stitches, musing, and the day moon (I know, does not exactly roll off the tongue)…

stitches, musing, and the day moon (I know, does not exactly roll off the tongue)…

sky clouds blue half moon
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

days like today are a welcome respite, the thermometer taking a break from the grasp of winter (albeit a mild one so far, I must admit), the temperature reaching up spring heights, the sun blazing down more like June, the sky that lovely shade of  absolute pure blue, ah yes, today should be different, will it ? I doubt it… Monday… glorious Monday… we dance… our dance…
I take my lunch break at the apportioned time, and begin to muse, or doze off, or both… head fades back into the pillow, or head rest, which is not as poetic…
so I bend to inner thought, are stitches just stitches or paths for where the fabric should go, all the arrows, the lines, the signs, all around us guiding the chaos, in this, this petri dish of our existence, from the smallest germ, up through the grass, into the trees, to humans walking these streets, to the birds that rule the air, sharing space with massive water vapor arrangements, up to the brink, the clink of glass, the sky ceiling, space and the companion nothingness, suffocation beyond the gate, now onward, up there, the lack of anything, the possibility of everything, a juxta-pose, all out there that lies beyond, and days like this, the breed of hope, the seed of new thought, just overlooking, you, day-moon, so out of reach, a silent observer, a constant distant friend, a constant reminder, for night is your usual domain, or so we perceive that haunt to be, but to you, locked in circles, lock stepped in orbit in orbits, a procession dance, at a glance, caress the tides as you have watched as very continents divide, the rise and fall, from molecules to dinosaurs, and to these eyes, upon close examination, your face, shaped by the memories of universal sojourners across the wake and landed, impacted, and even we, this tiny race have spent time on your domicile, our, you, our closest neighbor just that far beyond our life cocoon cradle, left dead staring as a reminder, or to inspire, as your one face faces us un-tired, stranger in the blue, day-moon, I feel as if I can hold you in my hand, up to my ear, and listen carefully to unveil your memory, and know of all things that happened here, watching life spin, just, out of reach…

endless…

endless…

photo of night sky
Photo by Wendy Wei on Pexels.com

I can not explain the feeling, like living in a moment of infinity, maybe it is the season, maybe it is the reason, I was out walking the dog, not some euphemism, literally just letting samantha out to explore and defile the lawn somewhat, I walked, out to the sidewalk, in shorts, in the cold, on january twelth, nearly 2am, wind kicking up some, time seemed to slow down to a crawl, as I looked around, slowly, it felt like forever, like this moment should be everything and all things and was, -infinity-, for a second, it felt like that, nothing else was on this human plane, there was just this, this moment, existing in this space, the wind roaming all around, the moss on the one side of the tree in the streetlight, sort of glowing, or so it seemed, to my left, the sidewalk glistening beneath from some earlier rain, at a certain angle seen, then, I turn, a sudden jarring sound, a plastic water bottle has escaped my recycling bin, rattling down the driveway run away barrel, I stop it, I pick it up, put it back, the dog is there out on the lawn, roaming around with purpose, I feel the breeze, the trees are just lines against the moon now, no leaves, no sounds, just the breeze pure against my ears, around my ears, in my ears whispering things I can not understand, I embrace it, the breeze, strike a jesus pose to try and absorb it all in like a kite flying, I can not take a deep enough breath but I try none the less, to fly, this moment, this is an experience of infinity, of endless life, of life, of life itself, this is that, for a second, I call her back in, my dog, so we can return to the now, the routine, the continuum of the real life, the banal, but I feel as if I touched something else, tonight, even for just that moment.

music to ponder the cosmos by…

Miranda, revisited

Miranda, revisited

(previously posted but now with annotations,  links and such. being a bit nerdy today… sometimes more goes into a poem than I care to think about… sometimes…)

PIA18185_Miranda's_Icy_Face

dear Miranda, (*1)
but just a glimpse
a fading pass (*2)
for you hide and dance
forever show the same face (*3)
within a tempest born (*4)
the scars of stars upon your form
all about craters worn
from drunken horde, magicians wand (*5)
father Prospero’s hand, Stephano’s yard
Trinculo’s joke read out on your garb
your scarps take breath
Verona Rupes
in all the moons of this
solar system our bed
your light touch would save (*6)
twelve minute fall
and might I discover
the patterns
the sulci
in which your lines are read,
may we see you again (*7)
not just a glimpse
but a visit then.

