imagination of identity. We imagine and think differently than the other, we think, and we see a soul as something divining the self as being separate from another’s self.

I could imagine the soul to be connected to my soles of my feet traveling the earth and being connecting to the surroundings, but it does not mean the soul is really there. I think that the soul is connected by movement with our surroundings and can be both static and in movement. Nature is life. Our own self is the life force: our anima that defines our innerness.

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The imagined tree

A bonsai tree can fit inside my skull. It is not strange how the brain lobes look like the branches and leaves stemming from the tree trunk which is like the brainstem. I can ‘see’ the tree above the soil, because I ‘hear’ myself thinking.

The roots themselves are not to be ‘seen’, because they are hidden in the soil, they are not conscious. Some roots lead all the way to my toes and some of them twirl around the belly. The roots together form the upside down unseen version of the tree that fits in my skull. The upside down of my thinking is the bedding of my subconsciousness.

The roots are more than the nerves in my skin and the sense of sight and smell. The roots are part of the tree and they transport the senses towards the tree symbolizing the self. This tree feeds on my senses and thoughts together, like a plant needs sunlight and water.

If the tree stops moving the energy around it will stop growing and it will die. We need to have our senses exposed to feed the self together with the thoughts. To live is more than to think. To live is to grow.

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Scene II. Out there

One and Two watching the sky change into morning

Two. Do you think there is someone there?

One. Of course, we came from there.

Two. I mean there, as in, beyond here; beyond earth? One. Out there on space stations?

Two. I was thinking about imaginary beings.

One. Probably not, but people have imagined others to exist for a long time. We could imagine them to be there?

Two. If they are there I would imagine them wondering too if we; One and Two, exist. We would be strangers to them.

One. Then I will imagine ‘them’ following our conversation. Two. Hopefully not. ‘They’ do not exist I am sure.

One. Maybe we only exist in the others imagination.

Two. Maybe you think you do not exist here, but I know I exist besides the memory of others.

One. The ‘me’ as you see me is also different than how I see myself. Maybe I only exist in your imagination? Or the meaning of existence is different in your mind?

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Outward movement

Thinking about ‘there’ you have to have a ‘here’. This ‘here’ could be the bodily ‘here’: a throne where our thoughts

reign or an imagined ‘here’. Thinking about ‘there’ and relate to that place is an imagined movement to the ‘there from ‘here’. Imagining a different ‘here’ is also a similar

movement.

To imagine a chair we first have to have seen one before. Seeing a chair is a movement first from our muscles of our eyes focusing. Secondly it is a movement of the light reflected on the chair moves towards our eyes. Third our senses in our eyes transfer the light into data which is finally transferred to our mind. The image is turned around and stored in our memory under the file chair. To see a chair you need both outward and inward movement.

For an inward movement from our surroundings to our eyes we first need an outward movement that can connect our senses to our surroundings. We could close our eyes, but not our ears physically, but we can mentally. For understanding you need willingness to listen. We need to connect sound to our inner dictionary to understand. Listening is not passive movement: We turn our heads towards sounds even though we do not want to listen, our body does.

The self is not passive, because it is the understanding of your own self in relation to others and to your surroundings. In how we position ourselves in relation to others, in our speaking and acting, we understand also ourselves.

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Re-search Movement between soul and surroundings

Two. There is a real ‘you’ that exists inside.

One. Is there? I think having a self means something different.

Two. Huh?

One. This place surrounding us is part of me, but where does the ‘me’ end? Is there a real ‘me’? Is there something complete and unchanging; a core of my being? I do not know. I feel that I exist of a multitude of thoughts and feelings and I change because of the changing surroundings. I feel like I even change while talking to you.

Two. I believe you and I have a core, not something static, but changing like you said. Our perception of our self, or our understanding of it, is also changing. We keep reflecting on our thoughts and action, because that is in our nature; it is who we are. It is also who I am. You have a core inside of you that is alive; growing and changing in accordance of things learned and forgotten.

One. You could be right, Two. I am alive that means my core is alive, but I do not know if it lives separately from the other parts of me.

Two. I do not know. For me alive is a definition for movement and growth as our core moves with a different speed than the speed of the world.

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The “I”

‘There’ is a moment when one divest oneself of the acquired conventions and knowledge to redefine one’s identity and a personal space of thoughts and so rediscover the true essence which learning has made one forget. One’s personal identity is a space, the space contained by one’s body which only later becomes the space of one’s ideas, the space in which the person projects himself. The first identity is that of the body, a cellular identity, a flesh identity.” [6]

How do we define our own self-consciousness? Our position in the world is needed for our own understanding of self. One and Two believe in an ‘I’; something that separates them from the other. We have self-consciousness and it is different than how another sees his or her own self.

