Dissolving Mirror

"The wild geese do not intend to cast their reflection,
and the water has no mind to retain their image."

- Alan Watts (1915 - 1973)

There is a Cause

"To return to the difficulty which has been stated with respect both to definitions and to numbers, what is the cause of their unity? In the case of all things which have several parts and in which the totality is not, as it were, a mere heap, but the whole is something beside the parts, there is a cause."

 - Aristotle (384–322 BC)

Immense Silence

 "But for the time being, around my place at least, the air is untroubled, and I become aware for the first time today of the immense silence in which I am lost. Not a silence so much as a great stillness - for there are few sounds: the croak of some bird in a juniper tree, an eddy of wind which passes and fades like a sigh, the ticking of the watch on my wrist - slight noises which break the sensation of absolute silence but at the same time exaggerate my sense of the surrounding, overwhelming peace. A suspension of time, a continuous present. If I look at the small device strapped to my wrist the numbers, even the sweeping second hand, seem meaningless, almost ridiculous. No travelers, no campers, no wanderers have come to this part of the desert today and for a few moments I feel and realize that I am very much alone."

- Edward Abbey (1927 - 1989)

Luminous Insistence

"In some photographs the essence of light and space dominate; in others, the substance of rock and wood, and the luminous insistence of growing things ... It is my intention to present - through the medium of photography - intuitive observations of the natural world which may have meaning to spectators."

- Ansel Adams (1902 - 1984)

Shadow Belongs to Light

"All material in nature, the mountains
and the streams and the air and we,
are made of Light which has been spent, and
this crumpled mass called material casts a shadow,
and the shadow belongs to Light."

- Louis Kahn (1901 - 1974)

Journey of a Thousand Miles

"The giant pine tree
grows from a tiny sprout.
The journey of a thousand miles
starts from beneath your feet"

- Tao Te Ching, Chapter 64
Translated by Stephen Mitchell

A Sea of Looking-Glass

"But when ... he cast his eyes around him, the most horrible despair was infused into his soul. Before him stretched an ocean without limit. The dark sand of the desert spread further than eye could reach in every direction, and glittered like steel struck with bright light. It might have been a sea of looking-glass, or lakes melted together in a mirror. A fiery vapor carried up in surging waves made a perpetual whirlwind over the quivering land. The sky was lit with an Oriental splendor of insupportable purity, leaving naught for the imagination to desire. Heaven and earth were on fire.

The silence was awful in its wild and terrible majesty. Infinity, immensity, closed in upon the soul from every side. Not a cloud in the sky, not a breath in the air, not a flaw on the bosom of the sand, ever moving in diminutive waves; the horizon ended as at sea on a clear day, with one line of light, definite as the cut of a sword."

- Honoré de Balzac (1799 - 1850)

Life and Sound

"Left alone, I am overtaken by the northern void-no wind, no cloud, no track, no bird, only the crystal crescents between peaks, the ringing monuments of rock that, freed from the talons of ice and snow, thrust an implacable being into the blue. In the early light, the rock shadows on the snow are sharp; in the tension between light and dark is the power of the universe. This stillness to which all returns, this is reality, and soul and sanity have no more meaning than a gust of snow; such transience and insignificance are exalting, terrifying, all at once…Snow mountains, more than sea or sky, serve as a mirror to one’s own true being, utterly still, utterly clear, a void, an Emptiness without life or sound that carries in Itself all life, all sound."

- Peter Matthiessen (1927 - 2014)

Old Wood

"The whole world is, to me, very much 'alive' - all the little growing things, even the rocks. I can't look at a swell bit of grass and earth, for instance, without feeling the essential life - the things going on - within them. The same goes for a mountain, or a bit of the ocean, or a magnificent piece of old wood."

- Ansel Adams (1902 - 1984)

Through the Silence Something...

"I have always loved the desert.
One sits down on a desert sand dune,
sees nothing, hears nothing. Yet
through the silence something
throbs, and gleams..."

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900 - 1944)

Magnificent Desolation

"'Isn’t that something!' Neil gushed. 'Magnificent sight out here.'