  1. I chose Miranda for a number of reasons. One is that the previous four discovered moons of Uranus were named after fairies.  Miranda was the first to be named after a human (well, a character in a Shakespeare play). Besides that designation the topography of Miranda has baffled scientists with it’s seemingly unique (at least here in our Solar System) nature and formations.
  2. Miranda was discovered by Gerard Kuiper in 1948, it was the last moon discovered in the Uranian system until Voyager 2 passed on by in 1986 (after being launched in 1973).
  3. Like our moon, Miranda has Tidal Locking, meaning the same side (or face) always faces the planet it orbits.
  4. Obvious reference to William Shakespeare’s The Tempest from which Miranda was granted it’s name. I was thinking of a loose association of how the planets and moon formed.  There was a cosmic tempest of sorts and then the celestial bodies fell into place like their own little islands (and life on them, well, at least Earth).
  5. More references to The Tempest characters, read more here.
  6. The gravity on Miranda is a fraction of ours here on Earth, so even a fall from Verona Rupes (the tallest cliff known in our Solar System) would take quite some time (twelve minutes is kind of an arbitrary number I picked that could be reasonably accurate).
  7. A reference again to Voyager 2 passing by but also that NASA has hinted at revisiting Uranus in the 2020s (you know, this new decade).
perspective: how our mind tricks us

perspective: how our mind tricks us

earthrisereduced

does looking at this image cause you some disorientation ? In fact, this most famous of photographs is shown here the way it was meant to be seen, or more accurately the way it was actually shot, Bill Anders (Apollo 8) was not thinking about the horizon (which pretty much orients our visual field), he was just a space explorer taking a photo as one celestial body comes into view from right to left (from the capsule orbiting another body). Amazing how that screws us up but yet is a great reminder on how much we take for granted in our daily experience (how limited we are to this sphere and maybe we should think outside of things sometimes, being stuck to the ground with gravity). More remarkable, to me, is also the Apollo missions themselves. Imagine, during the course of just a few years, continued space launches to reach the moon (and walk on it) with the technology of 50 years ago. There were no cell phones, no flat screens, no home PCs, no GPS, no finger spinners… OK, that last one seems inconsequential, I admit, but just chew on that whole for a minute… in the space of three years 12 people walked on another world, hard to even get my head around let alone yours. Just something to think about in the coming year, shoot for the moon they say…

(a nice outline of the entire Apollo project) and since I am being nerdy, here is a loaded poem, I will unpack it at some later date, lots of footnotes to date and take… can you catch them all? (hint: the one link I supplied in the name)

dear Miranda,
but just a glimpse
a fading pass
for you hide and dance
forever show the same face
within a tempest born
the scars of stars upon your form
all about craters worn
from drunken horde, magicians wand
father Prospero’s hand, Stephano’s yard
Trinculo’s joke read out on your garb
your scarps take breath
Verona Rupes
in all the moons of this
solar system our bed
your light touch would save
twelve minute fall
and might I discover
the patterns
the sulci
in which your lines are read,
may we see you again
not just a glimpse
but a visit then.

dating mrs. universe…

dating mrs. universe…

silhouette of person holding glass mason jar
Photo by Rakicevic Nenad on Pexels.com

so, we are getting ready to go out, where? I forget, it seems like we have been everywhere but then again, there is always something new to explore out there, and then she asks me “do I look fat in this?”, geez, even after all these years, how many years has it been actually? I get lost a bit in my own thoughts thinking about how it seems like a lifetime, no, more like all time since we were together, almost like there was nothing before and I imagine nothing after, as this is all I know, and she notices my stargazing look and interjects again, “I asked you a question!”, oh so you know how these things go, awoken from my momentary haze I utter ‘you look absolutely amazing for your age babe’, then realize, even a bright comet that nears a star still melts, as this quickly lost orbit comes back around as a perceived insult, “what do you mean my age?!?!?!” her steely blue wolf-rayet eyes blazing, she looks like she might go supernova at this point, I try and salvage my position trying to read the sudden gravity of the situation, ‘c’mon honey, we are not in the cradle nebulae anymore, youth is totally wasted on the young, you have the experience to pull it all off, there wouldn’t be anything without you, you know that’, she seems satisfied enough with my response, off the hook for a moment I suppose, the solar winds can shift so suddenly you know, even with all these years navigating the expanse of her character is like mapping the stars and trying to track all the other celestial bodies flying around out there, then I remember where we are going, to her father’s, always the same, a sunday, after all, even after all these years that seem like forever, he works six days a week, still, six days in and out, have to admire the old man, still letting the creative juices flow even at his age, although he is not as touchy about it as the old ball and constellations over there, glad she can’t read thoughts as surely she can turn as cold as the darkest black hole, and who wants to deal with that on a day off? ah, to be fair, when she is on there is nothing brighter in the sky to guide by, but boy does she takes her time getting things ready, like she is building civilizations from the ground up starting with amino acids and the like, at this rate we will have to travel at the speed of light to get there on time, such is life, such is the routine, you think I would be used to it by now, you think I would, I guess standing still is not in my nature, like an electrical impulse just pushing my molecules all around, apart and together, all the time, anyway, who am I ? you may ask, I would say it does not matter

