What matters?

Matter matters
is the patter
that rains down
on our crowns
but concealed
waiting 
to be revealed
came down
and appealed 
to our 
better 
nature.

Considering the Garden of Eden -- again

Earth? Earth mother? Sophia? What have you created? Considering the Garden of Eden story, I was thinking that this would be the time and place when dualism was born. For better or worse. Of course everyone seems to latch onto the idea of Original Sin and won’'t let go, the believers spin and weave in attempts to make sense of the idea, while nonbelievers point to the unreasonable idea that a god would take the misdeed of an innocent and make the innocent guilty, and further, punish the guilty, and atop that, punish all humankind forever more. I think both sides fail to grasp the symbolism of this story. First of all, without humans, not only does the concept of good and evil not make sense, but in all of nature it is absent. In all of nature (apart from humans) only “good” and “nothingness” exists. Bad doesn’'t exist, for everything in nature seeks to exploit it’s own potential to live and replicate. That either happens or doesn’'t happen. You might think of all nature as one big organism that exists, and exists only because each part that makes up the “all-nature” live and die to provide another part of “all-nature” with energy to do the same. Nothing is “bad” because in “all-nature” adaptation to prevent extinction is the only goal (if "goal" exists without humans) and total extinction would be the only "“bad”" possible. Yet again, even extinction couldn’'t be “bad” in a humanless and Godless “all-nature,” for in such a universe, everything just is. Or just isn’'t. No matter. For to matter requires intelligence to create the idea of mattering and not mattering.

I think the Garden of Eden, this metaphor, explains the need for intelligence, for awareness, for self awareness, before the ideas (and concepts) of good and bad/evil can exist. Adam (aka mankind) before gaining knowledge of self awareness (or if you prefer, evolution before the brain/mind developed self awareness) was as innocent as a tiger pouncing upon a lamb and ripping it to shreds for a meal. Without self-awareness, “pre-humans” did whatever was required in order to live another day and replicate. After self-awareness (Original Sin) humans became aware of their every action and the consequences of these actions and further became aware that life and replication at whatever cost was no longer possible, for the new brain/mind was not only aware of each action, the consequences of the action, but also if the action had a good or bad value. And for the first time "“bad”" had a meaning other than failure to survive, the human brain/mind continued to develop this concept of “bad” until it became a powerful force that identifies all that would or could harm the individual, the family, the group, the environment around the group, and today the entire earth. These are things that no other life/creature can think, humans not only think, but can act upon these abstract thoughts. And so in the story Adam and Eve with full self awareness watched as their sons fought and one became a murderer and the other a victim of murder. Good and evil sprang to life as if it were an entity, a concept so powerful that not one human evermore can return to that Garden of Eden, that ignorant state of innocence where good and bad have no meaning. Or so it seems to me.

Ommmmmm...

The eclipse of night

Bedtime stories
are the quarry
woven tales
knots and twists
that repel
wakeful minds
too confined
and resigned
to
everyday
thoughts.

But chasing shadows
in the night
like a dream
oh so bright
slowly dim
as the flight
of fancy
gives way
to tangerines
and dusky oranges
that make
for juicy
daybreak
tales.

One and All

Intertwined
we are
even when afar
we are
you and I
we are
but one
we are
when 
life
unites us
and you
and I
become.

Thinking big bang thoughts

I close my eyes
trying to imagine 
all the stars
that fill the sky
and ever so slowly
I return them to
until the thimble 
is full.

And that's 
just
the beginning.

The Martin Buber Slam

I and Thou
is the how
but then you growl

You think Tao?
or one be
a skeleton key?
that unlocks
the tick
that talks?
while in rhyme
to the chime
of cosmic time?
Oh I think
better yet
my mind a plough
to divide
the here and now
in tiny collections
for inspections
looking for
the hidden core
heretofore
unaccounted for!

And I reply
could be a lie
to always try
yet misapply
observations
for
truth.

Truth?
I howl
wiser ask
a hoot owl.

And so
I do.

Unnaturally natural

What has science wrought?
a vicarious world bought?
so that we need be taught?
that religion must be fought?
and superstition caught?
so that we have naught?
imagination fraught?
with anything but?
verifiable thought?
I think
not.

The Englishman overheard

He seemed
to say
mist tree
and indeed
it was to me
for all around
they were astound
of such a tree
of life confound?
or evolution unbound?
and even now
as I recall
it still remains
a
mystery.

