August 2026 Newsletter

Hello, and an astounding August to you!
Welcome, or welcome back, to my newsletter. Today's issue is about trying to see everything at once. Enjoy!

Eyeglasses can give us the illusion that we are seeing everything clearly at the same time, when that is not how the human eye works. The retina, that curved satellite-dish-like rear part of our eye, receives the light reflected from the objects in front of us. We have a pinpoint-sized area in the center of the retina called the macula, where the concentration of cone cells, the photoreceptors responsible for helping us see clarity and color, is the densest. Everywhere else in the retina away from the macula, there are fewer and fewer cone cells. You could think of "C" representing Cone cell, Clarity, Color, and Central vision.

Any light which falls on our macula will give us the clearest sight, but that's only a fraction of the light we receive. The rest falls outside of the macula, to give us our more blurry, yet still perceptible, peripheral vision. One of the foundational principles of natural vision improvement is seeing best where you're looking, then less clearly away from the center of your gaze. The cone cell concentration is greatest in the macula, then becomes sparser as you move out toward the edges of the retina. On the other hand, the rods, those photoreceptors which detect movement and allow night vision and peripheral vision, are found mostly toward the edges of the retina away from the center.

Dr. Bates, the father of natural vision improvement, wrote about this concept, which he called central fixation. Modern teachers often call it central clarity, since "fixation" could imply strain and a sense of forcing, when vision improvement is all about relaxation. Human vision is designed to work best when the light falling on our macula, at the center of the retina, gives us the clearest most vivid central vision, while we remain aware of our less-clear yet still noticeable periphery. Then we move our attention to the next point of interest, to see that most clearly with our central vision aimed at a new target.

Intending to see everything clearly all at once is completely contrary to this grand design. It's like trying to drive a car in the wrong gear, or with one tire almost flat -- you won't get where you're going efficiently, and you're not making optimal use of your vehicle either. Let your attention lead, and allow your gaze to follow. Notice the details there, scanning easily over what you see, then shift your attention and vision to something else which catches your interest.

Our human senses are how we connect to the environment around us, and often we need to take the sensory information a piece at a time to completely understand it, knitting the smells and sounds and tactile input together to form a comprehensive picture of our surroundings. We'll often switch among noise or colors or fragrances so quickly we think we're taking it all in at once, though these different forms of input are each a separate channel in the brain.

Mickey Mouse is enchanted by the aroma of the freshly-baked cake, and with his eyes practically closed his dominant sense right now is smell. Yet even here there will be distinctions, possibly the vanilla, the sweetness of sugar, maybe a hint of cinnamon or some other spice. Good vision relies on noticing small details too, then finer details within those, shifting our focus from one to another. Life is technicolor, not monochromatic and bland. We want to feed our visual appetite as varied of a diet as we can. Let your eyes explore, savor, and enjoy. Life can be a visual feast!

For more on shifting your focus over various details rather than trying to see everything at once, click here.

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Please send me your questions and comments
Let me know what you've wondered about concerning energy medicine or vision or dreams. I'll be glad to write a short article addressing that topic. Thank you to those who have sent me questions, or see a question you asked me in a private session written about here. You're helping many other people! Enjoy the start of this accepting-it-all month of August. I'll write again in a few weeks. Take care!