“Wherever he saw a hole he always wanted to know the depth of it. To him this was important.” Jules Verne
Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Anything Construction Related
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Month: January 2019
The Silence of the Birds
“In order to see birds it is necessary to become a part of the silence.” Robert Lynd
Monkey Mind
The Buddha said that we all have monkey minds, with dozens of monkeys all clamoring for attention. Fear and anxiety are very loud monkeys, pointing out all the things we should be wary of and everything that could go wrong.
Daniel B. Smith, author of the book Monkey Mind writes: “Admit the anxiety as an essential part of yourself and in exchange that anxiety will be converted into energy, unstable but manageable. Stop with the self-flagellating and become yourself, with scars and tics.”
In other words, everybody’s got something to hide, except for me and my monkeys.
Letting Go
“How do you let go of attachment to things? Don’t even try. It’s impossible. Attachment to things drops away by itself when you no longer seek to find yourself in them.” Eckhart Tolle
Note: this is mostly true for living room chairs but also applies to couches, especially if you have pets.
The Essence of Ice
Haruki Murakami said: “Ice contains no future, just the past, sealed away. As if they’re alive, everything in the world is sealed up inside, clear and distinct. Ice can preserve all kinds of things that way-cleanly, clearly. That’s the essence of ice, the role it plays.”
Stormy Weather
The horse might know the way but does he know about the coming storm? Depending on who you listen to, we have a winter storm warning with predicted snow, rain, more snow and temperatures dropping to 6 degrees with wind gusts of 30mph.
Unless he has a TV like Mister Ed, he probably has no idea and will get a good nights sleep then get up in the morning and go wherever he has to go. Unlike people, he doesn’t have the capacity to worry about a future which doesn’t exist.
Buddha (allegedly) said: “Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.” On the other hand, Alan Watts (allegedly) said: “This present moment never comes to be and it never ceases to be, it is simply our minds that construct the continuity of thoughts we call time.”
In my next life I’d like to come back as a horse despite Ernest Becker’s view of them as “living in a world without time, pulsating, as it were, in a state of dumb being.” Not an Amish plow horse in Pennsylvania but a wild horse living on the beach somewhere warm, maybe Utah. Ain’t never been there, they tell me it’s nice.
The Aim of Man
“The greatest risk to man is not that he aims too high and misses, but that he aims too low and hits.” Michaelangelo
Fun Fact: Excusado is a famous photograph by Edward Weston taken with a large-format camera in 1925. For two weeks Weston photographed and studied the toilet in his house near Mexico City from different angles.
It has been on display at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, Edinburgh International Festival, Edinburgh, Scotland and The National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
Under Your Nose
“Life is what you make of it. There’s always fun and laughs right under your nose if you’re willing to open your eyes to see it.” Glenn Beck
The Art Of Observation
“To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place…I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.” Elliott Erwitt
The Theory of Emptiness
The Dalai Lama said: “The theory of emptiness is the deep recognition that there is a fundamental disparity between the way we perceive the world, including our own existence in it, and the way things actually are.”
In other words, check the train schedule before you go.
