Musical Dream

"We know, but cannot grasp, that above and below, beyond the limits of perception or imagination, thousands of millions of simultaneous transformations are at work, interlinked like a musical score by mathematical counterpoint...a symphony...but we lack the ears to hear it.

...

What am I then? A dream? 

...

A dream will always triumph over reality,

once it is given a chance."

- Stanislaw Lem (1921 - 2006)

Solaris

I Seem to be a Verb

"I live on Earth at present,

and I don't know what I am.

I am not a thing - a noun.

I seem to be a verb,
an evolutionary process -

an integral function

of the universe."

- R. Buckminster Fuller (1895 - 1983)
I Seem to Be A Verb

There is No Path to Truth

"The whole point of meditation is not to follow the path laid down by thought to what it considers to be truth, enlightenment or reality. There is no path to truth. The following of any path leads to what thought has already formulated and, however pleasant or satisfying, it is not truth. It is a fallacy to think that a system of meditation, the constant practicing of that system in daily life for a few given moments, or the repetition of it during the day, will bring about clarity or understanding. Meditation lies beyond all this and, like love, cannot be cultivated by thought. As long as the thinker exists to meditate, meditation is merely a part of that self-isolation which is the common movement of one’s everyday life."

- Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895 - 1986)

Dimensions of Reality

"My images were surreal simply in the sense that my vision brought out the fantastic dimension of reality. My only aim was to express reality, for there is nothing more surreal than reality itself. If reality fails to fill us with wonder, it is because we have fallen into the habit of seeing it as ordinary."

- Brassaï (1899 - 1984)

The Brain's Three Milliards

"Thought is the brain's three milliards
Of cells from the inside out.
Billions of games of billiards

Marked up as Faith and Doubt.

My Faith, but their collisions;

My logic, but their enzymes;

Their pink epinephrin, my visions;

Their white epinephrin, my crimes.

Since I am the felt arrangement

Of ten to the ninth times three,

Each atom in its estrangement
Must yet be prophetic of me."

- Aldous Huxley (1894 - 1963)
Island

Timeless Schema

"For the myth is the foundation of life;
it is the timeless schema, the pious
formula into which life flows
when it reproduces its traits
out of the unconscious."

- Thomas Mann (1875 - 1955)

Limits of Perception

"The human mind is only capable of absorbing a few things at a time. We see what is taking place in front of us in the here and now, and cannot envisage simultaneously a succession of processes, no matter how integrated and complementary. Our faculties of perception are consequently limited even as regards fairly simple phenomena. The fate of a single man can be rich with significance, that of a few hundred less so, but the history of thousands and millions of men does not mean anything at all, in any adequate sense of the word. The symmetriad is a million—a billion, rather—raised to the power of N: it is incomprehensible. We pass through vast halls, each with a capacity of ten Kronecker units, and creep like so many ants clinging to the folds of breathing vaults and craning to watch the flight of soaring girders, opalescent in the glare of searchlights, and elastic domes which crisscross and balance each other unerringly, the perfection of a moment, since everything here passes and fades. The essence of this architecture is movement synchronized towards a precise objective. We observe a fraction of the process, like hearing the vibration of a single string in an orchestra of supergiants. We know, but cannot grasp, that above and below, beyond the limits of perception or imagination, thousands and millions of simultaneous transformations are at work, interlinked like a musical score by mathematical counterpoint. It has been described as a symphony in geometry, but we lack the ears to hear it."

- Stanislaw Lem (1921 - 2006)

Solaris

Imaginary Places

"Professor Summerlee gave a snort of impatience. 'We have spent two long days in exploration,' said he, 'and we are no wiser as to the actual geography of the place than when we started. It is clear that it is all thickly wooded, and it would take months to penetrate it and to learn the relations of one part to another. If there were some central peak it would be different, but it all slopes downwards, so far as we can see. The farther we go the less likely it is that we will get any general view ... You are all turning your brains towards getting into this country. I say that we should be scheming how to get out of it.' 'I am surprised, sir,' boomed Challenger, stroking his majestic beard, 'that any man of science should commit himself to so ignoble a sentiment ... I absolutely refuse to leave, however, until we have made at least a superficial examination of this country, and are able to take back with us something in the nature of a chart.'"

- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859 - 1930), The Lost World
As quoted by Alberto Manguel (1948 - )
The Dictionary of Imaginary Places

Awareness

"Most of us spend our time preoccupied. We are constantly carrying on an internal dialogue. While we are involved in talking to ourselves, we miss the moment-to-moment awareness of our life. We look, but we don’t see. We listen, but we don’t hear. We eat, but we don’t taste. We love, but we don’t feel. The senses are receiving all the information, but because of our preoccupations, cognition is not taking place. Zazen brings us back to each moment. The moment is where our life takes place. If we miss the moment, we miss our life."

- John Daido Loori (1931 - 2009)
Finding the Still Point

Transcending the Subject

"The fact that these highly abstract notions coalesce in such refined harmony is absolutely mind-boggling. It points to something rich and mysterious lurking beneath the surface, as if the curtain had been lifted and we caught glimpses of the reality that had been carefully hidden from us. These are the wonders of modern math, and of the modern world.

...

The interaction between math and physics is a two-way process, with each of the two subjects drawing from and inspiring the other. At different times, one of them may take the lead in developing a particular idea, only to yield to the other subject as focus shifts. But altogether, the two interact in a virtuous circle of mutual influence.

...

The essence of mathematics lies in its freedom.” Mathematics teaches us to rigorously analyze reality, study the facts, follow them wherever they lead. It liberates us from dogmas and prejudice, nurtures the capacity for innovation. It thus provides tools that transcend the subject itself."

