Poetry, Prophecy, and Religion

“The greatest thing a human soul 

ever does in this world is

see something and tell what 

he saw in a plain way.

Hundreds of people can talk 

for one who can think.

But thousands can think for

 one who can see.

To see is poetry, prophecy, 

and religion, all in one.” 

- John Ruskin

(1819 – 1900)

Direct Experience

“To the vast majority of people 

a photograph is an

image of something within 

their direct experience:

a more-or-less factual reality.

It is difficult for them 

to realize that the

photograph can be the source 

of experience, as well as the

reflection of spiritual awareness 

of the world and of self.” 

- Ansel Adams

(1902 - 1984)

Complete Consciousness

"Complete consciousness is present

to us at all times, every moment, 

but we reject it in order to 

maintain our prejudices, our ideas. 

But sooner or later we will 

relinquish our ideas in favor of response... 

Life is consciousness of life itself."

- Agnes Martin

(1912 - 2004)

Creating Distinctions

“In the sky, there is

no distinction of east and west;

people create distinctions

out of their own minds

and then believe them to be true.” 

- Gautama Siddharta

(563-483 B.C.)

Music of the Eyes

"Perhaps art is just taking out

what you don't like

and putting in what you do.

There is no such thing 

as Abstraction. 

It is extraction, 

gravitation toward a 

certain direction... 

It is nearer to music, 

not the music of the ears, 

just the music of the eyes."

- Arthur Dove

(1880 - 1946)

Perspectives and Realities

"What prohibits me from treating my perception as an intellectual act is that an intellectual act would grasp the object either as possible or as necessary. But in perception it is 'real'; it is given as the infinite sum of an indefinite series of perspectival views in each of which the object is given but in none of which is it given exhaustively."

- Maurice Merleau-Ponty

(1908 - 1961)

Edge of the Sea

"The shore is an ancient world, for as long as there has been an earth and sea there has been this place of the meeting of land and water. Yet it is a world that keeps alive the senses of continuing creation and of the relentless drive of life. Each time that I enter it, I gain some new awareness of its beauty and its deeper meanings, sensing that intricate fabric of life by which one creature is linked with another, and each with its surroundings...

There is a common thread that links these scenes and memories–the spectacle of life in all its varied manifestation as it appeared, evolved and sometimes died out. Underlying the beauty if the spectacle there is meaning and significance. It is the elusiveness of that meaning that haunts us, that sends us again and again into the natural world where the key to this riddle is hidden.

It sends us back to the edge of the sea, where the drama of life played its first scene on earth and perhaps even its prelude; where the forces of evolution are at work today, as they have been since the appearance of what we know as life, and where the spectacle of living creatures faced by the cosmic realities of their world is crystal clear." 

- Rachel Carson (1907 - 1964)

The Edge of the Sea

Feeling of Wonder

"This oceanic feeling of wonder

is the common source of 

religious mysticism,

of pure science and

art for art's sake." 

- Arthur Koestler (1905 - 1983)

Goethian Wholeness

"In following Goethe's approach to scientific knowledge, one finds that the wholeness of the phenomenon is intensive. The experience is one of entering into a dimension that is the phenomenon, not behind or beyond it, but which is not visible at first. It is perceived through the mind, when the mind functions as an organ of perception instead of the medium of logical thought. Whereas mathematical science begins by transforming the contents of sensory perception into quantitative values and establishing a relationship between them, Goethe looked for a relationship between the perceptual elements that left the contents of perception unchanged. He tried to see these elements themselves holistically instead of replacing them by a relationship analytically. Ernst Cassirer said, 'the mathematical formula strives to make the phenomena calculable, that of Goethe to make them visible."

- Henri Bortoft (1938 - 2012)

The Wholeness of Nature

Deep Infinity

“Deep, deep infinity! 

Quietness. 

O dream away from the 

tensions of daily living; 

to sail over a calm sea at 

the prow of a ship,

toward a horizon that always recedes;

to stare at the passing waves and listen to

their monotonous soft murmur;

to dream away into unconsciousness ..."

- M.C. Escher (1898-1972)

Hidden Meaning

"Everything in the world has

a hidden meaning. . . .

Men, animals, trees, stars,

they are all hieroglyphics.

When you see them you

do not understand them.

You think they are really men,

animals, trees, stars.

It is only years later

that you understand."

- Nikos Kazantzakis

(1883 - 1957)

Mystical Perception

"It is to a practical mysticism that [...you...] are invited: to a training of ... latent faculties, a bracing and brightening of ... languid consciousness, an emancipation from the fetters of appearance, a turning of ... attention to new levels of the world. Thus ... become aware of the universe which the spiritual artist is always trying to disclose to the race. This amount of mystical perception—this 'ordinary contemplation,' as the specialists call it—is possible to all men: without it, they are not wholly conscious, nor wholly alive. It is a natural human activity, no more involving the great powers and sublime experiences of the mystical saints and philosophers than the ordinary enjoyment of music involves the special creative powers of the great musician."

- Evelyn Underhill (1875 - 1941)

Mysticism

Innocence of Vision

"The only provable reality of a photograph is its physical existence — a flat piece of paper with some smudges on one side...Most adults have to regain the ability to experience pictures directly and deeply. Contrary to their convictions that they understand everything, most people have to reestablish the ability to let a photograph speak for itself. And paradoxes abound, one has to earn the innocence of vision — by hard effort, by serious and deliberate search for meanings in photographs."

- Minor White (1908 - 1976)

Aperture Magazine Anthology:The Minor White Years, 1952-1976

Deciphering the External World

“Art is not what we see;

it is in the spaces between."

"The creative act is not

performed by the artist alone;

the spectator brings

the work in contact with

the external world by

deciphering and interpreting 

its inner qualifications and thus adds 

his contribution to the creative act."

"The spectator makes the picture.” 

- Marcel Duchamp (1887 - 1968)

The Mind is Simply Aware

“There is no ideal in observation.

When you have an ideal, 

you cease to observe, 

you are then merely

approximating the 

present to the idea, 

and therefore there

is duality, conflict, 

and all the rest of it. 

The mind has to be in the 

state when it can see, observe. 

The experience of the observation 

is really an astonishing state. 

In that there is no duality. 

The mind is simply - aware.”

- Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895 - 1986)

Not Things, but Light

“I almost never set out to photograph a landscape, 

nor do I think of my camera as a means of 

recording a mountain or an animal

unless I absolutely need a 'record shot'.

My first thought is always of light.”

- Galen Rowell (1940 - 2002)

Through the Invisible

“The great truth, or the absolute truth,

makes itself visible to our mind

through the invisible.”

- Georges Vantongerloo (1886 - 1965)

Painter/Sculptor

Spiritual Awareness

“To the vast majority of people 

a photograph is an

image of something within 

their direct experience:

a more-or-less factual reality.

It is difficult for them 

to realize that the

photograph can be the source 

of experience, as well as the

reflection of spiritual awareness 

of the world and of self.”  

- Ansel Adams

(1902 - 1984)

Invisible Organization of Energy

“Science shows us that the

visible world is neither 

matter nor spirit;

the visible world is the invisible 

organization of energy.”

- Heinz Pagels

(1939 - 1988)

Forms, Space, and Distinctions

“A universe comes into being when

a space is severed or taken apart… 

by tracing the way we 

[make such distinctions] 

we begin to reconstruct …  

the basic forms underlying linguistic,

mathematical, physical, 

and biological science.”

- G. Spencer Brown (1923 - )

Laws of Form

Between Something and Nothing

“Now, I am going to tell you something.

I don’t know what heading it comes under, 

and whether or not it is relevant here,

but it must be relevant at some point. 

It is not anything new, but I would like to say it. 

There is a beginning. There is no beginning of that beginning. 

There is no beginning of that no beginning of beginning.

 There is something. There is nothing. 

There is something before the beginning of something and nothing, 

and something before that. Suddenly there is something and nothing. 

But between something and nothing, 

I still don’t really know which is something and which is nothing.  

Now, I’ve just said something, 

but I don’t really know whether I’ve said anything or not.” 

- Chuang-Tzu (4th century BC)

Chuang Tzu: Inner Chapters

Expressions of Deep Order

"If biologists have ignored self-organization, it is not because self-ordering is not pervasive and profound. It is because we biologists have yet to understand how to think about systems governed simultaneously by two sources of order, Yet who seeing the snowflake, who seeing simple lipid molecules cast adrift in water forming themselves into cell-like hollow lipid vesicles, who seeing the potential for the crystallization of life in swarms of reacting molecules, who seeing the stunning order for free in networks linking tens upon tens of thousands of variables, can fail to entertain a central thought: if ever we are to attain a final theory in biology, we will surely, surely have to understand the commingling of self-organization and selection. We will have to see that we are the natural expressions of a deeper order. Ultimately, we will discover in our creation myth that we are expected after all."

- Stuart Kauffman

(1939 - )