I slowly allowed my eyes to drink in the unusual majesty of the moon. In its starkness and monochromatic hues, it was indeed beautiful. But it was a different sort of beauty than I had ever before seen. Magnificent, I thought, then said, 'Magnificent desolation.' It was a spontaneous utterance, an oxymoron that would take on ever-deeper dimensions of meaning in describing this strange new environment.

Turning in Neil’s direction, I tried out a few steps and a couple of short jumps to test my maneuverability and recovery, and to figure out the best way to maintain my balance. With the heavy backpack altering my center of mass, I leaned slightly forward in the direction I was moving to keep from falling backwards.

Then for the first time since stepping on the surface, I looked upward, above the LM. It was not an easy thing to do in a pressurized suit, inflated as stiff as a football, with a gold sun visor jutting out from my helmet. But I managed to direct my view homeward, and there in the black, starless sky I could see our marble-sized planet, no bigger than my thumb.

I became all the more conscious that here we were, two guys walking on the moon, our every move being watched by more people than had ever before viewed one single event. In a strange way there was an indescribable feeling of proximity and connection between us and everyone back on Earth."

- Buzz Aldrin (1930 - )
Magnificent Desolation

Nature's Sculpture

"Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty - a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show."

- Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970)

One Seen as Many

"Being the one, the universal Soul is present in all beings. Though one, It is seen as many, like the moon in the water ... Just as it is the jar which being removed (from one place to another) changes places and not the Akasha ['fifth element' or ether] enclosed in the jar – so is the Jiva [individual, embodied soul] which resembles the Akasha ...When various forms like the jar are broken again and again the Akasha does not know them to be broken, but He knows perfectly. Being covered by Maya [cosmic illusion that veils the true nature of reality], which is a mere sound, It does not, through darkness, know the Akasha (the Blissful one). When ignorance is rent asunder, It being then Itself only sees the unity."

- Amritabindu Upanishad (100 BCE to 300 CE)

The Great Silence

"The first going-down into the desert is always something of a surprise. The fancy has pictured one thing; the reality shows quite another thing. Where and how did we gain the idea that the desert was merely a sea of sand? ...The dunes are always rhythmical and flowing in their forms, and for color the desert has nothing that surpasses them. In the early morning, before the sun is up, they are air blue, reflecting the sky overhead; at noon they are pale lines of dazzling orange-colored light, waving and undulating in the heated air; at sunset they are often flooded with a rose or mauve color; under a blue moonlight they shine white as icebergs in the northern seas.

...

The weird solitude, the great silence, the grim desolation, are the very things with which every desert wanderer eventually falls in love. You think that very strange perhaps? Well, the beauty of the ugly was sometime a paradox, but do-day people admit its truth; and the grandeur of the desolate is just as paradoxical, yet the desert gives it proof.

...

All, all to dust again; and
no man knoweth the
why thereof."

- John Charles Van Dyke (1856–1932)
The Desert

Color Bridge

"I believe I have already suggested that color is the most obvious bridge between emotion and perception, that is, between subjective experience of the psyche and quality objective in nature. Both light up only between the extremes of light and darkness, and in their reciprocal interplay. Thus, outward the rainbow - or, if you prefer it, the spectrum - is the bridge between dark and light, but inwardly the rainbow is, what the soul itself is, the bridge between body and spirit, between earth and heaven."

- Owen Barfield (1898 - 1997)

Everything is Flowing

"...everything is flowing—going somewhere,
animals and so-called lifeless
rocks as well as water."

- John Muir (1838 - 1914)

Light, Shadow, Time

"Our job is to record, each in his own way,
this world of light and shadow and time
that will never come again exactly
as it is today."

- Edward Abbey (1927 - 1989)

Nature's Mirror

"In this secluded spot the soothing silence,
Far from the clank of crowds, I stand or sit, musing,
Thoughts that are the hymns of the praise of things,
Largely learn’d from nature’s schooling.
Give me again O nature your primal sanities!
Thou hast, O nature! elements!
Utterance to my heart beyond the rest.
...
Somehow I feel the globe itself swift-swimming in space.
I merge myself in the scene, in the perfect day,
Never before did I get so close to nature—
absolute and unqualified acceptance of nature—
Never before did she come so close to me.
...
The mirror that nature holds is deep and floating
and ethereal and faithful, I see
my soul reflected in nature."

- Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892)
"The Poet in Nature"

The Intuitive Mind

"The difference between the mathematical and the intuitive mind.—In the one the principles are palpable, but removed from ordinary use; so that for want of habit it is difficult to turn one's mind in that direction: but if one turns it thither ever so little, one sees the principles fully, and one must have a quite inaccurate mind who reasons wrongly from principles so plain that it is almost impossible they should escape notice ... But in the intuitive mind the principles are found in common use, and are before the eyes of everybody. One has only to look, and no effort is necessary; it is only a question of good eyesight, but it must be good, for the principles are so subtle and so numerous, that it is almost impossible but that some escape notice.

...

All mathematicians would then be intuitive if they had clear sight, for they do not reason incorrectly from principles known to them; and intuitive minds would be mathematical if they could turn their eyes to the principles of mathematics to which they are unused. The reason, therefore, that some intuitive minds are not mathematical is that they cannot at all turn their attention to the principles of mathematics. But the reason that mathematicians are not intuitive is that they do not see what is before them, and that, accustomed to the exact and plain principles of mathematics, and not reasoning till they have well inspected and arranged their principles, they are lost in matters of intuition where the principles do not allow of such arrangement. 

...

They are scarcely seen; they are felt rather than seen; there is the greatest difficulty in making them felt by those who do not of themselves perceive them. These principles are so fine and so numerous that a very delicate and very clear sense is needed to perceive them, and to judge rightly and justly when they are perceived, without for the most part being able to demonstrate them in order as in mathematics; because the principles are not known to us in the same way, and because it would be an endless matter to undertake it. We must see the matter at once, at one glance, and not by a process of reasoning."

.- Blaise Pascal (1623 - 1662)

Sand Dunes in the Desert

"Every ripple on the ocean,
every leaf on every tree,
every sand dune in the desert,
every power we never see."

- Sting (1951 - )

"Our Intellect Ingulphs Itself so Far"

"The glory of Him who moveth everything
  Doth penetrate the universe, and shine
  In one part more and in another less.
...
Within that heaven which most his light receives
  Was I, and things beheld which to repeat
  Nor knows, nor can, who from above descends;
...
Because in drawing near to its desire
Our intellect ingulphs itself so far,
That after it the memory cannot go."

- Dante Alighieri (1265 - 1321)
Divine Comedy / Paradiso
Translation above by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Self-Organized Criticality

"Who could ever calculate the path of a molecule?
How do we know that the creations of worlds are
not determined by falling grains of sand?"

- Victor Hugo (1802 - 1885), Les Miserables 

"How can the universe start with a few types of elementary particles at the big bang, and end up with life, history, economics, and literature? The question is screaming out to be answered bur it is seldom even asked. Why did the big bang not form a simple gas of particles, or condense into one big crystal? We see complex phenomena around us so often that we rake them for granted without looking for further explanation. In fact, until recently very little scientific effort was devoted to understanding why nature is complex.

I will argue that complex behavior in nature reflects the tendency of large systems with many components to evolve into a poised, "critical" state, way out of balance, where minor disturbances may lead to events, called avalanches, of all sizes. Most of the changes take place through catastrophic events rather than by following a smooth gradual path. The evolution to this very delicate state occurs without design from any outside agent. The state is established solely because of the dynamical interactions among individual elements of the system: the critical state is self-organized. Self-organized criticality is so far the only known general mechanism to generate complexity. 

To make this less abstract, consider the scenario of a child at the beach letting sand trickle down to form a pile. In the beginning, the pile is flat, and the individual grains remain close to where they land. Their motion can be understood in terms of their physical properties. As the process continues, the pile becomes steeper, and there will be little sand slides. As time goes on, the sand slides become bigger and bigger. Eventually, some of the sand slides may even span all or most of the pile. At that point, the system is far out of balance, and its behavior can no longer be understood in terms of the behavior of the individual grains. The avalanches form a dynamic of their own, which can be understood only from a holistic description of the properties of the entire pile rather than from a reductionist description of individual grains: the sandpile is a complex system.

