Category: Photography

falling horizons

today I stand on the horizon
beyond the vast, known spaces
my steps tracing a Moebius membrane
as the white sea pours through my heart
no there, no past, no unwanted memory
–all swept lovingly into the waves
seeds for waiting oysters

did you know that I could fly?
I didn’t either until the wind caught my wings,
and the rock’s weighty tomes fell ponderously away
like the unexpected removal of an atrophied, forgotten limb
the only thing between my life and some great height

it was the sound of the air rippling behind the gulls wing,
the inevitable pulsing call of invisibly present stars
–shining. always shining
and I eagerly ask

who is singing the song that calls the fruit to bud?
what whispered word ripens them? why must our ears be so ignorant?
does not silent nature speak with my mouth?
touch with my porous skin? cry these salty tears?

nature, like an atrophied, forgotten limb, has been removed
–or perhaps I am the limb of nature,
which, only newly awakened, cannot yet know its mother
for I usurp her ears, her skin, her tears,
assume them like a mask stretched taught over this shifting body
while I forget how my wings lift me up
though their rhythm ever flows on

which is why I am here, cradled by the rocks and wind
endless waves spread out before my dangling feet,
waiting to reach the horizon

January 28, 2009
concerning the evolution of consciousness

Earth –> Day-waking (i.e. ‘normal’ adult) consciousness
Water –> Imaginative consciousness
Air —-> Inspirational consciousness
Fire —> Intuitive consciousness

Earth –> Thinking ‘about’ – object-oriented
Water –> Thinking ‘with’ – process oriented
Air —-> Thinking ‘between’ – polarity-oriented, (Brad exemplifies this very well)
Fire —-> Thinking ‘as’ – whole-oriented

Further, considering that all thinking is relational, and all relations are between beings:

Earth –> consciousness of other as if the other was an object (separation)
Water –> consciousness of other as if you were dreaming into the other’s experience, as if you were ‘seeing’ in an inner way the other’s perspective
Air —-> consciousness of other “as if” you were the other from the inside, as if you were ‘hearing’ in an inner way the tonality of the other’s experience
Fire —> consciousness of other AS the other, as if the other were living through and into you directly, with almost no distinction between who is who

The sequence is one which lays out the polarities between separation and coincidence of self and other. Goethe made a strong case for the Water, or process, level of experiencing with his morphological studies of plants and his scientific work (particularly optics).

Earth, Water, Air, and Fire

January 28, 2009
horse –> herd –> cybernetics

A friend of mine said:

“… Concerning self-correction, can we say that the system corrects itself toward a state of homeostasis (feedback—-correction—-goal) OR toward maintaining the integrity of the closed system? Is it o.k. to look at this in terms of homeostasis?

Reason why I’m asking is that I’ve been looking at the socialization behavior of horses in the herd, and how they “process” emotions. The processing looks very much like a feedback loop with a self-correcting mechanism – I see it as an infinity symbol. The interaction produces an action which takes the herd back to a state of “stability” or I call it homeostasis.

Anyway, this was a good experience for me because I read in that way – when I don’t get something I have a piece of paper and I draw to try to put the words into some visual.”

I said:

In the obvious case of the thermostat, there is a ‘goal’ – a temperature that is set by the second-order system (the human being). But now with horses you get something more obviously complexificated (i like coining ridiculous words). The horse is a system, the herd another, the environment another, and perhaps even another may be the system of “Horse” (i.e. ALL horses) thought about over a vast time period (that is, thinking about time from a second-order perspective – i think).

In this case, when we want to talk about homeostasis, what variables are tending towards sameness? If there are closed systems within closed systems within closed systems (as mitochondria are closed systems within each cell, which is another closed system…), then do we need to speak of a goal for each closed system? And is there only one goal per system (as in the thermostat), or can there be multiple goals which overlap from system to system? Or even multiple conflicting goals within a single system? Or is this not even possible from an cybernetic standpoint… or would it just be a double bind? Can you create a thermostat which simultaneously is tending towards TWO temperatures? How would it behave – oscillate in some frequency set by the speed of the feedback loops? Tend towards some intermediate value? Runaway?

Maybe symbiosis (which is an interesting concept to think about cybernetically) is the holding of multiple goals, one of which at least overlaps with another system? I’m just spitballing here.

Individual horse behavior —> herd qualities —> individual horse behavior (your infinity sign)

So if you can detect the processing of emotion in an individual horse, do you see also a higher-order processing of emotion that does NOT take place at the individual horse level but ONLY at the herd level? Is this a distinct process? Or is the herd’s processing so completely bound up with the individual horse’s processing that it is impossible to tell apart?

January 26, 2009
on demons

<insert context here – not me: YOU>

…but did we/they take off and burn the restraints of our minds? Did they/we realize that we cannot ‘heal’ the ‘patients’ when we don’t know that the patients are ourselves? That the demons aren’t simply ‘out there’ to be feared, nor are they ‘in here’ to be repressed or discarded, but that they are part and parcel of the space between the inner and outer – here to stay with us as we heal ourselves/others, so that they may be too?

January 23, 2009
new Flickr photos

Finally got around to weeding through recent photos and posting some to Flickr.

Most notably, these include a trip to Palm Springs and some amazing flowers at a bed and breakfast (Elements, I believe it’s called) on Whidbey Island.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/spiritself

Here’s a sample:

December 28, 2008
Thesis? … DONE!

After working on this thesis for, well, let’s face it, WAY too long, I am finally DONE. It’s actually kind of hard to believe, and I’m pretty sure that my wife was thinking that this day wouldn’t actually arrive. I should have made a bet.

Basically what this means is that in the next… um, period of time, I will be converting my thesis and posting it on the spiritalchemy.com site. Then I guess the question is, will anyone want to read 240 pages online? Probably not, which is why I have a PDF version ready to go as well. Boy am I optimistic!

I also get to categorize this entry as relevant to all my included categories except for poetry, as my thesis contains original work in all the other areas – let’s hear it for generalists!

Oh, in case you were wondering, I decided to call it: The Elements as an Archetype of Transformation: an Exploration of Earth, Water, Air, and Fire. You can get a basic idea of the table of contents (not quite updated to match the final version) at https://spiritalchemy.com/thesis.html.

April 7, 2008
photographics

One of my interests is photography, and periodically I might put a photo here.

Feel free to see some of my other work at http://www.flickr.com/photos/spiritself/

For example, this was taken on a recent hike to Multnomah Falls… just a tiny fern (?) growing from between the cracks of two rocks forming one of the retaining walls. The hike to the top is nice – short and steep, but with lots of interesting plants, rock formations, and views.

March 3, 2008