awe and wonder Archives - Page 21 of 22

Poetry – Imperfect – A poem about reality and our limited senses.

Posted on November 9, 2015 by Opher

Imperfect

We think we see the world as it is but we are wrong. We think we see reality but our view is only partial.

Our senses evolved to enable us to sense the world around us, to find food, seek a mate and avoid predators. Nothing more.

Evolution is very hit and miss. By chance a sense was created and then, through a million refinements honed to the standard we currently possess – imperfection. Each sense stumbled upon provided an advantage to the mutant that gave it a higher survival chance. We are left with the sum total of those random mutations. It is not even good.

We experience the world through touch, sight, sound, taste and smell imperfectly. It is enough to get us around, to avoid obstacles, avoid heat and cold, find things and even communicate. But it lacks range and depth.

If only we could smell like a dog. I would love to smell like a dog.

If only we could see like a bee. Flowers would be a whole new different world.

If only we had the eyesight of a hawk, the mysterious sense of a homing pigeon, the night-sight of an owl or the senses of a fish or whale.

If only.

Our senses are limited to a tiny range of the electro-magnetic spectrum. We are surrounded with myriad energy forms that we cannot detect or ‘see’. Radio waves and Alpha, Gamma, Beta all pass straight through without so much as an acknowledgement. We are so limited.

I would say reality is the sum total of being able to ‘see’ and delight in every single type of energy and matter. We’re a million miles away from that!

A few billion years more and we might have a few improvements.

What glorious universe would we be able to see if we truly saw reality?

Imperfect

Imperfect –

Seeing partially

A fraction

Of the universe

Available

To me.

Unseen

Energy

Flying by

Holding the key

To other views,

Further news

And mystery.

How would

The world look

If we only

Had eyes to see

In X-ray

Infra-red

Or UV?

We think we see

But we are blind

To reality.

Opher 8.11.2015

Directions for life – (If I had my time again!)

Posted on October 30, 2015 by Opher

When I was a young lad still at school I was developing my philosophy. What did I want out of life?

I’d look at my parents life and it seemed empty and devoid of meaning and purpose. They lived a humdrum life without many friends, a set routine and put their energy into family and work.

I felt that I wanted something more but I did not know what.

I looked at what was on offer:

Get a career, get married, have kids, earn money, buy a house, car and fit in. If you were highly successful you could own more, get a better car, bigger house and holidays abroad. If you were mega successful you could get a mansion, yacht and sports car.
Become famous, wealthy and a celebrity.

Both options were lives that seemed as empty and devoid of interest as that of my parents. I didn’t want to fit in. I wanted something more substantial. I did not think that dream of chasing the money or celebrity was going to make me happy.

So I set about deciding my own philosophy.

I believed I did not require money in order to be happy and fulfilled. I wanted fun, meaning, creativity and wisdom.

I saw my life as a journey, an exploration and a quest. I was hunting for the things that meant something to me, that brought me to life and gave me purpose and meaning. I discovered friendship, love, music, reading, travel, poetry, writing, education, art, nature, animals, sex, drugs and spirituality (not to be confused with religion).

It seemed to me that life was all about getting the richness and balance. It was easy to get caught up in one thing to the detriment of your life. In my life I’ve seen many people who are victims of sex, drugs, alcohol or avarice; people who retreat from the world into careers or retreats and do not have time to live.

Altruism and doing positive things for others seemed to make people contented and fulfilled.

Variety is the spice of life; getting the balance right is the essence. Fun on its own is shallow. Drugs and alcohol are poisons. Sex is an addiction. Religion can be a mind numbing experience. Greed is always destructive. A life full of adventure, creativity, travel and friendship is a life well lived. Music rocks the spirit and soothes the inner being. Education stimulates the mind. Love is the greatest experience in the universe (even if it is only endorphins).

Everything has its place. Too much of any one thing is dangerous to life.

Fulfilment is the goal.

I’m glad I set out on my quest. I’m still on it. I’m not yet replete – still too much to do, discover and enjoy! I’m not sated yet!