The complex phenomena observed everywhere indicate that nature operates at the self-organized critical state. The behavior of the critical sandpile mimics several phenomena observed across many sciences, which are associated with complexity."

- Per Bak (1948 - 2002)
How Nature Works

There is Light

 "Wherever there is light, one can photograph.
...
I have a vision of life, and I
try to find equivalents for it in
the form of photographs.
...
In photography there is a reality so subtle
that it becomes more real than reality."

- Alfred Stieglitz (1864 - 1946)

White Hole

"Unless something goes in or out of the horizon,
from the outside a white hole is
indistinguishable from a black hole.
...
The black horizon, like Gandalf,
has magically turned white.
...
Despite the complete difference between
what happens inside them, time’s
sleight of hand on the horizons allows a
white hole and a black hole to be
the same thing outside.
...
A white hole is a black hole with time reversed.
...
...finite are the lives of us all, of
every living organism, every star,
every galaxy, of all stories,
in this universe of joy and pain.
Not even white holes last forever."

- Carlo Rovelli (1956 - )
White Holes: Inside the Horizon

A State of Information

"There are objects: cinnamon, microwaves, interstellar particles and scarecrows. There is nothing underneath objects. Or, better, there is not even nothing underneath them. There is no such thing as space independent of objects (happily contemporary physics agrees). What is called Universe is a large object that contains objects such as black holes and racing pigeons. Likewise there is no such thing as an environment: wherever we look for it, we find all kinds of objects—biomes, ecosystems, hedges, gutters and human flesh. In a similar sense, there is no such thing as Nature. I’ve seen penguins, plutonium, pollution and pollen. But I’ve never seen Nature (I capitalize the word to reinforce a sense of its deceptive artificiality).

...

Likewise, there is no such thing as matter. I’ve seen plenty of entities (this book shall call them objects): photographs of diffusion cloud chamber scatterings, drawings of wave packets, iron filings spreading out around a magnet. But I’ve never seen matter. So when Mr. Spock claims to have found 'Matter without form,' he is sadly mistaken... You can now buy a backpack that is made of recycled plastic bottles. But an object doesn’t consist of some gooey substrate of becoming that shifts like Proteus from plastic bottle to backpack. First there is the plastic bottle, then the production of the bag ends the bottle, its being is now only an appearance, a memory of the backpack, a thought: “This bag is made of plastic bottles... Nature [...] is 'discovered in the use of useful things.'

...

Matter, in current physics, is simply a state of information. Precisely: information is necessarily information-for (for some addressee). Matter requires at least one other entity in order to be itself... Instead of using matter as my basic substrate, I shall paint a picture of the Universe that is realist but not materialist. In my view, real objects exist inside other real objects. 'Space' and 'environment' are ways in which objects sensually relate to the other objects in their vicinity, including the larger objects in which they find themselves... There is no space or environment as such, only objects... The existence of an object is irreducibly a matter of coexistence. Objects contain other objects, and are contained 'in' other objects... What are these objects, then, that claustrophobically fill every nook and cranny of reality, that are reality, like the leering faces in an Expressionist painting, crammed into the picture plane? On what basis can we decide that there is no top, middle, or bottom object, that objects are bigger on the inside than they are on the outside, that they generate time and space, and so on?"

Timothy Morton (1968 - )
Realist Magic: Objects, Ontology, Causality

Cosmic Trickster

"To explode or to implode - said Qwfwq - that is the question: whether 'tis nobler in the mind to expand one's energies in space without restraint, or to crush them into a dense inner concentration and, by ingesting, cherish them. To steal away, to vanish; no more; to hold within oneself every gleam, every ray, deny oneself every vent, suffocating in the depths of the soul the conflicts that so idly trouble it, give them their quietus; to hide oneself, to obliterate oneself; perchance to awaken elsewhere, unchanged."

- Italo Calvino (1923 - 1985)

Sacred Contract

"Our individual souls hum actively within a kind of global soul comprising all life on the planet. Our words, thoughts, deeds, and visions influence our individual health just as they affect the health of everyone around us. As a vital part of a larger, universal spirit, we each have been put here on earth to fulfill a Sacred Contract that enhances our personal spiritual growth while contributing to the evolution of the entire global soul."

