Limning

Limning means drawing faint lines around something, lines that suggest, but do not clearly outline that something. And, if done for long enough, with many attempts, the space inside can be seen to be nothing else.
But nothing can be identified as even a part of an outline, like trying to catch minnows with your hands. They each dart away, and you come up empty-handed.
It’s like in fox hunting (real fox hunting, not the Tally Ho kind with the red jackets). Each path the fox could take is given a watcher. He is not to frighten the fox, just to be seen. The fox knows the watcher is there. But everywhere the fox goes, there is a watcher, and the more distant watchers slowly move closer on their paths toward the center. Without becoming afraid, the fox finds itself in a very small area. And only then, with the fox darting here and there, are the dogs released, and the hunters with guns approach. Only then, the fox is killed. This is real fox hunting.
It takes more time, and more disciplined hunters than just panicking the fox until it does something stupid. But, in the end, it is a real contest between a fox who cannot stop eating chickens, and humans who cannot let him.

This is a picture, perhaps of conscience, perhaps of justice, perhaps of something that has no name. But it is perfect, and does no harm as the process unfolds.
The fox hunt doesn’t always end with the fox dying. If the fox can be very quiet, it can be turned into a creature that doesn’t even want to eat chickens.
If the fox charges a watcher, as some foxes do, the watcher is perfectly free to abandon his post. Experience shows the fox (or vixen) won’t follow if the watcher runs.
If the fox goes still, off the path, and no watcher can see it, all watchers wait;
And—the fox can be “herded” into the center so often that it falls asleep there, and waking, has been turned into such a creature as described above. And doesn’t even notice this when it wakes up.
This “sleep” can be repeated as needed.

We’re swimming in a sea of love, looking for solid love. But of course, solid love is like solid water—ice. It’s cold and very un-love like. And, like water-ice, love-ice has to be thawed before it turns back into love.

Lou Gottlieb 9/21/22 v8