Poetry – Infinity Two – the sequel – another attempt to penetrate the absolute in a poem.

Posted on October 20, 2015 by Opher

Infinity Two – the sequel

I wrote a lot of these.

I am not sure if you can have a second infinity? But in an infinite universe everything is possible. I probably created a poem about a polyverses system.

I had this idea that somehow finite could not exist within infinity. That all we could measure was inaccurate. If you took a finite object it contained infinity within it. It seemed to invalidate reality and make me question existence. To me it added a mystical dimension that was beyond science, maths and everyday life.

The universe was infinite.

The world we inhabited was an illusion. There was more to it than we could see, know or understand.

I think it is how religions are born.
Infinity Two – the sequel

I am the greatness of nature.

I am the vastness of a microbe.

I am the creator of philosophy.

I am the ridiculer of man’s achievements.

Without me there is not even nothing.

I am worshipped in many forms from afar

I am the element that science shies from

I am the only truth.

I am the only thing you cannot test.

I defy your principles.

Without me your experiments would always work.

Opher 1970

The meaning of life. Cheryl. Bob Dylan. Consumerism. Fundamental Religion. Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie.

Posted on October 19, 2015 by Opher

Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie

Thanks to Cheryl for stimulating this train of thought when she asked about the pointlessness and emptiness of our consumer driven society. I think that its moronic emptiness is driving people into fundamental religion which is even worse.

I am reminded of that incredible poem Bob Dylan did where he talked about god and Woody Guthrie and awe and wonder and ended saying they can all be found at Grand Canyon at sunset. That’s how I feel. I don’t need religion, god or afterlife to do good things, reward or punish, because my life is full and fulfilled, I can find my wonder and awe in communion with others, friendship, love, creativity, and the wonders and majesty of the world around me. If there is a god I am sure that it is not confined to any words written in any ancient (or modern) text. That force would be as much in Bob Dylan’s lyrics as in any Koran or Bible. And I’m sure that any god would not care a jot what I believed in, what rituals I followed, so much as the actions that I’ve done. In my mind any god is more akin to the atomic energy that pervades the universe and everything in it. I do not believe in any moral aspect or interest in human lives. It is an elemental force that we are all part of. We don’t have to believe in it or anything. We have a life and we live it as positively as we can. We try to fill it with love, creativity and assist others and in that way we find our own happiness and fulfilment.

This poem by Bob was so full of insight and wonder. For someone so young it was incredible to see the scope and depth of its content. Woody would have been proud to hear it.

It certainly moved me, inspired me and made me think. In it was a rejection of consumerism, capitalism and the empty, meaningless poverty of lives. Hedonism and pointless, mindless fun were lambasted as a way of life.

No you can’t find meaning and fulfilment by buying, owning, possessing; by pointless fun, or sex, or wealth. There is a deeper experience that flows from love, friendship, creativity and the wonder and awe of appreciating the beauty and majesty of life and the universe we life in. I’d call that spirituality but I wouldn’t put god, religion or any afterlife in that equation.

Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie – Bob Dylan

When yer head gets twisted and yer mind grows numb
When you think you’re too old, too young, too smart or too dumb
When yer laggin’ behind an’ losin’ yer pace
In a slow-motion crawl of life’s busy race
No matter what yer doing if you start givin’ up
If the wine don’t come to the top of yer cup
If the wind’s got you sideways with with one hand holdin’ on
And the other starts slipping and the feeling is gone
And yer train engine fire needs a new spark to catch it
And the wood’s easy findin’ but yer lazy to fetch it
And yer sidewalk starts curlin’ and the street gets too long
And you start walkin’ backwards though you know its wrong
And lonesome comes up as down goes the day
And tomorrow’s mornin’ seems so far away
And you feel the reins from yer pony are slippin’
And yer rope is a-slidin’ ’cause yer hands are a-drippin’
And yer sun-decked desert and evergreen valleys
Turn to broken down slums and trash-can alleys
And yer sky cries water and yer drain pipe’s a-pourin’
And the lightnin’s a-flashing and the thunder’s a-crashin’
And the windows are rattlin’ and breakin’ and the roof tops a-shakin’
And yer whole world’s a-slammin’ and bangin’
And yer minutes of sun turn to hours of storm
And to yourself you sometimes say
“I never knew it was gonna be this way
Why didn’t they tell me the day I was born”
And you start gettin’ chills and yer jumping from sweat
And you’re lookin’ for somethin’ you ain’t quite found yet
And yer knee-deep in the dark water with yer hands in the air
And the whole world’s a-watchin’ with a window peek stare
And yer good gal leaves and she’s long gone a-flying
And yer heart feels sick like fish when they’re fryin’
And yer jackhammer falls from yer hand to yer feet
And you need it badly but it lays on the street
And yer bell’s bangin’ loudly but you can’t hear its beat
And you think yer ears might a been hurt
Or yer eyes’ve turned filthy from the sight-blindin’ dirt
And you figured you failed in yesterdays rush
When you were faked out an’ fooled white facing a four flush
And all the time you were holdin’ three queens
And it’s makin you mad, it’s makin’ you mean
Like in the middle of Life magazine
Bouncin’ around a pinball machine
And there’s something on yer mind you wanna be saying
That somebody someplace oughta be hearin’
But it’s trapped on yer tongue and sealed in yer head
And it bothers you badly when your layin’ in bed
And no matter how you try you just can’t say it
And yer scared to yer soul you just might forget it
And yer eyes get swimmy from the tears in yer head
And yer pillows of feathers turn to blankets of lead
And the lion’s mouth opens and yer staring at his teeth
And his jaws start closin with you underneath
And yer flat on your belly with yer hands tied behind
And you wish you’d never taken that last detour sign
And you say to yourself just what am I doin’
On this road I’m walkin’, on this trail I’m turnin’
On this curve I’m hanging
On this pathway I’m strolling, in the space I’m taking
In this air I’m inhaling
Am I mixed up too much, am I mixed up too hard
Why am I walking, where am I running
What am I saying, what am I knowing
On this guitar I’m playing, on this banjo I’m frailin’
On this mandolin I’m strummin’, in the song I’m singin’
In the tune I’m hummin’, in the words I’m writin’
In the words that I’m thinkin’
In this ocean of hours I’m all the time drinkin’
Who am I helping, what am I breaking
What am I giving, what am I taking
But you try with your whole soul best
Never to think these thoughts and never to let
Them kind of thoughts gain ground
Or make yer heart pound
But then again you know why they’re around
Just waiting for a chance to slip and drop down
“Cause sometimes you hear’em when the night times comes creeping
And you fear that they might catch you a-sleeping
And you jump from yer bed, from yer last chapter of dreamin’
And you can’t remember for the best of yer thinking
If that was you in the dream that was screaming
And you know that it’s something special you’re needin’
And you know that there’s no drug that’ll do for the healin’
And no liquor in the land to stop yer brain from bleeding
And you need something special
Yeah, you need something special all right
You need a fast flyin’ train on a tornado track
To shoot you someplace and shoot you back
You need a cyclone wind on a stream engine howler
That’s been banging and booming and blowing forever
That knows yer troubles a hundred times over
You need a Greyhound bus that don’t bar no race
That won’t laugh at yer looks
Your voice or your face
And by any number of bets in the book
Will be rollin’ long after the bubblegum craze
You need something to open up a new door
To show you something you seen before
But overlooked a hundred times or more
You need something to open your eyes
You need something to make it known
That it’s you and no one else that owns
That spot that yer standing, that space that you’re sitting
That the world ain’t got you beat
That it ain’t got you licked
It can’t get you crazy no matter how many
Times you might get kicked
You need something special all right
You need something special to give you hope
But hope’s just a word
That maybe you said or maybe you heard
On some windy corner ’round a wide-angled curve

But that’s what you need man, and you need it bad
And yer trouble is you know it too good
“Cause you look an’ you start getting the chills