I would like to ask you to think about how you perceive your own being. Who is the person you revere to as ‘I’? Not everything is proven to exist and we believe in a lot of things without having proof of their existences. You have self-consciousness, but a doctor has not found it.

Our perception of ourselves means that we are alive. It is not: I think thus I am, but: I am because I believe I have a self or identity. A soul is the awareness you have your own self and a soul can mean something different to every one of us. For me understanding the soul means researching my perception of self in relation to what I have talked about with others. Listening and reading can change the way you perceive things and speaking and writing about self-awareness can do that too.

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Re-search Movement between soul and surroundings

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Soul world

What does our inner self exist of? Are we made of thoughts, memories, feelings and senses? The something connecting thoughts, emotions and senses is the soul, because these things are bordered by our own self. Self-awareness is required, because we need a position to keep ourselves from defining our self in the world. Self-awareness is a border separating the world and the self giving us possibilities to relate both with each other and to research them too.

“A feeling for which I have no name, has taken possession of my soul - a sensation which will admit of no analysis, to which the lesson of bygone time are inadequate, and for which I fear futurity itself will offer me no key.”[8]

Futurity itself will hold no key of understanding of that moment that which elevates the soul. Certain moment can elevate your own and they can seem timeless. A moment can seem like it is frozen in time and distance, because the moment occupies the mind and it intertwines with the perception of time. If these moments exist out of the notion we have of time, they exist timeless in our memory and not in reality.

Moments over passing time can elevate your soul, because we relate to our surroundings and if we relate to something larger to us it makes us larger too. The soul does not keep track of time and our sense of self is not measured with age, but it is perhaps measured in growth.

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Scene III. Clouds hiding the rising sun

Enter Two staring at One

Two. One? Are you here?

One. I am. I was just resting. Well resting is not the best word for thinking all the time. How about you?

Two. I may have slept. I do not know. Is it morning already?

One. No, but it isn’t night either. We are in an in-between time with this gray mist around us we will stay inside of this half time for a while.

Two. Can we still tell which way we should go?

One. I still remember the position of the North Star from the clear night. I think it is that way.

Two. Let’s walk by your memories. That way?

One. Yes.

One and Two walk into the mist.

Two. There is a lot of mist. Where did the light go? One. It is hidden.

Two. It is strange that I cannot see the horizon or anything

else. This place now looks so sad and boring.

One. I find the mist as beautiful as the stars from last night.

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The hiding sun

While reading and writing this for and with you, I was reading a sci-fi novel: ‘Otherland’ [9]. Otherland is also the name of the place where most of the scenes take place. It is a cyberspace disconnected from the real world in which most of the characters are trapped. The main characters develop fear for the place as it is beyond control.

I would like to compare one of the main characters with the conversation of One and Two as they are similar. The deuterogamist, the second main character, wonders how he lost his place in the world. At a certain time he says that he can’t hear the sun sing anymore. Later the character realizes that it is not that the sun is not singing anymore, but that he had forgotten how to listen to it.

“Where did the light go?” Two asks and One answers: “It is hidden.”

To find the sun singing again behind the clouds we just need a change of perception. This change of perception is brought forth with imagination.

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Re-search Movement between soul and surroundings

Two. You do? You are strange…

One. There is beauty in silence and nothingness as it heightens my self-awareness.

Two. Possibly, but I still like the stars more.

One. Clear nights and thick mist have similarities, you know? It is silencing.

With the stars we were aware of our smallness in relation to the universe and its distances, but now… The mist creates this soft dome around us clouding everything away from our eyes. It is even dulling the sound; we do not even hear any insects or wind.

Two. You are right! I did not realize that even the small sounds have left us.

One. The grayness of the mist is a bit boring I admit, but the boringness heightens our senses. The input we get from the world has been brought to a minimum and we are more aware of ourselves and of our thinking.

Two. So… The place which we left behind with its noise, its people and the fast changes makes it difficult to be aware of your own thoughts?

One. Well, yes, for the most part. It is difficult to think if you have to dodge other people walking, but we can also become more aware of our thinking and dreaming because of the loudness dulling our senses in a different way.

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The need of rest

When asked: How are you doing? You can hear the answer I need more time and a bit more rest or sleep. We are working, eating, shopping, being social and doing our hobby thinking how we can be most efficient with our time. Everything seems to cost time, but possibly time is not ours to spend as it is only an abstract awareness. Time is something wonderful we forget to appreciate. We can enjoy its moments without stressing about the things beyond our reach.

Ecclesiastes Chapter 4 verse 4-11:

“I have seen that every labor and every skill which is done is the resultof rivalry between a man and his neighbor. This too is vanity and striving after wind. The fool folds his hands and consumes his own flesh. One hand full of rest is better than two fists full of labor and striving after wind.