The Beetles

Dung beetle
lowly
and not so holy
to those
that eat
guacamole
but
entomologist
on hands and knees
with expertise
in search
of eyes
that see
what you and me
are blind to
construe
a bug
hallowed
through and through.

Giving thanks

Quality kind
hearts entwined
revealing memories
shared in time
heartily dine
and don't decline
when passed
the turkey
and the wine.



  

We Three Kings

Just because!  
the child asked why?  
turtles atop turtles  
and the philosopher   
cries why?  
the moon round  
and the earth too  
circle the sun   
in tow we go  
yet where we fly?  
the theologian  
knows why!  
to break through  
the fair blue sky  
in time  
we'll see  
stacked no more  
turtle atop turtles  
and we'll know why!  
yet the scientist   
cries  
too much to solve  
and be involved  
when we all know  
without a doubt  
turtles stacked  
with no support  
are but clever   
contorts  
that do purport  
to be whatever  
you want   
them  
to  
be.  
 

Where is the real You?

Do we really have a clue
what makes DNA you?
when in every cell it hides
for a complete copy abides
yet my mind tells me too
that the you just a few
seconds ago
is not the you
right
now.

A Matter of Scale

A matter of scale
is the world we dwell
measured in time
with but our mind
but step by step
we are inclined
to explore this world
until we find
meaning 
for such 
little
time.

Design

Wordy thoughts fill my mind
until I whittle those not mine
and soon discover that what's left
are the ones that must be kept
until that time when one's adept
to precepts of design
simply put 
and sublime
form 
follows 
function

Moveable feast

Some poems are like
caught trout
in hand
others
uncovered fossil
just discovered
full of wonder
and some
a book
of plain geometry
flat and to the point
while others
dewdrops
on a golden
autumn
maple leaf
See!

Starry Night

A sigh
in the night
breaks the overhead
vision
of things past
that touch my eyes
after so long
a journey
to then dissolve
in a matter
of a blink
in time
to resurrect
in sightless
thoughts
and to live on
in words passed
from me to you
a piece
of a star
made real
by sounds
uttered
in the dark
of night.

Geometry

Point to point  
line by line  
from here to there
meeting now and again  
at places where  
the obtuse   
made   
you scratch your head  
and thoughts became  
acute   
or rather dread  
in a make-believe world  
flat and entirely unfurled  
in the roundness  
inside   
your head.  

How to build a Universe

The universe
oh so slowly
re-created

in the words
of countless
souls

and even now
that journey
just begun

until that day
when all
will fit

inside
a single
one.

Night breaks

Night falls
dark and to the ground
stars rise high into the sky
I sleep and in my dreams
day breaks
then
sun rises 
high into the sky
then
I awake
to darkness 
and in my thoughts
night breaks
and the worlds 
become
one.
 

Butterfly

Wings flutter
in the air
oh so tiny
is the dare
without so much
as map to bear
Oh I utter
do you care?
if I too
can fly
from here
to there?

Things in itself

When no thing
becomes some thing
in our mind

is when
we think
on the tip of our tongue

an acorn 
made real
to feel and hold
on the tip of our thumb

index finger too
to touch that which
our mind makes real

for in the end
the acorn has
no say so
 
but 
to be
still

Mythos meets Logos

The making of   
mythology  
I observe  
when the   
mythos  
meets the   
logos  
to serve  
as a pitcher  
caught in time  
milky context  
for thought  
yours and mine  
logic  
poured  
into words  
entwined   
real  
and still  
a good deal  
left  
behind  

A thousand cranes

The formless lump
of clay
that finds itself
at bay
atop
a spinning world
this day
from the bottom
up
the guiding pressure
from
the potter's hands
lifting
this lump
of primal ooze
up
and into
a celadon vase
of a thousand cranes
in their
earthen home
each
awaiting
that autumn day
to burst
and fly
away

Thinking thoughts

What is life?
but the ageless
thinking thoughts
now
the always now
life is never
before
or is never
after
clinging to now
for the ride
it takes
yet some escape
pen to paper
memories
thoughts alive
living in time
beyond death
in other
minds

DNA

A crick in time
in a way
intertwines
along a line
binding
yesterday
with today
in a way
that assures
that tomorrow
will unwind
and be refined
in a way
that defines
who
we
are

Silenced

Perhaps 
like seeds 
unwatered
never to spring to life 
for place 
and time 
were never just right 
so waiting
and dreaming 
and living
a 
life
in silence
 

Tabula rasa

But really how blank is the "slate" at birth? I would think the slate itself determines what and what cannot be inscribed upon it. What at birth is a most pliable computer, depending heavily upon the more primitive parts of the brain that are not blank (but have written within all that evolutionary "memory" that we call instinct), slowly by the sensed interaction with the outer world goes from generalist to a less pliable specialist. And that specialization is determined by nurture and nature: parent/family/tribe/society and environment. So I would think that a "good-natured" fellow born in America would have been a "good-natured" fellow born in India. And isn't that what causes humans the most grief, when born with a "nature" that doesn't match up with the "nurture"?  