- Caroline Myss (1952 - )
Sacred Contracts

Inward Gathering

"Nature looks dead in winter because
her life is gathered into her heart.
She withers the plant down to the root that
she may grow it up again fairer and stronger.
She calls her family together within her
inmost home to prepare them for being
scattered abroad upon the
face of the earth."

- Hugh Macmillan (1833 - 1903)
The Ministry of Nature

Nature's Calligraphy

"Just as writing can become calligraphy when it's
creatively, skillfully, and consciously performed,
so can all other activities become art.
In this case, we are reflecting upon life itself
as an artistic statement—the art of living."

- H.E. Davey (1961 - )
Japanese Yoga: The Way of Dynamic Meditation

Cosmic Rhythms

"Yesterday and today and tomorrow are not an arrow that shoots from past to present to future; rather all tenses, and sleeping and waking, mix and cohabit in an atemporal duration beyond clocks and calendars. The Aboriginal world began long ago when the Ancestors sang in Dreamtime the cosmic rhythms that give shape to the things we see, and it is the beginning right now, when a living Tiwi sings the Dream songs that continue, or are, the world."

- Huston Smith (1919 - 2016)

Q&A/Portfolio in Gathered Light Magazine

Some of you may have noticed that the latest issue of the new magazine I recently wrote about (GLM = Gathered Light Magazine) featured a question-and-answer (Q&A) with me on a variety of photography and philosophy related topics, along with some general thoughts on the creative process. GLM's editor, Micheal MacEoghain, kindly allowed me to post an Adobe PDF version of the Q&A. While long-time readers of my blog are unlikely to discover anything "new" in these 20 or so pages, newcomers will get a nice summary of my deepest photographic passions and aspirations. I was impressed - even moved - by the depth, breath and overall quality of the questions Micheal asked me to ponder. I have done similar Q&As over the years for a variety of venues (online and print), but past efforts seldom tasked me beyond responding to the simplest, "So, what got you started in photography?" queries. Micheal's probing questions are all distinctly different. "Whoa!" I thought to myself when I got his list at the end of November, "I've never had anyone read through my entire blog and know each and every image posted on my website!" As for what Micheal wrote about my work in his intro, all I can say is that I am sincerely humbled. I'll end with one last shout-out of "Thanks!" to Micheal for letting me post this Q&A. To view it (and/or download) just click on the image above😊

Leaving a Trace

"The enlightened mind is like a bird in flight that leaves no trace of its path. People will say, 'A bird just flew by.' In their mind, there is a trace of the bird’s path. This is attachment. For the enlightened practitioner, that moment is already gone—the bird has left no trace of its flight. Like the bird, from moment to moment the enlightened practitioner’s actions do not leave any trace."

- Sheng Yen (1931 - 2009)
The Method of No-Method

An Invisible Influence

"The difference between the Platonic theory and the morphic-resonance hypothesis can be illustrated by analogy with a television set. The pictures on the screen depend on the material components of the set and the energy that powers it, and also on the invisible transmissions it receives through the electromagnetic field. A sceptic who rejected the idea of invisible influences might try to explain everything about the pictures and sounds in terms of the components of the set – the wires, transistors, and so on – and the electrical interactions between them. Through careful research he would find that damaging or removing some of these components affected the pictures or sounds the set produced, and did so in a repeatable, predictable way. This discovery would reinforce his materialist belief. He would be unable to explain exactly how the set produced the pictures and sounds, but he would hope that a more detailed analysis of the components and more complex mathematical models of their interactions would eventually provide the answer. Some mutations in the components – for example, by a defect in some of the transistors – affect the pictures by changing their colors or distorting their shapes; while mutations of components in the tuning circuit cause the set to jump from one channel to another, leading to a completely different set of sounds and pictures. But this does not prove that the evening news report is produced by interactions among the TV set’s components. Likewise, genetic mutations may affect an animal’s form and behavior, but this does not prove that form and behavior are programmed in the genes. They are inherited by morphic resonance, an invisible influence on the organism coming from outside it, just as TV sets are resonantly tuned to transmissions that originate elsewhere."

- Rupert Sheldrake (1942 - )

Mimir’s Well

"Odin’s eye remains in Mimir’s well,
preserved by the waters that feed the world ash,
seeing nothing, seeing everything. Time."

