One of the things that I quote often is a translation of a bit of an Egyptian creation myth, referring to pre-creation: "before there were two things".
I draw many things from this phrase. One of the essential ones that requires the least extrapolation is that creation -- coming into existence -- is synonymous with there being two things. The Nun, the primeval ocean of pre-existence, is all things, all at once, all possibilities, all potentials, all undifferentiated. Creation brings about differentiation, drawing out specifics from the primeval chaos: this, this thing is, and is this, and one can tell that it is this because it can be compared to that, which it isn't.
One thing, on its own, with no reflection, no comparison, has a very tenuous claim on existence; there's no basis for comparison, no basis for differentiation. And now I draw out the Feri creation myth I know, of the Star Goddess studying her reflection in the glossy blackness of space, and falling in love, and from that interaction coming differentiation, creation, the cosmos spilling out of the recognition of other. There were two things, and then bang, gods and stuff all over the place. (Once there are two things, they tend to breed.)
Can you see where I'm going with this? The way to being a witness? Because by observing a thing, by reflecting it, one makes that thing real. (Terry Pratchett plays with this notion with his history monks on the Discworld, puttering about and observing all the great events so that they are certain to happen.) And the observation folds back, it reinforces the observer: each makes the other more genuine, more present.
We did witnessing at the retreat training with Thorn. Broke up into pairs, formulated our intentions, shaped them into something, and stepped into that shape -- and the other person watched, and saw that it was done. There is something that happens there in the dance between witness and observed, there is a core of a change there.
In this work there is heka, is magic, is authoritative utterance; the words are spoken, and because they are heard, they work a change. If they are only inside the head, they can be revised, changed, morphed -- this commitment is too difficult, this line is hard, this deadline is not that important. The witnessing makes intent binding, makes it harder to say, "Did I say Tuesday? I meant Tuesday night. I meant next Tuesday. I meant . . ." The witness becomes part of the process of change. The words, if they are not spoken, do not have the same force, the same readiness to impose their creative capacity on the world: they need a witness.
I write. When I write, when I accomplish words, I note that down in my public journal. The journal is my witness -- the witnessing would work even if nobody were reading it, if I were just cataloguing words in this space. It makes the oddly secretive writing process a matter where benchmarks are real, are placed out where they can be observed; it brings in the other to witness, and there are then two things. I joke that I do it so that everybody knows when I'm not working, but that is a joke, true in its negative space -- it only goes so far. What I'm seeking in posting the counts is a form of reality, a completion of the work of creation. Because nobody can see the work directly, I need to bring the work out into a space where I can say, "This work happened" and have the universe echo for me. It's too easy to lose it, lose the accomplishment as something that has no ripples in the world, and thus which may as well not exist.
(Sometimes I make posts in an alternate journal, working through things. Things that I need to have that witness for, but am not yet ready to have witnessed in the space where I am well-known, defined as myself, public. That space is a confessional of sorts, in its way, but still a tool for realisation.)
I am trying to consider being a witness as a creative act, now. Sometimes this is artificial, a conscious choice to pause, observe, acknowledge that I am likely to forget going about other things; it's faking it. As is the choice, occasionally, to consciously speak things so that they can be witnessed by others, in some cases exposing them to the light, in other cases sharing the way they shine on their own. But the effects are real: the moment spent in appreciation, in wonderment, in awe, in horror, in whatever is appropriate for that moment; in that moment I and what I observe are reflecting each other, and by our being, becoming.
(It's white on this side.)