Parts, Wholes, and the Principle of Sufficient Reason

“Nothing takes place without sufficient reason, that is… nothing happens without it being possible for someone who knows enough things to give a reason sufficient to determine why it is so and not otherwise. Assuming this principle, the first question we have the right to ask will be, why is there something rather than nothing? For nothing is simpler and easier than something. Furthermore, assuming that things must exist, we must be able to give a reason for why they must exist in this way, and not otherwise.”

- G. W. Leibniz

(1646 - 1716)

"The division of the perceived universe

into parts and wholes is convenient

and may be necessary, 

but no necessity determines

how it shall be done."

- Gregory Bateson

(1904 - 1980)

Dormant Microcosm

"This microcosm was pregnant with the germ of a proper time and space, and all the kinds of cosmical beings. Within this punctual cosmos the myriad but not unnumbered physical centers of power, which men conceive vaguely as electrons, protons, and the rest, were at first coincident with one another. And they were dormant. The matter of ten million galaxies lay dormant in a point."

- Olaf Stapledon (1886 - 1950)
Star Maker

Hallucination, Ego, and Nature

"We suffer from a hallucination, from a false and distorted sensation of our own existence as living organisms. Most of us have the sensation that “I myself” is a separate center of feeling and action, living inside and bounded by the physical body — a center which “confronts” an “external” world of people and things, making contact through the senses with a universe both alien and strange. Everyday figures of speech reflect this illusion. “I came into this world.” “You must face reality.” “The conquest of nature.”

This feeling of being lonely and very temporary visitors in the universe is in flat contradiction to everything known about man (and all other living organisms) in the sciences. We do not “come into” this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean “waves,” the universe “peoples.” Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe. This fact is rarely, if ever, experienced by most individuals. Even those who know it to be true in theory do not sense or feel it, but continue to be aware of themselves as isolated “egos” inside bags of skin."

- Alan Watts (1915 - 1973)

The Book: On the TabooAgainst Knowing Who You Are

Nothing to Add, Nothing to Take Away

"In anything at all,

perfection is finally attained

not when there is no longer

anything to add,

but when there is no longer

anything to take away."

- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

(1900 - 1944)

Process, Emergence, and Autopoiesis

"I guess I've had only one question all my life. Why do emergent selves, virtual identities, pop up all over the place creating worlds, whether at the mind/body level, the cellular level, or the transorganism level? This phenomenon is something so productive that it doesn't cease creating entirely new realms: life, mind, and societies. Yet these emergent selves are based on processes so shifty, so ungrounded, that we have an apparent paradox between the solidity of what appears to show up and its groundlessness. That, to me, is a key and eternal question."

- Francisco Varela

(1946 - 2001)

That Invisible Soul That Pervades Reality

"To hear never-heard sounds, 

To see never-seen colors and shapes, 

To try to understand the imperceptible 

Power pervading the world; 

To fly and find pure ethereal substances 

That are not of matter 

But of that invisible soul pervading reality. 

To hear another soul and to whisper to another soul; 

To be a lantern in the darkness 

Or an umbrella in a stormy day; 

To feel much more than know. 

To be the eyes of an eagle, slope of a mountain; 

To be a wave understanding the influence of the moon; 

To be a tree and read the memory of the leaves; 

To be an insignificant pedestrian on the streets 

Of crazy cities watching, watching, and watching. 

To be a smile on the face of a woman 

And shine in her memory 

As a moment saved without planning."

- Dejan Stojanović,  Serbian poet

(1959 - )

Symbols, Dreams, and Transformations

"The task of art is to transform what is continuously happening to us, to transform all these things into symbols, into music, into something which can last in man’s memory. That is our duty. If we don’t fulfill it, we feel unhappy. A writer or any artist has the sometimes joyful duty to transform all that into symbols. These symbols could be colors, forms or sounds. For a poet, the symbols are sounds and also words, fables, stories, poetry. The work of a poet never ends. It has nothing to do with working hours. You are continuously receiving things from the external world. These must be transformed, and eventually will be transformed. This revelation can appear anytime. A poet never rests. He’s always working, even when he dreams. Besides, the life of a writer, is a lonely one. You think you are alone, and as the years go by, if the stars are on your side, you may discover that you are at the center of a vast circle of invisible friends whom you will never get to know but who love you. And that is an immense reward."

