Trompe l'oeil

 

Trompe l'oeil literally means "trick of the eye."  It is a term used to describe a painting technique that uses realistic imagery to create an optical illusion of depth.  Here is an example by artist Nina Campin.

 

At first, we are tricked into seeing what the artist is imagining and we have to look with fresh eyes to see what is actually there.  What is in one view, a wall, transforms into passageway to another place.  What is solid becomes space that we can pass through.  It depends on how we look at it.

 

It snowed on Christmas Eve and so, on Christmas morning we decided to take our cross country skis to the forest where we have been walking since the first lockdown in March.  For months now, we have been cutting trees that have fallen across the trail so that skiing would be possible.  I have been working out possible trail loops in my imagination to take into account hills and energy levels.  We did not have any travel plans for Christmas day and so the snow looked like an invitation to us.  People who had plans to travel to their families might see the snow as a hindrance, a nuisance, something that blocked the way.  Hindrance or highway, the narrative depended on how we saw it.

 

Snow: a hinderance or a highway?

As we skied through the snow bedecked forest that honestly did look like a Christmas card, it occurred to me that what seems like a dead-end or a blocked passage in this COVID-19 world may in fact be imagined in a new way.  They say, that curiosity leads to dead cats.  They say that the word imaginary means not real.  Without curiosity and imagination, life does seem to be a collection of problems, dead ends and set backs.  You really can't get there from here! 

It takes the imagination of an artist to see the possible, the opportunity in what others don’t even see.  Creativity often begins with curiosity about something.  Exploring is driven by curiosity to understand how things work or don’t work.  An open, curious, exploring mind is then also open to new ways of seeing, new ways of doing, new ways of co-creating and new solutions.

I took this way of seeing to our Christmas dinner.  It would just be the two of us at the table this year although phone calls and zoom calls connected us with our children and grandchildren.  My mother who emigrated to Canada in the 1950’s felt that “Christmas is always about who is not there.”  Her rendition of this was one of our consistent Christmas traditions.  Needless to say, that as someone who was always there with her at Christmas, this grief did not make for a festive celebration. 

So, being determined not to focus on who was not there this Christmas with me, I created a new way of looking at the day.  We set up a long table that had plenty of space on it.  And we brought the pictures of our family members who are no longer living, set them up on the table and invited the ancestors to Christmas dinner.  There was plenty of space and no voices to drown them out.  In the peaceful candlelight we remembered how these people live on in our hearts and memories and are always present in the way that they shaped us, in the things that we learned from them and in the qualities that they passed down from our common ancestors.  Time became a circle that was large enough to include all of them.  Christmas was about who was present.  The empty table was transformed into a party that transcended our limited ways of seeing time and space.  Imagination opened up the imaginal realm where anything is possible and where everyone is present.  

And who is to say which one is “real”?  We create our own reality through our imagination and creativity.  We can choose to see this new year as a pathway leading the world to a new way of living that recognizes the contributions and gifts of all of life.  We can choose to see a blank wall or imagine nightmares as well.  

I wonder what we are capable of? I wonder what we can co-create together?  I am really curious about that.  I am imagining possibilities.  I am seeing pathways opening up.  I am seeing problems as opportunities to co-create new solutions.  I leave the pile of dead curious cats to others.  

Which leads me to a new opportunity.  Our neighbours’ cat has taken to sitting under our bird feeders.  The cat is a good hunter and has captured and killed some of our small wild neighbours.  Our human neighbours know about this cat-like trait but turn a blind eye.  It used to be that the squirrels ate all of the birdseed until we started giving them peanuts and their own feeding stations.  Then the squirrels became more like circus entertainers than villains.  So, we are brainstorming ideas at the moment to keep the cat away from the bird feeders.  We are bringing our curiosity, imaginations and creativity to this “problem”.  At the very least we will be strengthening our problem solving muscles and who knows what we will learn about cats on the way.  Will chicken wire repel them or become a jungle gym?  What trompe l’oeil will be needed to find a pathway in this case?  Don't worry.  You will be the first ones I tell the story to!