Tree of Life

A tree
in my mind
a tall redwood tree
I imagine 
with eyes closed
limbs 
touching
the blue sky
roots 
grasping the earth
like fingers 
holding 
on for dear life
a loved one 
in grief
in need 
of comfort
yet another blink
the tall redwood
tree 
and the sky
gone 
and replaced 
by another
thought

 
 

Awaking

When  
I
turn from  
Me
then self 
dwells without doubt 
that
We
and soon 
They
are what 
it is
all
about.

Back ahead

Rooster crows
eyes blink
heart beats
clock ticks
sun rises
out of bed
another day
to look back
to see ahead

Laws of nature

Behind the laws of nature, lawlessness.

Atoms and Eve

The "personal God"
is within
each atom
that plays out
in the constructions
as expression
of that which
creates.

The "personal God"
is mystery that we
seek to understand
with but voice
and desire
and knowledge
that we too
are atoms
yet
alive!

Stones

Corbelled dry-stone building
cairns
one stone
at a time
placed
before taken away
by
time

Doubtlessness

Knowing is doubtlessness
in times of plenty
but when
all
is
slipping
away
we no longer know
with certainty
what will come
as well as
what is now but fading
m e m o r y

Time as a concept of the mind

For a moment I'll consider a Creator-less universe, and in that universe nothing has a relationship to anything else. Each change (and all is ongoing change) transpires locally -- microscopically locally, subatomic locally -- interactions without past or future. A comet has not an orbit, a planet not a revolution, a star neither a birth nor death. For without an intelligence, be it large (God) or small (thinking lifeforms), all takes place in the present, for it is a mind (big or small) that connects the dots, that creates past and future, that conjures an ongoing reality with spinning objects and revolutions, of objects and minds. Does mind (large or little) too create time?

God of creations

I, the Creator, look down
onto my creations
but alas
that last one
the only one
that knows
ME
thinks my 
creations
less than
their God-given
imaginations

White lab coat

Science marches on
with civilization clinging
tightly
to the trailing 
white
lab
coat

Tools of the trade, the trade of life

One or another
We seek to uncover
God or Nature
By science
We discover

The Temple

Since the human mind made that transformation from observer of "all that which is out there" to muser of "all that which is in here" (index finger touching temple). We have by imagination sought to project what is inside our mind (temple) to all that which is outside our mind. We label, we name, we anthropomorphise all that outside the temple of the mind, and we have been doing it since the transformation. This unknown universe has become known, uniquely, in human minds.

Ordinary

A personable fellow
is he
that made you and me
yet some deny
and decry
that ordinary is
why

Ode to Christopher Hitchens

And yet without intelligence within or without
cells do amazing things
again and again

countless times,
millions of years

and seek (without actually seeking),
to know

to finally know,
that what has happened

over time,
did happen.

And to think that we alone know.

Know our lineage.

From no-thing, to some-thing.

And we did it our way.

All by ourselves.

So clever we are.

We think.

We are.

The sound of silence

When all is quiet, perhaps the silence you hear is the sound of atoms, within and without -- you, the sun, the avocado tree, the aluminum and plastic lawn chair, the glass of iced tea, the clouds -- all the universe abuzz in invisible motion, electrons whirling around protons, silently making their music, everywhere.

The whole kit and caboodle -- the expanded version

EVERYTHING just waiting to happen, everything possible that can be built was built from those bare-bone basic building blocks of physics -- chemistry, biology, and all the rest. Built because it had to be built, "it" had no other choice. And built in only one way, the only way, for the building blocks would and will have it no other way.

Using a Tinkertoy set as an analogy for the building blocks of the universe, and as all assemblages like Tinkertoys, they have a kindness that reflects the building blocks themselves. If you view any toy built from Tinkertoys, you can immediately see that Tinkertoys are the underlying structure. It is obvious. And so too when one views an assemblage of the elements of the Periodic table, it is obvious. Too obvious. So obvious that one misses the forest because of the trees ... or maybe misses the trees because of the forest!  
 
