The eyes have it

Here is the red-tailed hawk viewed from the front. She certainly kept her hawk-eyes on me while I wandered around under her tree!

(See her back here.)

Establishing eye contact is very powerful.  Much can be communicated through the eyes.  Think of those shared glances between parents, lovers, friends, fellow workers, neighbors, anybody. We talk to one another with our eyes.  We share a laugh, we express alarm, we smile, we seethe, we welcome, we show delight, we dismiss.

That's a little more difficult with animals. Their eyes are not as expressive, and we don't know their language anyway.  Nor they ours.

And yet, sometimes one does make a connection of some kind.

And it can be powerful, too.  Two beings, so different from one another, make contact.  They acknowledge one another. They watch one another - maybe out of fear or wariness or just curiosity. Maybe even with amusement or affection.  I remember reading about a diver who made such a connection with a whale, which swam up to him and calmly looked at him with its huge eye.

Is this why we anthropomorphize God? So that we can imagine God as a person we can communicate with, whose eyes we can look into and decipher some meaning there?  So that God will have something we can connect with ourselves?

Perhaps that's why we love Jesus.....








Comments

June Butler said…
Penny, your post reminded me of the evening I made eye contact with a barred owl sitting on top a lamppost. I looked at the bird as I passed, and the owl followed me with its eyes as I moved on. The following evening, as I passed near the pole, I did not see the owl, but the next thing I knew, an owl was flying in my face. I screamed, and the bird turned and flew away before contact. I can't swear it was the same owl, but I believe it was, and she/he had marked me as prey. I had a couple of other close encounters until I began to wear a cap when I walked after dark.

I read that owls have poor eyesight, and a head of human hair can appear to be a small animal.
Wow, Mimi! What a story. You'd think with those big eyes they would know it was you and not a rabbit or squirrel! That must have been pretty scary.
What a lovely melding of photography and spiritual reflection your site is. I found it during a respite from working on our church email newsletter (I volunteer at Christ's Church in Castle Rock, Colorado.) Simply beautiful - thank you.
Hi Sandra - welcome to the Party! Glad you found it useful!