Ultra Violet Catastrophes and Awakenings

What was on my mind posted on facebook today:

L. Edgar Otto L. Edgar Otto I had not much to say today- I mean I thought about staying away from the news in these tense holidays and anniversaries for some- take a day off or so- evacuate the shore in case of too strong a storm. But instead I waxed inspirational and poetic in thoughts mostly gentle. Enjoy!


Ultra Violet Catastrophes and Awakenings

I walk by the flower garden of my neighbor and each day something new awakens in dazzling fans and double explosions and drooping colors. Yesterdays browning leaves fall off into the entropy or fade away.

I have talked and waved briefly with my neighbor, complimenting him on his garden. I wonder why he works so hard at it, such expert effort, wisdom and design, behind the scenes as if the Creator perhaps like we mortals just to find a space to sit in peace in the veranda and enjoy his work of tendrils on the trellis. A safe place far from the chaos and the shifting of the fabric and constants of nature's laws. A place where instead of pain localized in the body there is rest where pleasure is at the distance and safe, far from the infinite void, where life is possible and there is the luxury of enquiry as well without the urgency of tides and time to find and make of what beauty is in the world one's own, leavings one's artistic mark for others in the promised lands to find the focused immortal joy of the moment and plant their own gardens.

We need not look too deeply at the replete awakening and space of nature- for the romance of things is the wide frontier and landscape as much as our vague or life or death decisions as to whom we bond with in romance and find in the fragile wrists and dampened eyes a brightness and bitter sweetness of another soul. Or if we welcome into the world our child, distressed in his crying at child birth and he recognizes our voice, grows calm, until he finds a new way to be with that most profound definition of God, eyes to open soon, at the breast of his mother. But sometimes, although love is worth the risk of loss, I wonder what I have done to bring one into the world, such as the dangers of the world still is.

So we mortals are like unto the honeybees, full of busywork and stings, and bound to the machine clockwork of the sun and moon and struggle for the nectar, and the angles and dance to the starlight and the sun.

But as the terrain changes we may not see, what to my eyes are dull flowers of white the humblebee sees in his vast compound eyes the varieties of bee violets. He does not know, as with me limited in the bandwidth he can see of the spectrum, if the laws of nature, the turning in his bed of the sun, shift and the colors change and after such an intimate bond between an insect and flower he cannot find the pollen, and the flowers themselves decrease in number and may vanish before they can adapt.

Yet, perhaps from the Creator's view, or partial view if intimate with us on this earth, He no more than we -at least as far as the image goes to infinity above and below us- cannot see nor be concerned the details from great distance that there is a theory of everything and all perceptions of His mind connect, not differentiated so once out of the garden and torn from the breast this thought more rational and sane than the merging compass of crossed wires of migraine colored numbers, and the cacophony of voices made of light in a din of sheet lighting made from unknown cloud to cloud or to the ground gamma burst strokes.

So too the metaphor of a goddess, Earth- that as with our minds what is divided in thoughts labors our sphere of human conflicts and compassion seeks the unity of oneness, a focus of meaning, an measure of shared time tables, calendars and clocks -an attempt to bring the mysterious behind the scenes majesty into actualized solidarity. So with the little book the common prayers may follow them, find belonging in a global unity, to diverse parts of the world- or as if a guiding star of some greater heaven and the source of heaven as much as hell for the unity of one God the faith- we kneel toward Mecca.

One lens or those compound is the same description. One God or many in which to trust but not described unto one tribe of saints or heathen, it is the same description- we mortals lived and worshiped the pantheon of the adults we knew until we've broken away our small star spinning or flung from the Milky Way. Now they are ghosts and I half think they are still around in a world where the pendulum swings for these things and one generation rebels against the preference of the other that their's is the fresh discovery or is the true historical lineage from the Truth. In the end I too astronomically likely will become such a ghost and heeded in the stray memories or interpretations of deep but forgotten words, advice, mistakes, that my children have to learn to weigh keeping what is good in the main, what to throw away-and I am the ghost in some greater unity of self and higher place of prayer which seems so unnecessary a vanishing. But there, and in the descending years, closer we come so less the burden it is to mourn and miss the once gods now dust journeying before us- for our legs are full and replete with gold and sugar, and there is enough for wax and propolis to erect our kingdom that can survive the winter, one organism that stands as brothers and sisters until perhaps the dethronement and rebirth of the Queen.

I walked like Newton of old, his philosopher's walk- thinking of the cute young girls from Iowa up here for a week of astrophysics and going soon to my beloved Cambridgeshire for studies- my telling them of my days there of of the former gods of cosmology who punted along the backs already and echo of the Granta, ancient Aegypt. I come to the virtual and social network with nothing to say- read of the vague posts of speculative physics and wonder what is new they said- guess, someone has to do the nuts and bolts, steps in the ladder of design- what can I do more than leave a record and show the relevance of other aspects of art and life- as with my children who in turn can carry on our dream of this world- wait for them to learn and catch up to the greater beauty and more intense view of nature, God, and the physics.

* * *

from facebook later a comment on a current event post:


Brad A Snyder You have the right to say and think and believe and choose what you want, you do not have the right to be heard, however.
Yesterday at 10:54am · LikeUnlike · L. Edgar Otto Nor, in this country at least are we to be forced to confess, especially under torture. We have the right not to give lip service to the dream of some state as the sacrifice of our individual souls. A good reply Brad, but we are not so isolated we do not hear each others dreams if we want to.
Yesterday at 11:11am · · Steven Silverleaf I don't have a god in this fight
21 hours ago · LikeUnlike · L. Edgar Otto Steve, thanks for the comment. You are an artist and I deeply feel that artists can do no wrong. I also feel that it is a crime to destroy art against everyone- save maybe at the moments of creation near the chaos when the creator of art has the power and responsibility to judge his own work. BTW, seeing your work decades ago and seeing it now I am quite impressed with its evolution. I'm sorry, I always meant to be in a position to buy one of those early works for its unique style and inspiration- one days soon I hope.
5 hours ago ·· Steven Silverleaf Leonard
You once asked me if "I was a guard or a prisoner" Do you remember what my answer was? It is good to hear from you. I hope you are laughing as much as we use to. Using Language as a vehicle for the creation of laughter is an art all ...unto itself, hence my expression "I don't have dog in this fight" I have no idea what one should or shouldn't yell in a crouded theatre but if it is not about laughing, I'm gone.See More
5 hours ago ·· L. Edgar Otto ‎:-) Brilliant explanation!



We should also consider the issue of book burning as if an affront to art.