Country comforts in my arthritis
Vermont: Farms on rolling hills, cleared fields and “second growth” timber.
Maine: It looks like there was a main house, and then additions. Its got ladders to clean the snow off the roof and a front porch on which to court.
Maine: Looking out the window, growing up in the house kids could watch the traffic come down the road, it was a one lane driveway downhill about a mile long, only went to one house, and you needed four wheel drive in the winter and spring.
Western Massachusetts is known for it own sense of some thing,
Alameda Creek
Since Covid I have been walking Alameda Creek, making images and posting them here.
A photograph, like every graphic art, has it its own character., its own feel—when you see a photograph, without thinking, you know its a photograph—your mind does not tell you it is a photograph, you have learned to “know it” by the visual experience and not the “thinking” experience.
A photograph has specific qualities, one of which is that a “real” photograph visually appears like we see. Or, it is an extension of our visual sense like a microscope or telescope.
In our visual experiences we differentiate the things, identify the things, and the relationship between the things—then we “understand” the photograph—for the most part its done without thinking.—we take “measure of the situation.”
Things are in my photographs but I do not take photographs of “things.”
A thing can be something we don’t know what it is, still we have name for it—dark matter or dark energy, A thing is in-and-of itself, even when its also part of another thing.
A thing can be something that we do not agree on what it is and still we can talk about it. It can be an idea, a theory, a memory—our language enables us to create new things on the spot, ,often by combining things together which have never been combined before, such as conspiracy theories, a scientific discoveries or Art.
A “thing” has a unique discrete measurable quality—nominal, ordinal or interval measurement is ok, just keep in mind they are generally not cross comparable, boundaries are distinct enough
It is learning a language that teaches us what things are, it forms our “understanding,” our “knowing” of the Universe We, as individuals do not have to create the names for all the things we experience, individuals just learn them as they grow up, and we learn to see a common universe. Imagine if each person, only using their own personal experiences had to develop their own language, and 3then if in order to talk with an other person each would have to learn that person’s language —we would be like other animals, limited to a bunch of grunts and yells with very superficial meanings.
EndPapers
I will be undergoing a medical procedure with 8 plus weeks to functional recovery, so I will not be doing posts for that while..
I like to stay in Asakusa, when visiting Tokyo to walk around, its an old older area. Its a five minute walk to Sensoji for 6:am chanting at the temple. After walking and riding subways and trains all day, before returning I stop at a department store to see what is on sale in the basement. Japanese department stores generally close at 8:00 pm, the basement, one or sometimes two floors, is for food, and it is wonderful food. Direct connections to the subway system enables commuters to conveniently stop by on the way to work or home to pick up snacks —takoyaki and okonomiyaki, courses for dinners, complete dinners, speciality and high quality foods, and sake and wines .
I get there about 7:30 pm, when the food starts going on sale. Fresh sushi here at 30%.discount. I take it back to it he hotel, sorting out my images and clearing my flash cards while eating. Beer is also available a block away at the local Ozeki store—Asahi Dry Black and Kirin Prime Brew Black .
My shado images are like throwing the I-Ching. (Zhou I), I did not have any training, or an apprenticeship with a master for reading the deep meanings of shado. however . like Jung in the Wilhelm translation introduction, its not the hexagrams or the shado that has the capability to tell the future, it is yourself, your responses to the stimuli which give you the insight.
It may seem like I do not know who I am, or maybe I am not the person I know. I prefer to leave that up to the guardians of the empty gate of know-mind.
If there was a Zen store I would take you their, then again maybe I wouldn’t tell anyone where it is, you would have to find it yourself.
Gate gate paragate parasamgate Bodhi Svaha
snaegele EmptyPage Blog 