Science & Medicine

Mark This Moment

August 30, 2013 by John 4 Comments

[Image: partial screen capture of a page at Google Books. The worker scanning the pages of The Coquette has allowed his or her gloved finger to be recorded for posterity.]

From whiskey river (italicized portion):

You will lose everything. Your money, your power, your fame, your success, perhaps even your memories. Your looks will go. Loved ones will die. Your body will fall apart. Everything that seems permanent is impermanent and will be smashed. Experience will gradually, or not so gradually, strip away everything that it can strip away. Waking up means facing this reality with open eyes and no longer turning away.

But right now, we stand on sacred and holy ground, for that which will be lost has not yet been lost, and realising this is the key to unspeakable joy. Whoever or whatever is in your life right now has not yet been taken away from you. This may sound trivial, obvious, like nothing, but really it is the key to everything, the why and how and wherefore of existence. Impermanence has already rendered everything and everyone around you so deeply holy and significant and worthy of your heartbreaking gratitude.

Loss has already transfigured your life into an altar.

(Jeff Foster [source])

…and:

The Good Life

You stand at the window.
There is a glass cloud in the shape of a heart.
The wind’s sighs are like caves in your speech.
You are the ghost in the tree outside.

The street is quiet.
The weather, like tomorrow, like your life,
is partially here, partially up in the air.
There is nothing you can do.

The good life gives no warning.
It weathers the climates of despair
and appears, on foot, unrecognized, offering nothing,
and you are there.

(Mark Strand [source])

[Read more…]

A Skin of Mirror

August 23, 2013 by John 8 Comments

[Video: “Eulerian Video Magnification,” by a team of researchers at MIT. For more information, see the note at the foot of this post.]

From whiskey river:

Keiji, a long-time Zen student, approached his master and said: “I don’t see how there can be any enlightenment that sets you free once and for all. I think we just get ever greater glimpses of Buddha-nature, the vastness that is our true Reality. It’s an ever-expanding process.”

The master replied, “That may be what you think. But what is your experience, your experience right now?”

Keiji was confused, “My experience right now, Master?”

“Yes. Do you know yourself as Keiji, having ever-expanding experiences of Buddha-nature? Or do you know yourself as Buddha-nature, having the experience of Keiji?”

(unsourced)

…and:

No one has ever seen fish.
Fish secrete highly reflective compounds
That act as a skin of mirror.
It is thought the fishes’ sides
are painted in landscapes,
mountainous.

(Annie Dillard [source])

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From the Outside In: the Golden Treasury‘s Endpapers

August 8, 2013 by John 3 Comments

[See the previous entry in this series here.]

Adult readers know unambiguously what it means to “read a book.” They have an image of someone — most often themselves? — sitting somewhere in a comfortable chair, on a commuter train or in an airport terminal, good lighting from over the shoulder… The book lies open in their hands or lap, somewhere in the middle, with a sheaf of pages pinned in place behind each thumb. Because, y’know, whether the book in question is a potboiler or a metaphysical treatise, that’s where all the action is — in the middle. It’s the heart of the book.

But just inside the front and back covers? Those “pages,” the endpapers, serve a purely physical function; they’re where the dynamic stresses are greatest, where the tension between spine and glued contents would most likely result in tearing and/or separation. In a book, they’re the analogue of a painting’s picture frame: they physically hold it all together, hence are important, but they have no real point otherwise. They’re to be gotten through.

But kids harbor fewer clearcut preconceptions. From their perspective, the very first spread of paper and the very last might well be places to expect the most drama, the most meaning. And in a book or elsewhere, when faced with a large two-page spread of blank paper, few kids could resist the temptation to scribble, to color, to fill. Leaving them empty would be such a waste, no?

I don’t know, but can guess, that artists and illustrators love having the freedom to fill whole tabloid-sized sheets of whitespace, too, free from the constraints of story and the rigid geography of text on the page. Bill Watterson, creator of the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip, hated the tedium of the daily strip format: day after day, year after year, working within the same narrow rectangle. (It especially had to frustrate him as the creator of such an undisciplined protagonist.) If I remember correctly, he stipulated in his contracts that if you wanted the daily strip, you had to give him a half-page on Sunday, to fill with whatever layout he wanted. His Sunday strips dazzled, even before you’d read any of the text in the speech balloons.

The publishers of kids’ books, especially illustrated ones, know all this. And the publishers of great kids’ books pull out all the stops.

[Read more…]

Not So Very Empty

July 19, 2013 by John Leave a Comment

[Video: “Empty Space Is NOT Empty,” from Veritasium (Derek Muller’s “science video blog from atoms to astrophysics!”). To my knowledge there’s no plain-old Web page to point you to, but here’s the YouTube channel, and here’s the Facebook page for those of you who are all Facebooked up.]