-  Jorge Luis Borges

(1899 – 1986) 

Curliques, Droplets, and Energy

"It's like you took a bottle of ink and you threw it at a wall. Smash! And all that ink spread. And in the middle, it's dense, isn't it? And as it gets out on the edge, the little droplets get finer and finer and make more complicated patterns, see? So in the same way, there was a big bang at the beginning of things and it spread. And you and I, sitting here in this room, as complicated human beings, are way, way out on the fringe of that bang. We are the complicated little patterns on the end of it. Very interesting. But so we define ourselves as being only that. If you think that you are only inside your skin, you define yourself as one very complicated little curlique, way out on the edge of that explosion. Way out in space, and way out in time. Billions of years ago, you were a big bang, but now you're a complicated human being. And then we cut ourselves off, and don't feel that we're still the big bang. But you are. Depends how you define yourself. You are actually--if this is the way things started, if there was a big bang in the beginning-- you're not something that's a result of the big bang. You're not something that is a sort of puppet on the end of the process. You are still the process. You are the big bang, the original force of the universe, coming on as whoever you are. When I meet you, I see not just what you define yourself as--Mr so-and- so, Ms so-and-so, Mrs so-and-so--I see every one of you as the primordial energy of the universe coming on at me in this particular way. I know I'm that, too. But we've learned to define ourselves as separate from it. "

- Alan Watts

(1915 - 1973)

Forms, Shapes, and the Implicate Order

"There is a universal flux that cannot be defined explicitly but which can be known only implicitly, as indicated by the explicitly definable forms and shapes, some stable and some unstable, that can be abstracted from the universal flux. In this flow, mind and matter are not separate substances. Rather, they are different aspects of our whole and unbroken movement."

- David Bohm (1917 - 1992) 

Wholeness and the Implicate Order

Parts, Patterns, and Networks

"The patterns are simple, but followed together, they make for a whole that is wiser than the sum of its parts. Go for a walk; cultivate hunches; write everything down, but keep your folders messy; embrace serendipity; make generative mistakes; take on multiple hobbies; frequent coffee houses and other liquid networks; follow the links; let others build on your ideas; borrow, recycle; reinvent. Build a tangled bank."

- Steven Johnson

Emergence

Ripples, Waves, and Rhythms

"To Nature nothing can be added; from Nature nothing can be taken away; the sum of her energies is constant, and the utmost man can do in the pursuit of physical truth, or in the applications of physical knowledge, is to shift the constituents of the never-varying total. The law of conservation rigidly excludes both creation and annihilation. Waves may change to ripples, and ripples to waves; magnitude may be substituted for number, and number for magnitude; asteroids may aggregate to suns, suns may resolve themselves into florae and faunae, and floras and faunas melt in air: the flux of power is eternally the same. It rolls in music through the ages, and all terrestrial energy—the manifestations of life as well as the display of phenomena—are but the modulations of its rhythm."

- John Tyndall

(1820 - 1893)

Simplicity & Beauty

"The research worker, in his efforts to express the fundamental laws of Nature in mathematical form, should strive mainly for mathematical beauty. He should take simplicity into consideration in a subordinate way to beauty ... It often happens that the requirements of simplicity and beauty are the same, but where they clash, the latter must take precedence."

- Paul A. M. Dirac

(1902 - 1984)

Duality and Forgetting

"Where there is a duality, as it were, there one sees another; there one smells another; there one tastes another; there one speaks to another. . . But where everything has become just one's own self, then whereby and whom would one see? Then whereby and whom would one smell? then whereby and whom would one speak? then whereby and whom would one hear? then whereby and whom would one think? then whereby and whom would one touch? then whereby and whom would one understand?"

- Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (2.4.14)

"My connection with the body and its parts is dissolved. My perceptive organs are discarded. Thus leaving my material form and bidding farewell to my knowledge, I become one with the Great Pervader. This I call sitting and forgetting all things."