notes... just one of those that popped into my noggin, an idea, a conversation, so here it is… raw in form but from this form as is….

Inspiration from the cosmos…

Inspiration from the cosmos…

afterglow art backlit bokeh
Photo by luizclas on Pexels.com

erudite in the language of the sun
conversations with solar implications
warming rays fade in my waning days
might I stride along your cosmic road
and sit stridently still upon your shore
to witness in glory bathe and full force
waves strip instant of my magnetic core
and for once before my skin burns tender flesh
for the absolute briefest moment might I instead
experience the form that binds and breathes
of all of the universe as neutrinos speed
through – and – passed

notes…  kind of playing around with various concepts, sometimes I just think about things like what it would be like to walk up to the sun to experience the full on force, because I marvel at how the Earth survives in such a harsh environment, if we weren’t exactly X distance (give or take) from the sun, had enough water (comets?), had a strong magnetic field (which creates the aurora borealis) and one huge asteroid decided to land in the Yucatan and wipe out millions of years of dinosaur rule…. that and some sweet lovin’ that went down by my folks and their folks before them before them before them etc…. wow, it is crazy to think about all that had to happen in the universe just for me to be here typing away on my blog… so, yeah, that’s the space I was in writing this… in case you were not wondering… thanks, as usual, comments, likes, spitballs, old tab cans and general flotsam is always appreciated (except for you, the one reading this, I’m kidding of course… or am I? (raised eyebrow provocatively) ) …

music to contemplate the stars… Humanmeshdance – Wet Moon

a simple little poem, as we all gaze into the night…

a simple little poem, as we all gaze into the night…

reach for the and blue moon neon signages
Photo by Designecologist on Pexels.com

“tell me, tell me of the moon
a paramour
who never moves
closer always
always remains
at a distance
remains always
at arm’s length”

notes… I was listening to this (Cellar Darling – Rebels) and these words popped into my head as they often do, I suppose I was playing with words, and repetition on purpose as we all tend to do the same things so often, myself included, breaking the mold I guess is a habit, one I do not have quite down, quite yet, but I endeavor the goal, I endeavor it so, so I depart in that direction even when sometimes lost…

Your consciousness, forever, just 9 easy payments of $19.95, act now and we’ll double the offer!

Your consciousness, forever, just 9 easy payments of $19.95, act now and we’ll double the offer!

black and blue electronic tools on green circuit board
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

welcome, dear traveler, to a not so distant year, let’s be arbitrary, since I can’t be proven wrong (unless Doc Brown materializes somehow), let’s say 2050 (closer than you may think in a blink), given the commercialization of space what will be the cost of freight ? the freight of… you? firstly there will be your DNA and maybe a bio page or two (perhaps some personal memento or two), shot out into the cosmos like so much a life(less) raft into an ocean vast(er) than we know, imagine your DNA blasted off into the cosmos and found in four million or 40 million years from now, and the technology exists to make a new you, beats the alternative, as they say, but we know people will not stop there, our DNA will be littering the universe I bet (perhaps that is how we got here on Earth in the first place in some form), like all things our appetites grow and the quest for the ever-life will vex all generations forward as it has all those past, a question of the matter becomes a matter of when in terms of mapping out the electrical patterns of our brains, especially with quantum computing flying ahead at such a breakneck pace, so questions about humanity will ultimately rise,  will humans be humans without the physical interface?

