Born Yesterday

Friends of ours just sent this snapshot of their beautiful new granddaughter, Thalia Sky, born yesterday afternoon. I was struck by the infant's open stare, and went scrambling for a passage from a book I'd read recently, The Power of Eye Contact. In a chapter on intimacy, it talks about how "appreciating really brings presence":

Presence is a major nutrient that people need lifelong. If you think of babies, we just gaze at babies and look at them, and we don't need to do anything; we just exchange gazes. ...Your essence, who you really are, is so available just from gazing, giving and receiving attention. (K. Hendricks, p173).

Uninhibited by the cultural taboo against staring, a baby's eyes express that deep yearning we all have to relinquish the condition of separateness:

...they just can't take their eyes off yours. ...It's utterly natural. We're all seeking this communal experience of union. (W. Johnson, p187)

Thalia Sky, with her innocent stare, reminds us of what Zen Buddhists call beginner's mind: experiencing the world without preconceptions, without filters and blinders, appreciating it anew, with the freshness and wonder of a baby's eyes.