Painting The Savannah: Long Bedtime Story

In this long sleep story, you walk through a savannah and meet a blind artist who teaches you to paint the scenery without sight. As you immerse yourself in the painting process, guided by their instructions, they lead you deeper into the experience. After this unique artistic journey, you bid farewell to the artist and leave the savannah, filled with curiosity about your own painting, ready to explore it further once home.

Transcript

So just take a moment to begin to relax and begin to drift comfortably asleep.

And I don't know whether you'll drift asleep faster to the sound of my voice or whether it'll be to the spaces between my words.

And as you begin to comfortably drift asleep,

I'm just going to tell this story set in a savannah.

And this is a story where you find yourself walking through a savannah.

You can see the dancing haze on the horizon,

The shimmering trees,

The distant shimmering mountains.

You can feel the warmth of the Sun on your cheeks and then sensation of each and every footstep that you take.

And as you walk through this savannah,

Watching as some large birds of prey circle overhead,

Noticing herds of animals eating what they can and traveling across this land.

And noticing other large animals roaming around.

You see a curious sight.

You see what looks like somebody painting.

They appear to be stood before an easel and a canvas.

And as you approach,

You notice something unusual.

You notice that this person stood at this easel is blind and they keep putting their fingers into different paints and then spreading color onto the canvas.

And then washing their fingertips in a jar of water before seeming to concentrate on the sounds around them.

And then reaching up with different color on their fingertips,

Adding something else to the canvas.

And you ask them what it is that they're painting and how they know what they're doing.

And you look at their painting and see what it is that they're painting.

And they explain to you that they're listening to the land around them.

They're listening for the locations that sounds come from.

And pinpointing different animals that make noise based on where in space they perceive the different sounds.

They can hear the rustling leaves of trees.

They can hear what to them is almost like the twinkling of bells as the grass blows in a breeze.

They can hear the deep breaths of animals.

They can hear the footsteps of animals.

Sounds of animals lying down onto the ground or standing up.

And the different sounds of the way the different animals move and walk.

They can feel the breeze on their face that lets them know which direction the wind is blowing and how that is likely to impact on the scene of any hair or fur or leaves or vegetation.

They can notice the occasional change in temperature as clouds pass across the Sun and get an idea from how long that temperature seems to be changed for.

How large those clouds are and how frequent those clouds pass over the Sun.

And so how frequent the clouds are likely to be passing across the sky.

And you ask them how they know what colors to paint with.

And they say that that's easy.

Every color absorbs light differently.

And every color has a slightly different temperature.

And so they're able to tell what colors are what just from the temperature of those colors.

And they can mix colors and tell from the temperature of the mixed color roughly what color that must be based on the temperature of it.

And they can feel the size of the canvas in front of them.

And they almost build up a mental representation of the scene around them and of that canvas and of what is on that canvas.

And they're not painting to paint something that is photorealistic or realistic and recognizable to a sighted person.

They're painting something which is a visual representation of their inner experience.

Almost like a waveform while music is playing.

It's a visual representation of the music.

They're taking what they can hear about the world around them.

Converting that in their mind into what it probably looks like.

And it gives them a visual kind of feeling or representation in their mind.

That this is their way of trying to explain that representation.

And you can find this deeply interesting.

And they suggest to you that maybe you'd like to try.

And they tell you that there's another canvas on the ground.

And they lift their canvas off the easel.

They place their canvas down on the ground.

They tell you to place your canvas in the place of theirs.

They tell you to close your eyes and with your eyes closed gently move your hands forward.

Find that canvas.

Gently move your hands to the top of the canvas.

Slide your fingertips along the top of the canvas to the far corners.

Feel the texture of the canvas under your fingertips.

Feel your way to those two corners.

Then gently feel your fingertips down the side of the canvas to the bottom two corners.

And then feel your fingertips to the middle of the bottom.

And notice how you reach the easel as those hands move towards the center.

Notice how your fingers can run along the easel while also touching the canvas.

Where with your hands just gently relaxed,

Fingers slightly spread,

The thumbs,

The forefingers,

They can all meet around the middle of the canvas.

While the far tips of your little fingers are still touching the edge of the middle of that easel.

And so you can just move your hand down the canvas touching the edge of that easel.

You'll know where your thumb is and you'll know that that line from that point upwards is around the middle of the canvas.

And then run your fingers up the canvas and making circles with your fingertips so lightly touching that canvas.

Feeling the texture.

Feeling how that canvas seems looser,

Less taut in the middle compared to nearer to the edges.

Especially nearer to the corners.

And so with a sense of touch you can be creating a representation in your mind with your sense of touch,

Your proprioception,

To know where in space the different parts of that canvas are.

So that by moving your hands around in circles,

Your arms around,

Reaching up and down in very natural movements,

You can have a true and honest sense of that easel in your mind's eye that represents the easel and the canvas in reality.

