time

saturday morning with alan lightman

Fujifilm X-T4 f/5.6 1/60 s 60.8 mm 800 ISO

“In a world where time is a sense, like sight or like taste, sequence of episodes may be quick or may be slow, dim or intense, salty or sweet, causal or without cause, orderly or random, depending on the prior history of the viewer. Philosophers sit in cafés on Amthausgasse and argue whether time really exists outside human perception. Who can say if an event happens fast or slow, causally or without cause, in the past or future? Who can say if events happen at all? The philosophers sit with half-opened eyes and compare their aesthetics of time.

Fujifilm X-T4 f/5.6 1/60 s 46.6 mm 800 ISO

Some few people are born without any sene of time. As consequence, their sense of place becomes heightened to excruciating degree. They lie in tall grass and are questioned by poets and painters from all over the world. These time-deaf are beseeched to describe the precise placement of trees in the spring, the shape of snow on the Alps, the angle of sun on a couch, the position of rivers, the location of moss, the pattern of birds in flock. Yet the time-deaf are unable to speak what they know. For speech needs a sequence of words, spoken in time.”*

*cited: Alan Lightman, Einstein’s Dreams

passing by…

Nikon D750 f/3.2 1/4000s 40 mm

“There was no such thing as the right time, he explained. Time was an idea, it had no end and no beginning, it could not be seen or heard or smelled. It could be measured, sure enough, but no words had been found to explain precisely what it was.”

~K Morton, The Clockmaker’s Daughter, p. 66

time

time, an illusion

of fragmented memories

pursuing refuge

Ricoh GX100… f/4.4 1/95s 15.3mm 80 ISO

Who would fare better in the world of fitful time? Those who have seen the future and live only one life? Or those who have not seen the future and wait to live life? Or those who deny the future and live two lives?

~Alan Lightman, Einstein’s Dreams, pg. 68

early morning readings

contemplative photography

Nikon D750  f/5.6  1/400s   170m   450 ISO

“…there is thinking as a result of mind and object of mind, but there is no thinker. There is feeling, but the feeling and the one who feels are not separate.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh, The Other Shore

“In this acausal world … artists are joyous. Unpredictability is the life of their paintings, their music, their novels. … Most people have learned how to live in the moment. The argument goes that if the past has uncertain effect on the present, there is no need to dwell on the past. And if the present has little effect on the future, present actions need not be weighed for their consequence. Rather, each act is an island in time, to be judged on its own. Families comfort a dying uncle not because of a likely inheritance, but because he is loved at that moment. Employees are hired not because of their resumes, but because of their good sense in interviews. … it is a world of impulse. It is a world of sincerity. It is a world in which every word spoken speaks just to that moment, every glance given has only one meaning, each touch has no past or no future, each kiss is a kiss of immediacy.” ~ A Lightman, Einstein’s Dreams

“…Go on transforming a square canvas in your head until it becomes a circle. Pick up any shape in the process and pin up or place on the canvas an object, a smell, a sound, or a colour that came to mind in association with the shape. ~ Yoko Ono (cited: J F Simon, JR, Drawing Your Own Path)

weekly photo challenge: resilient

They ask me where’s the sense

on jasper mountains?

I laugh and don’t reply,

in heart’s own quiet:

Peach petals float their streams

away in secret

To other skies and earths

than those of mortals

~Li Po*

 

Resilient: multiple exposure images of the ever-changing landscape along Hwy. 287 between Laramie, Wyoming and Fort Collins, Colorado in combination with Li Po’s poem, In the Mountains: A reply to the Vulgar”  reflect the resilience of time and words.

*cited:

Li Po and Tu Fu

A Cooper