Seeing Eye to Eye
Two Lincolns with their eyes on the prize!
No place to go. She wasn’t wasting herself banging around uselessly. She knew she would be there for a while. So, with about twelve inches between us, she stared at my blue eyes as I stared at her brown beads. We each felt comfort in our shared plight. A couple of hours later the sun burned a widow’s mite size hole in the snow barrier and she was free. Each of us went our own ways comforted in our oneness.
Today when I feel a tsunami of grief, depression, anxiety, or fear, I find solace in walking to my bedroom window and waiting until I lock eyes with a sparrow in the cedar branch brushing the window pane.
Scientists’ stories add to my eye-to-eye wonder. Jane Goodall’s sixty-year study of chimps accomplished by living with them is dramatized by a tape-recorded pivotal experience she shares. After helping a young chimp out of a dangerous predicament, the animal squeezed Jane’s hand. Jane was touched because this behavior is exactly what the little chimp would do to a member of its tribe. Then Jane was completely overwhelmed by connectedness as the chimp, continuing to gently squeeze Jane’s hand, proceeded to look Jane in the eyes to make sure Jane understood the chimp’s gratitude. That look still energizes her today.
The wolf’s eye exchange changed the trajectory of Aldo Leopold’s life and work. As the young new hire head of the park rangers, he led his subordinates to show them how to make the park safe for deer. So, with his fellow workers watching Aldo used his “itchy trigger finger” to shoot a wolf. After the shot, Aldo slunk over and knelt next to the animal and watched the green light of life slowly drain out of his victim. Aldo was overwhelmed by his personal connection to this green light. The awareness of that common consciousness sparked incredible life sustaining work.
The whale’s eye was the life changer for Paul Watson. Working for Greenpeace, Paul Watson had positioned his small boat between a whale and a Russian whaling vessel. Though Paul was able to keep the whale safe for about twenty minutes, the angered captain took action. He marched boldly to the deck, looked down at Paul and sliced his pointer finger across his own neck. Immediately following that universal threatening gesture, a harpoon shot over Paul’s head. With the harpoon’s wound pouring blood, the whale looked in Paul’s eyes with a “I know you’re on my side” gaze. Paul looked up and was terrorized by on the captain’s determined glare. The hunter then again missed Paul and shot the second harpoon in the whale. Living with grateful awareness that the whale had given her life to save him, Paul went on to found Sea Shepherds in an effort to save more marine life and reciprocate the kindness he’d experienced from the whale.
Dad’s eyes too still do magic for me. After his stroke in ’78 every time I came home, he’d be in the green chair by the backdoor. When I opened the outside door, I could hear his newspaper being lain across his lap. Then when I opened the inside door and checked his perch, his grin would be accentuating his bright blue eyes waiting to meet mine. The gleam I carry in my eyes today is his gleam.
Now at seventy-six, a strong reinforcer of the power of true eye connection came from a conversation with a cousin. As a father of three young children, Emery is remembering significant experiences that he wants to emulate as a parent. He said, “I never knew your dad before his stroke. My memory of him was seeing him dragging around one limp side of his body for 29 years. However, I’ll never forget how he’d raise his agile eyebrow, look me in the eye from across the room and call me to him with his four motioning skyward fingers. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so recognized and important.”
In conclusion, to me “seeing eye to eye” means recognizing the same fire in another which burns in me. That insight is the bellows for my peace. Recently when my grandson was hugging me, I turned my head to check his expression. You can imagine my sad disappointment to see his eyes focused on finishing the game on his iphone which he held in both hands behind my back.
Fortunately, after I went upstairs his father talked with my grandson about priorities and he sent me a text “Grammy if you come back down, I have a real hug for you.” I returned for a truly real reciprocal embrace which started with our eyes.
That experience redoubles my hopes and prayers that in this age of ubiquitous i-phone usage our species assist the God who has both eyes on the sparrow and numbers every hair on each head. May we ground ourselves in EYE phone energy which wires us to the earth and the loving cell-towers of our hearts. and minds and each other.
Dona Palmer July 25, 2021