Then I looked again at vanity under the sun. There was a certain man without a dependent, having neither a son nor a brother, yet there was no end to all his labor. Indeed, his eyes were not satisfied with riches and he never asked, “And for whom am I laboring and depriving myself of pleasure?” This too is vanity and it is a grievous task.

Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor. For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up. Furthermore, if two lie down together they keep warm, but how can one be warm alone?”

Together we can share the workload to get the work done faster. Together noticing the passing of time, we become aware of our position in the flow of moments in relation to the others presence. Together we can share the time to make the present happier.

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Two. That always happens to me. While walking on the streets I forget where I am and keep on wondering until I forget who I am.

One. Sounds good, Two, but it is different than now, right? Two. Yes. I can breathe better now.

One. We can connect to our inner self better with silence. Two. Yes, but I still do prefer the stars.

One. Me too. We need something bigger than us, such as the universe with its beautiful stars and its grand distances, to feed our innerness.

This silent dome of mist is a canvas on which we can depict our innerness and reflect on our thoughts and memories.

One and Two share the silence.

Ending Scene II. Clouds hiding the rising sun

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Sublimation as soul expansion

Something bigger than us can elevate our soul. It is a wish, or desire, that makes us step out of our homes to search for the highest mountains to climb and to search for a perfect spot on top for a nice view. This memory can stay with us for a long time, but seeing it for the first time is grander as our memory cannot hold all our sensory activity.

“Consider bold, overhanging, and, as it were, threatening rocks, thunderclouds piling up in the sky and moving about accompanied by lightning and thunderclaps, volcanoes with all their destructive power, hurricanes with all the devastation they leave behind, the boundless ocean heaved up, the high waterfall of a mighty River, and so on. Compared to the might of any of these, our ability to resist becomes an insignificant trifle. Yet the sight of them becomes all the more attractive the more fearful it is, provided we are in a safe space. And we like to call these objects sublime because they raise the soul’s fortitude above its usual middle range and allow us to discover in ourselves an ability to resist that is of a quite different kind, and that gives us the courage to

believe that we could be a match for nature’s seeming omnipotence.” [10]

Feeling fully alive in the moment is a feeling of love for the world that adds to your own being; in mind and also in soul. Love, example for your surroundings, is water that helps in the growth of your soul. Love is a hope for finding something larger than us that can elevate our own self above what it has been.

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Re-search Movement between soul and surroundings

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POST HOC ERGO PROPTER HOC

Literally translated ‘post hoc ergo propter hoc’ means; after this, therefore because of this. It is reasoning without good arguments. Something happened after something else happened, but are both actions related to each other? An action after a certain change it does not mean that the change is the reason for the action.

“This world, in which reason is more and more at home, is not habitable. It is hard and cold like those depots in which are piled up goods that cannot satisfy: neither clothe those who are naked, nor feed those who are hungry; it is as impersonal as factory hangars and industrial cities in which manufactured things remain abstract, true with statistical truth and borne on the anonymous circuit of the economy, resulting from skillful planning decisions which cannot prevent, but prepare disasters. There it is, the mind in its masculine essence, living on the

outside, exposed to the violent, blinding sun….” [11]

When someone speaks loudly another one speaks louder. Soon the place with those people will argue and shout until no one is left to be heard and to shout for silence is adding fuel to the loudness. In these present times we sometimes think that all opinions need to be there that they need to be heard. What is to be gained to all these opinions if no one listens? Our opinions: our own utopian desires clash with the utopian thoughts of others and both with stay utopian, out of reach.

One and Two left their ‘there’ behind: A there that is a place

possibly similarly loud. By having less people around them they hear less opinions and noises that can accumulate to loudness. They try to listen to the other while adding food to the discussion with their own thoughts.

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Re-search Movement between soul and surroundings

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Hope?

The ‘here’ of One and Two doesn’t exist. It is a place of fiction to us which wecan give shape to with our imagination. It can be a utopian desire or a notion of a blank world to fill with our own thoughts. ‘Here’ can be a place you hope for to exist. ‘Here’ is the hope for your own position in the world. A place of hope exists in all of us and is related to our utopian desires.

How much hope for the future can we have when our surroundings are almost the opposites as what we want them to be? Looking at the world and seeing that a change is needed to prevent an apocalyptical world is utopic in the sense that it is still a hope for a better world. To create a larger utopia we need more people with the same shared hope. In this individualistic age it is difficult to have a large group of people working together in a unified goal, but still there are new utopias worked on and shared. Having hope for the future is needed for the willingness to change your own self and your surroundings.