“Cause you can’t find it on a dollar bill
And it ain’t on Macy’s window sill
And it ain’t on no rich kid’s road map
And it ain’t in no fat kid’s fraternity house
And it ain’t made in no Hollywood wheat germ
And it ain’t on that dimlit stage
With that half-wit comedian on it
Ranting and raving and taking yer money
And you thinks it’s funny
No you can’t find it in no night club or no yacht club
And it ain’t in the seats of a supper club
And sure as hell you’re bound to tell
That no matter how hard you rub
You just ain’t a-gonna find it on yer ticket stub
No, and it ain’t in the rumors people’re tellin’ you
And it ain’t in the pimple-lotion people are sellin’ you
And it ain’t in no cardboard-box house
Or down any movie star’s blouse
And you can’t find it on the golf course
And Uncle Remus can’t tell you and neither can Santa Claus
And it ain’t in the cream puff hair-do or cotton candy clothes
And it ain’t in the dime store dummies or bubblegum goons
And it ain’t in the marshmallow noises of the chocolate cake voices
That come knockin’ and tappin’ in Christmas wrappin’
Sayin’ ain’t I pretty and ain’t I cute and look at my skin
Look at my skin shine, look at my skin glow
Look at my skin laugh, look at my skin cry
When you can’t even sense if they got any insides
These people so pretty in their ribbons and bows
No you’ll not now or no other day
Find it on the doorsteps made out-a paper mache¥
And inside it the people made of molasses
That every other day buy a new pair of sunglasses
And it ain’t in the fifty-star generals and flipped-out phonies
Who’d turn yuh in for a tenth of a penny
Who breathe and burp and bend and crack
And before you can count from one to ten
Do it all over again but this time behind yer back
My friend
The ones that wheel and deal and whirl and twirl
And play games with each other in their sand-box world
And you can’t find it either in the no-talent fools
That run around gallant
And make all rules for the ones that got talent
And it ain’t in the ones that ain’t got any talent but think they do
And think they’re foolin’ you
The ones who jump on the wagon
Just for a while ’cause they know it’s in style
To get their kicks, get out of it quick
And make all kinds of money and chicks
And you yell to yourself and you throw down yer hat
Sayin’, “Christ do I gotta be like that
Ain’t there no one here that knows where I’m at
Ain’t there no one here that knows how I feel
Good God Almighty
THAT STUFF AIN’T REAL”

No but that ain’t yer game, it ain’t even yer race
You can’t hear yer name, you can’t see yer face
You gotta look some other place
And where do you look for this hope that yer seekin’
Where do you look for this lamp that’s a-burnin’
Where do you look for this oil well gushin’
Where do you look for this candle that’s glowin’
Where do you look for this hope that you know is there
And out there somewhere
And your feet can only walk down two kinds of roads
Your eyes can only look through two kinds of windows
Your nose can only smell two kinds of hallways
You can touch and twist
And turn two kinds of doorknobs
You can either go to the church of your choice
Or you can go to Brooklyn State Hospital
You’ll find God in the church of your choice
You’ll find Woody Guthrie in Brooklyn State Hospital

And though it’s only my opinion
I may be right or wrong
You’ll find them both
In the Grand Canyon
At sundown

Anecdote – The day of endless sky.

Posted on September 27, 2015 by Opher

The day of endless sky.

There are days when there is electricity in the air; the whole world hums as the dynamo that drives it is racing. The day is so alive that it drowns out the drone of a multitude of bees. The sounds blend into harmony and sate the ears.

On a day such as this I lay in the long grass of a meadow that was a mass of summer colour, golden hay, yellow buttercup, white and orange daisy and purple clover. The fields bobbed with crimson poppy and the feather-top grass rippled in the soft breeze.

The air was thick like treacle with the honey scent of rich nectar and sticky heat and the yellow sun cut through the transparent air with incandescent starkness in a cascade of scorching rays that bleached the soil and heated the skin.

