Heroes Not Zombies

Our two cerebral hemispheres allow us to engage with the world in very different ways, particularly by the types of focus they enable. If you browse through my blog, or search “McGilchrist” you’ll find lots of detail about this.

One difference is that the left hemisphere is always on the lookout for the familiar. It seeks to re-cognise what we encounter and to classify it according to previous analyses. The right hemisphere however is primed to spot what’s new. It seeks to focus on the unfamiliar, the unique, the particular.

You could say that the right hemisphere promotes discovery by seeking novelty.

Maybe that partly explains our common fascination for new life, for seedlings, shoots and buds. Maybe it explains why we find the unfolding of leaves and petals so beautiful, or why we enjoy seeing growth, development and emergence.

The right hemisphere helps us elevate becoming over being.

What do you notice that’s new or different today?

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One of my favourite ways to photograph a plant is with the sun shining through its leaves or flowers. I suppose this breaks the same rule about shooting with the sun behind you, which I wrote about the other day. But in this case the sun is nowhere to be seen.

I like this image because plants capture the energy of the sun and turn it into structure and nutrition. They also gobble up carbon dioxide from the air, and in exchange, produce oxygen.

If plants weren’t able to transform the sun’s energy then none of us would exist. Plants evolved before animals, after all, and if they’d never emerged then the Earth wouldn’t have developed the protective atmosphere which it has now.

I also like this image because it seems as if the plant is radiating light. To me, it seems as if you can see its Life Force, a phenomenon we are all aware of, but which isn’t considered nearly enough in health care.

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The ceiling of this room has been decorated with stars which makes you think of the night sky, although you know, instantly, that it’s not at all like the night sky. How do we know? The stars are distributed too regularly. The universe doesn’t do “regular”, well, not a grand scale.

I know one of the big questions scientists ask is why is the universe so “lumpy”? If the Big Bang happened as theorised why didn’t all the matter created distribute evenly as the universe expanded? How did we end of with randomly distributed stars, planets and galaxies?

Looking at this image again today I’m thinking of a novel I read last week where one of the characters pointed out that although we have described patterns of stars and called them constellations, those stars exist in three dimensions and are not nearly as close to other as they appear when we see them in the shape of a constellation. That’s just one of the mind boggling things about the night sky, the fact that the light we see from each star set off towards us hundreds, even thousands, of years ago, so as we gaze at the night sky we are witnessing the past.

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Bamboo is a remarkable plant. It’s strong, yet light, firm, but seemingly delicate. It’s a remarkable coloniser, spreading rapidly and many people fear it in their gardens because of its ability to grow and spread virtually uncontrollably.

I think it’s a great example of nature at its best….strong, resilient and adaptable.

We need those qualities too, and I’m still surprised that Medicine pays such little attention to the natural mechanisms of defence, repair, healing and growth.

From anti-inflammatoires to anti-biotics, anti-histamines to anti-depressants, modern Medicine seems based on the war concept of fighting enemies in an attempt to overcome them. During the pandemic we saw repeated attempts to find a magic bullet – lockdowns, masks, vaccines – nothing stemmed the tides of infection, nothing inhibited the proliferation of variants and a whole succession of waves.

At various stages in this pandemic I’ve thought – the virus isn’t the problem, it’s how we are living – because we’ve seen that those hit hardest are those who are most vulnerable – those living in poverty, those living in overcrowded housing, those already suffering from other incurable chronic ailments, the frail elderly, those living in care facilities or working in poor work conditions with inadequate ventilation, space, etc.

But are we addressing those issues? Because the magic bullet never came, and, probably it never will.

We know a lot about what we have to do to promote and sustain health and adaptation. We just need to turn that into political will and tap our human creativity to follow through.

Will we do that?

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I took this photo a few years ago inside Montaigne’s chateau. I loved that visit. It’s a fascinating place. In this one room, used as a place of worship I noticed that the light was of two very different kinds. The natural light coming in through a high window seemed softer or gentler than the artificial light in the altar, so I took this photo to capture both kinds of light, setting the exposure to a general setting which balanced the total light in the room.

Now that I see the image there’s a distinct difference of “temperature” between the two kinds of light. The artificial light seems warm, and the natural light seems cool. Don’t you agree?

This is one of many photos I have where the light itself becomes a main subject. I find that so appealing – it doubles the pleasure. I enjoy looking at the features of the room AND I enjoy seeing the light itself.