“All my experience as a psychologist leads me to the conclusion that a sense of reverence is necessary for psychological health. If a person has no sense of reverence, no feeling that there is anyone or anything that inspires awe, it cuts the conscious personality off completely from the nourishing springs of the unconscious. It is ironic, then, that of much or our modern culture is aimed at eradicating all reverence, all respect for the high truths and qualities that inspire a feeling of awe and worship in the human soul.” [12]quote by Robert Johnson

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One. I will imagine our selves walking here talking about the necessity to keep in touch with our selves. I will try to keep the tranquility that prevents the unrest seeping into my inner core again.

Two. There are always the brightest stars even though they are hidden behind the smog of the city and there is always a horizon behind a building.

One. That sound like how I imagined mountains behind the horizon when I was younger! I am really glad that you came with me to here, not only for you finding awareness, but also for me own deepening of this knowledge.

Two. For now we will soak up the tranquility with our senses and thoughts and make them remain in ourselves.

A small ray of sunshine.

One. After those clouds have shifted more we will see the sun again.

Two. We can walk and wait.

Walk on.

Ending Scene III. Still nothing

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Stillness and quietness

A white page holds infinite possibilities: It can contain the written things of the future, hold a drawing, it can be folded into a different shape and can even get ripped apart. Whiteness is a space; an empty one with the possibilities of things to come.

Most interiors today have white walls as they make the rooms look bigger, create a calm atmosphere and enhance other colors. A museum has white walls to let the artwork speak. This text written down black on white is clearer than if it would be blue text on green paper.

Opposites enhance each other. Music becomes more beautiful after silence. In silence we imagine words. In silence we think better and we can explore our own selves more in-depth.

“Thus did I steal along that silent road My body from the stillness drinking in A restoration like the calm of sleep But sweeter far. Above, before, behind, Around me, all was peace and solitude.”[13]

In this part of the poem by Wordsworth he paints silence around a person that is on a road. With drinking in the stillness it adds to the body and self of that person. This silence and stillness is restoring, it is healing for the self. In stillness the person finds its own self and finds its position on the silent road. Standing still gives the inner self a moment to dance.

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Ant hope

As I traveled with a friend I found a mountain habituated by a multitude of ants. Many of these ants’ nests were possibly connected to each other under the ground. It is a busy mountain, not busy with people but busy with the work of gathering and building by the critters.

When the ant scouts had been send out from each one of the many nests the food and other materials became located and gatherers were send out. In the meantime the ants explore the neighborhood of the line between the focused material and the nest.

They work hard with long hours and the nest is getting filler and filler with food and more ants that are born to help. The ants focus on the one path towards the food they move more than their weight to their nest. The ants wear out the stone of the mountain creating lines. A path is formed by their movement.

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Act V Movement

Scene I. Grass and sun

One and Two walking… Again…

Two. Look! The sun has never been more welcome. The air is finally clear of mist. Its rays stroke gently over the grasses glistering dew.

One. It is a gently sight for the eyes and for the regret we hold in having to travel to there after here.

Two. It is reassuring.

One! Feel how the wind glides in, the same wind that moved the mist away. See how the wind is creating dancing silver ripples in the green sea of grass.

One and Two standing still and take a deep breath

One. Beauty that makes one forget to breath and when aware takes in a breath filled with the moment itself.

Two. The air is clear and shared as we both take in air with our lungs that have been in other lungs. When we take in a deep breath we breath in our surroundings.

One kneels and touches the grass with a hand.

Two. How does the grass feel?

One. Delicate and different than what I expected.

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Dancing

‘One, Two, One, Two,One, Two…’ This sounds like the counting of the steps of a dance or like the marching of soldiers. One and Two are indeed dancing. They move together with a rhythm of their surroundings and their conversation. The conversation and dance of One and Two: ‘one, two, one, two’, is not only for themselves, it is also a performance for you, for me and for their surroundings. In the moment of a dance someone relates their movement to music and to the surroundings. The music for this dance or conversation we can find in our own self in our own rhythm.

What is the anima that drives the human being? I believe that anima is alive and it is movement. Anima is another word for soul. What can help our understanding of the soul and of anima? We can try to listen to its music.

“‘The individual of the scientific age is losing his capacity to experience himself as a centre of energy,’observed Paul Valéry, applying his intuition to a little-eplored area, that of the animate, of the movement that drives the human being.” [5]

The energy Verilio is talking about is not visible. Energy usually never is, but its’ actions are. To check the battery is working we can check it with a light bulb. To check our inner energy level we can try by using it. Instead of depleting all our energy we create more space for the generation of more energy. By walking, dancing or talking we can feel our own self being a centre of energy.

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Two. I can imagine it to be so.

One. You should try it too.

Two follows One in action.

Two. It is better than expected, except that our trousers will get damp, though.

One. How come that the feeling of touching the grass is better than we both thought it would be?