The dry grass all around rustled with the scurrying of a million creatures: shiny black beetles, stridulating grasshoppers that shot through the air to glide on orange wings, land on grass stalks, grip anew and shift into invisibility; spiders, earwigs, bugs and ladybirds. The bees bumbled purposefully from flower to flower with swollen sacks of pollen on their kind-legs and guts full of sweet nectar while a cacophony of butterflies danced a silent symphony, bobbing and dancing, balletically, prancing on the eddies, white, crimson, orange and yellow, with eyes, speckled patterns and patches on gossamer wings; gnats dodged and buzzed, forming clouds as mists of pollen drifted and hover-flies darted and hung over blossom.

It all merged into a background of contentment as time slowed to a meaningless crawl.

On days like these there is nothing else to be done other than lie on your back, chew on a stalk of grass, place your hands behind your head, let the whole world of people disappear and stare up into the heavens.

Into the depths of that endless electric blue my eyes pierced and my mind drifted into wonder.

Before that childhood gaze there were suddenly no boundaries or horizons; there were no limits.

On that blazing, lazy, baked summer day I discovered just how big the universe really was and fell up into the sky in a fit of vertigo.

I do not believe that all of me ever came back down to earth.

Opher 27.9.2015

Poetry – Creation – The beginning of the banishment of dark.

Posted on September 20, 2015 by Opher

Creation

I wrote this poem after watching a Horizon programme on the creation of the universe. I stole various wonderful phrases that seemed to capture the essence of the wonder.

For me the universe is a mystery and one that slowly we are unravelling. Science is the greatest provider of wonder to me. Perhaps we will never know all the secrets of the universe and life. The further we extend our knowledge the stranger it all becomes. I’m fine with that. The wonder and awe are in the perpetual discovery. It wouldn’t do to understand it all. Where’s the fun in that?

Creation

The first star was born;

The first light;

The story of us.

In the beginning,

A bright beginning,

The Big Bang

And dust.

New,

White hot

And searing light,

With hydrogen gust.

Then cooling,

A vast blackness,

A fog

Of hydrogen gas.

Welcome,

Welcome to the Dark Ages;

The long night

Of then –

But no us.

Then the first pinprick of light

And a dim cosmic dawn

As the first of zillions of stars was born.

The light of creation;

A fusion of elemental force

In the dark,

Forging metals

And hurling them back out

To leave their mark.

The supernova of nuclear storm

Creating planets

For a brand new morn.

All the gold silver and iron

Created in stars

Through fiery aeons.

Gravities pull

On that diffuse pool

With uneven spread

Fusing quarks

Into carbon and lead.

Giving forth sustaining light

With suns a hundred times bigger

Than our sun

With its heavy metal trigger.

As violet blue,

The elements they spew,

Cutting through the fog

With a cosmic knife.

Providing the building blocks

For life.

Now on this rock

Conceived in the maw of a star

We have eyes

That can peer near and far

And minds

To fathom the nature

Of a quark

And the wonder

Of that first

Bright spark

That lit up a tiny corner

Of perpetual dark.

Opher 20.9.15

Creation – the beginning? Or was it?

Posted on September 20, 2015 by Opher

Creation

There is much debate as to the moment of creation. Was it the moment of the Big Bang? Or did something exist prior to that? Was the Big Bang the result of two universes touching within the structure of the polyverse system creating a third? Was it the outpouring of a Black Hole? Did it come about through a sudden burst of expansion within one area? Or was it created spontaneously from nothing.

The religious amongst us would naturally say that God did it. But that still poses the same set of conundrums, if slightly different. Where was God before the universe, space and time began? Was God created spontaneously? Did he always exist? If so where and how?

The standard response to those questions is that only God knows which, in my opinion, is dodging the question.

For me the concept of God explains nothing and is merely one of man’s attempts to explain something that pushes our minds to the limit.

Putting that to one side let us go forward.

Perhaps the moment of real creation was when the first stars lit up the heavens and signalled the beginning of the universe as we know it, fusing hydrogen into the heavier elements and enabling life to emerge? After all, what is a universe if there is no one to see it?

