FIGURE AND GROUND

My Dear Friends,

In the world of art...........oil portraits and such..........a picture is usually divided up into two components. These are known as "figure and ground."

 
The "figure" in any scene, is that aspect of a painting to which the viewer's eye is immediately drawn. It is the subject of that picture. The "ground" is the environment or surroundings in which the figure exists. The effective portrayal of a clear difference, between "figure" and "ground" in a picture, is crucial.......... if a viewer is to properly appreciate the significance and purpose of that work.
 
Usually, this clear distinction is created as a conscious design of the artist. But this is not always the case. The defining and appreciation of any work of art always involves a collaboration between the artist and the eyes which behold it. Most pictures have many portals, through which a viewer can enter and be transformed. We shall speak more about that, perhaps, at a later time.
 
In the World of Form, the creator of a universe........the producer of a universal "movie," (if you will)........... continuously alternates his or her focus from being the director, to playing some part as an actor..........or even to playing the part of the audience as well. Each point-of-view appreciates and embraces a life theme in a different way. And yet, at their most expanded levels of existence, all three viewpoints and functions belong to the same One Being.
 
If this be true, then each experience of "self," in any scenario, is formed by focusing one's attention through each of those various viewpoints, and comparing what is seen or felt to the "normal" experience of that viewpoint you have chosen to inhabit.
 
Shifting your definition and experience of self from being the "actor" in some scene, to being the audience or the director, involves a blocking or filtering of one set of images and perceptions, and replacing them with another set. Additionally, when in the director's mode, it is even possible to go "split screen"---which involves making a space for two or more viewpoints within the same field of vision.

 
As these viewpoints shift, the delineation of "figure" and "ground" in a scene will shift with them. Sometimes, you will be the little boy who is playing on the hill. At other times you will be the grass on which he is playing. Your sense of controlling this action, in regards to where you are placed within the process, is dependent entirely upon how willing you are to equally own, as self, each aspect of that universe.

In that form of art you have called a "hologram," the delineation of "figure" and "ground" can suddenly shift with only the slightest alternation of the viewer's eye. In essence, such paintings are clear conjunctions of two universes........and each viewer gets to choose the universe that he wishes to visit. What we are telling you here is very similar to what we have been referring to as the "Grand Central Station of Transformation." In every scenario, there are trains (of thought) that are leaving on various "tracks" of the mind. To the degree that you have become ONE with everything and everyone in your universe, the train you inhabit is entirely up to you.

~The Reconnections