It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment? for the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone. That is where the writer scores over his fellows: he catches the changes of his mind on the hop. Growth is exciting; growth is dynamic and alarming. Growth of the soul, growth of the mind. ~Vita Sackville-West
Ah blessed sight, a function that is considered to be the most complex of the five senses. From the moment we wake until we close our eyes to sleep, our eyes act like a camera recording in memory what is seen. For many, there is a compulsion to replicate what the eye sees. Some use an actual camera to capture memorable images, some a paint brush, others the written word, and then there are those who are want to use more than one medium. So it seems that something more than the optical nerve is touched by sight, does it not? Perhaps the eye touches the soul as well.
He is your praise; he is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome things that your own eyes have seen. ~Deuteronomy 10:21 ✝
Sacred Touches 
Pingback: 235. The camera can photograph thought. ~Dirk Bogarde, English actor and writer | Sacred Touches
I think you’re onto something, there, Natalie–“Perhaps the eye touches the soul as well.” For us, visual learners, it is a definite truth! Gorgeous capture, too! Happy New Year! Laura
LikeLike
Thanks, Laura, I believe that it does. But then I believe all the senses were intended to touch our souls. I’m glad you liked my photo. Happy New year to you as well! Blessings, Natalie 🙂
LikeLike
Teaching kids to draw, we would do an exercise called a blind contour drawing. They would have the most difficult of times with this. The deal was for them to have a pen in hand, placing it on a piece of blank paper. They would then have to “set” their eye on whatever the subject was that we were attempting to draw. They would then have to follow along very slowly, very very slowly the contour of the subject while the drawing hand captured the image. There was no looking down at the paper. It was so hard to keep from doing something that comes so natural and necessary–that is looking down at what you’re drawing. The trick is to slow the eye so the hand can keep up.
Our eyes are trained to take in so much information in literally the blink of an eye. If they could slow down the taking in of the information before them, allowing the hand to transcribe what the eye was circumventing, the two could work magic and the drawing could actually be remarkable exact.
We tend to attempt drawing from memory of items, not the exact study, therefore the end results is based on memory and not actual site. Hence the frustration that things do not look at they should.
Our memories, our souls, all touched by our “sight”—
Thank you for the beautiful words—
Happy New Year Natalie—
Love to you–julie
LikeLike
Ooh, that would be a challenging task for sure. Years ago I took a scuplting class and we had a live model we were supposed to sculpt. In the last class the teacher asked us to walk around and look at each person’s piece, and the interesting thing was that each of ours looked not like the model but like ourselves instead. It was like our fingers knew our own images. Happy New Year, Cookie. Love to you from Texas. Natalie 🙂
LikeLike
Ahhh, yes—I always told the kids that most drawings of people–drawings that they execute from mere thought and not necessarily from observation, would be more or less a self portrait—as it is our own image of which we are most familiar with—having stared at it and studied it in mirror after mirror throughout life.
Always love the lang arts teachers referencing the vials arts 🙂
love to you from the visual arts teacher 🙂
LikeLike
I may have been a language arts teacher, but there’s an artist in my soul who’s been searching a lifetime for the right medium! Blessings, Natalie 🙂
LikeLike
oooo, I like that—I totally agree 🙂
LikeLike
Sight is the key to the soul in every respect.
LikeLike
Hmmm. Interesting thought. I shall have to ponder that, but by George I believe you are right. Have a great day, Donna. Blessings, Natalie 🙂
LikeLike
Even the sightless have an inner sight too!
LikeLike
Indeed they do! Natalie 🙂
LikeLike
Vita’s writing is very poetical too!
LikeLike
Indeed it is. I often find things of hers I quote. Blessings, Natalie 🙂
LikeLike