a change of perspective

Somehow everything changes when you change your point of view.

I know it sounds weird, but have you ever tried looking at nature upside down? It's incredible!! Everything is different. Because it is so unusual, you take it in more intensely. Maybe your brain registers everything more efficiently because it is trying to make sense of the new scenery. Even the most familiar environment becomes like a new world.

Robert Kinmont

And this has me thinking, what if standing and sitting upright all the time is part of the problem?

It encourages us to think of the world in a linear way, with a start and end point, a past and a future, with us being in the middle. We are born and then we die, our imagination cannot grasp any concepts beyond that. How are we even supposed to imagine 11 dimensions when we only experience 3 on a daily basis?

We see ourselves at the centre of everything. But in reality we are not. Nothing is at the centre, because there is none. Or at least, I don't think we would know.

Because everything is interwoven and happening simultaneously, past, future and present are one. Our reality is a limited perception of a tiny fragment of what is really out there. I don't think we can really ever grasp all of it until we cease to be bound to a body that stands upright and always walks forward, never backwards or sideways.

I've been wondering what happens when we lie down somewhere we are not used to lying down. Especially in nature. It is rare nowadays that we allow ourselves the space to lie down somewhere and give in to the stillness for a while, because we have places to go and things to do. We distract ourselves and never give ourselves space to really rest and reflect. Which I think is very problematic. Things like creativity, imagination and independent thought enter into a void. If we constantly stimulate and distract ourselves, we never give ourselves this void in which we start to understand things differently and think for ourselves.

Image taken by my mother on our way to hike

This summer I went on an evening hike with my mother and aunt. There was not really a trail, it was out of my comfort zone, as it didn't have a start and end point, or a clear path to follow. We had no destination in mind, we were just walking. I didn't know if we would find the way back, as we didn't just turn around and trace our steps back.

My view from where I was lying

At one point we found a spot that had "skjól". The air was still, and the sun was still up at around 9pm. We found a dry spot of grass on the mountain to sit down. I decided to lie down for a while, closing my eyes and only taking in the sounds and breathing in the fresh air. When I opened my eyes, the magnificence of the view I had was indescribable. All my fears vanished at that moment. I didn't think about the passing of time anymore, or if we would find our way back before sunset. I only felt I had found peace. The stillness of my body and my surroundings had given me a peace of mind, a mind that is otherwise ruled by chaotic thoughts.

Maybe stillness and a change of perspective can help us think differently. Maybe it can help us to slow down time, think clearly, remember what we have, and what we really need.

On a side note, we found our way back to the car. We followed the sheep.