On Being Seen
And by Being Seen, I Mean the Seeing of the Soul
I cannot begin to tell you how important being seen is. And by being seen, I mean the seeing of the soul. The piece of us that lies beyond all stories and notions of identity. The piece of us that lies beyond all of our conclusions.
There is a good chance that this is the most profound yearning that any person may possess. Albeit unrecognized, or at least unnamed.
Over years with the camera, I’ve noticed that the consequence of such an experience can cause a felt sense of being at peace in one’s own skin. A point at which one’s very operating system may change.
‘It starts here. Right here.’ (take this as your invitation)
The film transcript can be found at its permanent home in the Soul Biographies Monochrome Collection.
This was filmed in a room full of people, a hallowed collective witnessing. It and many similar haunting experiences have left me with the deep interior sense that I must get out into the world and undertake such collective witnessing with gatherings of people far and wide, to all four corners of the world. Whether they be in rooms of just a handful of people, or in auditoriums of many more. The point being to demonstrate that the revealing of one’s very soul is far simpler than one could ever imagine and that such an act seeing and being seen has profound consequence to everything and everyone.
I’m not entirely certain how to fund the endeavor I have in my current imagination, but I’m working on a plan.
Thank you to Chalon Bridges for making this piece (and others) possible.
The Persian Poet Rumi wrote;
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn’t make any sense.”
This work sets out to be a demonstrable experience of such a field.
The Usual Viewing Instructions
Do take in these few minutes in a state of full and undivided attention. Full screen, headphones. Do not attempt if distracted. And feel free to screen or to stream or to pass on to someone. With attribution.
The Reflection
As I gaze into the world,
I realize that nothing
falters in its ability
to reflect what
I’ve come here to see.
My challenge remains
to admit
to what it is
that I’ve seen.
See last week’s new ‘speaking’ film. A Spellbinding Experience.
I’m glad for the crossing paths with you, dear Nic.
I ended up, quite simply, through the threads that weave kinship, coming to a small group intensive in 2016, or was it 2015, to cook for for your participants.
Andrew H said, ‘this woman would get it’ when you asked him about catering. He knew me from dancing, and he’d eaten my food.
There I was then, indeed getting it.
I was new to the filming, but not at all new to the terrain where the conditions are, well for lack of a better word, authentic relationship - being here like this - I knew where I was.
I knew about seeing and being seen. If I hadn’t found my way there a decade or few earlier I’d not be alive to tell the tail. What I didn’t know was the experience of seeing myself being seen. What I knew from the inside, your poetry via camera and recording gave me the gift of self-witnessing from the outside, the country of authentic so very familiar internally.
Kind of wild, considering I only came to feed the group and ended up with a Soul Biography.
Gratitude & love, always, caro 🙏