My mother once said, ‘Watch your world from above and you’ll be liberated.’ These words have stayed with me for long as I have slowly climbed hundreds of stairs to reach the top of towering buildings in many cities of many countries. There were always others taller than me who stood beside and whispered in awe, ‘Charming sight! The city does look conquerable from here.’ I’ve peeped out of airplanes flying above these towering buildings and wondered if conquering cities would really solve the riddles of disharmony. I have climbed trees and seen sweeping panoramic views of landscapes dotted with fields ready to be harvested and experienced a strange affinity for nature that wanted to bind me and I have walked away. I’ve even lain on top of men doing whatever it is that one does when there and dived into glazed but appreciative glances but they said nothing about being liberated. Yes, I have lumbered through knee-deep snow on high mountains, felt the fleeting caress of clouds but then one summit always pointed to another and the wish to remain protected by layers of clothing never left me. ‘This cannot be liberating, for sure,’ I whispered as I made my way back. But there were always voices in my head that asked me to go on with my search and I did.
‘Are these voices in my head blocking my meeting with liberation?’ I asked myself every time I decided to take my exploration to someplace else. There were no answers and I translated this silence to mean that none but me must answer. I was walking around with a massive baggage of silent chunks and then I met a small boy reading a book and asked, ‘Have you ever seen the world from above?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, and then after some thought, went on, ‘I once did stand on a map of the world when my teacher asked me to show what being on the top meant to me.’
We had a good laugh at this story and I went my way but this image of a small boy standing on a map turned into me imagining myself balanced on an atlas with expanding galaxies swirling around me. In my imagination I wore nothing, heard nothing, said nothing, felt nothing, and had no thoughts and urges conversing with me. It was then almost like the time I was atop towering buildings or on a tree or in an airplane without any voices in my head. It was almost like the times I was reading a book and was seamlessly merged with the characters without voices in my own head bumbling in. Or like the lady on a snowy mountain slope with a large-brimmed hat and a flowing cape in that painting by Daniel Frost. Not thought-infested. Not worry-worn. Not conversing with either the past or the future. Just a part of the moment.
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This post is all about my thoughts on seeing this painting by Daniel Frost. The prompt was put up by Visual Verse.
Painting by Daniel Frost_Visual Verse prompt_February 2018
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Arvind Passey
02 February 2018
