Sound, Image, Movement

Lying in bed (just like Brian Wilson did) early the other morning and realizing something basic to writing, my own writing, and life experience.

Life itself is fundamentally made up of sound, image, and movement. Sound we are always hearing–from nature, ourselves, other people, music. So listening and speaking or expressing, too, as in the work and performances of vocalists, musicians and composers.

Image is made up of several types of imagery. Mostly image has to do with the eye and seeing, but more largely refers to all impressions on our senses. So, as described in one of my previous books, it pertains also to:
sight–visual images, hearing–aural images (also mentioned above as sound), smell–olfactory images, taste (gustatory images), touch (tactile images), temperature as in hot or cold (thermal images), and motion (kinesthetic images).

We sense the world and others in these six principal ways at all times, and if one is expressing or creating via these ways, one might be a musician, a painter or filmmaker, a perfume maker, a cook or restaurant owner, a therapist or lover, a dancer, and so forth. My point with sound and music is that it not only has a receptive function, but an expressive and potentially creative one as well.

Motion or movement seems to need a category unto itself and subsumes the other two in process. As I write this, blood and invisible energy flows through my mind, body, and fingers to type this sentence. Outside, the trees are moving in the wind. Elsewhere, millions of others are moving even if they are still asleep. As George Harrison said, “Life goes on within you and without you” whether you are talking about microbiomes or asteroids. (BTW/Implicit in all/every process is movement and change.)

For me, I look back at my poems, in particular, and realize the creation of each piece uses sound, image, and suggests or represents movement. Movement right down to the inspiration for each selection, through its imaginative birth process, right through to you or someone else hearing or seeing it, and the movement, as manifested in reader or audience response made up of feeling, thought, and imaginative empathy. Again, movement involving sound and image as well. Three main things informing our lives, personal experience, writing, the arts, and the creative process of so many creators.

This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply