Several months later I was walking near my house when I passed through a grove of tall, straight trees which suddenly struck me as resembling giant metronomes. I started swaying my body accordingly, sensing that in some way "I had seen rhythm." This was my first conscious attempt to link rhythm with vision and walking. As a teenager I had lost interest in white rock'n'roll and began listening to rhythm and blues stations. At the time of my encounter with the arboreal metronomes, I had not listened to African-American music for many years, but my experience with rhythmic vision rekindled my interest. I started watching a local black television dance show with the hope that I, a middle-aged white man who had never danced as a youth, could pick up some pointers that would loosen up my body and improve my walking. Can an inexperienced middle-aged white man develop "soul?" - a conundrum seemingly as absurd as the "sound of one hand clapping." My devotion to this show eventually paid off. One evening as a group of dancers were executing a dance line, the singer on the record intoned a few repetitious nonsense syllables. I picked them up and found that I was repeating them more and more as I walked along. I had not been searching for any kind of "mantra" but one had appeared. As it became an habitual part of my walking style, I began to notice many of the visual effects discussed briefly here and in my book. Friedrich Nietzsche claimed that poetry is metrical because it is derived from rhythmic incantations that the ancients believed could coerce the gods into doing man's bidding. In my case the use of rhythm has had a "magical" effect in coaxing out of their haunts certain visual spirits that had shunned my presence for many years. Rhythm apparently has this effect because it overrides the chattering mind rather than forcefully subduing it. Attention is directed outward, leaving the chattering mind to babble harmlessly in the background. Various types of syncopated beats seem to do this better than regular rhythms because by placing the accent on weak beats they help move the body more effortlessly along its way. They also make the body sway and undulate more gracefully in a way that separates black from white popular dancing styles. As one fashions one's own bouncing, bopping, dancing, and orbiting universe, one's spirit begins to live more and more outside one's self.

Click photo to for further explanation and examples of Rhythm Vision