Sunday, April 22, 2018

Sense of Unity


"I think nothing can be compared to the Hills for the elevation of spirit, and peace of mind...All aspects of nature lead to elevation and knowledge when you once have an idea. The commonplace growth of weeds beneath a pile of refuse appear to shine with the divine light when you know the meaning of the world and sense of unity of all things. In a great city the buildings, the machinery, the works of art, everything produced by man, are naught but the material expression of ideas. We look on lines and forms and masses of what we call matter, and we know these things existed in the mind of man in the form of ideas before they were expressed in the physical world in the form of matter. I look on the lines and forms of the mountains and all other aspects of nature as if they were but the vast expression of ideas within the Cosmic Mind, if such it can be called. Without that outlook, I am assured there is nothing in the Universe that is not the expression of mind or of life. The sense of unity is enormously increased."

- Ansel Adams (1902 - 1984)
Letter to Virginia Best, Sep 22, 1925
Ansel Adams: Letters, 1916 - 1984

Sunday, April 15, 2018

Intimate Presence


"Beginning with these harmonies of the universe that could in some manner be expressed in mathematical equations, an intense scientific mediation on the structure and functioning of the universe was begun by western scientists some centuries ago. Among the insights attained by this meditation has been a sense of the curvature of the universe whereby all things are held together in their intimate presence to each other. This bonding is what makes the universe what it is, not a collection of disparate objects but an intimate presence of all things to each other, each thing sustained in its being by everything else...That the universe is a communion of subjects rather than a collection of objects is the central commitment of the Ecozoic. Existence itself is derived from and sustained by this intimacy of each being with every other being of the universe."

- Brian Swimme (1950 - ) and Thomas Berry (1914 - 2009)

Sunday, April 08, 2018

Reinvigoration


"If we analyze the operations of scenes of beauty upon the mind, and consider the intimate relation of the mind upon the nervous system and the whole physical economy, the action and reaction which constantly occur between bodily and mental conditions, the reinvigoration which results from such scenes is readily comprehended. . . . The enjoyment of scenery employs the mind without fatigue and yet exercises it; tranquilizes it and yet enlivens it; and thus, through the influence of the mind over the body gives the effect of refreshing rest and reinvigoration to the whole system."

- Frederick Law Olmsted (1822 - 1903)

Saturday, April 07, 2018

Earth's Eye


"A lake is a landscape's most
beautiful and expressive feature.
It is Earth's eye;
looking into which the
beholder measures the
depth of his own nature."

-  Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862)

Monday, April 02, 2018

Embedded Patterns


"No pattern is an isolated entity.
Each pattern can exist in the world
only to the extent that is
supported by other patterns:
the larger patterns in
which it is embedded,
the patterns of the same
size that surround it,
and the smaller patterns
which are embedded in it. "

Saturday, March 31, 2018

'Silent' = 'Listen'


"The word 'listen'
contains the same letters
as the word 'silent'."

- Alfred Brendel (1931 - )

Friday, March 30, 2018

Hush of Silence


"Listen closely... 
the eternal hush of silence
goes on and on throughout all this,
and has been going on,
and will go on and on.
This is because the world
is nothing but a dream
and is just thought of
 and the everlasting eternity
pays no attention to it."

- Jack Kerouac (1922 - 1969)