From whiskey river:

The Moth, the Mountains, the Rivers

Who can guess the luna’s sadness who lives so
briefly? Who can guess the impatience of stone
longing to be ground down, to be part again of
something livelier? Who can imagine in what
heaviness the rivers remember their original
clarity?

Strange questions, yet I have spent worthwhile
time with them. And I suggest them to you also,
that your spirit grow in curiosity, that your life
be richer than it is, that we — so clever, and
ambitious, and selfish, and unrestrained — are only
one design of the moving, the vivacious many.

(Mary Oliver [source])

…and:

Many people are afraid to empty their own minds lest they plunge into the Void. Ha! What they don’t realize is that their own Mind is the Void.

(Huang-po [source])

…and:

When Tesshu, the famous Japanese samurai master, was young and headstrong, he visited Master Dokuon and triumphantly announced to him the classic Buddhist teaching that all that exists is empty, and how there is really no you or me. The master listened to this in silence. Suddenly he snatched up his pipe and struck Tesshu’s head with it. This infuriated the young swordsman, and then Dokuon said calmly, “Emptiness is sure quick to show anger, is it not?”

(unattributed [but see here, among many other sources, in more or less these words])

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Invisible, Unknowable, Outside and In

June 28, 2013 by John 1 Comment

'Glass Ichthyosaur,' by Amanda Heath

[Image: “Glass Icthyosaur,” by Amanda Heath. I first
learned of this project at Scientific American‘s “Symbiartic” blog.]

From whiskey river:

A philosopher knows that in reality he knows very little. That is why he constantly strives to achieve true insight. Socrates was one of these rare people. He knew that he knew nothing about life and about the world. And now comes the important part: it troubled him that he knew so little.

(Jostein Gaarder [source])

…and:

It is life that does the thinking all around us, forming with playful ease the connections our reason can only laboriously patch together piecemeal, and never to such kaleidoscopic effect.

(Robert Musil [source])

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In the Right Light, Nothing Is Not Worth Looking At

May 31, 2013 by John Leave a Comment

[Image: small portion of an infographic of intersecting timelines from films and television shows which feature time travel. (Click to enlarge.) The bright yellow line is that of time itself, and the lines which crisscross it represent the individual movies and shows. (No Dr. Who, though: presumably it would complicate things too much.) Lines are color-coded according to the means of time travel: bright blue for alien technology, red for time machine, and so on. The gray line terminating at a red dot, roughly in the center, is labeled “ULTRA PARADOX! Marty McFly meets the Star Trek crew and they both battle The Terminator.”
For more information, see the Information Is Beautiful site — especially, follow the link there to the
“how we made this image” page.]

From whiskey river:

You can’t understand, change, or improve something if you don’t even see it.

Start with looking. Open! Open! Open!

Then tilt your head and look again. Deeper…

Look from every angle. Don’t let one view satisfy your curiosity.

There is a beautiful wisdom found in seeing from a universal point of view.

(Danielle Marie Crume (“Dani”) [source])

…and:

We eat light, drink it in through our skins. With a little more exposure to light, you feel part of things physically. I like feeling the power of light and space physically because then you can order it materially. Seeing is a very sensuous act — there’s a sweet deliciousness to feeling yourself see something.

(James Turrell [source])

…and:

5.

We do one thing or another; we stay the same, or we change.
Congratulations, if
you have changed.

6.

Let me ask you this.
Do you also think that beauty exists for some
fabulous reason?

And if you have not been enchanted by this adventure —
your life —
what would do for you?

(Mary Oliver [source])

[Read more…]

The Line Between Should and Do

May 17, 2013 by John Leave a Comment

[Image: The English translation — with original emphasis — is, “Daughter, you have to go out and become rich.” Found it at the Grimm Grammar site of the University of Texas, which uses 36 characters from the classic fairy tales to illustrate how German grammar works; the characters above are Cinderella’s stepmother and a (bored, dissolute) stepsister. This illustration accompanies the discussion of modal verbs.]

From whiskey river:

We continually look and hope for a new, special thing that is going to last or make us happy, fulfill our needs, answer all our questions. In actuality, what are we going to get? We will get more seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, and thinking. That’s it. That’s what life is.

(Jack Kornfield [source])

…and:

What the Living Do
(excerpt)

…We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want
whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss — we want more and more and then more of it.

But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass,
say, the window of the corner video store, and I’m gripped by a cherishing so deep

for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I’m speechless:
I am living…

(Marie Howe [source])

…and:

The Moment

Oh, the coming-out-of-nowhere moment
when, nothing
happens
no what-have-I-to-do-today-list

maybe half a moment
the rush of traffic stops.
The whir of I should be, I should be, I should be
slows to silence,
the white cotton curtains hanging still.

