Since the time you stood in line for your eye test at school, you’ve thought that your eyes are either good or bad. If you “failed” the school eye test, you were told to see an eye doctor. The doctor probably told you that your eyes were weak, long, short, cloudy, or had too much pressure. Blurriness, double vision, eyestrain, cataracts, glaucoma, iritis, nearsightedness, and other eye conditions may have been involved in the diagnosis.
Your mother, father, or other family members probably comforted you by saying that you inherited their “weak” eyes. You solidified the perception that you had a problem. For most of you, each visit to the eye doctor meant further bad news. Your eyes needed a stronger lens prescription, surgery, or medication. The belief that your eyes were bad became further ingrained. Could it be that this thinking contributed to the decreased capability of your eyes to do their job?
Let’s think about our aboriginal counterpart again. In the middle of the jungle there are no optometrists or ophthalmologists. If and when the jungle-dweller experiences a problem with his eyes, such as a sore, puffiness, redness, or blurred or impaired vision, he visits the local medicine man or shaman, where, in addition to obtaining a cure, he is encouraged to explore why the gods or spirits are making his eyes the way they are. In a sense, the shaman acts as a teacher by helping the person to determine the cause of the condition.
For example, redness with swelling may be metaphorically associated with inner anger or upset. A ritual might follow. Perhaps a natural concoction from vegetation, animal juices, and soil (we would call it a poultice) is given to the person to place on the eye(s). The healing process requires the patient to be an active participant, asking him/her to look at his/her involvement in the eye condition. This approach goes beyond simply treating the symptom or even clearing up the physical condition.
Drawing on this metaphor, you can begin to think of your eye condition as an indication of what is happening in your mind’s eye. It’s a combination of your thoughts, beliefs, fears, and angers. It also includes perceptions picked up from your parents, siblings, teachers, and others. This is why people don’t all develop the same eye conditions. Each of you carries your own unique imprint of past patterns of perception. You visit your traditional eye doctor with a symptom perhaps blurriness, eyestrain, “floaters,” or pain. Your eye doctor examines the eyes and takes various measurements. She then makes a comparison to some norm and informs you whether or not you fit into that norm. If you don’t, some remedial measures may be suggested. These are not substantially different from the African ritual, and they usually take the form of eyeglasses, contact lenses, laser eye surgery, or medication.
Contrast this familiar approach with that of the modern preventive eye doctor, usually a functional optometrist. Like the shaman, he or she views the physical eye as a mirror of the mind’s eye. In effect, your eyes reveal something about your inner perceptions, either past or current. The obvious and ideal situation is to combine Western and traditional shamanistic approaches, use the technology of a vision-fitness lens prescription, and enlist your eye doctor or a suitably trained professional to help you examine the types of perceptions you have in your mind’s eye.
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