EYES OF A CHILD – Like You’ve Never Seen Before

What is it about the eyes of a child? Could they possibly be any wider open, any purer, any more completely in the moment? When the downy little head of a one-year-old turns your way, and those great, round eyes meet yours, you can’t help but be struck by both how voraciously and how generously they see, eagerly grasping every detail, yet with an innocence that’s utterly free of judgment or guile.

There’s also something especially disarming, I think, about eyes that look up at you—as children's eyes usually do. Could it be some instinctual comfort we experience when we’re dominant? If someone’s looking up at you, they must either be smaller or in a subservient position and, therefore, pose no threat.

Does it tap into our inherent drive to protect and nurture the innocent and vulnerable? Or do we see something in that gaze that puts us in touch with the sacred? Might we, at some level, associate it with the way a newcomer to heaven might perceive God?

Every observation within their pull swirls inescapably into their possession, as if swallowed
by a benign black hole. 

Whatever the reason, I’m utterly undone by kids' eyes—captivated by the way they envelope and explore everything, including me, as if they were holding it, turning it over, feeling it. Their capacity seems so far out of proportion to their size. Every observation and impression within their pull swirls inescapably into their possession, as if swallowed by a benign black hole.

INNOCENCE LOST

A baby’s eyes are just as enchanting for what they don’t show. They harbor no assumptions, no prejudice. The vulnerable way they gaze up at you would be the same if you were Miss America or Quasimodo. They’re not yet well versed in fear.

Expectation, disappointment, competition, prejudice—none of these attitudes is intrinsic to homo sapiens. They're learned. That’s why you don’t see them in a one-year-old’s eyes…and why you may start to see them in a two-year-old’s. What does that tell you?

Oh, that we could learn to give and receive 

that sweet, open, vulnerable look more often!

It tells me that the brightness that fades gradually from some children's eyes is getting obscured, layer upon layer, by lessons we wouldn’t teach them if we knew any better. Like sheets of sheer gauze, the first few of these filters may escape notice, but add enough of them, and the wrapping becomes nearly opaque, all but blocking the curiosity, delight and wonder that should remain every child's essence.

I WANT THOSE EYES

Some kids manage to keep that essence, that clarity, in their eyes longer than others. Even a child who’s learned to frown, pout and throw tantrums can, at other times, when the “attitude” falls away, give the most unguarded, most innocent of looks. I’ve seen it in the eyes of ten-year-old boys, who look up at their dads as if to say “I want to be just like him.” I’ve even seen it—though I must say very seldom—in the eyes of an adult. Oh, that we could learn to give and receive that sweet, open, vulnerable look more often!

When I’m with Nature, I try to put on my child’s eyes. It's not always easy. (Maybe I just have too much on my mind, or can't find and remove all those layers that come to cloud the clear innocence of one's perception.) But I want that openness, that vulnerability. I want to be so free of expectation that I can’t be disappointed.

Above all, I want to see everything as if I’d never seen anything before.

The eyes are the window to the soul. –  ENGLISH PROVERB