Contemplate, a verb to conjugate in the present tense
Contemplative practices are transversal strategies, present in my life and in the support I offer as a Transition Doula. I'm writing this article as an introduction to contemplation.
I don't intend this article to be a conceptual and/or theoretical synopsis of the trends that address contemplation. It is the outcome of an exercise in free writing, guided by the intuitions that inhabit me and that are the product of my personal exploration, which has permeated my entire life. I would even say that I am the fruit of a life of contemplation in action, as dear Sister Goreti Faneca once described me.
Therefore, this article is viscerally self-referential and I have tried to write it from a practical point of view, unveiling lived experiences and clues that may inspire you to have contemplation at the ready in your daily life.
Contemplate, the practice of reuniting
Contemplation is in your eyes.
Those who don't see also contemplate. Your eyes are spread all over your body, your organs, they are the pores through which life flows. I'm not talking about your life, I'm talking about the life that runs through everything. That breath of energy that effortlessly moves everything that exists. Alive or dead, in the presence of this energy, everything is movement, change, transformation. We developed binary reality, but in life everything is one.
The practice of contemplating is a peek into this oneness, to interconnectedness and interdependence. It's “standing at the window and seeing one-self pass by on the street” [author’s translation] (which Auguste Comte, the French philosopher, said was not possible). It's no coincidence that in nature we tend to experience harmony, to feel connected, part of something.
In contrast, suicide, as French sociologist Émile Durkheim put it - is explained by the feeling of disconnection from a whole, or as Algerian philosopher Albert Camus has argued - it is the result of a foreignness towards the world, a need for familiarity that is felt to be unrequited, entangled in a nostalgia for unity with the world.
I say that contemplation is in our eyes in the sense of it being a conscious choice. A quest to be present with what is there all the time. I would even say, waiting for that re-encounter. Waiting for that gaze that produces immanence via the face, that reveals otherness, according to the brilliant Lithuanian philosopher Emmanuel Lévinas.
Contemplation is a way of connecting to life, to the world, to that whole of which we are an integral part. It's a revival of that experienced awareness. It’s a recharging with the flow of vital energy.
In this process of reunification, sometimes, we can experience pain and anguish from what we witness. It's also a choice not to reject this pain but to face reality and suffering from our essential goodness, as Deep Ecology and Work That Reconnects point out. If the pain is too overwhelming, there can be a tendency to escape, which can take different forms and, in extreme cases, result in feelings of disenchantment with the world and remaining in the shell of suffering.
I deeply believe that contemplation itself contains the antidote to this disenchantment and to an openness to the gift that life is, through gratitude. And gratitude is like a heart with wings, which beats through the world and builds its nest in it.
Contemplative memories
I remember when my grandmother Rosa used to prepare rose water to wash my grandfather Joaquim's eyes. Those were the most fragrant roses, of a faint pastel pink, that grew in two places in the backyard... one well hidden and sheltered, on the corner to Teresa’s street, at the edge of the shade cast by the large orange trees; and the other by the well, between the pomegranate tree and the royal bathtub, birthplace of the spinning tadpoles.
My grandmother didn't take long to pick the roses, but my youthful curiosity prolonged those moments for an eternity. Once the petals had been separated, she would boil them in a pot and go to wash grandfather's eyes to relieve his ailments.
I remember walking behind her and observing the precise and silent way in which she carried out each stage of that precious ritual, that liquid nectar that nourished the old man's worn and wise eyes as well as fed the flames of the little one's incandescent eyes.
Contemplation, touching the intangible through the tangible
Contemplation is born of time lived idly, it radiates from the willingness to be present, letting oneself be touched by the life that pulses in everything.
Contemplation is nourishment for the soul, it's a journey without a destination but always with guaranteed boarding, at every moment, anywhere.
Contemplation is the disconcerting presence of the present, that imposes itself unscathed by our tendency to dwell on past or the future, it’s a call to the reality of the here and now.
It's a call to beauty, to meaning, to the intangible through the tangible, to the mystery that whispers, to what we feel that exists but dissolves like fireflies that shine and blend in with the dark of night.
It is the certainty of the endlessness of life, continuously, in the natural flow of the “cosmic breath” (Chuang Tse) that permeates everything.
The lexicon of contemplation
The lexicon of contemplation includes the words - pausing, bending over, staring, sitting, walking, nature, unraveling, approaching, smelling, silence, listening, awakening, inhabiting, everyday life, bewildering, reflecting, touching, existing, tranquility, childlike, sighing, dance, vibration, language, surprising, wonder, dreaming, looking, exclaiming, knowing, sneezing, letting go, revelation, waiting, babbling, freeing, ingraining, trivial, unlearning, amazement, traveling, spreading, seeing, infinity, poetry, floating, simplicity, holding, freedom, being (whether in a transitional or permanent state), resting, pulsing, transcending, music, believing, narrating, presence...
To reflect, illustrated contemplations:
the inspiring motto of French-speaking performer Louise Desbrusses - “Silence Listens to Presence”.
the excerpt from the song “Fala do Índio” (translated: “Words of the Indian”), from João Afonso's album Missangas (Beads), a reliquary of living contemplations, which accompanied me for years - “O que é a vida? (…) É sombra que corre na erva e se perde ao fim do dia” - translates to “‘What is life? (...) It's a shadow that runs across the grass and is lost at the end of the day”.
Mário Dionísio's delightful short story “Assobiando à Vontade”, of which the title translates to “Whistling at Will”.
the photo “The Cauldron of Life” - The remnants of the preparation of palm oil were the contemplative lens, on the day I learnt to make fufu with Leticia, in Ghana.
Possible paths for contemplation
I believe that contemplation involves creating the conditions for this space-time to be inhabited, inner availability, attention, a practical plan for relearning, creating daily moments to pause.
I've experienced the idyllic spaces of contemplation intensely myself and I'm increasingly moving towards full contemplation, which doesn't require an idyllic place to manifest itself. I invite her to sit with me, wherever I am, as there is so much beauty to be cherished in everything. Everything is potentially beautiful, as beauty is in my eyes. In everything that new dawn awakens, as Miguel Torga spoke of in his Diários (translated: Diary), which challenges us to greet each day with that attitude, coating our lives with that purity.
Looking at the ground, looking at the sky, smelling, to draw into your nostrils the marrow of the place as it is. It’s the odour of sewage, it’s the odour of sewage. It's the scent of a loquat blossom, it's the scent of a loquat blossom. Smell what it is, without distinguishing. The nose, the olfactory receptors are curious, learn from them to encourage our wandering. Touch, feel the textures. Let yourself be caressed by the breeze. Feel your body shiver with cold.
Eating with shrewdness, without pudency, erotically, as the artist Pedro Cabrita Reis urges us to.
To be with one-self. To remain, without judgement. Observing reality manifests itself. It’s needed to calm down inside to see the canvas of life flowing, like a colour that paints everywhere it goes. In contemplation, the liquidity and fluidity of reality consciously dress us in what we see, flooding us in what we are, in inter-existence.
Consciously allowing yourself to be permeated by life is pure contemplation.
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