The Threshold of Winter

Frost on the puddle, even in the afternoon, yet still one yellow Cottonwood Leaf against an otherwise stark black and white background enriched by a multitude of etched webbed crossing lines from several dimensions, both reflected and real.

It is here that my brain analogizes reality into the patterns I see in life, the contrasts we are brought up with, the irreconcilable blacks and whites, not willing to grey.

This Poem Came to Mind as I Posted This on My Flickr Site

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pictoscribe/10683218215/

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The Threshold of Winter's Hold

The Threshold of Winter's Hold

Papa taught me about Black and White,

and Color or No Color,

Then Warm versus Cold

And soon Right and Wrong?

Depending on whose point of view,

Realistic - Unrealistic.

Bad or Good?

And often it would come down to"We'll see!"

Bare branches, Fallen leaves,

Darker nights, Shorter days.

First frost.

Crystals shake hands with fluid molecules ...

 the dance 

of 

hydrogen and oxygen.

Staring down, at the basics,

The lines etched in fluid,

Ever changing states of being,

Amazing grace,

Seen from the right angle,

Open to each moment,

Like a final gasp.

                               

Looking into the universe of a cup of coffee.

Observation

     Looking into a cup of coffee after installing the new ultra-light daylight lamps in four bars, and suddenly I see the surface tension of the round cup and the liquid, the floating particles of powdered milk and my eyes are drawn into memories of recent science theories of infinite numbers of universes, and warped space, vortexes, black holes, and just looking at my coffee cup, I suddenly understand it all.  (-:

Trick or Treat ???? Why Bother

       This is of many snapshots taken of the delightfully outfitted trick or treaters at my house each year. Most are glad I'm impressed enough with their costumes to care to take a picture.  When parents are there, I immediately ask for permission, if not, I ask the kids.  If they say no, I respect that, but since it is my front porch on my property with someone knocking on my door, I do believe I have the right to record the moment.
      One parent, who apparently did not accompany their children complained to the police, and the next day I had 2 sheriff deputies on my door asking if I had taken pictures of children, and why?  I was astonished but responded that I put them on my flickr site to share with my contacts, as others would on facebook, and that I have a cousin in the Netherlands who was here once for Halloween and enjoyed it.  I was told that I had to have the parent's permission first, and that I had to put up a sign that said, "You may be photographed"

     Suddenly Halloween Lost its Charm.  The following is my sincere letter to the person who caused my loss of enthusiasm for preparing for Halloween. May a witch haunt your door this evening.

Letter to Parents of Child who called cops because I took picture of their kid in Halloween costume.

Dear folks,

        I'm sorry if I violated your expectations of what happens when kids go trick or treating without their parents, and that folks might actually like your kids costume well enough to want a snapshot.
May I ask, if this offended you why you didn't come to my door to discuss the matter with me.  If things like this concern you, might it not be better if you went trick or treating with your kids.
And finally, if this bothered you, why didn't you have the neighborly courtesy and decency to discuss the matter directly rather than attempt to make a criminal action out of a traditional neighborly celebration.
        You've caused me to seriously reconsider taking part in Halloween at all, even when my own childhood was full of memories of getting to know neighbors and celebrating evenings with other kids.
        Now your actions have caused me to associate what was a fun childhood memory to the realization that at every step America has become more and more an authoritarian state with common courtesy skipped so that we can't be held accountable for our thoughts and feelings.
       I am now conflicted....why bother to celebrate what was fun, when the mere snapshot of the creative kids asking for candy and tricking me if I don't give it...should have the moment captured so others can share the tradition of a fun-filled holiday centered on childhood, mischief, and fun.
     `Given your paranoia about who might answer the door, may I recommend you keep your kids at home this year, for regardless of their costumes, I would rather not see them, if I can't share the memory.

Apologies will be accepted.

Let me dive into my own universe....

         The more I hear and read about the current cosmological models of multiple universes, curved space, quantum leaps and waves and particles, I can't help but see all of those possibilities in a small stream with moving water, light, and the tools for stopping time for a mini-second view to realize how another second would entirely change the mini-universe in the photo.