And they said now reaching down to the bottom of the canvas following that easel,

Just beyond that central lip where your little finger judges the distance to the centre,

You can feel the tops of the paints.

You can feel that jar that's slotted in near the end of the left side of the easel.

And you can notice a jar off on the right side of the easel at the opposite location.

And these jars just have water in.

You can gently dunk your fingers in to rinse your fingers off.

And then out in this savannah heat just a quick rub of those fingers dries them off ready for your next bit of painting.

And although they have never seen the colours,

They know the experience of different colours.

And they direct your hand to the first colour near the water on the left.

And they tell you that the colours are the same but reversed on the right.

So that you can know that you can reach to the first colour near the water on either side and it'll be the same colour.

And then you can reach to the second colour away from the water on either side and it'll be the same colour.

And so you can dip your fingers into different colours and know that you can paint the same colour with both hands at the same time onto the canvas.

And they tell you that first colour is red.

They tell you to really pay attention as you just gently touch the top of that colour with your fingertips.

To pay attention to the sensation of that colour.

Sensation of that paint.

The temperature of the paint.

And then to wash your fingertips and allow those fingertips to dry.

And then touch the second colour.

And they tell you what colour this is.

They tell you to notice the texture,

The sensations of touching that colour.

The temperature of that colour.

And they work through slowly,

Methodically,

Carefully teaching you and guiding you to experience what each colour feels like.

What temperature each colour is.

And you also know where each colour is.

And a part of you wants to open your eyes and wants to see what it is that you're doing.

But they tell you to just trust yourself.

Trust that you have the ability to learn.

There was a time before you had labels for anything.

And then you grew up giving labels to things.

You gave labels to the experience of the colour red.

To what that colour red looks like.

All you're doing is the same thing as you learned to do instinctively growing up.

But you're allowing that to happen through your feelings.

Through your sense of touch.

Through a greater awareness of the other sensory experiences of the colours.

And after having a sense of where each colour is and increasing in confidence of being able to tell one colour from another based on its temperature.

Based on what it feels like to touch.

They tell you that to paint a picture you need to be able to experience that picture.

And that it's not about creating a visual representation.

Saying this animal looks exactly like this and that animal looks exactly like that.

It's about recreating your inner experience.

Your experience of those animals.

Of the nature.

Without sight and without touching those animals.

That if you get to touch the animals then you could create a very different representation of them.

But this will just be a representation of your experience of hearing those animals.

And you know some information about some of the animals.

About their sizes,

Their shapes.

But most of your painting will be based on what you can hear.

And so they guide you to relax.

They tell you to just take a few deep comfortable breaths.

Breathing in and breathing out.

Extending each out breath.

Breathing in and breathing out.

Extending that out breath further again.

And again breathing in and breathing out.

And they tell you to just focus on almost being one with the world around you.

That they'll count back from 20 and as they count you can become stiller and quieter inside your mind.

Reducing previous ideas and judgments to be able to be just in the moment on the experience.

And they start to count down in the background from 20,

19,

18.

Guiding you deeper and deeper into the experience.

17,

16,

15,

14,

13.

Going deeper and deeper.

12,

11,

10,

9,

7.

As you go deeper and more experienced.

Almost like your senses are becoming heightened in the moment.

5,

4,

3,

2,

1.

So deeply absorbed in the moment.

And they tell you that now you're deeply absorbed in this moment.

Allowing yourself to become so calm and still.

With your awareness spreading out with each out breath.

Breathing in comfort.

Spreading that awareness out from yourself.

As if to connect with the ground,

The plants,

The trees,

The animals,

The sky,

With nature.

And as you spread your awareness out,

They said,

Just begin to notice feeling of the breeze on your face.

Notice the difference in sensations between one cheek and the other.

Notice the difference between the sensations on one ear and the other.

Notice what the ground feels like under your feet.

Take just a couple of steps on the spot to be able to notice the texture,

How firm or soft that ground is.

And that'll give you an idea of what that's likely to be for most of this environment.

Just notice that you can reach down and gently lower your hand onto the ground and judge when the grass touches and tickles the underside of your hand.

And how long it takes and what the distance is between when that grass first touches and tickles your hand versus when that hand is flat on the ground.

You can move your hand around on that ground giving a sense of whether that grass is a similar height across this kind of ground or whether it varies significantly in height.

And listening closely you can hear the movement of the grass as the wind blows a breeze.

You can hear the sounds of branches rubbing together in the trees,

Of the leaves rustling that can give you an idea of how many leaves are there and how dense those leaves are.

And being able to hear that distant lapping of water on a shore knowing that somewhere over there is a lake.

And breathing in noticing the smells around you,

The smell of that distant water,

The smells of different plants and other smells around you.