Two. Usually it is so, right? If the imagined line of the horizon would truly be visible, wouldn’t that be more remarkable than just imagining it? Sometimes imaginations or memories rise above reality.

One. Just like the creation of the constellations. Two. Yes.

One. Now my body is kneeling and my body remembers this position as a posture of paying respect to something. By kneeling at this moment the waving grass’s position grows and the moment seems greater than if I wasn’t kneeling. …Maybe I am just rambling.

Two. You’re not rambling it makes sense. It is interesting to think about. How does our body remember?

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In-between

We have our own selves and our perception of our surroundings. Seeing something creates not only the image in our minds, but also we become aware of the distance between us and the object. This depth is a line of distance, but also it is the separation of our self with the object. When focusing in perceiving an object, our presence is in the movement between self and the object.

“Music is the space between the notes.” [14]

We can take an in- between position and listen to the music between the notes. In a sense we are always between notes A and B and between past and future. We could try to become aware of these in-between moments to become aware of our in-between and moving status.

For me the in-between moment feels like blessing and praying. Can we care about the other; to pray for happiness and bless them in future endeavors? We could love and hope for futurities sake. To set aside differences, we may

become capable in seeing the others’ soul.

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One. I do not know, but I also have never seen my own brain thinking.

Two. Me too.

One. Could perhaps the thought process and or imagination be amplified because of the connection of the physical memories?

Two. The moment is amplified through lowering our vision as in changing our usual way of perceiving. But I do not know if our memory and imagination has though.

One. Kneeling or sitting right now and the dampness of the grass seeping through my trousers have become connected to seeing the waving grass glistering that are slowly fading because of the vivid sunlight.

One and Two stand up again.

Two. Yes it has. But we could imagine a line in the past, could we now too imagine sensory feeling? Maybe even so we could believe it to be real?

One. People with fewer limbs sometimes feel a sensation in their missing parts.

Two. Strange the power of bodily imagination.

One and Two walk further.

Ending Scene I. Grass and sun

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Becoming movement

One and Two are talking about how the physical experience enhances our thinking and how we perceive our surroundings. The sensatory input is our perception together with our understanding. Our thinking influences this sensory input, because we can focus on our senses if we want to become more aware. For example we usually do not smell anything, except when we focus on trying to smell things then we become aware of the difference scents. With our mind we can direct how we take in the sensory input.

“The path’s being defines the subject’s perception through the object’s mass. The falling body suddenly becomes the body of the fall”[5]

How we see is defined by our surroundings and the movement we have in relation to our surroundings. Becoming the embodiment of the fall is to let the movement take over the body and the mind. I believe we have a rhythm ourselves and there is a rhythm of our surroundings. When we let ourselves become one with the perception of our surroundings we can blend in with the rhythm of ‘here’. We can let the surroundings change our own rhythm.

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Scene II. Difference

One and Two walking.

Two. The land is changing.

One. Again.

Silence wandering on.

One. We are almost near the sea.

Two. You can tell?

One. The land changes before the sea, mostly because of the sea and also the fight with mankind against its powers.

Two. This is land with a purpose and past. I am glad we are almost at our destination.

One and Two walking between hills for a long while.

One. Almost the entire earth is handmade or culturally formed. Even ‘here’ is not refrained from it.

Two. It takes away a part of my experience of this place knowing this. Less romantic I suppose than land untouched by human hands…

One. Romanticism doesn’t exist it is just criticism on the present and how it is better in ideas of past or future.

Two. I would not know, neither does our surrounding know: The plants keep just on growing.

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Change connected to the soul

One and Two see the landscape changing, because the story changes. A narrative changes because we as readers can change together with the story and the characters. The duration of time is needed for the narration to have moments change in other moments.

Previously we talked about that wanting change is a utopian desire. This hope can become a driving force towards this utopia and it can create change. There needs to be hope for a change to happen, right? We cannot always change our surroundings, but we can hope to change ourselves. This hope for change changes us as we work towards use as we change how we position ourselves in the surroundings.

It is difficult to not do anything at all. The nature of a human is to stay alive and to stay in motion. This also counts for our own self: we are always in motion from one thought or emotion to another. I believe that for the soul being in movement is necessary for its existence.

“‘For what doth it profit a man if he gains the whole world but lose his only soul?’ Let’s not forget that to gain means to reach, to get to, as much as to conquer or possess. Losing one’s soul, anima, means losing the very being of movement.”

[5]

With our capability to change our perspective of our position we can change the way our surroundings affect us. Your thoughts and feelings changes your perception of how you think your day went. We are capable of pulling down borders that our mind sets up between the self and the surroundings to see the surroundings in a different way: a child’s way capable of seeing mundane things with awe.