     The surface world of water, is simultaneously a reflected distorted world above, and those distortions tell us volumes about the world below the surface, it's tension, flow, depths, speed, calmness, and what is being reflected...sky, clouds; in short, visually we have entered another microcosmic entrance to a world very different from the one we must live in, one of air, and three dimensional objects.

Piercing My Paradigm

Deep in Microspace

Bursting Forth

Looking up in a deep forest.

     The chill and dusk of winter has inspired me to dig out my Extreme Fractal Program and spend some weeks zooming in and out through mathematical algorithmic iterations for which we can thank Mandelbrot and Julia, and these are tied to computer programs that allow me to cruise through hypothetical universes at many scales and with an awesome complexity of colors and textures.

     Just after listening to Carl Sagan and Steven Hawkins describe multiple universes with multiple scales and dimensions, perhaps even laws of physics, I find my Mid-Twentieth Century academic mind was not prepared for this.     

     Only in 1980 when Benoit Mandelbrot put his fractal algorhythm to an IBM test, did we learn that there is order in chaos...that when we see chaos, it is because we haven't found the pattern; we're not looking at the right "ZOOM"   This expansion of my imagination allows a paradigm that says...

"Don't see order?; 

Then change your perspective!"

     For me, Mandelbrot set in motion a liberating chain of thoughts, for if the same fractal geometry that creates a spiraling spring fern has similar properties when seen as far away as a galaxy, then we can no longer deny a certain unity  between human ability to understand how nature programs creation...emergence as we now call it.

     Were all that not enough, the power of color to influence what we think we see is overwhelming is shown by the three images above, which are essentially from the same zoom, but have three different set of instructions for color and background.  It reassures my spirit to know that even in the infinite zooms of my cells, emergence of potential awareness exists.

• Rant relief, man with love for earth, for life, watching dysfunctional corporate leadership f____k with every personal right our forefather came for when the abandoned plutocratic European cultures with their Royal Corporate Domination of the world.
• --------------------------------HEALING________________________________
• 
  
• Stick your hands in the ground, 
• wet ground,
•  cold ground, 
• rich ground...
• ground you made to soil,
• with your own composted cow manure
• hauled by wheelbarrow.
• 
  
• Rub the mud on your nose, 
• and inhale your surrounding,
• Poke a hole in the soil, 
• push a spinach seed into the still,
• night frosted ground.
• Dream of bing cherries from the blossoms,
• Dream of heirloom tomatoes in the fall.
• 
  
• Push your filthy thumbs in your ears.
• Drown out that illusionary civilization 
• Brainwashed with advertisement and lobbying.
• 
  
• Shut out the noise of sirens!
•  the outer squabbles,
• The filth of political dialog in elections.
• Be  prepared to shout your anger,
• 
  
• As freedom,
• loses out to paranoia,
• and becomes virtually Illegal.
• 
  
• I'm thankful for a life
• Before surveillance cameras,
• Physically invasive airports, 
• Assumed guilt drug testing,
• Internet identity theft,
• Cell phones compulsively interrupting our lives, to drive us to compulsive response disorder 
• and the ability to focus for any length of time.
• A life before computers and drones,
• 
  
• Thanks, too, for our native ancestors
• Prior to us Caucasoids (White People) 
• To remind us what it would have taken,
• To have lived here sustainably.
• 
  
• As we've turned their garden of Eden only a few hundred years ago,
• Into quadratic subdivisions of green laws monoculturized by Roundup.
• 
  
• Enjoy the sun, 
• the rainbow, 
• the snowflakes, 
• the bowing trees,
• the moods of clouds,
• the scent of flowers, 
• the croaking of frogs, 
• the chirping of birds,
• for they could be gone tomorrow.

Contemposcribe 4-27-12

The Thinker 

Rodin

I am, therefore I think.Especially when I sit,What I see is then still.Details emerge.New associations sparkle.New perspectives light up.
Man am I and I am ManTwenty digits,Two arms,Two legs,Hands and feet.Self-mobilizing,
Now stationary,Now fist to chin,And hands to knee.Being,Not doing,An ancestral icon for me to ponder.

Peter Prehn