To flare again in our sight: a constellation

Note: This is an experiment - a constellation of art, poetry, image and thought. At the end there are some invitations for creative exploration and reflection.

Pieces

One

Background image of a wild rose on a dark background. Text shows the poem The Wild Rose by Wendell Berry. — Photo by Annie Spratt.

Two

Dr Nippin Anand on safety risks in maritime culture:

‘There is a beautiful saying in in culture which is the ability to make the familiar strange and the strange familiar.

So, let's take the first one - making the familiar strange, what does that mean? So if Bryce lives in in Calgary and he walks up and down a street each day, every day, It's very, very hard for him to to see the risk. This is a very routine problem in organisations, where we are unable to see the risks because we live with that risk. We don't see the risk, because we don't feel it anymore.

I think that's a very important point to make because when something bad happens, we go absolutely ballistic to say, “why didn't you report it?” But much before reporting comes the idea: “have you even been able to see it?”

The second aspect of it is to make the strange familiar. And that is also a skill in its own because… we have a certain way of seeing things. But when we arrive… and when our world view of what is normal does not match with the site / ship / oil rig, we lose control of ourselves and we call it a “non-conformance”.

But in that moment, what we are trying to do is … to fit it within our own world. And because it doesn't fit into our world we call it a deviance or a non-conformity - we want to control it, and we lose any sense of understanding it. So, we never learn anything new.’

Three

Woman in an Interior with Two Cats Drinking Milk by Carl Holsoe — ‘Woman in an Interior with Two Cats Drinking Milk’ by Carl Holsøe, via Artvee

Four

Macro photo of two pink petals by Tsuyoshi Kozu — Photo by Tsuyoshi Kozu via Unsplash

Five

ESA Hubble photograph of the antennae galaxy — ‘Antennae Galaxies reloaded’ via ESA/Hubble & NASA

‘The galaxies — also known as NGC 4038 and NGC 4039 — are locked in a deadly embrace. Once normal, sedate spiral galaxies like the Milky Way, the pair have spent the past few hundred million years sparring with one another. This clash is so violent that stars have been ripped from their host galaxies to form a streaming arc between the two. In wide-field images of the pair the reason for their name becomes clear — far-flung stars and streamers of gas stretch out into space, creating long tidal tails reminiscent of antennae.

This new image of the Antennae Galaxies shows obvious signs of chaos. Clouds of gas are seen in bright pink and red, surrounding the bright flashes of blue star-forming regions — some of which are partially obscured by dark patches of dust. The rate of star formation is so high that the Antennae Galaxies are said to be in a state of starburst, a period in which all of the gas within the galaxies is being used to form stars. This cannot last forever and neither can the separate galaxies; eventually the nuclei will coalesce, and the galaxies will begin their retirement together as one large elliptical galaxy.’

Invitations

A

Allow yourself indulgent time to take all the pieces in. Notice what connections or patterns you see between them.

Now, imagine there is some hidden, deeper meaning that only you can discern.

What is it? How could it help you today?

B

Sentence starters. Don’t overthink it :) Keep writing until the expression is done.

I wish I had touched…
I always notice…
Right now I can hear…

This is an invitation for spacious creative and personal exploration, not therapeutic or trauma processing.

The quote from Dr Nippin Anand is from his podcast episode “Understanding culture through immersive, experiential learning”, 29 August 2025.