The Mystery of Eyes

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art by Lisa Brunetti, ecuador precolumbian artifacts, eye of horus, photo challenge dialogue, ways to protect a house, WordPress Photo Challenge Windows, Wordpress Weekly Photo Challenge

The third eye icon, often associated with the pineal gland and the sixth chakra, dates back to early Egyptian times.  Long ago, the amulets represented protection, power and good health, and the designs were sometimes painted on ships for protection at sea.

Prompted by a desire to find creative ways to deter the neighborhood thief, I mischievously painted an all-seeing eye on the gate to Casa Loca.   (An amulet from the treasures of King Tut served as the model.)

From New Zealand, Gallivanta shared an article that supports the theory that the All-Watching Eye helps to prevent theft. ( Bike thefts slashed by 50% at University after scientists install a picture of a pair of EYES above the cycle racks) ` I am hopeful that the giant eye on the gate will have the same effect on the shrimp farm.

While the monochromatic art transformed the gate, a second, more-serious design evolved in the studio.

When one focuses on a particular subject, more images seem to pop up in unexpected places.  While showing students my museum/archaeology sketchbook, I viewed this old sketch (below) with wonder. I never realized how this tiny detail resembles the Egyptian-Eye Icon:

From Quito’s Casa de la Cultura – Detail from Golden Mask –

From Quito’s Casa de la Cultura

Compare the pencil sketch to the eye of the coconut head (below) which was painted about ten years ago.  It began as a prop to hold the headphones for my music system.   About an hour later I emerged from the painting fog and wondered, “Where in the world did you come from?”   Most likely it was inspired from a trip to  study the petroglyphs at Isla Ometepe in Nicaragua.

After a week of studying petroglyphs, I painted this ‘headphone holder’ coconut head and was surprised how it all but painted itself!

Here are a few more pencil drawings from the Quito museum.

Eye details (See below)

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.”
― Albert Einstein

When I mention crop circles to friends, they often look at me with unspoken expressions that say, ‘You surely don’t believe in those hoaxes.”

I then ask, “Have you looked at any recent crop-circle images? They are brilliant – absolutely amazing!  They would be difficult to draw on paper, much less be created to perfection in a field in the middle of the night – Please tell me how anyone can do this overnight?’

As if to confirm my testimony and support the eye theme, this crop circle recently formed in the UK:

One of many August 2014 Crop Circles – Thanks to Steve Alexander for permission to use this image.  See the entire image library HERE.

I hope that you will spend some time studying the brilliance of crop circles, and I look forward to your feedback.  There is so much that we do not know or understand, but shrugging crop circles off as hoaxes is a lazy way out of this topic!  (Check out the circle that appeared on D-Day in Morse code for “No More War.”)

Thanks, Steve and Karen Alexander, for keeping us informed during the crop circle seasons.  For frequently-asked questions, go HERE: Crop Circles FAQ

For the finale, here are some eye images from my files!

“Almost nothing need be said when you have eyes.”
― Tarjei Vesaas, The Boat in the Evening

“If there is a true measure of a person’s soul, if there is a single gauge of real divinity, of how beautifully a fellow human honors this life, has genuine spiritual fire and is full of honest love and compassion, it has to be right there, in the eyes.”― Mark Morford

He lingered not because he wanted the ice cream, but because I am a link to his beloved-but-absentee aunt. (Silvana is interning in Minnesota.)

“Your heart is able to see things that your eyes aren’t able to.”
― Kholoud Yasser

“Big Eyes” basks in unconditional love while his aunt looks on lovingly from afar.

What big eyes you have!

These red eyes might spook someone in the night!

 “The learned compute that seven hundred and seven millions of millions of vibrations have penetrated the eye before the eye can distinguish the tints of a violet.”  Edward Bulwer-Lytton

If Bulwer-Lytton was right about seeing tints of a violet, how many more vibrations will it take before we can see ‘invisible’ images that the camera sometimes catches?

My friends harvested a shrimp pond during the last full moon, and I took late-night photos from the kitchen window.  The next day while viewing the images, I paused when I saw what looked like eyes floating in the darkness. Shrimp eyes glow red in the night, but these phantom images were suspended nearby. Returning to other photos, I checked to see if I had overlooked the mystery eyes.

The pond is drained by the culvert-tunnel, shown above. Note the little pinpoint of light s  with halos at the middle/bottom part of the photo and near one of the posts.

Cesar, one of the owners of the farm, agreed that the images were a true mystery. We decided if the workers ever saw those images, they would refuse to work at night!

This photo was taken during another harvest, but shows how they transport the shrimp from the outlet to higher ground.

There are tales of duendes (trolls) that live near the mangroves, but what lurks along the shrimp ponds?

No, it is not a smudge on the camera lens…

Any guesses?

They are multiplying!

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water… Would anyone like to go for a midnight swim?!

Thanks, for Frédéric Biver, for this week’s WordPress Photo Challenge, Dialogue. Your gravatar fits the eye theme as well! Z