gravity i

all things

a force

in proportion

to mass

attract

varies inversely

with the square
of the distance
that separates

all things

Zphx

gravity ii

the passage of time,
the geometry of space,
the motion of bodies,
the propagation of light.

Inertial motion in curved spacetime.


Zphx

Tahatowan’s Scarab.

Henry and John Thoreau stopped on the banks of the Concord River on a Sunday evening in October 1837. Henry began to point out imagined Indian scenes. “Here,” he said, “stood Tahatowan”, and "there" (pointing to a spot) “is Tahatowan’s arrowhead.” Henry unconsciously picked up the first stone that came to hand and gave it to John. It was “a most perfect arrow-head, as sharp as if just from the hands of the Indian fabricator.”

One hundred years later, Carl Jung listened to a patient’s account of her dream about a golden scarab. There was a sound behind him. He reached back and caught a flying insect that had been tapping on the window. Jung handed the insect to his patient with the words, “Here is your golden scarab.” It was a gold-green scarabaeid beetle. This moment was the breakthrough in the therapy.

H.D. Thoreau, Journal, Oct. 29, 1837; Carl G. Jung, “Synchronicity, An Acausal Connecting Principle,” The Collected Works of Carl Jung, Volume 8, p. 843.

Here stood Tahatowan. See February 15, 1857 ("Shattuck says that the principal sachem of our Indians, Tahattawan, lived 'near Nahshawtuck hill.'")

Below Zero

frost 

condenses 

patterns

cold glass 

poems 

of the night

Zphx

Solstice 2008. Snowed in.

Head full of sand
hearing no direction:
Deaf in one ear.

Zphx

Two Haiku

Melting snows seek the sea,
spawning fish flow upstream.
Spring mystery solved!


Awakened by a 
cold wind tugging the covers:
your happiness in my heart!


Zphx


See April 14. On the Cliffs. - It is now perfectly calm. The different parts of Fair Haven Pond -- the pond, the meadow beyond the button-bush and willow curve, the island, and the meadow between the island and mainland with its own defining lines -- are all parted off like the parts of a mirror. A fish hawk calmly sails over all, looking for his prey. So perfectly calm and beautiful, and yet no man looking at it this morning but myself:

Streams break up;

ice goes to the sea.

Now sails the fish hawk,

looking for his prey.

Journal, April 14, 1852

Find your eternity in each moment.

April 24.

There is a season for everything, and we do not notice a given phenomenon except at that season, if, indeed, it can be called the same phenomenon at any other season.

There is a time to watch the ripples on Ripple Lake, to look for arrowheads, to study the rocks and lichens, a time to walk on sandy deserts; and the observer of nature must improve these seasons as much as the farmer his. So boys fly kites and play ball or hawkie at particular times all over the State. A wise man will know what game to play to-day, and play it.

We must not be governed by rigid rules, as by the almanac, but let the season rule us.

The moods and thoughts of man are revolving just as steadily and incessantly as nature's.

Nothing must be postponed. Take time by the forelock. Now or never! 

You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.

Fools stand on their island opportunities and look toward another land.

There is no other land; there is no other life but this, or the like of this.

Where the good husbandman is, there is the good soil.

Take any other course, and life will be a succession of regrets.

Let us see vessels sailing prosperously before the wind, and not simply stranded barks. There is no world for the penitent and regretful.

H.D. Thoreau, Journal, April 24, 1859


Man's moods and thoughts revolve just as steadily and incessantly as nature's. The observer of nature must improve these seasons. 

A wise man will know what game to play to-day, and play it. There is a time to watch the ripples on Ripple Lake, to look for arrowheads, to study the rocks and lichens, a time to walk on sandy deserts. There is a season for everything.

Let the season rule us. Let us be vessels sailing prosperously before the wind. There is no other life but this, or the like of this. Nothing must be postponed.

Launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Live in the present. On any other course life is a succession of regrets.

We do not notice a given phenomenon except at that season. See November 3, 1853 ("There are very few phenomena which can be described indifferently as occurring at different seasons of the year, for they will occur with some essential difference.”);  May 23, 1841 ("All nature is a new impression every instant")

Let the season rule us. See August 23, 1853 ("Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit . . . Grow green with spring, yellow and ripe with autumn. Drink of each season's influence as a vial, a true panacea of all remedies . . .For all Nature is doing her best each moment to make us well.“)

You must live in the present,  See January 7, 1851(“There is no account of the blue sky in history. I must live above all in the present.”)

Find your eternity in each moment. A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, As the Seasons Revolve; A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, There was an artist in the City of Kouroo

There is a season for everything, and we do not notice a given phenomenon except at that season, if, indeed, it can be called the same phenomenon at any other season. There is a time to watch the ripples on Ripple Lake, to look for arrowheads, to study the rocks and lichens, a time to walk on sandy deserts; and the observer of nature must improve these seasons as much as the farmer his. So boys fly kites and play ball or hawkie at particular times all over the State. A wise man will know what game to play to-day, and play it. We must not be governed by rigid rules, as by the almanac, but let the season rule us. The moods and thoughts of man are revolving just as steadily and incessantly as nature's. Nothing must be postponed. Take time by the forelock. Now or never! You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this, or the like of this. Where the good husbandman is, there is the good soil. Take any other course, and life will be a succession of regrets. Let us see vessels sailing prosperously before the wind, and not simply stranded barks. There is no world for the penitent and regretful.

 

Stone Fruit

March 28.

I have not decided whether I had better publish my experience in searching for arrowheads in three volumes, with plates and an index, or try to compress it into one.

Myriads of arrow-points lie sleeping in the skin of the revolving earth, while meteors revolve in space.

The footprint, the mind-print of the oldest men. They are sown, like a grain that is slow to germinate, broadcast over the earth.

They bear crops of philosophers and poets. 

• The same seed is just as good to plant again. 
• They cannot be said to be lost nor found. 
• They occur only to the eye and thought that chances to be directed toward them.

A stone fruit. Each one yields me a thought.

So I help myself to live worthily, and loving my life as I should, I go in search of arrowheads when the proper season comes round again.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 28, 1859 [For full entry see March 28, 1859 ("Some time or other, you would say, it had rained arrowheads, for they lie all over the surface of America. ")]

Loving my life as I should. See July 16, 1851 ("May I treat myself tenderly as I would treat the most innocent child whom I love; may I treat children and my friends as my newly discovered self. Let me forever go in search of myself; never for a moment think that I have found myself; be as a stranger to myself, never a familiar, seeking acquaintance still. May I be to myself as one is to me whom I love, a dear and cherished object. ...[May] I love and worship myself with a love which absorbs my love for the world."); August 15, 1851 ("May I love and revere myself above all the gods that men have ever invented. May I never let the vestal fire go out in my recesses.")