“The eye is the lamp of the body,” we are told in whispers over soft bedtime light. The meaning behind these words often indicates the importance of what we take in through our eyes – the excellence of our prized bodies, the temples of this life, and the caution we must take in what we allow inside. Yet, our eyes are also our sincerest messengers, the overly willing ambassadors which express the measures of our hearts. Windows of the soul and speakers of the unspeakable, eyes mingle in a space of silent knowing, where words become the flimsiest tool of all.
If you long to know what a person thinks or what they feel, you need not search further than their gaze for answers, or their lack of gaze instead. To reach the end of messages echoed in a gaze is an endless path which re-circles and winds. It changes moment-to-moment, its mysteries never fully understood, even by its host. Where does a gaze land if none are present to receive it? Perhaps it floats into the atmosphere to be felt by an unknowing recipient, across the mighty sea, hungry for understanding. How many expressions are received, yet squandered – unstudied, unquestioned, left to age and crumble in the hot sun? What might a person know of his place in the world if he observed his own expressions – the soft, resting glow during nighttime rest, the intent focus of the thinking mind, the emptiness of a bleak look which knows no one is watching on an afternoon spent alone, the enchanting bliss of a full heart overflowing into a rapture of laughter? We are more than what we say and do, we are souls behind manifestations, glorious beings behind the expressions that echo from within.
Every gaze shared, one from elderly to young, lover to lover, father to child, releases the subtlest magic into the air, awakening the essence of life within us. Is it not the victories and tragedies, but the moments that carry us there which give our lives meaning? Every instance, as fragile as the suds on a river bend, rushing toward a definite end, transitory and thus all the more precious. If we truly soaked in each passing moment, wading fully into the waters fully until every inch of our skin is drenched, wiggling our way around and adjusting to the air, smelling the scents, accepting the comforts and discomforts offered, with a peace in knowing they will all soon change, how long and rich would our lives become? It is not only the lifetime which unfolds into a masterful story, but each tiny occurrence along the way, a standstill story, one worth telling, one worth reveling in. All of eternity rushes by, yet the spotlight shines on this very second in time, all eyes of the dead and the unborn are watching, waiting to see what we will do with the single messy and miraculous life we’ve been given.
I watch with eyes wide open, I wait, my mind an open book. I feel the warmth behind the eyes of the caring until my whole body is still with peace. I absorb the mystery and magic all around me until my soul sings with excitement. I reside with gratefulness in knowing that each moment spent with another is a rare and priceless gift, a chip out of time, a token of their days. I allow myself to be transformed by each experience and carried to a much greater abyss, outside of the shell of this life I call home.