In the beginning the universe was pure hydrogen, so hot with the moment of its birth and pressure that it glowed white. The heavens were incandescent with searing light. Fortunately there were no eyes around to see it or they would have been instantly blinded.

After its inception the universe expanded and cooled into darkness.

At this point it was pure hydrogen present in separate atoms, not bound into molecules, spread so thin that they formed a dark fog to the edges of all time ans space (created along with the matter).

If that hydrogen had been completely uniformly distributed that is where it would have ended. It would have gone forth forever as a dark expanding cloud of hydrogen atoms. Fortunately that was not the case. The distribution was not completely uniform. The physical laws took effect and gravity, over billions of years, drew the atoms together. As they clumped and aggregated their gravitational pull increased until they were sucking in all around them. These were the formation of the first generation of stars.

Once again we were fortunate. For with condensation comes heat. The gravitational force pulled those hydrogen atoms together but the heat drove the atoms apart. It would have resulted in a balance that stopped short of reaching the temperature and pressure necessary to initiate fusion. Fortunately the hydrogen atoms joined together into hydrogen molecules which were able to absorb sufficient heat to enable the process of fusion. The hydrogen began to fuse to create larger elements of helium and carbon giving out huge amounts of energy and light.

This is the moment of creation.

First one and then over millions of years a second and blinking on in ever increasing numbers the heavens erupted in light. This was not the light we see today. Those stars were fewer and hundreds of times bigger and brighter than our stars. Their fuel was hydrogen and they were short of all the heavier elements. The light they produced was obscured by the hydrogen gas surrounding them so that they must have shone like headlights in a dense fog.

Those huge first stars quickly sucked in their fuel, clearing the vicinity of hydrogen and lived out their relatively short lives to go out in a huge meganova that must have set the heavens ablaze with its fury. In so doing they hurled out the heavier elements they had created within themselves to fuel a second generation of stars.

If we only had a speeded up film of the universe in those early billions of years – the years of darkness, the first pinprick of light in the fog, the lights blinking on one after another until the heavens were awash with hazy light, the hydrogen being gobbled up leaving great empty holes and then the explosions as those stars erupted in gigantic fury to dissipate their energy and those precious elements. It is beyond imagination as a spectacle of such immensity, a firework display on a magnitude beyond our understanding. Yet it happened.

The second and subsequent generations of stars took those elements further creating all the elements the universe has ever known and spewing forth the matter that created planets and ultimately all life.

For me the moment of creation was that first spark of fusion in that very first giant star. That was the moment the universe came to life.

Photography – Brimham Rocks – sculptured sandstone in beautiful shapes.

Posted on September 5, 2015September 5, 2015 by Opher

These rocks have held a fascination over the centuries. People are attracted to certain rocks, stones, trees and natural phenomena. They are thought to hold power.

I don’t know about that – but they certainly do fill you with a sense of awe and wonder.

I like photographing picturesque things. I took these shots:

Ten of my best hates and ten of my loves. Why don’t you have a go!

Posted on September 5, 2015September 5, 2015 by Opher

Ten of my best hates and ten of my loves.

I stole this idea off Calensariel. It was a great idea. Well it wasn’t so much a steal as a borrow and adaptation. It set me thinking. Thanks Calensariel (in reality she put it out as a challenge and borrowed it from elsewhere but that doesn’t reduce it). This was something that I did not want to do lightly.