(Marie Howe [source])

[Read more…]

Drawing (and Writing, Illuminating, Musing) Upon Infinity

May 3, 2013 by John Leave a Comment

[Image: the first page — the first letter, a capital L — of the so-called Wenceslas Bible. It’s not the Bible referenced in Jennifer O’Grady’s poem, below (for one thing, the text is in German, not Latin). But I have a feeling it’s in the same general neck of the illuminated-manuscript woods. It’s worth viewing full-size, and while you can do so by clicking the image above, a better way is by clicking this link. I couldn’t find one single authoritative page of information about this Bible edition, but numerous discussions of its “bathhouse babes” entertained me greatly.]

From whiskey river:

When I Met My Muse

I glanced at her and took my glasses
off — they were still singing. They buzzed
like a locust on the coffee table and then
ceased. Her voice belled forth, and the
sunlight bent. I felt the ceiling arch, and
knew that nails up there took a new grip
on whatever they touched. “I am your own
way of looking at things,” she said. “When
you allow me to live with you, every
glance at the world around you will be
a sort of salvation.” And I took her hand.

(William Stafford [source: quoted all over the place, including here])

…and:

This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on seas and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.

(John Muir [source])

…and (same post as above):

The door to infinity is somewhere in the room with you, right now.

(Gina Rocca)

[Read more…]

It’s a Matter of Leaning the Right Way

April 5, 2013 by John 7 Comments

[I have no idea where this sculpture is located, or who created it. Anyone know???]

From whiskey river:

Thirst

Another morning and I wake with thirst for the goodness I do not have. I walk out to the pond and all the way God has given us such beautiful lessons. Oh Lord, I was never a quick scholar but sulked and hunched over my books past the hour and the bell; grant me, in your mercy, a little more time. Love for the earth and love for you are having such a long conversation in my heart. Who knows what will finally happen or where I will be sent, yet already I have given a great many things away, expecting to be told to pack nothing, except the prayers which, with this thirst, I am slowly learning.

(Mary Oliver [source])

…and:

On Living: I
(excerpt)

Living is no laughing matter:
you must live with great seriousness
like a squirrel, for example–
I mean without looking for something beyond and above living,
I mean living must be your whole occupation.
Living is no laughing matter:
you must take it seriously,
so much so and to such a degree
that, for example, your hands tied behind your back,
your back to the wall,
or else in a laboratory
in your white coat and safety glasses,
you can die for people–
even for people whose faces you’ve never seen,
even though you know living
is the most real, the most beautiful thing.
I mean, you must take living so seriously
that even at seventy, for example, you’ll plant olive trees–
and not for your children, either,
but because although you fear death you don’t believe it,
because living, I mean, weighs heavier.

(Nâzim Hikmet [source])

[Read more…]

What Lies Beneath

February 8, 2013 by John 3 Comments

[Image: lunar surface, color-enhanced, per results of the NASA GRAIL mission.
For more information, see the note at the foot of this post.]

From whiskey river (italicized portion):

“My soul knows my meat is doing bad things, and is embarrassed. But my meat just keeps on doing bad, dumb things.”

“Your soul and your what?” he said.

“My soul and my meat,” I said.

“They’re separate?” he said.

“I sure hope they are,” I said. I laughed. “I would hate to be responsible for what my meat does.”

I told him, only half joking, about how I imagined the soul of each person, myself included, as being a sort of flexible neon tube inside. All the tube could do was receive news about what was happening with the meat, over which it had no control.

“So when people I like do something terrible,” I said, “I just flense them and forgive them.”

“Flense?” he said. “What’s flense?”

“It’s what whalers used to do to whale carcasses when they got them on board,” I said. “They would strip off the skin and blubber and meat right down to the skeleton. I do that in my head to people — get rid of all the meat so I can see nothing but their souls. Then I forgive them.”

(Kurt Vonnegut [source])

…and:

Eyes-Shut Facing Eyes-Rolling-Around

Pay close attention to your mean thoughts.

That sourness may be a blessing,
as an overcast day brings rain for the roses
and relief to dry soil.

Don’t look so sourly on your sourness!
It may be it’s carrying what you most deeply need
and want. What seems to be keeping you from joy
may be what leads you to joy.

Don’t call it a dead branch.
Call it the live, moist root.

Don’t always be waiting to see
what’s behind it. That wait and see
poisons your Spirit.

Reach for it.
Hold your meanness to your chest
as a healing root,
and be through with waiting.

(Jelaluddin Rumi (translated by Coleman Barks) [source])

…and:

Each person who ever was or is or will be has a song. It isn’t a song that anybody else wrote. It has its own melody, it has its own words. Very few people get to sing their song. Most of us fear that we cannot do it justice with our voices, or that our words are too foolish or too honest, or too odd. So people live their song instead.

(Neil Gaiman [source])

[Read more…]

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