The Henry Miller quote from yesterday about nature being “order incarnate” has got me thinking that it might be the key to the next project.

Today, I opened up On Seeing by Steven J. Meyers, hoping for more inspiration and came across this passage that I had underlined on a previous reading:

The degree to which we see the beautiful in nature, or in anything else for that matter, is the degree to which we perceive order and rhythm, and associate that with the creative and procreative functions of life. Too simple? Perhaps, but I vastly prefer this approach to one which argues relative merit. Just as with the sublime, the most reliable learning regarding the beautiful that we possess rests in our biological heritage, and, once again, in order to access it, in order to see, we must confront it from time to time as directly as possible, without the intervention of institutional or cultural mediation.

I’m not sure to what degree it is possible to be free from cultural/institutional imposed meanings but if we could leave them behind and really experience nature without their weight, what would we see? Relationships, hierarchies, networks, groups, etc.

This book is so rich! I am going to sit down and read through it again (for the third time…)

We walk a fine line here between seeing and projection, but freed from the curse of anthropocentrism, it is my hope that the line can be walked successfully, and the result is more clarity of vision.