Alicante proved to be the perfect place to deepen our observations on water waves. Gloriously sunny in January, down by the marina we took the camcorder headed for the promenade over the sea. We had, whilst walking purposely, allowed our minds to quieten and slow to connect to that deeper inner spiritual level of perception. Then a moment’s distraction turned out to be an extraordinary almost psychic kind of experience.
The distraction was an ubiquitous deep blue mosaic lined square sided pool around a building. We stopped to see if there was anything of interest and observed the subtle undulation of the water, and began filming. But we were not prepared for the shift in our perceptions as the breeze added vibration to the water.
We watched as the horizontal lines of the mosaic pool lining lost the vertical intersecting lines and became wonderful oscillations, like an oscilloscope, the lines carried the waves of energy down the parallel lines in the pool, white against the blue, hypnotic and so distinct and clear. The wave forms were quite transforming the visual experience of the pool and looked like sound waves on a PC screen. We were unexpectedly watching earthwaves. Then a second transformation, like a separate layer, the vertical lines overlaid quite separately a pattern of 1970s design style wallpaper undulating and pulsating patterns. We were watching the vibrations of the waves through the water almost like some measuring lab experiment.
We were so intent in this looking people were also looking into the pool probabaly none the wiser of our exclusive preoccupation.
We filmed it all and watched the playback. Almost completely gone from the video the sublime uninterrupted waveforms only capturing the image of wavering water over mosaics with some light wind disturbance. It was quite a jumbled picture and we could see within it elements of the distinct pattern we observed. It was clear to us, yet again, that traditional art observation seeks to observe objectively and then perhaps distort intuitively in the process of painting or drawing. Yet this quasi scientific trained artist way of looking is so limited. When you let your mind settle into peace it begins to see things which are there in only for some humans or perhaps other living creatures to see. Through soft gaze and Zen connection with all that is around we have seen the Earth and its waves captured in water.