the humble are they that move around the world with the lure of the real in their hearts*
(Wallace Stevens)

In shaping life beyond the Bubble, many visions will be needed.**
(Peter Senge)

These are the bubbles we can find ourselves living in, the kind that separate us from reality.

Bubbles like, only ten per cent of the world’s measured wealth actually exists in coins and notes and bullion.

Or seeing the world as an environment that we live in and can use like the local shop, when actually we’re part of the environment and everything we do do has implications for ourselves and everything.

There’s another kind of bubble, suggested by Alan Lightman in his novel on creation.  His character Nephew reflects:

“As I recall, space first appeared in a minuscule round bubble that sat quietly in my mind.”^

This kind of bubble is the beginnings of an idea, the power of the imagination required to create something that allows us to live outside the false bubbles we create for ourselves, with a reality that we have taken the time to notice.  It feels like Seth Godin is bringing these things together when he writes about telescopes and microscopes, both means of seeing but in different ways:

‘It pays to look at opportunity with a telescope.  It’s real, but it’s distant.  The telescope brings it into focus and helps you find your way there.  Telescopes are easy to find if you look for them.

And it often pays to look at trouble with a microscope.  Not to get intimidated by the amorphous blob that could snuff out your dreams, but instead to look at the tiny component parts, learning how it is constructed and taking away its power.  Once you realise how it’s built, you can deal with it.’^^

There are three “whispering” exercises that are about seeing, each finds us spending time in reflection – in quietness, stillness, slowness:

Anapana is about gathering, our openness to what is, to more;
Vipassana is about allowing these thing to speak to us, to take form as what wants to be, to find “root-space” in our hearts;
Metta is about extending these imaginations and possibilities into something for others, into something tangible.

(*From Wallace Stevens’ The Necessary Angel.)
(**From Peter Senge’s The Necessary Revolution.)
(^From Alan Lightman’s Mr g.)
(^^From Seth Godin’s blog: Telescopes and microscopes.)