like the Aurignacian hunter

In his first summer, forsaking all his toys, my son would stand rapt for near an hour in his sandbox in the orchard, as doves and redwings came and went on the warm wind, the leaves dancing, the clouds flying, birdsong and sweet smell of privet and rose. The child was not observing; he was at rest in the very centre of the universe, a part of things, unaware of endings and beginnings, still in unison with the primordial nature of creation, letting all light and phenomena pour through.

Ecstasy is identity with all existence, and ecstacy showed in his bright paintings; like the Aurignacian hunter, who became the deer he drew on the cave wall, there was no "self" to separate him from the bird or flower. The same spontaneous identity with the object is achieved in the bold sumi paintings of Japan -- a strong expression of Zen culture, since to become one with whatever one does is a true realization of the Way.

Amazingly, we take for granted that instinct for survival, fear of death, must separate us from the happiness of pure and uninterpreted experience, in which body, mind, and nature are the same. And this debasement of our vision, the retreat from wonder, the backing away like lobsters from free-swimming life into safe crannies, the desperate instinct that our life passes unlived, is reflected in proliferation without joy, corrosive money rot, the gross befouling of the earth and air and water from which we came.
Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard (1979), p47 (Harvill HarperCollins 1989)

'the armour of the I'

Compare the wild, free paintings of the child with the stiff, pinched "pictures" these become as the painter notices the painting and tries to portray "reality" as others see it; self-conscious now, he steps out of his own painting and, finding himself apart from things, notices the silence all around and becomes alarmed by the vast signification of Creation. The armour of the "I" begins to form, the construction and desperate assertion of separate identity, the loneliness: "Man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through the narrow chinks of his cavern." William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.

[...] memories would come on wings of light [...]
Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard (1979), p47 (Harvill HarperCollins 1989)

light - the darker side of the sphere

She seemed to be falling asleep; so then he leaned over her and kissed her gently at the edge of her large mouth. Morena, he whispered, which is the word for dark one. Instantly the long bony arms flung about him an embrace which took his breath. She pressed their faces painfully together, her Indian cheekbones bruising his softer flesh. Scalding tears and the pressure of those gaunt arms broke finally all the way through the encrusted shell of his ego, which had never before been broken all the way through, and he was released. He was let out of the small but apparently rather light and comfortable room of his known self into a space that lacked the comfort of limits. He entered a space of bewildering dark and immensity, and yet not dark, of which light is really the darker side of the sphere. He was not at home in it. It gave him unbearable fright, and so he crawled back.
from: Rubio y Morena by Tennessee Williams, Hard Candy, p142 (New Directions Paperbook) 

Sie schien einzuschlafen, da beugte er sich über sie und küsste sie zart auf den Mund. Morena, flüsterte er, was die Dunkle heißt. Augenblicklich umschlangen ihn lange, knochige Arme zu einer Umarmung, die ihm die Luft nahm. Schmerzhaft presste sie ihre beiden Gesichter aneinander, und ihre indianischen Backenknochen zerdrückten fast seine zartere Haut. Heiße Tränen und der Druck der mageren Arme durchbohrten endgültig die harte Schale seines Ichs, die noch nie aufgebrochen worden war, und er war erlöst. Er war aus dem engen, aber anscheinend hellen und bequemen Gehäuse seines bewussten Ichs in einen Raum entlassen, welcher der Annehmlichkeit von Grenzen entbehrt. Er betrat eine Sphäre verwirrender Dunkelheit und Unendlichkeit, die dennoch nicht schwarz ist, weil Licht in Wirklichkeit die dunkle Seite des Weltraumes ist. Hier war er noch nicht zu Hause, empfand unerträgliche Furcht und wich zurück.
aus: Glasporträt eines Mädchens, S. 102/103 (Aufbau-Verlag Berlin und Weimar 1976), Deutsch von Paridam von  dem Knesebeck

filtering light

Flapping our fingers and hands in front of our faces allows the light to enter our eyes in a pleasant, filtered fashion. Light that reaches us like this feels soft and gentle, like moonlight. But 'unfiltered' direct light sort of 'needles' its way into the eyeballs of people with autism in sharp straight lines, so we see too many points of light. This actually makes our eyes hurt.

This said, we couldn't get by without light. Light wipes away our tears, and when we're bathed in light, we're happy. Perhaps we just love how its particles pour down on us. Light particles somehow console us. I admit this is something I can't quite explain using logic.
Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump: one boy's voice from the silence of autism, Q37 p102 (Sceptre 2014), translated by David Mitchell & Keiko Yoshida