- Edward Frenkel (1968 - )
Love and Math: The Heart of Hidden Reality

Form and Content

"All art is relationships, all art. Design is relationships. Design in a relationship between form and content... Your glasses are round. Your collar is diagonal. These are relationships. Your mouth is an oval. Your nose is a triangle - this is what design is.

...

Design is the method of putting form and content together. Design, just as art, has multiple definitions, there is no single definition. Design can be art. Design can be aesthetics. Design is so simple, that’s why it is so complicated.

...

Visual communication of any kind, whether persuasive or informative, from billboards to birth announcements, should be seen as the embodiment of form and function: the integration of the beautiful and useful. Copy, art, and typography should be seen as a living entity; each element integrally related, in harmony with the whole, and essential to the execution of an idea."

- Paul Rand (1914 - 1996)
Paul Rand: A Designer's Art

The Limitless Aleph

"All language is a set of symbols
whose use among its speakers
assumes a shared past.
How, then, can I translate into
words the limitless Aleph,
which my floundering mind
can scarcely encompass?"

- Jorge Luis Borges (1899 - 1986)

Zen Drops

"In one drop of water are found
all the secrets of the oceans."

- Kahlil Gibran (1883 - 1931) 

Be Still With Yourself

"When you approach something to photograph it,
first be still with yourself until the object
of your attention affirms your presence.
Then don't leave until you have
captured its essence."

- Minor White (1908 - 1976)

Morning Fog

"Space and silence are two
aspects of the same thing.
The same no-thing. They
are externalization of inner
space and inner silence,
which is stillness: the
the infinitely creative womb
 of all existence."

- Eckhart Tolle (1948 - )

Yesterday was one of those special mornings that makes photography ... heck, life! 😊 ... so wondrously special.  Anticipating a long weekend "work" day (a long technical paper I need to start writing but that I've been putting off for days), I had wanted to get a bit of extra sleep before I got started. My wife, who is well attuned to my photographer's soul - and predilections - all-too-well, woke me up early saying, "Hon, there is "heavy fog" outside, maybe you'd...?" .... I was out the door before she finished her sentence. I was so entranced by what I found at the nearby lake I raced to - a dense fog that was gently caressing the water and surrounding woods, a preternatural stillness in the air, and not another person in sight - that, initially at least, all I could do was just stand by the lakeshore, not doing - or thinking about - anything, cradling my camera with a smile on my face, soaking in the precious Zen moment. The photographs I captured in the hour or so that followed (some are shown here) are perhaps nothing special. But, "My, Oh My!" what perfect Alfred-Stieglitzian "equivalents" they all are of what I felt during my early morning sojourn around the lake that morning!

Nature's Calligraphy

"In my calligraphy,
there is ink, tea, breathing,
mindfulness and concentration.
This is meditation.
This is not work.
Suppose I write ‘breathe’;
I am breathing at the same time.
To be alive is a miracle
and when you breathe in
mindfully, you touch the
miracle of being alive."

- Thich Nhat Hanh (1926 - 2022)

Trust in Nature

"If you trust in Nature, in the small Things that hardly anyone sees and that can so suddenly become huge, immeasurable; if you have this love for what is humble and try very simply, as someone who serves, to win the confidence of what seems poor: then everything will become easier for you, more coherent and somehow more reconciling, not in your conscious mind perhaps, which stays behind, astonished, but in your innermost awareness, awakeness, and knowledge."

- Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 - 1926)
Letters to a Young Poet 

Contemplation

 

"The life of contemplation implies two levels of awareness: first, awareness of the question, and, second, awareness of the answer. Though these are two distinct and enormously different levels, yet they are in fact an awareness of the same thing. The question is, itself, the answer. And we ourselves are both. But we cannot know this until we have moved into the second kind of awareness. We awaken, not to find an answer absolutely distinct from the question, but to realize that the question is its own answer. And all is summed up in one awareness - not a proposition, but an experience: "I AM"."

- Thomas Merton (1915 - 1968)

The Sage's Heart-Mind Mirror

"It is its own source, its own root. Before Heaven and earth existed it was there, firm from ancient times. It gave spirituality to the spirits of God; it gave birth to Heaven and to earth. It exists beyond the highest point, and yet you cannot call it lofty; it exists beneath the limit of the six directions, and yet you cannot call it deep. It was born before Heaven and earth, and yet you cannot say it has been there for long; it is earlier than the earliest of time, and yet you cannot call it old.

...

The sage is still not because he takes stillness to be good and therefore is still. The ten thousand things are insufficient to distract his mind - that is the reason he is still. Water that is still gives back a clear image of beard and eyebrows; reposing in the water level, it offers a measure to the great carpenter. And if water in stillness possesses such clarity, how much more must pure spirit. The sage's heart-mind in stillness is the mirror of Heaven and earth, the glass of the ten thousand things."

- Chuang Tzu (c.369 B.C. - c.286 B.C.)

Ethereal Being

"...this little hissing and buzzing
whirlwind, of wings of purple and
azure, in the midst of which floated
an elusive form veiled by the very

rapidity of its movement.

The ethereal being which took
shape confusedly through this
quivering of wings seemed to you
chimerical, imaginary, impossible
to touch, impossible to see.

But when at last the young lady
was resting at the tip of a reed
and you could examine,
holding your breath,
the long gauze wings,
the long enamel dress,
the two crystal globes,
what astonishment did
you not feel? "

- Victor Hugo (1802 - 1885)
The Hunchback of Notre-Dame