For a long time it was my calling to stand on cliffs and gaze at the horizon, where the sea touches the sky. One day, standing atop a lone island peak in a remote sea, the horizon encompassing my entire field of vision, for a moment it felt as if I was floating above an immeasurable void. But then, as I viewed the horizon encircling me, I had a distinct sensation of the earth as a watery globe. In my dreams as a child, I often floated in midair. Sometimes I’d leave my body and watch my sleeping self from on high near the ceiling. Like an astral projection perhaps, a waking self coexisting simultaneously with a sleeping self. Even as an adult, I habitually imagine myself airborne. Might this be at the root of my artistic spirit? Obviously the scientific views and laws we currently believe will falter and be superceded in due course. Centuries from now people will consider us as unenlightened as those who lived in the geocentric age— if humanity survives until then, that is. There remains, however, a great divide between comprehending the world and being able to explain what we ourselves are. And even then, what we can explain of the world is far less than what we cannot. In late spring 1982, I watched from a cliff in Newfoundland as a beautiful sunset coincided with a full moon rise in the eastern sky. For the first time in years I was overcome by an out-of-body experience. I was far above from the earth’s surface gazing at the moon adrift over the sea, while another me—a tiny speck—remained spellbound on the ground. Hiroshi Sugimoto