So beautiful, Andrea. Thank you. I visited MoMA when Marina was doing her performance of The Artist Is Present. I was 26 years old, angry at the world and confused by my own hardened heart. I felt partly furious - thinking "This is not art" and yet partly fascinated. I stood in the background for ages watching, and literally could not take my eyes off her. It took me over 10 years, a lot of pain and a chronic illness to realise that performance was teaching me something so profound. To let myself be seen and to turn towards - rather than away from - my pain. I am now retraining for a new career and with more health in my body than I once could only dream of. I will always remember and be so grateful, for that experience x
Thank you. This is one of the first things I read this morning and I feel like my heart is open and willing to be more compassionate. The last few days have been heartbreaking and fear inducing, so this feels like a small antidote. ❤️
I love your articulation of your experience when you hold your own gaze in a mirror “It felt like a reunion with my oldest friend”. I feel this too at the end of meditation when my mind is more quiet and my heart is more open (there is a big wall mirror in the room where I practice qi gong and meditation). It feels like the spirit of unconditional love (to use Elizabeth Gilbert’s language) looking back at me. Thank you for shining a light on this practice. Hopefully when people see their oldest unconditionally loving friend in the mirror, they can walk through life slightly less afraid.
The tenderness with which you write always pierces me in a way that reminds me how every human struggles with the same things. As a shy, introverted, sensitive child, I avoided eye contact, as well. I can tell you that I still feel immensely uncomfortable when doing it as a 44-year-old adult, but here's the thing: during speech class in college undergrad, I HAD to make eye contact.
Yeah, people told me to look "above" their eyes or to scan the room, and I tried that. I was always afraid that I'd witness someone yawning or checking the clock or snoozing. And that does happen sometimes. But the more I have intentionally locked eyes with another person, especially strangers while I'm out in my community, the more I recognize exactly what you're saying here: that it is a point of connection that we have somehow lost as a society, something small and simple and yes, brave.
Now, when I do as you said you did, and look into my own eyes in the mirror, I remember not just their physical beauty (which I was always told as a blue-eyed person) but also the warmth, the depth, the love that's in there. Don't I want others to see it, too? Don't I want to touch them without physical contact, necessarily, but with the touch of the heart?
My husband told me when we met online in 2006, the last line of the first email he ever sent me, and this was based on one photo I posted on my profile: "I must confess that your eyes intrigue me. There's a lot of life in them."
YES. I can't tell you all how much this piece has been resonating with my recent experience but I'll try:
I recently went on a date with a new lover and she asked me if I wanted to kiss. I wanted to kiss, but the sheer thought of doing so was so overwhelming that I couldn't imagine doing it. I asked if we could just lay beside each other and make eye contact, and we did, on and off for about 90 minutes. It was terrifying and joyful and liberating. We fell into such a deep spiritual connection. The waves of tension and release between us were so palpable, like the space between us was inhaling and exhaling with us. Parts of me felt touched in a way that physical intimacy could never reach.
We have now shared more than just eye contact, but we still return to eye contact often, and that space still holds its potency. Who knew so much is possible when we are fully seen?
thank you for this, Andrea, poet to poet. my own tendencies have always been toward *making* eye contact (a problem when you’re talking to one of your kids while driving on 95!), but avoiding ever looking at my own. Mirrors unnerve me still, which is only to say that I emerged from my own childhood trauma feeling deeply ugly, even repulsive. I’m going to try really looking this morning (never too late); already a little anxious about the sadness I’ll see there
On behalf of my lines, my sorrow, my intensities, my asymmetry, my shame, my ignorance, my colors, I thank you. This looking away you describe is my whole life, but I never tried to write it down. Thank you, thank you, thank you, and blessings on all your bridges and adventures. Love.
So powerful and amazing on so many levels. I have been dealing with chronic illness for 5 years and feel so vulnerable, even ugly some days when people look at me with “poor pitiful you” gaze that I have stopped looking into people eyes. Ironically I have more strength and resilience from this illness journey than I have had my whole life. I will remember to look again and also do this at the vet because I know my rescue dog has been picking up on my “fears” and mirroring them back to me. Here’s to calm nervous systems for humans and canines. Thanks for this beautiful inspiring piece💖🐾
This is one of your best pieces, and so necessary at this moment. People are in such a rush, and fearful of confronting their real feelings with others about the mess we’re in. Eye contact is crucial right now. It opens others to our very soul. Thank you, Andrea.
Eye contact is not always appropriate outside our culture. But I use that as an excuse to avoid intimacy, vulnerability, other people wanting anything I might not be able to give, my own sense of shame, inadequacy, or irrelevance.
Thank you for the chance to look into your eyes (we always get glimpses to your soul) and thank you to Meg for the opportunity to watch and weep with Abramović again. I return to that scene every other year or so. These moments (Martin Buber's I-Thou comes to mind) are the stuff that's keeping us whole and functional right now. If I were on my phone, I'd put a thankful hands emoji here. How bizarre that it's coming to typing out descriptions of emoji's in their absence. Now a laughing emoji? I just remembered you signed this "heart eyes." I love your good work in the world. Bandaged heart emoji.
The power of a gaze became clear to me upon looking into my mother’s eyes the night before she died. Our eyes connected and it felt electric. Our worldly veils had dropped and there we were in all of our spiritual glory. I had never seen her in that light before, but more importantly, I had rarely seen myself reflected back so clearly. And in that moment of clarity, I truly felt connected to all that is.
When I am brave enough to experience this world beyond the veil, when I am willing to face my vulnerability and not merely look but actually see into another’s eyes, then I find that I have passed through a gate into a larger reality where I am reminded of how intricately connected we all are.
Thanks for sharing Andrea. What you so beautifully express in the article is that avoiding eye contact and deep human vulnerability reflects how we avoid the deepest intimate connection also with ourselves. Thank you for sharing, and thanks for being so brave to meet your oldest friend as you deeply gazed into your own eyes in the mirror. 💛
I’m Sunny’s mom (from Purple Rover muscle competition) and as her experience of being on the spectrum has helped me understand it is so intense when some sensitive folks feel SO much. Especially in the eyes, it can feel like burning or absorbing the world.
Marina and Ulays reunion has been one of the most incredible experiences I’ve ever witnessed. What a gift to understand your words beyond the gaze. Can not imagine what is waiting to seen😍
You write so beautifully and truthfully and your words resonate so deeply with me. Thank you for being vulnerable, when meeting people but also with your beautiful words here on this blog!! Blessings always. 💛
Once, in 2009 or so, when my mother was in isolation in the hospital because it had given her MRSA, her visitors all had to wear PPE including masks. I stood on one side of her bed and my sister stood on the other, and we talked. Because we were wearing masks, we only had our eyes to look at. For the first time in 50 years of knowing her, I noticed my sister had beautiful violet eyes. When the pandemic hit in 2020, people's eyes were the only things that could give expression to their existence.
Of course, now that I write this, I think about blind people, and realize there must be other means of "seeing" into souls, but that's for an other time and story.
This makes me think about Jacques Lusseyran. Looking at each other is a difficult task but a necessary one. And there are many ways to do this - particular thoughts to my autistic fellows who don't look into the eyes but know how to take care of others. Each of us their own way to take care. :)
“I could no longer afford to be jealous or unfriendly, because, as soon as I was, a bandage came down over my eyes, and I was bound hand and foot and cast aside. All at once a black hole opened, and I was helpless inside it. But when I was happy and serene, approached people with confidence and thought well of them, I was rewarded with light.”
― Jacques Lusseyran, And There Was Light: Autobiography of Jacques Lusseyran: Blind Hero of the French Resistance
So beautiful, Andrea. Thank you. I visited MoMA when Marina was doing her performance of The Artist Is Present. I was 26 years old, angry at the world and confused by my own hardened heart. I felt partly furious - thinking "This is not art" and yet partly fascinated. I stood in the background for ages watching, and literally could not take my eyes off her. It took me over 10 years, a lot of pain and a chronic illness to realise that performance was teaching me something so profound. To let myself be seen and to turn towards - rather than away from - my pain. I am now retraining for a new career and with more health in my body than I once could only dream of. I will always remember and be so grateful, for that experience x
Thank you so much for sharing this. Beautiful. ❤️❤️
Congratulations on your Sudance accolades, Andrea! ❤️💐
Thank you. This is one of the first things I read this morning and I feel like my heart is open and willing to be more compassionate. The last few days have been heartbreaking and fear inducing, so this feels like a small antidote. ❤️
❤️
Thank you for putting my (same) experience
And how this helped!
Feel better soon 💛
I love your articulation of your experience when you hold your own gaze in a mirror “It felt like a reunion with my oldest friend”. I feel this too at the end of meditation when my mind is more quiet and my heart is more open (there is a big wall mirror in the room where I practice qi gong and meditation). It feels like the spirit of unconditional love (to use Elizabeth Gilbert’s language) looking back at me. Thank you for shining a light on this practice. Hopefully when people see their oldest unconditionally loving friend in the mirror, they can walk through life slightly less afraid.
❤️
So well said Nicole!
Andrea,
The tenderness with which you write always pierces me in a way that reminds me how every human struggles with the same things. As a shy, introverted, sensitive child, I avoided eye contact, as well. I can tell you that I still feel immensely uncomfortable when doing it as a 44-year-old adult, but here's the thing: during speech class in college undergrad, I HAD to make eye contact.
Yeah, people told me to look "above" their eyes or to scan the room, and I tried that. I was always afraid that I'd witness someone yawning or checking the clock or snoozing. And that does happen sometimes. But the more I have intentionally locked eyes with another person, especially strangers while I'm out in my community, the more I recognize exactly what you're saying here: that it is a point of connection that we have somehow lost as a society, something small and simple and yes, brave.
Now, when I do as you said you did, and look into my own eyes in the mirror, I remember not just their physical beauty (which I was always told as a blue-eyed person) but also the warmth, the depth, the love that's in there. Don't I want others to see it, too? Don't I want to touch them without physical contact, necessarily, but with the touch of the heart?
My husband told me when we met online in 2006, the last line of the first email he ever sent me, and this was based on one photo I posted on my profile: "I must confess that your eyes intrigue me. There's a lot of life in them."
I think that says it all.
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
YES. I can't tell you all how much this piece has been resonating with my recent experience but I'll try:
I recently went on a date with a new lover and she asked me if I wanted to kiss. I wanted to kiss, but the sheer thought of doing so was so overwhelming that I couldn't imagine doing it. I asked if we could just lay beside each other and make eye contact, and we did, on and off for about 90 minutes. It was terrifying and joyful and liberating. We fell into such a deep spiritual connection. The waves of tension and release between us were so palpable, like the space between us was inhaling and exhaling with us. Parts of me felt touched in a way that physical intimacy could never reach.
We have now shared more than just eye contact, but we still return to eye contact often, and that space still holds its potency. Who knew so much is possible when we are fully seen?
Beautiful ❤️
thank you for this, Andrea, poet to poet. my own tendencies have always been toward *making* eye contact (a problem when you’re talking to one of your kids while driving on 95!), but avoiding ever looking at my own. Mirrors unnerve me still, which is only to say that I emerged from my own childhood trauma feeling deeply ugly, even repulsive. I’m going to try really looking this morning (never too late); already a little anxious about the sadness I’ll see there
❤️❤️❤️
you got this Rick! cheering you on from poet to poet ;-)
On behalf of my lines, my sorrow, my intensities, my asymmetry, my shame, my ignorance, my colors, I thank you. This looking away you describe is my whole life, but I never tried to write it down. Thank you, thank you, thank you, and blessings on all your bridges and adventures. Love.
❤️❤️❤️
So powerful and amazing on so many levels. I have been dealing with chronic illness for 5 years and feel so vulnerable, even ugly some days when people look at me with “poor pitiful you” gaze that I have stopped looking into people eyes. Ironically I have more strength and resilience from this illness journey than I have had my whole life. I will remember to look again and also do this at the vet because I know my rescue dog has been picking up on my “fears” and mirroring them back to me. Here’s to calm nervous systems for humans and canines. Thanks for this beautiful inspiring piece💖🐾
❤️❤️❤️
This is one of your best pieces, and so necessary at this moment. People are in such a rush, and fearful of confronting their real feelings with others about the mess we’re in. Eye contact is crucial right now. It opens others to our very soul. Thank you, Andrea.
Eye contact is not always appropriate outside our culture. But I use that as an excuse to avoid intimacy, vulnerability, other people wanting anything I might not be able to give, my own sense of shame, inadequacy, or irrelevance.
❤️❤️❤️
Thank you for the chance to look into your eyes (we always get glimpses to your soul) and thank you to Meg for the opportunity to watch and weep with Abramović again. I return to that scene every other year or so. These moments (Martin Buber's I-Thou comes to mind) are the stuff that's keeping us whole and functional right now. If I were on my phone, I'd put a thankful hands emoji here. How bizarre that it's coming to typing out descriptions of emoji's in their absence. Now a laughing emoji? I just remembered you signed this "heart eyes." I love your good work in the world. Bandaged heart emoji.
Thank you ❤️❤️
Thank you for this call to consciousness.
The power of a gaze became clear to me upon looking into my mother’s eyes the night before she died. Our eyes connected and it felt electric. Our worldly veils had dropped and there we were in all of our spiritual glory. I had never seen her in that light before, but more importantly, I had rarely seen myself reflected back so clearly. And in that moment of clarity, I truly felt connected to all that is.
When I am brave enough to experience this world beyond the veil, when I am willing to face my vulnerability and not merely look but actually see into another’s eyes, then I find that I have passed through a gate into a larger reality where I am reminded of how intricately connected we all are.
This is such a beautiful sharing. Thank you. ❤️
Thank YOU! Your post was heart opening.
Thanks for sharing Andrea. What you so beautifully express in the article is that avoiding eye contact and deep human vulnerability reflects how we avoid the deepest intimate connection also with ourselves. Thank you for sharing, and thanks for being so brave to meet your oldest friend as you deeply gazed into your own eyes in the mirror. 💛
❤️❤️❤️
I’m Sunny’s mom (from Purple Rover muscle competition) and as her experience of being on the spectrum has helped me understand it is so intense when some sensitive folks feel SO much. Especially in the eyes, it can feel like burning or absorbing the world.
Marina and Ulays reunion has been one of the most incredible experiences I’ve ever witnessed. What a gift to understand your words beyond the gaze. Can not imagine what is waiting to seen😍
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
You write so beautifully and truthfully and your words resonate so deeply with me. Thank you for being vulnerable, when meeting people but also with your beautiful words here on this blog!! Blessings always. 💛
❤️❤️❤️
Amazing! Thank you for sharing.
Once, in 2009 or so, when my mother was in isolation in the hospital because it had given her MRSA, her visitors all had to wear PPE including masks. I stood on one side of her bed and my sister stood on the other, and we talked. Because we were wearing masks, we only had our eyes to look at. For the first time in 50 years of knowing her, I noticed my sister had beautiful violet eyes. When the pandemic hit in 2020, people's eyes were the only things that could give expression to their existence.
Of course, now that I write this, I think about blind people, and realize there must be other means of "seeing" into souls, but that's for an other time and story.
❤️❤️❤️❤️
This makes me think about Jacques Lusseyran. Looking at each other is a difficult task but a necessary one. And there are many ways to do this - particular thoughts to my autistic fellows who don't look into the eyes but know how to take care of others. Each of us their own way to take care. :)
“I could no longer afford to be jealous or unfriendly, because, as soon as I was, a bandage came down over my eyes, and I was bound hand and foot and cast aside. All at once a black hole opened, and I was helpless inside it. But when I was happy and serene, approached people with confidence and thought well of them, I was rewarded with light.”
― Jacques Lusseyran, And There Was Light: Autobiography of Jacques Lusseyran: Blind Hero of the French Resistance
❤️❤️❤️