- Neil Gaiman (1960 - )
Norse Mythology

Boreal Abstraction

"Though winter is represented in the almanac as an old man, facing the wind and sleet, and drawing his cloak about him, we rather think of him as a merry wood-chopper, and warm-blooded youth, as blithe as summer. The unexplored grandeur of the storm keeps up the spirits of the traveler. It does not trifle with us, but has a sweet earnestness. In winter we lead a more inward life. Our hearts are warm and cheery, like cottages under drifts, whose windows and doors are half concealed, but from whose chimneys the smoke cheerfully ascends. The imprisoning drifts increase the sense of comfort which the house affords, and in the coldest days we are content to sit over the hearth and see the sky through the chimney top, enjoying the quiet and serene life that may be had in a warm corner by the chimney side, or feeling our pulse by listening to the low of cattle in the street, or the sound of the flail in distant barns all the long afternoon. No doubt a skillful physician could determine our health by observing how these simple and natural sounds affected us. We enjoy now, not an oriental, but a boreal leisure, around warm stoves and fireplaces, and watch the shadow of motes in the sunbeams."

- Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862)

Glittering Universe

"There may be no such thing as the
'glittering central mechanism of the universe'
but magic may be better description
of the treasure that is waiting."

- John Archibald Wheeler (1911 - 2008)

Synaptic Plasticity

"We found that trees could communicate, over the air and through their roots. Common sense hooted us down. We found that trees take care of each other. Collective science dismissed the idea. Outsiders discovered how seeds remember the seasons of their childhood and set buds accordingly. Outsiders discovered that trees sense the presence of other nearby life. That a tree learns to save water. That trees feed their young and synchronize their masts and bank resources and warn kin and send out signals to wasps to come and save them from attacks. Here’s a little outsider information, and you can wait for it to be confirmed. A forest knows things. They wire themselves up underground. There are brains down there, ones our own brains aren’t shaped to see. Root plasticity, solving problems and making decisions. Fungal synapses. What else do you want to call it? Link enough trees together, and a forest grows aware."

- Richard Powers (1957 - )
The Overstory

Mind Over matter

"The very act of thinking involves the redistribution of atoms, specifically the transference of mental information via mRNA (messenger RNA) in the neurons to protein chains at the ends of the dendrites where the new memories are held. Thus, the more a person uses his mind, the more protein in his dendrites and the more complex his brain. According to this view, 'all thought is psychokinetic' because the very act of thinking, by definition, involves a mental event being changed into a physical one: a thought becomes a memory, that is, mind over matter."

- Marc Seifer (1948 - )

"Gathered Light Magazine" - An Exemplary New Photography Magazine

A magnificent new photography journal has appeared, thanks to the efforts - better: thanks to the love and devotion - by photographer, writer, and editor, Micheal MacEoghain. It is called Gathered Light Magazine (GLM) and - as of January 2026 - there are five issues for all to enjoy. According to Micheal's Substack page, he explores the intersections of nature, healing, and conservation. From GLM, we learn that Micheal holds degrees in anthropology and art history, and has done masters work in music composition and underwater archeology. These sensibilities are manifestly obvious in GLM. Indeed, this is what separates this new magazine from what seems like a crowded field, but really is not. I can think of few other photography journals that so seamlessly blend art and photography, technique and vision, conservation, ecology, and even delves into psychology and healing. In short, calling GLM a photography magazine is a grave misjustice, since it offers so much more.

Except for the inaugural issue, each of the last four issues focuses on a single theme (Issue 2 = Ocean, Issue 3 = Inner Landscape, Issue 4 = Wildlife, and Issue 5 = Trees), but also includes a vast assortment of additional material that expand on broader subjects. GLM happily has two traits in common with one of my favorite photography magazines, Lenswork. One is that the photography itself is stellar, including a generous sampling of Micheal's own wonderful images. The other is that there are no advertisements, apart from a single "support our work" page nestled toward the end of each issue. So, Micheal, Kudos on an exemplary new magazine! 

Individual issues range in size from about 90 pages to 150 and are all free to read online - just follow the links that appear on the main page (pdf versions can also be purchased for 4.95USD). 

