“You’re dreaming of a beautiful multicolor forest, floating through the scenery and admiring the flora, when a small cottage appears in a clearing ahead.  You recognize something in the light reflecting off the window, a sense that you’ve been here before, in a distant dream’.

Dream Deja Vu, Michelle Carr, Author

Psychology Today

A Short Review of Posts

 All the posts in this new blog have centered on connecting to your visual surroundings of your everyday life.  One step by another step, you have considered many ideas and questions.  You have considered:

• that something as simple as the shadow of a hand and doorknob may have an impact not only on your day, but in a mysterious way in your spiritual life.  A Visual Image Makes Me Pause post.
• that the connection to a visual image or art piece may feel deep.  What May Be Possible When You Connect with a Work of Art or Image
• that the dictionary definition of beauty may have some surprises. And that realistically it looks like ‘art is in the eye of the beholder’ is true.  Do You Think You Know What Beauty Means post.
• that facing a loss of life and recovering caused one person to consider, for the first time, that the shape of a leaf and the color of water in a pool and other ordinary objects were beautiful.  Can we learn something from a woman who who faced a loss of her life and recovered to find beauty in the supposedly ordinary?  Look As If For The First Time post.
• that a practice of looking for visual beauty in the restaurant business or any other practice may lead to an ability to appreciate new beauty or beauty in art.  Response to a Practiced Scene post.

In This Post

Now in this post, at this time, I’m kind of wondering how this information connects to  the past posts.  But in some way I know it does.  This is something that is developing over time.  I’m really not sure where it’s going.  An adventure. And here it is.

I’ve been a photographer off and on for years.  One of  the big ways I sharpen my eyes and practice a heart/mind connection to my visual surroundings is to take walks.  Yesterday I took a walk in a nearby town in an area I didn’t know.  I love exploring new areas by foot, by car and other means. I usually walk in residential and historic downtown areas.  If I get to an area that feels unsafe, I walk out the same way I went in.

Well, in yesterday’s walk in the new-to-me residential area I caught the sight of a vacant lot with no sidewalk.  As sometimes happens, I thought of country scenes or earlier times in our country.  I thought of country scenes close to nature.  I thought of nature.  It was a kind of deja vu from an earlier time, maybe from the 1800’s.  I felt an instant peace and well being.

As with the rest of the walk, I tried to guess when the neighborhood was built.  Then I tried to remember what life was like during that time. I’m guessing that neighborhood was built in the 1970’s or 1980’s, a time I remember. But I kept coming back to the scene of the empty lot, and the vision of nature and countryside.

Later I thought about several paintings in the art gallery in another city near me.  They were traditional beautiful paintings from the late  1800’s.  The one painting I remember well had a family of field workers in a field preparing lunch on a small fire. I’m drawn to being outside and in nature and the paintings and photos I like are often on that topic.  My friend who accompanied me to the art gallery had very different favorite paintings.

What makes your heart sing? Gleaming skyscrapers, family scenes, nature, restaurant scenes or historical scenes or something else entirely?

Do you connect with historical periods?  Can you look around you as you go to errands, work, get togethers with friends and family or other travels?  Do you ever get a sense of deja vu at some scenes?  Can you imagine living in areas that you like or find interesting? Can you find a photo or painting that you’d like to imagine being in?

I hope so.  May you, in some way over the next week or so, feel some kind of a connection with your visual surroundings.

Copyright(c)2013-2014 by Lynn Fosnaught. All rights reserved.  You may translate, link to or quote this article in its entirety, as long as you include the author’s name and a working link back to this website:www.artappreciationandmore.com. Commercial use or selling of this article is prohibited.