A hundred-some tinkers to toy with and you (and me and everyone) have the entire universe and all that fits inside. Mind boggling that so few elements (118 at last count) can and are assembled into billions of different combinations -- stars and rivers and moons and mountains and people too, for every variation of every DNA coded instruction for life forms are constructed from just five elements: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and phosphorous. Billions of atoms in DNA, yet constructed from just five basic building blocks!

In the universe the look and the size and the form of ALL could be none other than what is, of course variation in the assemblage could have been this way or that way -- and is this way and that way -- but it is all within the limits of the most unlimited few building blocks. And the results will always have the look of the building blocks used in the construction so that the look of the universe as you and I see and dwell within it is what it is, for it could be no other way.

The whole kit and caboodle, and the universe too!

Isn't it interesting, EVERYTHING just waiting to happen, everything possible that can be built was built from those bare-bone basic building blocks of physics. Chemistry, biology, and all the rest. Built because it had to be built, "it" had no other choice. And built in only one way, the only way, for the building blocks would and will have it no other way. Interesting.

The first laugh?

Yes, God made it all, a creation without good or bad -- until inside the minds of humans evolved value judgment -- then, and only then, could we laugh, at others, and even at ourselves.

How to build a universe

No matter the bigness of the universe, it is all composed of the same "tiny" building blocks, be it a galaxy or my tiny brain, more building blocks, not larger building blocks, that is serious business. Silence may be a tribute to holiness, but it is the tiny bit of complex coordination between mind and matter that manipulates sound waves into codes that all the bigness is ignorant of, yet other tiny brains grasp and decode and too, think and wonder.


With each blink of the eyes
the mind constructs anew
in darkness and silence
the ever changing haiku

Prayer

I awake to a
prayer of two birds singing
Isn't that enough?

Do you see?

Once we learn to see
with our eyes closed tight
then the world becomes
anew before our very sight

Do you see what I see?

Interesting that pattern recognition was perhaps one of the earliest "survival skills" that evolved in lifeforms, to be able to distinguish between friend or foe certainly provided longevity for those creatures that guessed right most of the time. And of course pattern recognition encompasses everything from spoken and written language to seeing mermaids in clouds to seeing terrorist that fit the "profile" to how scientist gather data, looking for patterns. So I find it interesting that one side of the coin is "imagining things that have no substantial basis in reality" and the other side is "imagining things that do have a substantial basis in reality."

What is a philosopher?

First one must decide what widom is. Then one must decide what a lover is. Then one can think they know what a lover of wisdom is.

So, what is wisdom? I think wisdom is about wholeness or totality, viewing things or ideas or events from all perspectives. An impossible feat indeed, yet that is why a philosopher is a lover and not a knower.

Maybe it is like viewing a raindrop as itself as well as part of the rainstorm as part of the clouds as part of the weather front as part of climate as part of ... and knowing that for a moment the raindrop is itself, as well as the whole in all its many forms as well as the cool drop hitting your tongue as well as the poem that forms in your mind.
    

Scientists and Philosophers

It becomes almost a game, science reveals a truth, then removes that truth from the philosopher's game board of mystery and the unknown, as though "science" were an entity that can possess. Science is a process, a tool, for discovering truth, it can no more claim truth than a shovel can claim a hole. Which leaves the game board where it has always belonged, in the hands of the philosophers! Mysteries or truths, both, more than enough for a philosopher's mind to forever ponder.      

Potential or inevitable?

A handful of basic building blocks (that would all fit nicely in your hand, quarks and electrons and protons and neutrons and such) + invisible laws of nature that guide the building blocks (gravity, thermodynamics, and more) = potential to build a universe with stars and birds and bugs and little fellows that are self aware.

The debate? Potential or Inevitable?

Fabric of the universe

And it is only the human mind that tries to make it better, to view nature through rose-colored glasses, to take in the beauty and the awe of nature while filtering out the unpleasant. The unconscious effort to make it better ... better, better. Yet with this 'gift' of selective focus, selective awareness 'to make it better' comes the power to make it worse. Innocent nature is unaware of this struggle between good and evil, for the struggle dwells only in the minds of humans, humans who can take invisible concepts and act them out, invisible concepts that are but the electrochemical activity of neurons? or invisible concepts that are 'built' into the fabric of the universe?

An indifferent universe?

I would think the universe is not indifferent if it created life 'out of itself' that can perceive itself -- the 'itself' being everything from the invisible thoughts created within pin-point minds to every building block of matter and energy that compose mind, thoughts, and universe. If anything, the universe is not random, the only randomness is our inability to solve 'problems' that create the illusion of randomness. So far, for every solution that science has come up with, a bit more randomness is removed from our ignorance.

