Seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees...Week 13

Robert Irwin, psychic abilities and grains of salt

Okay, so it’s lucky week 13 and the first thing I’ll talk about is the death of a great California artist. Robert Irwin died yesterday. I didn’t know much about Irwin and his work until the novelist Sheila Heti (one of my very favorites) mentioned his biography Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees in a workshop I took with her several years ago. I read the book on her recommendation.

(this is the Irwin exhibit at Buffalo AKG art museum)

Irwin became known for pioneering something called Light and Space Art, which is said to have been the first original art movement to come out of Southern California. He had a fascinating life. Next time you’re at LACMA, make sure to see his light installation there. When we were at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum in August I was so pleased to see he had one there too. And next time you’re at the Getty museum, take a look at the gardens…they commissioned Robert Irwin to design them. Which was thought to be rather renegade at the time because he had absolutely no experience designing gardens. He did lots of amazing things, but what he became known for was ditching all typical forms of art and arguing that the way light played off of something was the ultimate art form. I really appreciate this because I’ve always said that the quality of the light, not the weather exactly, is actually why people love Southern California.

(Irwin’s iconic installation at LACMA)

I aimed to talk about the intuitive Laura Day this week, but I don’t have a great way to segue so I’ll just launch into it…

Psychic Space

I’ve mentioned the best-selling author/intuitive Laura Day previously and I’d love to talk about psychic/intuitive abilities and whether I believe in them. The short answer is that I do believe in them — to a certain extent. Now for the long answer…

I’ve been following Laura Day since she wrote How to Rule The World From Your Couch. She has other books too, including: Practical Intuition, The Circle and Welcome to Your Crisis. During the pandemic, Laura offered a Zoom workshop through Den meditation, which I attended. She was very funny and interesting so I started following her IG. I should backup and say this too. Anytime I’ve ever visited one of those Venice Beach palm readers on a whim with friends or had a reading from a psychic at someone’s birthday party etc the first thing the psychic says to me is “You know you’re also psychic, right?” I’m not joking. Over the years, I’ve also had several friends insist I’m psychic. I had always said I really wasn’t, that I had just guessed whatever it was that made them believe I was. Anyhooo… tuning into Laura Day’s free IG Lives was one of my pandemic entertainments and then I signed up for her weekend bootcamp. I have been to real bootcamp — yes, I survived Army bootcamp many moons ago, which I’ll discuss at a later date — and this was nothing like that! It was a fun thing where you try out a lot of the intuitive tasks that Laura writes about in Practical Intuition and The Circle. Once you do the bootcamp, you are considered a part of Laura’s Circle. I have no idea how many people are in the Circle worldwide but it’s a lot. We communicate via What’s App and I’ve acquired a small group of L.A. friends who are gems and part of the Circle. I hope I can write about Laura Day and the Circle at some point in a serious way because she’s a fascinating person. (An aside: Laura is married to the celebrated writer Stephen Schiff, who was a writer/producer on The Americans with Keri Russell. Hands down The Americans finale is the best ending to any series I’ve ever watched. It’s worth it to watch all six seasons just so you can have the full impact of that finale.)

Laura talks a lot about being “evidence based” in her intuitive approaches. And she believes we are all intuitive and can get better at using our intuitive skills. I’ve written a ton of legitimate science and health stories. I’m not yet convinced doctors and researchers would agree Laura is evidence based. But is she wrong? Are intuitive/psychic abilities hogwash? I don’t think we can say that either. Nobel Prize-winning scientist James Watson, the guy who proposed the double helix structure of DNA, blurbed one of Laura’s books. The whole area in which Laura is working is sometimes called non-material science (that was explained to me by a Harvard PhD who studies a version of it). Our military has been interested in this, Meta/Facebook has been interested in mind reading and even neuroethicists are interested.

I’ve noticed that my mom at times seems psychic (and I have at least two friends who I swear are, yet they are not interested in this in the least). I actually think a lot of people have similar experiences but the white, Western POV has been to discount these abilities. As we open to the perspectives of lots of different cultures and diverse people, I’ve discovered that many, many people put some stock in intuitive abilities ranging from being able to remote view, feel “spirits”, move energy or what have you. I know this sounds bananas to some people! I’d just say keep an open mind because a few years ago UFOs also sounded insane. So: I’ve been impressed by some people’s intuitive abilities and yet I’d also say that I take all of it with a grain of salt.

More grains of salt… I would never eschew real medical advice in favor of some psychic’s advice. Even Laura Day had breast cancer and went with Western approaches for a successful treatment. And she’s also the first to say that just because you’ve honed your intuitive abilities it doesn’t mean your life will now be a cinch. If you read up on her you’ll see she’s had plenty of obstacles. In fact, she talks openly about her mother committing suicide when she was just 14 and her two siblings doing so as adults. One of the things I appreciate about her, though, is that she’s amazingly down to earth for someone who talks about such “out there” stuff. Also, if you catch her IGs you will sometimes see her pal Patricia Arquette there — which is kind of fun.

Lastly, I would not pay anyone for any sort of psychic reading and I don’t think you should either. So while I’m advocating for an open mind, I’m also advocating for a somewhat closed wallet (or closed Apple Pay). If you’re interested in intuition, buy Practical Intuition used and practice with your friends for fun. The biggest problem with any of this is the potential for a scam. In fact, I recently had a psychic reach out to me via IG and tell me he had some important information for me. I replied “Fantastic! I’m psychic too and we can trade readings.” I told him what I saw for him and he never replied. I guess he didn’t like what I saw? But if any of you want a free reading, just let me know!