Hugged by trees

In perfection of harmony these old trees judge not.  Still and quiet and peaceful they stand, teaching one more lesson.

Their randomly tangled limbs, reaching this way and that, reveal life reaching, life reaching in every direction.

These limbs could be our lives, our lives every bit as crooked and tangled in their blind reaching for the Light.....but unlike our fading past and hidden future, in the trees’ branches that groping life-path is documented, each twist and change of direction and simultaneous growth in multiple directions all there to be seen, an entire life history sculpted through, and suspended in, thin air.

Might our lives not look similar could we see them in their entirety, from beginning to end, our growing roots reaching into the earth, our roots extending around the boulders and bedrock of constraints and barriers and setbacks, our roots extending into the world seeking sustenance in careers and crops and

Perceiving Purpose

On yesterday’s hike I was entranced by the wall of trees blanketing the opposite canyon wall.  I marveled at the intricate network of branches on trees on this side of the canyon.

Today I recognize that there before me was displayed a model representing all existence.  Each tree symbolizes a universe.  The chaos of branches and roots represents exploration in every possible direction, seemingly random and chaotic exploration, exploring every life-form, every geologic form, every stellar form, every planetary form.

In the tree, formed out of the roiling, random chaos of branches reaching this way and that, appears an unambiguous direction of growth, always up, always toward the sun......but this general direction of growth, the reaching down for water and up for sun, is indiscernible if looking too closely at only one or two or three knotted roots and twisted branches. 

Underlying the random chaos of the branches is the structure of DNA, for a living entity analogous to the laws of physics for a universe.  From tree to tree, and

Choose your ticket: Auschwitz or Roman Colosseum

Choose Your Ticket: Auschwitz or Roman Colosseum

Copyright 2016 Don Ray

Society’s attitude toward Auschwitz and the Roman Colosseum  may tell us something about ourselves.

Nobody likes Auschwitz.  Everyone perceives it as a place of tragedy, except for perhaps a handful of unrepentant psychopaths.

Now go to the Colosseum.  Within its walls countless thousands upon thousands were murdered, executed, tortured, and generally torn asunder, no small number of them because of their non-conforming religious beliefs.  The Colosseum was a place of unbridled horror, blood, gore, terror, and suffering.

Auschwitz had to be kept hidden from the general populace.  Its perpetrators operated in secrecy behind walls.  The Colosseum operated for entertainment of the general public.  Admission was free.

The operators of Auschwitz were hunted down, imprisoned, executed, and universally condemned in public opinion.  The operators of the Colosseum are for the most part praised as one of the great civilizations in history.

Erosion of freedom

In recent days, due to circumstances beyond my control I have suffered a painfully excessive exposure to television.  As I watch the inordinate amount of advertising and the unrelenting torrent of banal, contrived, superficial, manipulative programming, I feel I have landed in a dystopian society described in some science fiction novel of my youth. 

The situation today is infinitely more dire than in 1955, but even then wise people were noting the insidious undermining of freedom of the human mind and spirit, a prescient awareness revealed in the following quotes, and ending with a clarion call of hope:

Quotes from “Living Issues in Philosophy”, 4^th Edition, Harold H. Titus

P 458

Adlai Stevenson, 1955, at the Columbia bicentennial celebration:

Meeting Place of the Gods

Meeting Place of the Gods
Copyright 2016 Don Ray

The meeting place of the gods,

What would it be like?

Surely there would be clash and conflict, for aren’t gods used to having their own way?

Surely this meeting place, this world, this universe, would need rules, would need constraints, would need structure and framework to allow these gods to even coexist in each other’s presence. 

Surely these gods would have to learn to deal with each other, would have to learn how to interact, and quite likely would initially chafe at the unfamiliar constraints of rules and structure that now bind their consciousness.

Why would these gods come to such a place, why would Consciousness submit to physical fetters and laws of physics?  Sometimes the newly instantiated gods themselves forget.