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!