Pierce Point

Pierce Point

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Twelve miles long and relatively shallow, Tomales Bay is a rift valley created by the San Andreas fault, and is part of the Point Reyes National Seashore Park. I once fished at the narrow outlet, opposite Tomales Point, which opens to Bodega Bay and the Pacific Ocean. Listed in maps, as Sand Point, I remember it many years ago, as Pierce Point.

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The basis of my technique as an an actor can be simply stated, and that is to make my intuition more reliable. What does this mean, and how is this done?

There was a German artist who lived in the 1920’s. He was part of a group of artists called ‘the Bauhaus,’ who were part of the German Impressionist movement in painting. His name was Joseph Itten, and he wrote a book, titled, “The Theory of Color.”

The College of Marin, in Marin County, just across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco California, has an exceptional library. When I was a student there, I picked up a translation of this book from the German, and began to read a little bit. In it, there is a paragraph that said that as a colour, the colour grey excites the nerve endings of the eyes the least.

I thought about what I had read. It seemed to me, that if the colour grey excites the nerve endings of the eye the least, then it must be true that when the eye is seeing grey, it is expending the least amount of energy. Thinking about that, it seemed reasonable to suppose, that the eye is the most relaxed, when it sees grey.

I experimented. I began to practise visualizing grey. It sounds silly, but after some effort, I began to have some success. We read that when the eyes see something pleasurable, the pupils expand. The pupils of the eye, since they are colorless, appear black, and I think that many people when they try to imagine something pleasurable, tend to imagine against a very dark background. By ‘imagine’, I mean in this case, visualize with the imagination. What I found is that this darkness or black, is actually stressful.

It was telling that my first efforts to practise what I call grey visualization met with failure. I tend to look at consciousness as a system, and all systems tend to maintain themselves....that is what a system basically is. So I was not discouraged, though I was a bit surprised, that it was difficult at first to visualize grey.

I actually held grey cards in front of me, and would close my eyes practising ‘seeing’ grey in my mind’s eye. (Actors do strange things like this.) I found that to be successful at this, I had to practise seeing, or visualizing in depth....I could ‘see’ grey, but it was more like a grey screen in front of a dark space; or, a black cube, with one of the surfaces grey, and this proved not satisfactory. I only began to have more success when I thought in terms of placing grey behind ‘the screen.’

I found that the Dutch graphic artist, Maurits Cornelius Escher, had interesting perceptions regarding the color grey. He speaks, among other things, of the tessilation of space. He mentions of beginning in grey space, and ending in grey space. I found his comments fascinating. It is from his writing that I began to seriously examine an idea that was new to me --‘grey space.’

I made some interesting discoveries. Black, or black space, I began to associate physiologically with stress. It has a value of denseness and heaviness, as well as immobility and being hard to move. Grey, or grey space, I gave a neutral value. White, or white space, particularly intense white, I began to associate physiologically with pain, or acute pain.

As well, there are temperature values as well. A white field with small amounts of black value has a cold temperature. A black field with small amounts of white value has a hot temperature.

A white sphere engages interest or attention. A black sphere disengages interest or attention.

By imagining a grey pool underneath an object in my imagination, the object, would disappear visually in the mind,. This would occur even with objects in my mind’s eye that even if unpleasant, were persistant to my mind.

I didn’t realize it at first, but I also become stronger in visualizing the volume of objects. By this I mean, I would look at my arm, and visualize or actually see the volume of my arm as grey space. The body is a system as well, and it came as no surprise that to visualize and maintain grey space for my whole physical self was difficult to make automatic. Again, all systems seek to maintain themselves. That is what a system is. But I persisted for several reasons. One was the tangible feeling of relief of stress when I was able to maintain my ‘grey space.’ I also persisted, because as an actor, I recognized that what I was attempting to accomplish was not outlandish or far fetched--after all, this was a process of the mind, certainly responsive to my conscious will. It could be attained by practise.

By working to make grey space automatic (by reinforcement techniques, for instance), one becomes more relaxed and more perceptive, and it is in this way that our intuition is made more reliable.

My grey visualization began to gain ground, and there was a point, where I no longer thought in terms of ‘grey visualization,’ but began to examine and explore ‘grey projection,’ as well.

Briefly, the thinking goes like this. Let’s say I look at my arm, and imagine that the space of my arm is filled with grey space, and by practise, automate the process, so that every time I see my arm, and visualize the spatial volume of my arm, I see grey space.

Now, these actions--to visualize, to see, to imagine--most of us assume that these processes of consciousness occur in the head. But it is irrelevant ‘where’ the processes occur. We can simply say that they occur in imaginary space. But what is important is that it is a space we interact with--and that interacts with us.

The question remains, if this is a process that is in my head, and yours is a process that occurs in your head, then there is no real interaction between us. I could visualize grey all I want, but basically it is a process that is only occuring to myself.

But, what if consciousness does not occur in the head, but occurs in an imaginary space, that not only do we share, but is located everywhere, because it is located nowhere, because, quite simply, it occurs in imaginary space? What if consciousness is simply this space itself?

Then it follows, that we do, indeed, live in a global system of consciousness; that man is basically a bio-organic computer, and behaves according to how he is programmed; and that the most easily changed facet of his existence are his beliefs--he simply chooses not to believe so.