If you can see, you have vision. If you can daydream, you can have a vision.  So wouldn’t it be cool if you could build those muscles like any other part of your body and limber them up to be more powerful and effective?

Let’s start with sight. One of the great gifts of living. If you’re reading this, chances are you have two working eyeballs. Behind them is a sophisticated array of muscles, nerves, and sensors that keeps them all working so well you don’t have to give it much thought.

Whether you sport spectacles or not, the actual act of gazing around doesn’t require much conscious attention. Much like our other senses, they help us swim in a sea of sensory input so dense and thick we simply call it reality.

Binocular vision itself is a miracle. Somehow your eyes combine the signals coming into each eyeball to tell you how close or far away something is. Those muscles and nerve endings back there are doing a lot of work you hardly ever think about.

Well, as a way of appreciating them, have you ever thought about exercising and rejuvenating them? Maybe there’s a thing called #EyeYoga, or maybe not, I don’t know. There are sophisticated psychotherapy practices such as EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) that purport to help people “heal from the symptoms and emotional distress that are the result of disturbing life experiences.”

The idea that “eyes are the portal to the soul” rings true to me. They certainly are a window into our well-being. Everyday activities that balance and refresh our capacity for vision serve to enrich our inner state as well, allowing for our ‘visions’ to more easily manifest.

What I’ve noticed is that our twin beacons of light really appreciate occasional and intentional darkness. #EyeYoga for me is allowing my eyes to rest at certain moments. Often when I’m preparing to look closely at something, or shift from a bright to dark environment, I’ll let them close briefly to ease their adjustment.

Another trick is to let one close while the other gazes independently. Crossing your eyes using your muscles is one thing, letting them relax to the point that the sight lines drift apart is another. If you’ve ever been able to decipher one of those ‘magic eye’ artworks, you’ve done it. It’s only when your eyes diverge that the hidden image seems to appear above the artwork in three dimensions.

This comes in handy if you get queasy as a passenger. Ever since I was a youngster I’ve found myself relaxing my eyes and looking out of one or the other when I’m in the back seat or on a boat and I’ve never once been car or seasick.

Just as light needs a shadow to complete itself, our eyes relish the darkness in order to serve us well. So much stress and strain can accumulate when they work too hard, it’s well worth helping them dance between the work they must do and the relief you can provide them.

With much love for your vision and visions, all the best till next week!

À bientôt!

M+

Mark Metz
Director of the Dance First Association
Publisher of Conscious Dancer Magazine