VISTAS

   I was thinking about how humans are symbolizing animals. Culturally, we've created huge symbol systems - God and morality to name two of the most complex. "God" is made up many symbols - rituals and sacred books, houses of worship, the tenets of faith, rules and regulations - each of them symbolizes particular ways of being and belief and all of them are multiplied mind-boggling times all around the world. Morality is fluid with symbols that are always evolving - ideas of "right" and "wrong and should" (two very complex symbols) mean different things to different people and are always subject to change. 
     But there are much smaller symbols up and down the symbolic ladder; every time we use something as small as a word, we're using a symbol. We have a symbol for that thing with legs and a flat top - table - but "table" is arbitrary, simply something we've agreed to call that particular thing. It could easily be called Fred and if it was we'd see the thing with legs and a flat top. For each of us, "table" gives rise to an image in the mind but I have no way of knowing if our concepts of "table" exactly agree. I may see a dining table; you may see a coffee table, while others may see a very long line of "tables." It isn't the table that arises in our minds; it's the concept, the symbol of "table," which has individual and private connotations for each one of us. Also, we may not picture anything at all when we hear or read (a purely symbolic activity, nothing but words giving rise to images and ideas) "table". We're so familiar with what it is that we don't need to stop and visualize anything at all, at least not consciously. It's like not actually reading the names of characters in a Russian novel; after a while, we don't see a name or even a group of letters and we still know exactly who is speaking or being discussed..
     All that is an unnecessarily complex prelude to the simple reason I was thinking about symbols in the first place: my love of vistas. When I stand looking out at a wide vista, I immediately feel expansive, exalted, have a certain sense of grandeur that only comes for me from the widest possible view. Time stops as I look out and I can feel how eager I am to take it all in, to note every last thing about the landscape and the color and the light, and I can gaze with time stopped until I feel full.
     "Vista" has become a powerful metaphor (a symbol) for me. Alone in my room or just moving through the day, I can think "vista" and feel an echo of what I've felt at the brink of a high cliff, the top of any mountain, even the 35th floor of a building with an unobstructed view. "Vista" helps me step back for a higher perspective on myself. It sets off something optimistic and connected in me, an energy that wants to go forward, to embrace the most encompassing view of all my possibilities. "Vista," what it symbolizes to me, sets off the feeling of freedom.
     Everyone has their individual metaphors and symbols. For some it's the ocean while others see the forest or a still blue lake and idiosyncratic others I can't even guess at. The important thing is that we nourish these symbols of aspiration, allow them to put us in touch with our best nature as they expand our sense of self. They become one of the most inspiring elements of change.