Possibly my favourite metaphor for who-we-really-are and how that all shows up in day to day life, is an aperture.
Our modern understanding of what an aperture is—probably driven by photography, and cameras—is a hole, through which something can get.
If you look up the etymology of the word you find this:
Aperture (n.): from Proto-Indo-European compound of ap- (off, away) ✚ wer- (to cover)
(Very befitting for the Innate Health understanding!)
This notion of humans-as-apertures led the philosopher Alan Watts to once surmise (in his own, very helpful version of headcanon), that:
“Every one of us is an aperture, through which the whole cosmos looks out.”
And I couldn't love that more. I've written about apertures in a previous Daily Reminder, and before I go into a bit more detail today, it's probably worth refreshing yourself on that one (it's not long):
Giles P Croft
A you-shaped aperture
The other day, when discussing ideas showing up, and how they come from ‘nowhere’ but they're still unique to us, I happened to say that the aperture through which good ideas come is “you-shaped” and while I have a clear idea in my head about what I mean by that, you may not.
So I did a bit of crafting and came up with a visual representation for you. Here's a very simple aperture I made, with two basic components:
- The bit that stops the light getting through (💭)
- The hole where the light gets through (❤️).
This is YOU. Who you really are. An aperture, through which the energy of life flows, relentlessly. And that combination of the light/life energy, being filtered through/covered up/limited by your human perceptions… well, that's what you get.
The resulting shadow on the wall is what you see in the world of form: feelings, thoughts, perceptions, behaviours. Like this:
And of course we all have different Thought System 📦 contents, because we've all got different genetics, and had different life experiences, and been conditioned with different beliefs, so the shape of the edges of the aperture (your beliefs, or ‘personality’) will also determine the quality/characteristics of what light gets through; all your little idiosyncrasies.
Life is still life. It's the source, and is completely unaffected. It's impersonal. It's pure, uncontaminated, bright white life-energy. It's infinite. It's what Syd Banks used to call ‘the allness’ – it's got everything, ever, in a formless state. It would blow your mind if it wasn't filtered through your perceptions… and it just so happens that those perceptions/beliefs have a shape. A ‘you’-shape.
Makes sense, yeah?
As I wrote in the previous piece on the topic, there'll be times when our aperture is wide-open; when our sense of self is not necessary/not being created, and a lot of LIFE (and wisdom and creativity and love and intuition and oneness and ideas and compassion and peace and wellbeing) comes through, because it's relatively unobstructed.
We'll still ‘be ourselves’ because the edges of the aperture, however wide it is, are still ‘us’-shaped… there's just much less of it, and you could imagine it's a bit stretched, so less impeding of life's outflow.
And then of course there'll be ‘bad’ days, when there's a LOT of ego showing up, obstructing the light and closing that aperture right down. We're very attached to our thinking; our attention's on that, rather than on the light of being that's pouring through us (or at least trying to).
And it might look a bit like this:
So that's what I mean by a you-shaped aperture, and I hope it offers a visual metaphor that helps, as you go about your day.
Let that aperture relax open, and the wonder of life flow through you.
💖
Giles
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Related
Giles P Croft
This is also what I mean by the energy of life—wisdom, presence—being ‘contextual: it's always going to be ‘you’-shaped, and showing up in the right way for YOU, and where you're at 💖