Feral Vision

Seeing in a Sacred WAy

Our intuition has the potentiality to be the most useful of all our functions in developing the ability to create resonance between ourselves and the world around us. We call this ‘seeing in a sacred way’ or ‘feral vision‘. It is achieved by combining the use of our senses and feelings with our intuition.

Before we can achieve this we have to return to using our senses in the first place.

Use them or Lose them

As adults in an urban environment we have ceased to use our senses to a large degree. We have no longer have the need for the same level of information that our ancestors in wild environments had. Especially in the UK, we no longer have wild predatory animals that we need to be constantly vigilant about. We don’t need to listen for their sounds or be aware of their scent.

We have actually taken this lack of use of our senses to ridiculous levels in some instances. I have witnessed somebody stepping out into the path of a fire-engine with lights flashing, siren and horn blaring; they didn’t see it, they didn’t hear it. We don’t use our senses, so we are losing our senses.

As a result we miss more and more of the natural world around us – we don’t see it, we don’t hear it, we don’t have any experience of it. To quote David Attenborough;

“No one will protect what they don’t care about; and no one will care about what they have never experienced”

We need to make a conscientious effort to take notice of what we are sensing; what can we see, hear, smell, feel (sensations on our skin etc.). We need to make an effort to use more of our senses when we eat, notice the colour of the food, the texture, the smell. Really taste the food. We need to do this as often as we think about it. Eventually we will find that we start to do it naturally; without having to think about it.

Objective or Subjective?

When we absorb information about the world through our senses; sound, touch, taste, sight, etc. it is immediate and very real.

“It is of reality as it is that sensation speaks, not reality as it might have been nor as it might be, but as it is now.” Carl Jung ( the Swiss psychiatrist)

When we see smoke and we smell smoke, we know that there really is smoke. Very rarely though do our cognitive functions ever operate alone. If we see smoke and we smell smoke our intuition will tell us that there is fire. Our thinking will lead us to assess the situation and take appropriate action. That action may or may not be influenced by our feelings.

So whilst our senses are typically objective, our experience of the senses can be subjective. Children tend to relate to their senses far more objectively than adults who have memories and associations that get in the way.

If we could get back to the childlike state of seeing, tasting, touching, smelling or hearing everything for the first time, it would be like opening a new door onto the world every day.We can choose to sense things objectively and not allow our opinions to colour our experiences.

To become more aware of; and receptive to, the feelings and conditions, or state of being of others, we need to focus less on ourselves. When we combine sensing and feeling with intuition in developing a relationship with the rest of the natural world, it translates into knowing and understanding. The native Sioux people regard this as seeing in a sacred way.

Self Transformation

We have an instinctual urge to achieve self-transformation; just as infants have an instinct to strive to achieve the physical transformation from crawling to walking. It seems to be built into our DNA.

To achieve transformation we need an understanding that recognises the value of all things (animals, plants and nature), in their own right, with their own uique characteristics and on an equal par with us. Just because they exist.

To do this we need to become open to them. It is only when we let go of our attachments to things, ideas, fears and desires, and realise that other natural creations are sentient that we are able to manage this. When we become open, we can empathise. When we can empathise, then we can communicate at a pre-linguistic level. This is where our most useful function; intuition comes into play.

Intuition

Intuition is the ability to understand something instinctively without the need for conscious reasoning. Intuition bridges the gap between the conscious and non-conscious parts of our mind. Carl Jung sees it as the reality of possibilities that provides us with a similar feeling of certainty to that which we get from our senses, and is as real as that created by static facts.

When we combine our intuition with our senses and feelings this opens the door to a whole new realm of possibilities. Our lives are more than enriched. Our entire perspective changes, we achieve Feral Vision. The human ego is cast aside like the shell or case of a less immature life-form. New powers and possibilities are gifted to us. Some as inconceivable as the great feat of flight must seem to caterpillars that are yet to become Monarch butterflies.

This is the development of the human spirit and our potential.

Plug In, Connect & Develop

This really shouldn’t need saying, but there are some people for whom it does. We won’t achieve feral vision if we don’t connect & develop a relationship with the rest of the natural world; and we can’t do that if we don’t get out and engage with it.

We wouldn’t expect to be able to take a shower if we hadn’t connected the shower unit to an energy and water source; and then actually gone and stood under it. Unlike our shower which works to full power as soon as we connect it, we need to develop a relationship with place if we are to experience the most.

The “powers” that animals, plants and Nature possess not only heal, inform and inspire. They also play a role in our spiritual transformation and the development of our ability to see in a sacred way – our feral vision. They literally get us outside of our ego-centred, anthropocentric (human centred) consciousness.

We not only use our feral (sacred) vision to increase connection with the outer world, we also use it to increase connection with our inner world. These connections seem to happen simultaneously. When we raise our levels of connectedness with the rest of the natural world we awaken these attributes within us, increasing our connection with our own souls.