Real

What is real? Real needs not humans, but humans need a realization of the real, as well as anticipation of the coming real, filtered through a vast storehouse of the past real -- memories -- memories of what proved to be real as well as memories of what proved not to be real. The human mind rarely is in the here and now, but always in the anticipated to be, or the always and ever growing was. The thing itself is an imaginary construct of the mind, just as a photograph is a "slice of time" dwelling in a reality that cannot and will not "stop" to become a separate reality. We dwell in the flow of time, and what was, will never again, be what will be, yet our minds need to make sense of this ongoing rush of reality, and does so, by imagining, slices of time, to be, things, unto, themselves.  

Oh Sun

Oh sun, so very big you are,
yet why are you so dumb?

In bigness you dwarf my imagination,
yet have you not a solitary thought!

Your energy fuels my very life,
yet ignorant are you of it all!

And my most fleeting thought?
dwarfs light you never see!

    

Understanding vs Knowledge

Understanding is the activity of the brain that seeks to make sense of knowledge.

Are we not animals, too?

Humans possess the potential to be different (better?) than the state they find themselves. And the power that humans possess, self-awareness and all those traits that distance (elevates?) humans from other creatures, can be used for 'goodness' or can be used to empower the animal nature within all of us, that nature that knows not good/bad. Ethics and morality, human (and unnatural?) concepts that are absent in the 'animal kingdom' -- dwell only in the human mind, and are a daily choice that only humans face, be more natural and know not good/bad, or be unnatural and wrestle with those unwieldy concepts of good and bad and make choices ... again and again and again.

Cycles

Awake to either or,
To sleep to neither nor,
In dreams to ever more.

Constructing Reality

What I find interesting about the human mind is that it "constructs" a "wholeness" from the limited data that the limited sensory apparatus stream to the brain. And most folks look out onto this constructed world (constructed inside the brain) and think it is real as they see it, and it is "out there" -- the illusion complete. When what is really out there is an infinite swirl of subatomic particles mixed and directed by a fabric of forces (strong nuclear, electromagnetic, weak nuclear, and gravity), too small and too invisible for our sensors to make sense of except for a limited spectrum of the electromagnetic force, the photons. And of the photons we sense a tiny part of it's spectrum, we call it visible light, perhaps a self-centered description?

Wrong and right, right here, in your head

It seems 'everyone' has a tough time considering a God as anything less than a anthropomorphic being. Good and bad are human concepts that reside in the minds of humans. An isolated island with no humans has no good or evil or right or wrong or justice or injustice. Plants and animals and all the tiny microscopic critters live in a world devoid of these human concepts. So too does all the inorganic stuff of the universe exist without a right or wrong, a good or a bad, they just exist, but with a built-in potential to sometime evolve into a thing that lives in a world of right and wrong and good and bad. So far, we are the only stuff that can claim this potential realized.

The mystery of mathematics?

I think nature is ignorant of mathematics because mathematics resides in the minds of humans and not outside the brain. It is how the mind attempts to understand and describe the world by observing things, structures, relationships in time and space, and of course quantity. We observe patterns in the natural world, and the mind has created a language to assemble and understand and describe these patterns abstractly. We create concepts like 'numbers' to help our minds think abstractly about our observations, and thus the mind can then make conjectures about these abstractions. And again, a universe without human minds is a universe without the language of mathematics. Of course the natural structures of the universe remain, with or without humans or mathematics.

Holy stuff

I conceive 'God' in anthropomorphic terms, as well as I can conceive of a universe with or without a God/Creator, but I think the conception of these ideas were so long ago, childhood? that perhaps more accurate would be that I now consider various ways of thinking of Gauguin's "Whence Come We? What Are We? Whither Go We?" As for divinity, I can imagine divinity as entity, and too a force and power that permeates this universe. I can conceive and consider a Creator that is both an entity, and too a permeating force. And this permeating force/power? I think potentiality the greatest mystery of this force/power, providing ever change to the universe and all within. From the smallest in the micro-world to the night-sky grandeur, everything seems to be constructed of the same 'holy' stuff, all filled with potentiality, potential to be this now and to be that then. Divinity indeed!

Just visitors

And then they came
Atop the dead and gone
They built floor, walls
And a roof
And briefly they lived
There
And gone too
After some revolutions
Around the sun
No one remembered
But the earth
That life came
And lived
Here