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One. Humans’ trying to change nature is a constant struggle. Near to the sea you will these hills breaking down, because the sea takes away a part of it; trying to level it again. For protections the villagers have to repair this land.

Two. Ah, I see. Nature does what nature does. Grass grows between the tiles and I know of a tree growing out of a chimney destroying the house in its growth.

One. I would love to see that tree. Could you show that to me when we are back there?

Two. I will. I would love too.

One. Thank you.

They walk on until…

One. We are here!

Two. Here? At the sea?

One. No. Haha. Yes! Of course! Can’t you smell it?

Two. Ah! I can now. The air tastes salty too.

One. We will see our destination around that corner.

Two. I cannot wait.

Endings Scene II. Difference

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Bezielen and the surrounding soul

‘Bezielen’ is a Dutch word meaning literally: placing your soul somewhere else. Something or someone that is ‘bezielt’ has a soul or has been given one. Nowadays when we use the word to describe the person as ‘bezielt’ we say that person is enthusiastic.

‘Bezieling’ could be translated as ‘animated’ as anima is a definition of soul. Anima is alive: It is not standing still and it is not something solid or static. Anima is something insubstantial which is connected to the things outside of us. Our soul resonates with the souls of others and with the world soul: ‘Anima Mundi’. The world has a soul, which has been placed upon it by the imagination of people. Believing the world has a soul means that we can respect it and care for it.

In early Christian symbolism the butterfly represents the soul. A butterfly is not a static creature and it represents life, movement and freedom. This symbolism stems from the idea that the soul survives death.

I have been thinking that a soul does not have to exist only inside of us. Our soul has arms, legs, eyes and ears. Our soul travel and connects us with our surroundings. Thinking about the soul as a moving, flying and changing being is related to the literal translation of animating or ‘bezielen’, because of the capability of the soul to be in movement, towards something else, with the aspiration to have a subliminal experience.

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Scene III. Around the corner

One and Two walking.

One. Maybe we should not go to the sea?

Two. What? You’re joking, right?

One. I am not.

One stops. Two stops too.

Two. Why?

One. We could go back to this very place to the sea another time? Then the time in-between when we left to go here and the next time we will visit the sea will be a continuous journey.

Two. Are you talking about when we are back there it would be still a continuation to the sea, because we will visit another time? It doesn’t make sense! The sea is around the corner. We can go see it and that sight will be with us until the next time we will see the sea. Imagination will become part of our memory.

One. The imagination of the sea will be destroyed if you see the sea? Are you afraid that the sea itself will not hold true to your imagined destination?

Two. Either way, please go with me. It is possible that we will regret it if we do not go today.

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Believe

We cannot see what happens around the corner, but we have chosen a path believing that there is a next road behind it bringing us to our destination. We have to believe in a lot of things, because we do not know many facts. Everything we say can be wrong, but not saying anything will get you nowhere if you only listen to what others tell you. Not going because you do not know the precise road will get you nowhere.

“Do you really think that my music is devoid of religious antecedents? Do you wish to put an artist's soul under

restraint? Do you find it difficult to conceive that one who sees mystery in everything — in the song of the sea, in the curve of the horizon, in the wind and in the call of the birds

—should have been attracted to a religious subject?...

…Is the faith which my music expresses orthodox? I do not know; but I can say that it is my own, expressed in all sincerity.” [14]

To hope is to imagine a future and wanting it to become so. To believe is more than just hoping to believe is to know that it is already there. We can share imagination and believe, but each and every one of us imagines differently and believes differently.

I believe we do not walk over the earth. We cannot stand or walk on our own ability, but because of the rotational force of the earth and its mass the world creates gravity making it possible for us to stand and walk. With each step we believe and trust gravity to be there. The earth caries our body.

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Two. Ok , ok. Let’s get moving then, for good or bad memories.

One. You are quite dramatic. Haha. Let’s go, Two!

One and Two start walking again towards the sea.

Silence except for the sounds of the sea getting louder.

One. Silence had fallen again. Slow and soft like snowflakes between the sounds of the waves.

Two. The silence wasn’t gentle on its own, only in

combination with the sea it became.

One. It was and noticing is makes it even more gentle. Shall we enjoy some more?

Two. Yes. It eases the mind to listen to silence without thinking so much.

One. Listen! The silence is humming soft; you can hear it between the clashing of the waves.

Silence falling in between the waves.

Ending scene III. Around the corner

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Crossing the sea

At a low tide my grandfather, father and others have crossed the sea. They went north. Some people walked hand in hand. They had to walk slowly through the sometimes even thigh high sea. Children struggled more and the little ones had to ride the shoulders of the strong. I do not know how long they walked through the sea, but they had to reach the island before the tide set in.