These are the ten things I detest most

Cruelty – particularly to helpless animals.
Violence – I think it is primitive. There are better ways. War, thuggery and brutality are invariably wrong.
Greed – people who think that the purpose of life is to take everything they can at the expense of others.
Megalomania – the people who will do anything – lie, cheat and kill – in order to get to the top.
The misuse of power – the way certain people wield power for their own interests and do not care about the damage they cause to others or the environment.
Mindlessness which produces music, films, soaps, books, fashions and lives of such shallow superficiality that they reduce the magnificence of life to dross.
The destruction of the planet – deforestation, pollution, and irresponsible dumping. It is a tragedy. It is short-sighted. The destruction of habitat and butchering of wild-life makes me want to cry.
Superstition and indoctrination. I believe religion does far more harm than good. The intolerance, arrogance and dogmatism is appalling. Indoctrination of children is child abuse. From the hunting of rhinos to the slaughter of infidels it stinks. Jihads, crusades, pogroms, inquisitions, witch-hunts and beheadings. The destruction of historic sites. There is no god. Religion is man-made. The sooner we give up on that the better. Now spirituality …..
Overpopulation – It robs us of a future, uses up resources, creates pollution, destroys the environment and traps us in huge claustrophobic cities.
Poverty – There is no need for it. It is a result of the economic model we choose to adopt where a few reap trillions while billions live on the edge. It disgusts me. It doesn’t have to be that way.
Disease – It may be natural and inevitable but disease is a breaker of hearts, an ender of lives, and a creator of misery.
The isms that create inequality, injustice and unfairness – sexism, racism, fascism and intelligentism (I had to make that one up). The only ism I like is pacifism.

Those are the things I spend my life opposing, fighting and attempting to put right.

These are the ten things I love most.

Love – To be in love, to hold your children, grandchildren, pets and friends, is the greatest thing of all.
Beauty – To look at a sunset, a rock, a tree, a mountain, a flower, the stars, wild-life, the colours and shapes. It is wonderful beyond words.
Women and sex. They are not only beautiful, graceful, discerning, caring and sensual but they bring serenity, calm and intelligence with style. I generalise. Sex is also a delight of sharing, passion and pleasure.
Animals – I love them all apart from spiders.
Music – It moves the spirit and warms you to the core.
Reading. It is the greatest invention of mankind. We can share the thoughts, stories and dreams of the greatest people who ever lived.
The natural world. What can be more impressive than the result of a few billion years of evolution, the majesty of the heavens, the magnificence of geology? What could match that?
Writing and words. When humans created words they created a wealth of communication that enabled us to capture our thoughts and feelings. I love to ensnare my thoughts in symbols and share them. Communication is the essence of civilisation. Poetry is a distillation of the form.
Creativity – In all its forms – art, music, drama, poetry, opera, sculpture, writing, dance …. It is transcendental. It gives purpose to life, expression of being and a means of exploring truth and life. Creativity sets us apart from most other life.
Novelty and discovery. We are inquisitive and born with a natural desire to investigate the world we live in.
Friendship – We form friendships through chemical bonds that join us. We do not have to share the same tastes (but it helps). Friendship for me is something as strong as any emotion. With a friend you are fully at ease to share the contents of your mind, to argue and dissect. To learn about yourself and change your mind.
Food and drink. There is nothing better than to share a meal with a bunch of loved ones, close friends and the pets at our feet, while watching a sunset, listening to good music in front of a roaring fire.
Sport – It is ritualised warfare without the violence and hatred. It is tribal. The thing I love most is the unpredictability. It keeps you on the edge of your seat with tension. I love to see the tactics, strategy and skill. It keeps me enthralled.
Photography – freezing the moment into a perfect shot that captures, frames and locks in the essence of its beauty.

When I retired I said I wanted to travel, write and read. I should have added – with the ones I love. That would make my life complete.

When you have digested my lists of ten (I never was any good at counting and it was hard limiting it to ten) you can clearly see why the whole fundamental basis of ISIS is the antithesis of everything I believe and stand for. They stand for fascism, indoctrination, intolerance and violence. They wish to impose their brain-washed superstition on everyone and destroy all vestiges of other cultures. If there is such a thing as evil then they epitomise it.

(After I had posted this I noticed that WordPress had somehow removed a number of words from my post. That was weird. I have had to go back and edit them in)

Opher 5.9.2015

Photography – The Eden Project – An adventure in Ecology.

Posted on September 4, 2015 by Opher

The Eden Project was set up in a gully in Cornwall. It is an adventurous exploration of horticulture in geodesic domes that look like an alien has landed in the place.

The geodesic greenhouses are home for many exotic climates. It’s a great place to visit. A bit alternative and difference – like Kew Gardens with a touch of acid.

Here’s a few photos: