averted vision

A re-post from last year: how poetry and art work, how our breath is turned to substance, and the averted visions of Richard Feynman.

In the structure of the human eye the retina sits at the back of the sphere, a layer of nerves like the skin of a balloon towards the skull.  In the retina there are a collection of cells that receive light and color; photoreceptors.  These photoreceptors are called rods and cones.  The rods receive light and cones receive color and together they form a whole of vision.  There are more rods on the sides of the retina, whereas the cones are gathered around the focal point.  Because of this, our night vision works in a particularly indirect way.  With low light and little color, the things we see at night in our periphery are picked up easier by the rods.  This is called averted vision.  If you turn your gaze to the heavens at night, there are stars that appear only when you are not focusing on them, they can only be seen on the sides.  Rods pick up photons, no color, but when you look directly, with the cones, the object disappears.  This is a metaphor for knowledge of a certain type, how travel, art, and poetry work to inform.  Perhaps, a way of understanding the distinction between truths and facts.  

These averted understandings are felt in awe and wonder.  They are hard to pin down but they seep in somehow, from the sides.  The below vignettes dance to this tune: