Seeing Things

The wide supports lift this heavy crane...
...but at a quick glance it seems to be floating.
Even with the aid of visual observation, what is invisible
is not always observable, and thus not always understandable.

I recently recalled an instance sitting in the back of my VW bus one summer in my late teens.

I had picked up the bad habit of smoking marijuana again that summer.

Escape.

As the high brought its effect, my concentration drifted from the mundane to the profound.

I'm watching the smoke's patterns as they swirl about in tiny air currents, highlighted by the sunlight piercing through the van's windows.

I think I see past the physical, but it is only the minute physical elements that I 'see'... yet I'm astonished.

It is as if I can 'see' the invisible air.

I see the air's patterns, but still not the air itself.

This reminds me of an earlier time, another moment of a casual observation turned profound.

But this time I was not 'high', but simply aware as usual of my surroundings and my mind always at work.

I'm 12 years old, in 7th grade, and awaiting my ride's arrival so I can go home after school.

I notice a breeze come across the thin grass blades near me.

It is as if I can 'see' the invisible wind, seeing wave after wave as they make their way across the school's lawn.

I am reminded of the waves of the ocean and how they pulsate, here seeing the same pattern across the grass.

It is the presence of the wind, the air and its properties, that push against the visible.

The air, too, is visible... but not in its current state as perceived by the human eye.

The smoke particulates in the van that summer day and the blades of grass that afternoon are being 'moved' by molecules too small to see visibly.

Science tells us and shows us this, now... giving a name to the molecules and what they are comprised of.

But science has yet to clearly identify the invisible behind the visible; the spirit behind material life.

Going within and past the molecular level, what is found therein?

Yet another layer of 'things' labeled and identified according to observation, now that observation measured in ways our eyes cannot measure directly, but similar to identifying the wind according to how the smoke particles and blades of grass move.

This is the manner spirit is identified; according to how what is visible is moved.

In scientific terms, enjoy this short article that tries explaining why the spaces between atoms cannot be breached.