My recommendation? Right after you finish reading this blog post, grab a cup of coffee (or tea, or cocoa, or your favorite drink that you enjoy sipping for a long while), bring your laptop or iPad to whatever is your most comfortable easy chair or sofa, turn off all notifications, and just start reading. You won't regret it!

Mystery of Life

 "Beauty is the mystery of life.
It is not in the eye it is in the mind.
In our minds there is awareness of perfection ...
See perfection in every thing around
you.
...
All human knowledge is useless in art work.
Concepts, relationships, categories, classifications,
deductions are distractions of mind that we 
wish to hold free for inspiration.
...
Happiness is being on the beam with life
– to feel the pull of life."

- Agnes Martin (1912 - 2004)
Beauty Is the Mystery of Life

Beyond Form

"Thought defines the universe in geometric figures.

...

Those granted the gift of seeing more deeply
can see beyond form, and concentrate
on the wondrous aspect hiding
behind every form, which is
called life.

...

Only for those prepared to leave
their familiar life behind, will life
emerge in a new gown of continually
expanding beauty and perfection.
But in order to attain such a state,
it is necessary to achieve stillness
in both thought and feeling."

- Hilma af Klint (1862 - 1944)

Cloud of Unknowing

 "The universes which are amenable
to the intellect can never satisfy
the instincts of the heart."

- The Cloud of Unknowing

Absence/Presence

 "In perennial Absence you see mystery, and in
perennial Presence you see appearance.
Though the two are one and the same,
once they arise, they differ in name."

- David Hinton
The Four Chinese Classics: Tao Te Ching, Analects, Chuang Tzu, Mencius

Hieroglyphic Apparitions

 "Every man's condition is a solution in hieroglyphic to those inquiries he would put. He acts it as life, before he apprehends it as truth. In like manner, nature is already, in its forms and tendencies, describing its own design. Let us interrogate the great apparition, that shines so peacefully around us. Let us inquire, to what end is nature?"

- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882)
Nature

The Mysticism of Numbers

"When a man counts one, two, three,
he is not only doing mathematics, he is
on the path to the mysticism of numbers
in Pythagoras and Vitruvius and Kepler,
to the Trinity and the signs of the Zodiac."

- Jacob Bronowski (1908 - 1974)

External and Interior Landscapes

"I think of two landscapes - one outside the self, the other within. The external landscape is the one we see-not only the line and color of the land and its shading at different times of the day, but also its plants and animals in season, its weather, its geology ... The second landscape I think of is an interior one, a kind of projection within a person of a part of the exterior landscape. Relationships in the exterior landscape include those that are named and discernible ... and others that are uncodified or ineffable ... the shape and character of these relationships in a person’s thinking, I believe, are deeply influenced by where on this earth one goes, what one touches, the patterns one observes in nature- the intricate history of one’s life in the land, even a life in the city, where wind, the chirp of birds, the line of a falling leaf, are known. These thoughts are arranged, further, according to the thread of one’s moral, intellectual, and spiritual development. The interior landscape responds to the character and subtlety of an exterior landscape; the shape of the individual mind is affected by land as it is by genes."

- Barry Lopez (1945 - 2020)

The Invisible Spirit

"Spirit selects its own photographer. 

All we can do is to be
open to Spirit.

...

For some reason I have a sense of 'mysticism.' ... The 'perilous world of the dream' is my most comfortable backyard. Since I turn everything to photography, I have tried to treat photographs in this same manner. Contrary to expectations I do not go for fuzzygraphs, I try to reach the dream, or the state of mind that is 'Visionary' ... From time to time various images in front of my eyes lift themselves up and beckon to me - I approach at their command - and make the expo sure, sometimes reluctantly, but always with such a complete projection of my mental state onto the object that it seems as if the object commanded and not myself. At this intensity I photograph. The result is a record of an experience between myself and the object. ... 'Mysticism' in photographs is a delightful idea, full of danger of overreading the visible elements, but perhaps intensely rewarding. I know its danger, and pursue it anyway.

...

...the invisible is made visible to the intuition,
the invisible organic, the invisible spirit."

- Minor White (1908 - 1976)