THOUGHTLESS MUSINGS and JOURNAL updated 1/23/09

Before the beginning the beginning began
After the ending the ending ended
Inside the bounds I exist,
Outside the bounds nothing exists.
Therefore nothing exists longer than I exist!
QED

NEW JOURNAL
Jan. 23,2009
Is that a tinge of yellow brightening the willow tips in the morning sun , or just wistfully projecting spring thoughts in the rare January sunlight.
Projecting on the world a world that never was.

Make the words flow through the pictures as leaves float upon stream. The stream is the concept, the leaves mere context, enhancing a story whose beginning is beyond and ending is unknown.

Thoughtless Thoughts
With effortless ease thoughtless thoughts drift in and out, a life’s worth of life floats through the length of a day, distant youth wistfully beckons, yesterday’s nothings aimlessly occupy more space than worth, tomorrow’s sorrow and tomorrow's joy yet to be. Another day another series, thoughtless thoughts effortlessly easing one through the day.
Cloudy beginnings ruin many a good day that sunny mornings cannot revive.
January is an awful time to enter into thoughtless drivel. The depressing words are quite depressing. I think I need another cup of coffee and a sunny day that is seemingly endless.
Fomenting or fermenting that is the question!
The mind is a curious thing. To receive it must be ready, but it never knows what it is ready to receive. From the distant past sympathetic, but minor vibrations harmonize to amplify into meaningful events that would easily be overlooked without the previous, though meaningless, experience.
Clarity of thought is evaporating into atmospheric pettifoggery.
A fruitful morning in a definitively unfruitful season.

Jan. 15, 2009 Morning temps. single digits
The Arctic landscape hangs over the morning, the death-like calm pervades all, oppressive in its quiet. The cloudless clouds belie the blueness that barely hazes through. The brilliant blueness may be breaking out at any moment or not. The light has a solemn appearance, the slight blue cast wants to go daylight, but the sun is not quite ready.
The snow flurries of the night leave dust on the evergreens, outline the bare deciduous branches and freshen the snow pack that was showing some signs of age, a fresh whiteness that may become blinding white in a welcome burst of afternoon sunshine.
The stillness is palpable. It’s begun to sprinkle snow, not flakes but dots of snow, resembling rain misting on a spring day. The quiet extends to the animals, although fresh tracks are around from dawn excursions, not a movement is evident now. The birds are missing, the squirrels are squirreled away, and the rabbits didn’t even leave tracks last night.
The snow sprinkle lasted but mere moments, only a passing interest.

March 2008
The cold is visual when wind swept snow gusts from roofs and branches, swirling around as fine grained sand. The beauty of the six-sided crystals worn by abrasion, contrasts with freshly fallen flakes unhurried in descent, buoyant in beauty. Six-sided, string-less kites wafting on gentle breezes.
As the spinning highs and lows track through, spring is chased out by cold intrusions, winter returns only to be ushered out by southern advances. The buffeting is maddening. Dragging, trailing arms of earthly weather galaxies advance in rapid successions. The black hole of a high pressure galaxy opened the universe to release any thought of winter’s demise with -11 degrees F. on our free February Leap Day.
What this area is in most need of is a sequence of sunshine. Days of blue sky, not days of blue moods.
The burden of the heavy March snow seems especially dear as the winter weary branches struggle in defiance.

July 20, 2007
Autumn in July. The strong north-west wind clears the summer heat and humidity and early goldenrods begin to bud, fall sneaks to the forefront of the mind.
July 25
White water noise, the mental focus to daydream, focusing on nothing to focus on everything, the adrenaline rush, the water rush free thoughts imprisoned by daily details. Freedom to focus, freedom to think.

Fri. Sept. 07, 2007
The dry late summer is taking its toll on the
vegetation. Record 90 plus heat potential today, with luck the four day forecast of showers will morph into some steady rain. The beauty of fall may depend on it. The scattered affect of the August rainfall shows, Ithaca Falls flows freely, while Taughannock Falls hardly makes it to the bottom. The upper Fall Creek watershed area was hard hit with damaging thunderstorms, but the Taughannock Creek watershed and even the area north in Seneca County is bone dry. Corn and bean crops are sad.

Thurs. Sept. 13, 2007
The clarity and freshness after a September rain, the lengthening noonday shadows and deep blue sky are the hallmark of the final glory days of summer. The harsh, contrasty summer sun and hot, hazy atmosphere oppresses, the blue-sky clarity refreshes.
Orion appears in the pre-dawn southern sky, a messenger of the winter to come.
Fall is preparation time, harvest time, thoughtful time.
The puffy, billowy white clouds all seem to be resting, bottom flattened gray, on an invisible glass table top. Weightless, floating yet burdened with moisture.
Yellow makes a pretty flower, but not much else, excepting the sun which you can't look at anyway. Extracting yellow for beauty may be the best use by summer flowers for sunlight. Making available to be seen what we cannot look at directly. Distilling a summer of sunshine.
Simpler, more primitive flowers seem to bloom earlier in the season than the newer, more complex, flying insect pollinated species, at least in temperate climates.