By crossing the sea, or any other journey initiated, you find yourself looking at your ownfeet walking. We become aware of our own path towards a goal and we find happiness in our strivings. Sharing this awareness of the path is great as it ties a conversation with the experience. You can find a ray of sunlight bringing you happiness and pointing it out towards someone else can make the other look up and experience it too.

“We possess the landscape which surrounds us within this protective box. It is the landscape within which we think. It is the landscape which envelopes us. A landscape to be traced, touched, to learn about with the touch, to be drawn point by point.” [6]

A landscape in this case a sea envelops people who think feel and experience it. They become part of it. As the people crossed the sea towards north they felt the cold water and the movement of the current. The sea filled their thoughts and was probably the topic of their conversations. The anima of the sea became part of them. Perception of our surroundings can elevate our soul in a way that we become one with the present moment.

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Soul blessings

Bless your soul,

which leads you into life.

Blessed be the world’s soul, who carries us in life.

Bless your path,

which your soul willchoose.

Bless your soul, which leads you in life.

Blessed be you walking feet, for trusting gravity.

Bless your words,

for another soul to hear.

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Re-search Movement between soul and surroundings

Act IV Around the corner

Scene I. Sea

Enter One and Two walking down overlooking the sea.

One. Here!

Two. Thank you for inviting me on your walk, One. One. Thank you. It is good here.

Two. Here… Hha! ‘Here’ has been different places many times since we started walking.

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Ethics?

Good and bad are invisible imagined strings that hold our society together. Without them, without rules, the world will be egocentric and could perhaps devour itself. Like constellations good and bad are cross cultural thoughts.

There is no right or wrong way to walk and to wander. You could always change your path and reach a destination you want. Even though we cannot see walking as either good or bad we could look at the destination as good and as the place they left behind as bad. Why do we separate good and bad? Why would we even help others if it does not help ourselves?

Helping another is also helping yourself. Goodness is worthwhile seeking. By seeking goodness we improve ourselves towards the humane goals we want. Even though everyone’s ideas of goodness are different and can clash with another one’s idea, it is better than acting only to what is good for your health and wealth. To help another is caring for the other and by caring for the other you care for the world and your position in it. The position you have is mandatory and of great importance. The position you take in the world reflects the choices you make and how you see yourself; how you see your own soul.

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Scene II. As we are carried

Enter One and Two in the evening near the sea

One. The waves are getting stronger.

Two. Do we need to leave?

One. No need. It is still ok; she can’t reach us. The sea is powerful and scary being isn’t she? Especially at night.

Two. She…? Yes, she is scary. You can get lost at night and with bad luck; in a storm.

One. Lost in a storm… Doesn’t sound like fun to me. Two. Not amusing at all.

One. I like being lost in nature, like you do too while wandering the streets, but I do not like to be lost at sea. It is difficult to navigate at sea. No, not difficult, it is impossible to know where to go without the right equipment. No landmarks or people to ask the way and even with a course in mind the waves can overtake you and bring you to a location you do not want to go.

The loud sea is being listened to.

Two. The sea would lead aggressively with her current. By the

stars and by the land we were also guided, right?

One. Ah, yes, but earth doesn’t really lead, it gives choices; paths.

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The third, fourth and fifth voice

“I and me are always too deeply in conversation: how could I endure it, if there were not a friend? The friend of the hermit is always the third one: the third one is the float which prevents the conversation of the two from sinking into the depth.” [15]

One and Two could converse for a long time and they would talk and walk. They are fictional characters therefore they do not need to eat, sleep or have other needs that non-fictional people have and they could continue into eternity if someone was to write this down on paper. If the author of the text has split him- or herself up in two namely the I and me from the quote, where is the third voice? The third voice is symbolized by the landscape and the passing of time as the surroundings of One and Two give them elevation from their conversation and also the means for one. If the surroundings weren’t there it would be just a conversation without goal or topic. Now I am talking to you: The ‘me’ who addresses you as the reader is the fourth voice. I ask you to listen to the fifth voice; your own.

“We need people in our lives with whom we can be as open as possible. To have real conversations with people may seem like such a simple, obvious suggestion, but it involves courage and risk.”[2]

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Two. We are more dependent on earth getting us here than we think. If a large river would have blocked our path, we would not be here.

One. True. Besides, we would not have come here if this place would not have made a strong impact the first time I went here.

Two. Maybe then the earth does not lead, but it cares? One. The earth is not aware of our presence it cannot care.

Two. I understand what you mean even though caring and awareness isn’t the same.

One. Still, without the earth we cannot walked.

Two. Yes. If the land was not here we might had to swim. Eyes moving from the waves to the sky.

One. The moon orbits around us, creating the tides and the wind heightens the waves.

We have to remember that the earth around us is also not only circling around the sun, but is also turning around its own axis.