Perhaps noticing the light and shadow as clouds pass across the Sun as well as noticing the change in temperature of your cheeks as clouds pass in front of the Sun before revealing the warmth of that Sun again.

Hearing the distant flapping sound of a bird taking off from the ground.

Sound it makes as air pumps through its body and its mouth while its chest moves as it beats its wings.

It makes that noise without wanting to or trying to just because it's pumping air because of the natural movement of its body and its wings to fly,

To take off.

Hearing the sliding sound and the sploshing sound of a bird landing in the lake.

Hearing the occasional sound of insects buzzing past your ears and just my moving your head ever so slightly left and right as if shaking your head no.

Being able to notice the direction of sounds and making a clicking sound with your mouth and being able to notice the way that sound reacts with the environment.

Whether the sound reverberates,

Bounces straight back,

Is absorbed by the environment and the way that sound reacts depending on where in the environment it's bouncing back to you from and letting out a few clicks to begin to get an idea of distances to things.

Whether there's trees that you can hear rustling that are nearer or perhaps further away.

Whether there are shrubs and there's anything else closer to you or whether you're really looking over a vast vista and the sounds of birds flying overhead.

The sounds they make as well as the sounds of their wings.

Being able to focus and almost pinpoint each individual bird sound.

Have an idea of how many birds are flying overhead and then when you're ready beginning to paint and I don't know whether you'll paint the ground first or the sky first.

But beginning to just place some of that paint on the canvas.

Rubbing it onto the canvas using both hands at the same time.

Washing those fingertips,

Rubbing those fingertips dry and then applying more paint.

Perhaps doing the basic color of the ground first and then a basic color of the sky and gradually building from no detail to more and more detail as you create your own representation,

Interpretation of your experience.

Perhaps just a generic greeny color and blue color and maybe having this sense of those trees off to the left and the type of sound of the leaves and the rubbing branches that you can hear.

That let you have an idea of how densely packed or loosely packed those trees are.

How far away they are and just painting a representation of the sound and maybe hearing some footsteps and chewing sounds on the grass off way off in the distance and painting your representation of that,

Of a herd of animals and working your way around this painting.

Focusing on different elements of your experience and painting what you would say is your representation of that experience.

How you would describe something you can only hear and what you discover is that the more you become absorbed in painting in this way,

The deeper and deeper into the experience you go.

The deeper and deeper into the experience you go,

The more profound you find this experience and you discover that you almost become one with the experience.

As if you can see the world around you that doesn't look as you know the world looks but looks as if you're looking at a world even though your eyes are closed and you're just experiencing that world through different senses that you don't normally pay much attention to the experience of.

You know that you can hear the world around you,

You know that you can feel the world around you,

You know that you have a sense of your place in the world around you but you also know that in everyday life you don't pay a huge amount of attention to all of that incoming information.

Your focus is more just on what you can see if someone said to describe a certain animal your first response may be to describe what it looks like unless there is something incredibly distinctive perhaps about what it sounds like and after a while of painting in this way you have this sense like you're done with the painting you wash your fingertips you open your eyes and you step back and you're surprised by the painting that you've done and then you take that canvas from the easel you place the original canvas back on the easel and then before you take that canvas off the easel the artist says to step aside they want to have a sense of what you painted and out here in the savannah the paint dries quickly and they run their fingers over that painting feeling the temperature difference the different colors the texture difference across the painting and they praise you on how well you've done at representing the world around you and perceiving the world around you in this new way and then they say that you can take your artwork and let it remind you of being able to take alternative perspectives on the world sometimes things aren't always as they seem and so you take your canvas place the other canvas back in place you say goodbye to that artist and you head away from this savannah and as you head away from the savannah so in your mind while you're heading home all you can think about is the experience of painting and having a curiosity to want to explore your painting with your eyes you had a little look at it out in the savannah but you haven't really explored that painting and once you arrive home it's nighttime you head indoors you place that painting up on a side and you step back and look at that painting and you think in your mind about the experience about what you really saw in that location and you compare what you really saw visually with what you painted what your representation was of that environment without vision and then you step up to that painting you feel across the painting with your fingertips having a sense of the feeling of the different colors the temperature difference between those different colors under the light in your room allowing yourself to become so deeply absorbed so that you become almost hyper aware of the most subtle changes and then you step back again and take a look again and smile at how absorbing it was to just touch that painting and allow yourself to become deeply absorbed in the experience again and you head to bed with a sense of curiosity about how you can perceive the world differently what you can learn from this experience about what other environments might be interesting to paint in this way or even to just stand in or sit in to close your eyes and experience them with your eyes closed to heighten your other senses to heighten your sense of smell of touch of taste of hearing and what difference that might make to your perception of these locations and while thinking about this you gently relax you gently drift and float asleep falling into the most peaceful pleasant sleep all night long