There Is More

The unseen world hath become seen; the unreal hath become the real.

John Newbrough
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Hello Lily
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"Watchman, tell us of the night."
Blessings are awaiting in the dark.
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Something I like to make note of now and then is the fact that all the physical laws that allow us today to have TV, airplanes, computers and space ships have always been there. We didn't invent the laws. Scientists with vision and imagination are hang glided over the cliffs of new wisdom that is just about to reveal itself, old laws coming into consciousness. It is also true of artists with comparable courage and imagination.

Scientists and artists build on revealed knowledge and proven principles to discover new ways of doing things and in the process new principles, new laws. And yet, since they are discoverable, they are not new at all. They have always been there. The motto of the experimental adventurous thinker is "There is more."

It is recorded that the ancient Hebrew prophets spoke one on one with a voice which they called the "word of God." There was a voice, no doubt, but what was it and where did it come from and how could those prophets be so clear of mind that they actually heard it? Socrates spoke of hearing such a voice, so have many others. Even today it isn't unusual to have the answer to a problem come into your head like a silent voice. It has certainly happened to me, many times. I've come to expect it. I was hiking one day in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. It was a long trail over a mountain range I had never been on before. As I was descending from one of the summits I heard a quiet voice right next to me as clear as if someone was standing there. In fact I looked to the side expecting to see someone. But I was alone. The voice said "You're off the trail." I looked down and saw that, in fact, I was not on the trail. Losing the trail can be dangerous if you aren't an experienced hiker as I wasn't. I looked back up and saw a place where I knew I had been on the trail and hiked back up to it. When I got there I saw the trail took a sharp turn which I had missed.

It can also happen with a vision. Sitting quietly with your eyes closed you may see a sight that tells you what you need to know. For some people that vision can come with eyes open.

Some people go through many ways of trying to get in touch with those voices and visions. They draw circles on the ground, read tea leaves, stare into crystal balls or sit and wait over a Ouija board, for example. They are trying to hear the voice or see the sight. These days there are people doing terrible things because they say God told them to. That's a sad state of delusion. At worst it was the devil, or their conscious or unconscious belief in the devil, that spoke. The devil is very clever at masquerading as God. But the best trick the devil pulls is getting people to believe he's real.

The most important thing is to realize that the laws of being are all still there and have always been there waiting to be discovered. And they will be discovered and put to use by those who watch and listen, who know that it isn't over yet, who say "There is more."

"Impossible be strange attempts to those who weigh their pains in sense," wrote Shakespeare. We can look forward to the unseen becoming seen and the unreal becoming real.

DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never give up.
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Universal Utterances 5/22/09

What art offers is space - a certain breathing room for the spirit.

John Updike
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Hello from here.
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Does life mirror art, or does art mirror life? I forgot which it is, but I think it's probably both. I've been watching with great interest the repair of the Hubble telescope as shown on NASA TV. I've listened to what the various scientists and astronauts have said about the mission, and I'm now trying to process through my own mind what it means, I'm sure I won't be able to describe the great extent of meaning it has in one journal entry, so I will probably be returning to the topic from time to time, ad tedium.

The astronauts installed some new pieces of equipment and replaced some old ones, all to allow Hubble to see farther and more clearly. Each one of those items was designed and built by scientists and technicians on the earth.

It's true that Hubble looks into space, but it isn't space that interests us. It is the various objects in space, the stars, planets, moons, and other items that define themselves and hence help to define space.

Certain ideas present themselves. As the astronauts looked back to the earth it was obvious that the earth was one of those objects in space and that we live on one dot in the vast, uncountable trillions of dots that define space. And one of the possibilities Hubble may discover for us is if there is intelligent life out there somewhere on another planet. It is most likely that there is and if so no doubt there is more than one. That is a subject for a different journal entry.

The Hubble is a window on to the great scene, the starscape that we live in and thus also a window on to life. But it is also a mirror because as we look out at the vastness of which we are a part it defines our life as well.

Each of those systems designed and built by those here on earth to be a part of Hubble were items that defined life and the space around it. And each one has a function that is specific to the defining of life. They have there reality in their function.

A great painting or sculpture is a mirror of human life in the space that surrounds it. It sends back to us pictures about ourselves. It is also a window into the vastness of the imagination and mentality of human life. Each work of art has its specific function and defines itself as it defines the mental, spiritual space around it. Because of art we can grasp the knowable in the vast sea of the invisible and live comfortably within it.

(To be continued, someday)
Vagabond Journeys
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Strike a new pose in the mirror
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