Two. Why do we need to know?

One. The earth is turning around itself exceeding our understanding and experience of this movement. This movement is fast and powerful.

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Care of the soul

Care is an aspect of believe. They are connected through hope. I have to believe in care to not lose hope in futurity.

The soul exist between our surroundings and our core and travels through the body, in my opinion. By taking care of the soul and nourishing it, you will establish a stronger bond with the surroundings and the self. This bond is like a two-way data stream from which we learn from our surroundings by sending out our soul and receiving it. By imagining the movement of the soul it is there. By imagining it we create awareness in our minds of the soul and hold it dear. To care is the same as to imagine. To hold dear is trying to grasp the ungraspable.

Children care for their souls. Have you wondered if we can still achieve a sense of happiness a child can have over something small? How can we learn to use our imaginative force to understand our surroundings as children can? To train ourselves with imagining abstract things and wander in nature we create a stronger and clearer perspective with which we see our surroundings and our position in it.

“Spirituality is seeded, germinates, sprouts and blossoms in the mundane. It is to be found and nurtured in the smallestof daily activities.” [2]

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Re-search Movement between soul and surroundings

Two. Powerful movement?

One. It creates gravity!

Two. Otherwise we would fall off.

One. Yes! By the movement of the earth we are being kept close to it. It is the truth that we can fall down by gravity, or that we can drown by it, but it has for me more beautiful aspects.

Two. Keeping us from being lost in space and dying.

One. Yes and earth helps us stand, it helps us walk and it carries us further and further.

Two. Carrying… Yes. Not caring.

One. By pulling us down it lifts us up and helps us stand and balance.

Two. As we are carried we walk.

One. With each pace we trust gravity to be there and let our feet fall with the movement of the earth.

Two. Our feet are carried by the earth. We will return to tell others about our travel.

One. Yes!

One and Two are carried back trusting gravity to be there.

Ending Scene II. As we are carried

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End note

I want to thank you for the time and the distances we crossed together. How far have we walked together with One and Two?

Take note that these words are written from my position and my opinions. Who am I to tell another what to do, but I wanted to share my thoughts, with the hope it resonates with some of yours. Maybe we have found the ‘it’ One finds and has shared with Two. At least that is the hope I carry as an artist and a writer, because if I can’t share thoughts of hope and change, there is no reason for making this text and story.

With the best of care I wish for hope and growth in our souls,

Ielse Slager

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Sources

[1]E. Levinas, Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority, 1961.

[2]T. Moore, Care of the Soul, 1988.

[3]R. F. Beerling, Het cultuurprotest van Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1977.

[4]R. Solnit, Wanderlust, A History of Walking, 2001.

[5]P. Verilio, Open Sky, 1997.

[6]Giuseppe Penone.

[7]L. Vallas, Claude Debussy: His Life and Works, 1933.

[8]E. A. Poe, MSS. Found in a Bottl, 1833.

[9]T. Williams, Otherland, between 1996 and 2001.

[10]I. Kant, Critique of Judgement, 1790.

[11]E. Levinias.

[12]S. Gablik, The Reenchantment of Art, 1995.

[13]W. Wordsworth, The Prelude, 1805.

[14]C. Debussy.

[15]F. Nietszche, Thus spoke Zarathustra, between 1883 and 1885.

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[16]B. v. d. Berg, Zapdansen.

[17]M. Doorman, De Romantische Orde.

[18]W. Stoker, Kunst van hemel en aarde.

[19]P. Slotendijk, Sferen, 1999.

[20]F. Gros, Wandelen, een filosofosche gids.

[21]H. d. H. Jager, Het Sublieme, 2011.

[22]J. Hermsen, Stil de tijd, 2009.

[23]E. Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, 1757.

[24]A. Ehrenzweig, Hidden order of art, 1967.

[25]R. v. Riessen, De ziel opnieuw.

[26]R. Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, 1617.

[27]M. Delrue, Kunst en Spiritualiteit, 2005.

[28]W. Vaughan, Romantic Art, 1978.

[29]A. Lamúa, Het boek der oneindigheid.

[30]L. Koren, Wabi-Sabi, For Artist, Designers, Poets & Philosophers.

[31]G. Schilling, Klein en Groot.

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[32]P. Vroon, De ziel te lijf.

[33]F. W. Leakey, Baudelaire and Nature.

[34]M. Proust, Swann's way, 1922.

[35]H. D. Thoreau, Walden.

[36]multiple, The unpainted landscape, 1987.

[37]J. Rousseau, A discourse Upon the Origin etc., 1910.

[38]A. Burms, Transcendence and Chaos.

[39]T. Lemaire, Filosofie van het Landschap.

[40]M. Doorman, Steeds mooier.

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