- Chuang Tzu

(~ 4th century BC)

Sacred Tree

"The sacred tree,

the sacred stone

are not adored

as stone or tree;

they are worshipped

precisely because

they are hierophanies,

because they show

something that is

no longer stone

or tree but sacred,

the ganz andere

or 'wholly other.'"

- Mircea Eliade (1907 - 1986)
Myths, Dreams and Mysteries

Emancipation of the Mind

"Abstraction allows man to see with his mind what he cannot physically see with his eyes… Abstract art enables the artist to perceive beyond the tangible, to extract the infinite out of the finite. It is the emancipation of the mind. It is an explosion into unknown areas."

- Arshile Gorky

(1904 - 1948)

Resonance, Spirit, and Proisvedenie

" …the long Russian word for creation proisvedenie, so different from its shorter counterparts in English, French and German, express for me the whole history and process of creation, lengthy, mysterious, infinitely complex and foreshadowed by divine predestination.

...in many ways art is similar to religion. Its development consists not in new discoveries which invalidate the old truths (as is obviously the case in science). Its development consists in sudden illuminations, similar to lightning, in explosions, which burst in the sky like fireworks… …this illumination shows with blinding light new perspectives, new truths, which are basically nothing but the organic development, the further organic growth of the earlier wisdom.

...the world is full of resonances. It constitutes a cosmos of things exerting a spiritual action. The dead matter is a living spirit."

- Wassily Kandinsky

(1866 - 1944)

Self, non-Self, and Interconnectedness

"True self is non-self, the awareness that the self is made only of non-self elements. There's no separation between self and other, and everything is interconnected. Once you are aware of that you are no longer caught in the idea that you are a separate entity."

- Thich Nhat Hanh

(1926 - )

Ebb & Flow

"The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures. It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth in numberless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers. It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth and of death, in ebb and in flow. I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life. And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment."

- Rabindranath Tagore

(1861 - 1941)

Symbols, Signs, and Conceptions

"We are living in a culture entirely hypnotized by the illusion of time, in which the so-called present moment is felt as nothing but an infintesimal hairline between an all-powerfully causative past and an absorbingly important future. We have no present. Our consciousness is almost completely preoccupied with memory and expectation. We do not realize that there never was, is, nor will be any other experience than present experience. We are therefore out of touch with reality. We confuse the world as talked about, described, and measured with the world which actually is. We are sick with a fascination for the useful tools of names and numbers, of symbols, signs, conceptions and ideas."

- Alan Watts
(1915 - 1973)

Brambles, Entanglements, and Music

"If you know the music

the moment the violin string

begins to vibrate,

then you know how

to navigate through the forest

of brambles and entanglements

with freedom and ease.

If, on the other hand,

you think that with practice

the forest of brambles and entanglements

will altogether disappear,

then right from the beginning

you are hopelessly entangled

and won't find your way."

- John Daido Loori

(1931 - 2009)

Masterful Meditation on Art, Photography, and Life

"It is easy to take a photograph,

but it is harder to make a masterpiece

in photography than in any other art medium."

- Ansel Adams

To Ansel's sage words I can add my own corollary that it is easy to write a book about photography, but it is harder - much harder - to create a masterpiece in this genre than in any other "here are my musings about..." creativity-centric medium. That Guy Tal has not only done so - that is, created a masterpiece of a "book about photography" - but has also seamlessly and additionally woven in a commensurate degree of timeless wisdom on art, creativity, and life, is nothing short of breathtaking.  To paraphrase Martin Gardner's often quoted (essentially one-line) 1979 review of Godel, Escher, Bach ("Every few decades, an unknown author brings out a book of such depth, clarity, range, wit, beauty and originality that it is recognized at once as a major literary event"): every decade or so, a book of such stunningly original beauty and elegance appears that it self-evidently redefines how the essence of a creative life may be communicated with 'mere' words. Tal's book is, arguably, this decade's book, and is one to which I happily give my highest and unqualified recommendation.

With the publication of More Than a Rock, Tal joins a small pantheon of preternaturally gifted guides to the core truths that underlie all aesthetic yearning and creative expression. My personal list includes: Doug Beasley, Nicloas Hlobeczy, Brooks Jensen, George DeWolfe, Freeman Patterson, John Daido Loori, Deborah Dewit Marchant, and (of course) Minor White. Yet, even among even these elites, Tal is unique in his ability to use the simplest intuitive language to express ineffable truths; his graceful style gently leads the reader, never pushes. Even those who have rarely if ever pondered "deep" questions while putting their eye behind a camera's viewfinder will inevitably find themselves eagerly and effortlessly tagging along on an amazing journey of ever-widening discoveries; including ways of finding art (in everything around us), of making art (alongside discovering ways of communicating what we have found and wish to share), and of discovering oneself by losing the ego to the creative process. This is not just hard to do; I had thought it impossible to do, before "eagerly tagging along" Tal's unpretentious, sage-like insights.

A dry recitation of the book's layout and content hardly does justice to what it really contains, but for those interested: it is broken into 4 sections (on art, craft, experiences, and meditations), and each section consists of short essays (most between 2 to 5 pages long) on specific topics, accompanied by a selection of photographs. What you will not find, unlike what typically makes up the vast majority of photography books (including those that purport to "reveal hidden truths") is any discussion about f-stops, lenses, or why Canon is so much better or worse than Nikon. These concerns, for Tal, are (and ought to be) as unimportant to serious photographers as discussions of the proverbial pots and pans are for chefs (and for those who aspire to become chefs). Each essay begins with a short quote - sometimes attributed to a well known artist or photographer, but just as often to a poet or philosopher - which sets the stage for brilliantly concise meditations that simultaneously leave the reader both in wonderment about how much has been said in so short a space, and a compulsion to just keep reading, looking, absorbing. 

My advice is to take Tal's book in slowly, contemplatively; take time to digest and assimilate what it has to offer. Though your mind will initially digest its contents, the book's real message speaks directly to your soul. Of course, the book can also be perused simply for Tal's imagery, which is masterful.

It is no coincidence that Lenswork magazine (perhaps the preeminent fine-art photography publication available today) has commissioned Tal to contribute an essay for each of its bi-monthly issues. He is a unique talent, and this book - and his essay/column in Lenswork - are precous gifts for this, and future, generations of photographers. It is available via Amazon and Barnes & Noble (in both print and eBook forms; though my review is based on the print version); and from Tal's own website, which rewards the customer who takes this last option by shipping a copy of the book that includes the author's signature.

Full disclosure: I have never met Guy Tal in person, though I have (on the heels of purchasing his book from a local Barnes & Noble) "friended" him on facebook. As readers of my blog know, I am also a fellow alumnus of Lenswork, but my mention of Lenswork has to do only with the fact that - as ought to be clear from my review - I am simply delighted as a reader of the magazine that I can look forward to Tal's column each issue.

Portfolios: 2005 - 2015

A while back, I self-published a mini portfolio on Blurb to use as a self-promotion tool for galleries and prospective clients. The idea, of course, was to keep it small, simple, and enticing. It consists of two-page portfolio samplers, with each spread providing one full-page image and 3 or 4 thumb-sized images on the adjoining page. While my mini-portfolio continues to serve its originally intended purpose, I have been asked increasingly frequently if (when?) I would ever publish a "real" edition that contains a full (or least, a meaningfully more complete) selection of the images I've captured over the last decade. To those of you who have asked for or wondered about such an edition, and for all those who may simply be interested in perusing a wider range of images than appear in the "mini," I am happy to announce the publication of SuddenStillness: Visual Echoes of Timeless Rhythms.

The new book is 440 pages long, includes over 325 images from 19 portfolios (all created between 2005 - 2015, and most of which are introduced by a short essay), and concludes with updated versions of the 10 most popular essays that I have published on this blog on the creative process in photography. Among the images that appear are those that have been published by Lenswork (issues #71, #76, #95, and #105), Black & White magazine (issues #41, #56, #80, #87, and #95), Black and White Spider Awards (2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010), and the winter/2013 edition of Stone Voices (as well as many other on-line publications). Both print and eBook (iPad/iPhone and Adobe pdf) versions are available. 

Here is a 43 page preview:

SuddenStillness by Andy Ilachinski | Make Your Own Book