It was perhaps twenty years ago that I took this photo. Alone at Kur-ring-gai Chase National Park, sunning my body after a dip in a clear shallow pool, I suddenly had a profound experience of being seen by an animate world. The gaze was compelling, yet not localised – I was being seen all over, and inside, and it was deep and tender, a timeless moment of grace and gratefulness. And in that happy daze I took this picture of my shadow falling across the riverbed. Later, I got the photo printed. Only then did I see the eyes.
No, it’s not a double exposure. It’s the pattern of stones in the river that create those two beautiful eyes. Truly, I don’t know how, but I didn’t consciously see those eyes when I took the photo. That strong sense of being seen, that happens sometimes, and it’s not about eyes. But in this rare case, the wonder is that the image tells the inner story of my experience.
‘And they are seeing you: the gaze of an alive world’. This is the name of an exhibition of words and images I’m holding next year at the Warburton Arts Centre. I put in an application, and was thrilled when they contacted me and said that they loved the proposal so much that they’ve given me an extended arts residency, a three-month exhibition and the space to run workshops and events, with much in-kind support. The proposal included a collage wall of co-becoming writing and images from the participants from my extended Writing with the Earth courses. The work of co-becoming, very much a collaborative and evolving process, has resulted in so much astonishingly beautiful writing by many dozens of people, and I am very excited to have this opportunity to co-create a collaborative exhibition of this work. I’ll also be running workshops in the gallery over that time (February to April) and selections of that writing will be included, so it will be an evolving, accumulative exhibition.
I’ve spoken about the exhibition with just a few co-becoming participants so far, and there’s been a gratifying response. So if you’ve done a deep dive into this work, I’ll be contacting you shortly to see if you’d like to be involved. Thanks to all who’ve come on the journey so far – what an honour and pleasure it has been to work with you!