The Power of Sketch Stretching in Self-Discovery

This morning I had an insight about Sketch Stretching.

The sketch opens the window.

I don’t mean that the sketch gives me an answer. It does something before that. It stretches the experience of a moment just enough that I can see—or feel—what I normally miss.

It’s like slowing down a video.

At normal speed, something happens and it’s gone. But stretch the timeline and suddenly there is space between the frames. You can see something that was there all along but moved too quickly to notice.

I think consciousness can work the same way.

And then I thought of an orchestra.

The entire orchestra is playing at once. I hear it as one piece of music, but I can also choose to listen to the violin, the drum, or the piccolo. The instrument I’m listening to doesn’t become the whole orchestra. I’m simply becoming sensitive to one part of what is already happening.

Perhaps that’s what stretching an experience does.

It allows me to distinguish the instruments within the orchestra of experience.

And once I can distinguish them, I have a choice about where I place my attention.

I can listen through the slant of criticism.

Or curiosity.

Or interest.

Or insight.

Or I can listen for something else.

Perhaps I can listen for happiness.

This is where the window metaphor becomes useful.

The sketch opens the window.

What happens next is not necessarily another technique. I might use meditation, concentration, breath, inquiry, one of the limbs of yoga—or something else I’ve practiced.

But I don’t necessarily have to do anything.

I can wait.

And let the fresh air come in.

There is something important about having experienced that fresh air before. If I have never experienced it, I may not know what I’m looking for. But once I’ve felt it, even briefly, I recognize it.

I know the way back.

Maybe that’s one of the deeper purposes of practice—not simply learning how to concentrate, but becoming familiar with the way back to a more open experience of myself.

The sun doesn’t change because the Earth changes its relationship to it. The seasons change because of that relationship.

Maybe the same is true of the Self.

The True Self doesn’t have to change. My relationship to it changes.

Sketch Stretching gives me a way to notice that relationship.

It stretches the moment.

It opens the window.

I wake up for a moment.

And then I have a choice.

I can keep listening to the same instrument.

Or I can listen differently.

Or I can simply open the window and wait.

If I’ve experienced the fresh air before, I know what to look for.