What I Saw when I was Blind

Rosie Jackson 2003
Acrylics on canvas, 60 x 50 cm

When I leave my complex, visually oriented world, I retreat into myself, no longer distracted by movement, contrast, ugliness or beauty. Words feel like a string of disjointed babble. Bodies, through touch, are better speakers. Mouths are not necessary, as in the headless torsovases of man and woman. Bodiless arms reach from nowhere. Here, one horizonhand is offering warmth in the form of a heart.

Another offers an explosionegg, an embryo of potential giving birth to a new insight, perspective, hope or dream. When I am blind, do I cling to the straight, familiar path like the first alchemysnake, or dare I deviate like the second, or curl and twist into the unknown like the third?

I see the cushionwalls I hide behind, issues I close our eyes to, and underdevelopped aspects, symbolised here by the misshapen flower and butterfly. If I am open to this experience, I may reach a higher spiritual plane and perceive the existence of previously inaccessible feelings and beings.