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)

scanning

There is a funny thing about human consciousness [...] which is that our attention is captured by the figure rather than the background, by the relatively enclosed area rather than the diffuse area, and by something moving rather than what is relatively still. And to all those phenomena that—in this way—attract our attention, we attribute a higher degree of reality than the ones we don’t notice. That’s only because, for the moment, those are more important to us. Consciousness [...] is a radar that is scanning the environment to look out for trouble just in the same way as a ship’s radar is looking for rocks or other ships. And the radar, therefore, does not notice the vast areas of space where there are no rocks, no other ships. So, in the same way, our eyes—or rather, the selective consciousness behind the eyes—only pays attention to what we think is important.

Alan Watts: We as Organism

Große Wasser

An einem großen Wasser fühlt man sich freier als sonst, einfach nur, weil das große Wasser da ist. Das große Wasser verscheucht die ewigen kleinen Gedanken und das Drandenken an dies und das und sagt einem, dass man einmal still und ruhig werden soll. Man wird plötzlich ganz "spiegelglatt", ich meine im Innern. Und man atmet ganz ruhig und spürt die Luft vom Wasser her, wie sie das Gesicht kühlt und dafür sorgt, dass die Sonne sich einbrennen kann in das Gesicht. 

Ortheil, Die Berlinreise, p 109 (Luchterhand 2014)

Klang der Sprache

Das Französische klingt weich und sanft wie im Traum geflüstert. Das Sprechen verläuft ohne Pause und Hänger, und die Französisch Sprechenden geraten, je länger sie sprechen, immer tiefer hinein in den Traum. Im Traum ist es aber nicht dunkel oder gefährlich, sondern hell, wie im Frühling oder im Herbst, keineswegs aber wie im Sommer oder im Winter.   

Ortheil, Die Berlinreise, p 103 (Luchterhand 2014)

nature

[...] Just by looking at nature, I feel as if I'm being swallowed up into it, and in that moment I get the sensation that my body's now a speck, a speck from long before I was born, a speck that is melting into nature herself. This sensation is so amazing that I forget that I'm a human being, and one with special needs to boot.

Nature calms me down when I'm furious, and laughs with me when I'm happy. You may think that it's not possible that nature could be a friend, not really. But human beings are part of the animal kingdom too, and perhaps us people with autism still have some left over awareness of this, buried somewhere deep down. I'll always cherish the part of me that thinks of nature as a friend.
Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump: one boy's voice from the silence of autism, Q47 p123, (Sceptre 2014), translated by David Mitchell & Keiko Yoshida

maelstrom

One night in 1945, on a Navy vessel in Pacific storm, my relief on bow watch, seasick, failed to appear, and I was alone for eight hours in a maelstrom of wind and water, noise and iron; again and again, waves crashed across the deck, until water, air, and iron became one. Overwhelmed, exhausted, all thought and emotion beaten out of me, I lost my sense of self, the heartbeat I heard was the heart of the world, I breathed with the mighty risings and declines of earth, and this evanescence seemed less frightening then exalting. Afterwards, there was a pain of loss - loss of what, I wondered, understanding nothing.
Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard (1979), p48 (Harvill HarperCollins 1989)

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