THE IRIDESCENT FERN
There is a fern which grows in my house. At less than a foot high, It’s neither blue nor green, yet, it’s both blue and green. The colour it takes on depends on the intensity and angle of the sunlight that falls on it at the moment in which you observe it. It’s odd because ferns are not native to where I live. Yet, here it stood. Probably planted by someone who was just as fascinated by it’s duality as I was.
Do you enjoy this duality, I ask the fern. Do you find comfort in walking the line of no real colour? Do you look around the garden, and yearn for a sense of permanence, like the others seem to express? Does it bother you - your inability to commit? The world is a harsh place where indecision can breed confusion. Yet, you engage in this game with the sun and the wind to express your life in duality. Why do you brave this fight of no finality?
The sun, like the celestial fireball it is, seemed determined to colour the shadows a deep black. The harshness hangs in the air, the contrast unmistakable to my visual perception. Having woven enough stories from behind a lens, this was the kind of lighting I was trained to avoid. “The story is not in the whites or the blacks, it is found in the grays”, I can still hear my professor of photography, philosophising the perfect histogram.
The fern dazzles under the harsh sun. It’s edges were streaked in bright green and in the centre there is the bright blue sky.
“Are you talking to the fern?” I look up to see my partner, a confused look on his face.
“It’s so beautiful, it’s neither blue nor green, yet it’s both.”, I say.
He comes closer and leans towards the fern. “Ahh, a surfer! Like us”, he says, a smile beginning to emerge from the corners of his lips.
I am reminded of Watts and his story of the Chinese farmer. :
Once upon a time there was a Chinese farmer whose horse ran away. That evening, all of his neighbours came around to commiserate. They said, “We are so sorry to hear your horse has run away. This is most unfortunate.” The farmer said, “Maybe.” The next day the horse came back bringing seven wild horses with it, and in the evening everybody came back and said, “Oh, isn’t that lucky. What a great turn of events. You now have eight horses!” The farmer again said, “Maybe.”
The following day his son tried to break one of the horses, and while riding it, he was thrown and broke his leg. The neighbours then said, “Oh dear, that’s too bad,” and the farmer responded, “Maybe.” The next day the conscription officers came around to conscript people into the army, and they rejected his son because he had a broken leg. Again all the neighbours came around and said, “Isn’t that great!” Again, he said, “Maybe.”
The whole process of nature is an integrated process of immense complexity, and it’s really impossible to tell whether anything that happens in it is good or bad — because you never know what will be the consequence of the misfortune; or, you never know what will be the consequences of good fortune.
Good or Bad, Right or Wrong, Happy and sad, light and dark - they’re all just words that sit at the ends of spectrums used to describe reality. They are not reality in themselves.
I lie down on the grass, next to the fern and look up at the sky. A large puffy cloud slowly passes through, hiding the sun behind it. My brows instantly ease, the muscles around my eyes begin to relax and I being to breathe deeper. The piercing rays of the sun are now reduced to a overcast softness. Reality begins to transform around me. The grays slowly begin to appear, expanding my field of perception. Textures previously hidden begin to appear. A sense of calm sets in.
The bright green of the fern has toned down and it begins to merge with the blues.
“Are you fluid, like the Chinese farmer?”, I ask the fern. “Are you in on his secret?”
I close my eyes and breathe in. As I watch the fern in silence, I become aware of the contemplative narrative that begins to slowly take form in my mind; almost as though the fern, quietly listening to me, had found a way to reach out from the depths of a shared consciousness -
“Duality is as organic as the sun that rises each morning. It is something that is fundamental in nature. It is not a choice of opposites, it is a joy to be found in the ocean of balance that exists between them. It is only in our liberation from the limitations of Black & White can we learn to appreciate the balance and harmonies of the grays. In those grays, awaits the experience of a space where creative freedom exists.”
I turn to the fern once again. It sways to the wind, proudly displaying it’s iridescence; surfing the colour wheel, riding the waves found between the greens and blues.
As I take a closer look at this unique being, peering into the depths of its gradient existence, I feel myself blending into the shades of a synchronised dance. The fern, the wind and the sun, each playing it’s part in this cosmic collaboration, invite me, the observer to join in. Each of us, existing as independent manifestations, come together in a state of pure being to solidify the magic of the moment - the creative expression of a fern that is neither blue nor green, yet both blue and green.
Sam enjoys looking for wonder in the synchronised dance between inward and outward experiences of life. She weaves stories about how that which is termed as ‘the other’ or the ‘outward experience’ seamlessly comes to merge with that which is termed as ‘the self” or the ‘inward experience’