Reading John Berger, preparing for my show, being in love

Last night I went to bed wanting something easy to read. But instead I picked up John Berger’s Why look at animals? He writes about being in love, and how when one is in love, ‘one wants to make love with fish, with fruit, with hills, with forests, in the sea’. (p 94). I guess it is about a certain expansiveness one is lent when one’s heart is open.

This morning I went into the wet garden as first light was creeping across the sky. A small bird was perched brightly in the tree above me, singing the most beautiful and exquisite song. One star still in the sky, the firmament pale washed blue. Feeling in love with the world, with the garden, with the bird high up in that tree which is in silhouette, which does not see me or need me but which pours out his song.

So you pour out your beauty like a song. I hear it. Tears come to my eyes. I am rooted to the spot. There is nothing for me to do except register it, feel it in my soul, and suffer to some extent because of it.