Rose in the Garden
Being in love with a woman in her garden is a magical experience for this man.
Shedding years of toil just in a glance.
Is it a glance, or have I been staring all along?
Evolution is not only the slow unfolding of species but also the refinement of perception. Change arises as awareness adapts — synapses rewiring, patterns dissolving, new connections forming. Just as the body carries the history of its ancestors in DNA, the mind carries the echoes of its former states in memory and habitual patterning.
As the eyes lose their fine acuity and the mind softens its sharp parsing, the brain leans into Gestalt principles — the “whole” over the part, patterns over pixels. This is the natural pattern-completion bias of aging. Leaned into further, it brushes against apophenia — the impulse to see hidden meanings or connections where none were intended.
Some neuroscientists call it predictive coding: the brain forever guessing at reality, filling in the gaps with prior models. In youth, detail dominates. With age, the models grow stronger than the raw data, so what is seen and heard comes dressed in memory, association, and story.
And perhaps that is why, in the soft golden hour light of her garden, it feels less like a single glance and more like a lifetime of staring — seeing her not in sharp edges, but in patterns of care, cycles of growth, and the timeless truth of love’s deep roots.
My friend Tim Johnson told me when we were on our annual retreat with Josh Blatter in Costa Rica that that’s what happens as we lose some of our acuity and eyesight.. Patterns and shapes take more relevance.
Thank you for the insight & inspiration Tim. ox