Fri. Sept 14, 2007
Billowy white and blue has become neutral gray, crystal clarity suffocates in humid haze and brilliant colors fade to pathetic pastels. "What a difference a day makes."
Returning to old attitudes, seeing with old eyes, how fresh the world seems after a long absence. Details eat up a life and details are the very fabric of life, so pick and choose your details wisely. Live long enough to outlive your mistakes, that is all one can ask in this life.
Hazy late afternoon sun softens shadows, brightens colors, great for close-up photos without sky or distant views.
Sat. Sept. 15, 2007
Lifting the fog of familiarity
Monday, Sept. 17, 2007
Where light never escapes is a black hole. Looking into another's eyes is looking where light never escapes. The seeing into that infinite depth, an illusion of sorts, is mutual when two sets of eyes meet in that mysterious event called eye contact. Is the illusion, riveting as it is, a commonality, that is two separate experiences united in one event, more real than imaginary?
Wed., Sept. 19, 2007
Not all the glory of autumn color occurs in the changing of the leaves. The long, low path of the morning and evening sun radiates into astonishing reflections, transforming ordinary rills and riffles into liquid gold.
Yesterday, Sept 7, 2008, a hummingbird furtively searched flowers for nectar. The yield was negligible, as not much time was spent at collecting, even some spent flowers were checked, but to no avail. The look of consternation was palpable; the little chirp of joy at success was absent. Almost with a sigh he seemed to fly away, knowing the season was over and it was time to leave.
SEPT. 28, 2008 A rainy day is a contemplative day, especially as the growing season winds down in the fall. The first blush of foliage was more drought related than chill related. Perhaps the refreshing rains will heighten the colors of October. It has been several years since superb color has been seen.
The scale of motion depends on the mental concept of time. Imagining forests marching up and down the Appalachian Mountains in response to the epic conditions of glaciation, while easily seeing clouds roiling across the sky on a lazy summer afternoon, or watching dandelion flower stalks grow at the speed of kitchen clock minute hands, awareness doesn’t get any better than that.
The force of habit is a force to be reckoned with. It defies repeal even when it has outlived it usefulness and is most inconvenient. The moments of inconvenience appear more numerous as the years advance, the usefulness less.
OCT. 2008 on a Sunday morning: When the coolness of the night still held sway the sun warmth was exceeding pleasant, but with the night air a distant memory, a shady dell is sought.
This morning there are some moments of unnatural quiet. They are disconcerting, no crickets, no birds, no cars, an air of melancholy enhancing a beautiful, sunny warm fall day.
Fall 2008
High, filmy cirrus clouds drift lightly in the early evening sky. Their approach is a portent of rain to come. Another front advancing in the night.
Atmospheric swirls and eddies silently flowing in the river in the sky. The swirls and patterns show motion in their formation, but the drift is internally still static constant. The formation moves in uniform motion
On gossamer wings the seeds will fly. Which came first the need to spread or the need to float? Do hawks soar for fun or profit? If for profit then why appear only when the soaring would be most fun. Updrafts ease the effort, the stillness maximizes the enjoyment. Have you ever seen a hawk dive from a soar to get any prey?
In the late morning sun half a moon is more magical than none. The setting half moon, brilliant noonday sun, long midday shadows, infinite depth of a clear blue sky, is it the end of an era? Yes!! Two nights of hard freeze ends it all, puts a final, emphatic end to this year’s growing season and as ever, it was too severe, too short and too wet or too dry, i.e. not perfect.
Orion hunts the pre-dawn sky, early mid-winter eves are his more familiar stomping grounds. But his greatest effort, releasing the Orionids, meteors showering forth in October, is more impressive. Perhaps the seven Pleiades are more vulnerable then.
Late Fall 2008
Upon rereading some classic stories and poems it seems almost sad that the depth and emotions written about are wasted on the shallow and inexperienced youth that we all were when first exposed. Coming back to timeless literature unites with the vast continuity that is the human experience. Relating to other lives in truly meaningful ways, current or past, requires life-time, a commodity that is not available in youth. How few revisit these tales of life.
Fall took on a somber season look today.
At times reading instills great thoughts and at other times boredom. Reading something one day inspires awe and on another the same material seems trite.
What the natural world seems depends upon the state of mind at the moment. I guess that applies to all things. Moodiness is a curse and a blessing depending on the mood your in.


On Friendship
At times it seems some have more to offer than others have to give. So those with more disbelief in the value they have to offer and those that feel guilt at the thought of taking more than they have to give, stay conflicted with the dichotomy, to offer with faith or accept with guilt. The resolution is to better understand the true value of each in a friendship.

With great interest my interest is peaked at the interest that, interestingly, is shown by one whose interest, interestingly enough, I am interested in.

As a philosophy of life, my basic belief is always to treasure those who bring out the best in one; they are few and far between. Scarcity heightens value and no one is as rare as one who gives without reserve.

What is the eternal soul?

The eternal soul is the manifestation of the incomprehensibility of nonexistence. This concept, the nonexistence of oneself, is unsettling to say the least and can make everyday living a seemingly futile exercise.
As a solution to this identity crisis, eternal life is a psychologically useful proposition. As a proposition it is unprovable and therefore has to be taken as an article of faith, beyond the reach of reason. Many thoughts and ideas exceed rational analysis, their truth accepted or not on the basis of one’s innate nature.

Perception Is Reality!
Or Is Reality Mere Perception?

When momentary intellectual advances are made in the understanding of the universe, human hubris expands the new concepts beyond the finite onto the infinite. Primitive concepts are wont to expand to universal truths, a place exceeding reason. Endless time, endless space are concepts beyond the realm of finite brains working within finite constraints.