So here’s my “challenge” for you today….see if you can notice the light, either in your home, or when you’re out and about….not just what the light illuminates but the light itself.

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You know there’s a general recommendation not to take a photo “into the Sun”, and certainly it’s not a good idea to look directly into the Sun at any point.

However, using a camera, with an LCD screen, there’s no risk and, actually, sometimes the results can be stunning. As is the case in this photo.

With an automatic exposure setting everything in the frame is under exposed in relation to the Sun, but that just heightens the drama.

Two things I notice in this photo is how the foreground seems so dark it looks like night time – actually that contrast between the dark land and the bright sky reminds me a particular Magritte painting – you know the one? And the other is the sheer beauty of the sky. Aren’t those clouds simply gorgeous?

(The Magritte painting is called “The Empire of Light”)

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Have you ever seen a moth like this? I think it’s a “White Ermine” moth. Isn’t it beautiful?

I took this photo yesterday at the front of my house. My first reaction was, how beautiful. My second, how unusual, I wonder what it’s called? My third was, look at the symmetries! My fourth, “as above, so below”, followed by, ah, there are two of them….mating!

I moved here in December and the garden is quite big, and semi-abandoned. There are trees on all sides, and a significant area of wild woodland. I’m immersed in birdsong all the time. There’s a rich diversity of plants and creatures here.

In recent days, I’ve seen this moth, spotted a very colourful woodpecker, delighted in the reappearance of redstarts and hoopoes, and heard a nightingale for the first time in my life.

I often write about l’émerveillement du quotidien (search for that exact phrase using the search box at the top of this site), but I don’t think my everyday has ever been so richly filled with Life and Nature. What a gift!

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You know the old saying that if the only tool you possess is a hammer then everything looks like a nail?

Or the teaching I received from my mentor in General Practice training, about referring to specialists, “If you send your patient to a man with a knife, he’ll use it”.

I’m a big fan of taking the holistic view, of always trying to see the contexts, and connections. I’m suspicious of simplistic, “two value” thinking. I’m uncomfortable with decision making based on “outcomes” and “targets” which obscure the uniqueness of the individual and reduce their nuanced experience to a single dimension.

So when I look at this photo, I see the ouroboros, an ancient symbol of the cyclical nature of reality and of wholeness. And as I look through the centre I see a tall hedge with many arched entrances, each offering a different way through, then I think of how a holistic perspective enables us to see that reality always offers a multiplicity of options, paths, and dimensions to explore.

We live in such a richly diverse universe. Our lives are so multidimensional. Every life story reveals a multiplicity of experiences, events, thoughts, feelings and actions. When we narrow our focus too tightly, embed our habits too rigidly, then we diminish our lives and those of others, and we create a distorted view of reality.

Seeing the whole, the contexts and the connections is an ongoing, cyclical process. It doesn’t have distinct starting and ending points. It’s dynamic. It flows. It’s alive.

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I’m a sucker for a great reflection. I can’t resist it. Isn’t this beautiful? I took this photo at the weekend in the grounds of a nearby chateau.

There are strong themes of alchemy, legend and myth in this chateau, which creates an atmosphere of mystery and something sacred.

“As above, so below”, is the old esoteric teaching and I think of that when I look at a scene like this.

That’s what reflection opens up….an appreciation of the here and now setting off ripples of connected thoughts which deepen and enrich the experience.

The bottom line though, is that reflections in water have the same power to catch and hold our attention that sunsets do. They are phenomena which hit our pause button, and that’s something we don’t do often enough.

So, I’m sharing this one with you today, and hoping you’ll enjoy the pause.

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I’ve written many times about the benefits of forest bathing. In fact spending time “in Nature” is beneficial but there’s something extra added by spending time amongst trees. So I was delighted to find a magical garden around an old chateau near where I live now. It’s the Château Renaissance at Dampierre-sur-Boutonne, known for its “alchemical gallery” (which I’ll tell you about another time). One part of the grounds is a poplar forest. That’s it in the photo above.

It’s wonderful in there. There are several sculptures depicting characters or symbols from Arthurian legend amongst the trees and in one particular place there is…..a sun lounger! What a strange thing, to find a sun lounger in the middle of a forest!

I couldn’t resist. When you lay down on it you can’t help but look directly above you.

And what do you see when you look up?

Of course! How magical! What genius!!

You know, I like these photos, but looking at something and being inside it, experiencing it, is completely different….which reminds me of C S Lewis’s piece about the sunbeam in the woodshed – how you can look at the light or you can stand in the light looking within it.

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