Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty (And “seeing” according to Castaneda)

Don Juan’s particular interest in his second cycle of apprenticeship was to teach me to “see”. Apparently, in his system of knowledge, there was the possibility of making a semantic difference between “seeing” and “looking” as two distinct manners of perceiving. “Looking” referred to the ordinary way in which we are accustomed to perceive the world, while “seeing” entailed a very complex process by virtue of which a person of knowledge allegedly perceives the “essence” of the things of the world.

—Carlos Castaneda, in A Separate Reality, Further Conversations with Don Juan

So, what was there to “see” at Ellis Island? Nothing but the ghosts of immigrants past, haunting and dancing about the halls and ceilings of the old building…

Unfortunately, all of the personal articles donated by immigrants that were formerly in the various exhibits had been removed due to the Hurricane Sandy event and the inability to archivally control the environment inside the building.

Still, you could hear, smell, and feel the ghosts of the millions…the Italians, the Irish, the Serbs, the Croats, the Germans, the Russians, and the rest…murmurs and shouts echoing from the curves and patterns of the tiled ceiling…