phases of the moon
Photo by Alex Andrews on Pexels.com

Non physical consciousness will allow us to venture into all manners of space (and the very depths of our own planet, imagine a vacation into an actual volcano, why not? or a little skinny dip in the mariana trench),  population control will not be an issue per se in this maybe brave new world, your apartment will be your location on a memory chip, your choice of neighborhood might depend on how close you are to one of the core CPUs or a power supply nexus, at that point will we have evolved into AI, of ourselves? will hacking become a form of murder? even if you are just turning off a switch or pulling a plug, and who is left in charge, on the outside, the “fleshers”? the “living”, the “pre-comp”s  as it were…  What will social interaction be like when you have no form, will avatars be your body?  and gender? there will not be any, or well, it won’t be needed, and would people choose to “die” early to transfer into the compu-realm, what if your soulmate dies, do you follow?  Will there be people who fall in love with someone who has been “alive” for 400 years and decide to “transmute” into the digital? I really wonder how far away we are from such things, I bet we are much closer than we think…

and the whole crux of this thought was cheesy infomercials, because even something lofty will eventually be sold for “X” number of installments @ $19.95 (call now, the first 100 callers get a free slap chop and shamwow millennium edition)… but no one touches the king

notes… yeah, I think about a mash up of stuff all the time, maybe my day consists of classical poetry, string theory and some quantum mechanics…. man can not live on verse alone.. that’s a pretty good tag line… maybe I could use that on a blog or something… hmmm…

music, going cosmic ambient because that is what fits….

>>>> Stellardrone – Invent the Universe

as we are inventing it right now as we go… thanks for the read, pull up a chair and check out all the other jazz I am up to

the afterlife, after life, or life after… (a pondering, a vision)…

the afterlife, after life, or life after… (a pondering, a vision)…

view of dark hallway
Photo by Aidan Roof on Pexels.com

…perhaps the problem is in the name itself, the name is a supposition, meaning that we are calling this life, and then ‘something‘ after, maybe the real answer is that this is just a phase of overall life not the end all be all .
for most of this phase of life, I must admit I have been focused on the possibility that there is nothingness after conventional death, that my life has zero significance and it will be as if I never existed forever after this – gone… – forever…, at times this has given me what feels like a panic attack, my breathing shortens, my chest seizes, a get a bit dizzy, it feels real and paralyzing, to combat this over the years I have tried to rationalize the options, I’ve looked at a myriad of religions, none fit (for me, if they work for you, I have no problem with that and am happy for you, genuinely), there was a time I settled on just knowing a few things:


 

-I do/have actually existed
-all humans great or garbage have gone down the same path
-matter is not created or destroyed so regardless some part of me goes on, in some form
-we know very little of the universe as smart as we think we are, so there is volumes of knowledge out there to explore

 

assorted color led lights
Photo by Toni Cuenca on Pexels.com

Sometimes this has been enough, sometimes not, because even if I, my atoms, my molecules, my materials become something else (or more perhaps… or less more likely), even if I become something else my consciousness, the ‘me’ is gone, and that is what rattles me to the core, it always has, and I don’t understand how most people are not the same, afraid of this dire outcome, this inevitable end, for all time, perhaps it is better that way.

 

focus photography of sun
Photo by Ali Arapoğlu on Pexels.com

So that brings me to tonight, and the term ‘afterlife’, and it made me realize that yes, vast nothingness is a possible outcome, but so is a phase of life we just do not understand, call it a vision if you like, I call it a picture in a dream I had, I imagined that upon my death, my body opened up like an egg, and a form of myself burst forth like a blue phoenix (I can not explain the particulars, I am just reporting them), a blue phoenix with a long tail like cosmic dust, as if you grabbed a nebula and pulled the cosmic cloud around back and forth, and the phoenix raced forth to explore the universe, no longer what we consider human, a higher form, I felt that is what we are meant to do, to discover the universe, in all the corners, in a different dimension, soaring among the stars, it felt calming and reassuring as if it came from some other source than my brain, is that likely? my logical self says no, but my logical self also can say that I do not have the knowledge to really make the call, there are many things we don’t understand in this life, we don’t remember being in the womb, but certainly were there for almost a year residency, then we had this phase of life which we are living in now, perhaps the next phase is the same way, this may be just another gestation period, different than the previous but no less real, and then the next birth happens, or evolution of our being, into something else, would we look back to the previous phase and look to talk to it ? perhaps, perhaps not, based on looking at this experience of life.

analysis blackboard board bubble
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Is this an answer? no. Just something that occurred to me tonight, something floating through my mind (as it is always working on the puzzle of this life). My fate will be the same either way, but sometimes there is an outcome we may not have considered… and I surely will still ponder on the subject, well, until the answer is quite apparent, and I am quite gone, either moving on or moving never lost to forever. I prefer to hope for the next phase of life, not afterlife, the next-life, the next phase…

Music to ponder the universe and all existence…

Carbon Based Lifeforms – Derelicts

As usual, all feedback is appreciated…. this one is a little out there, but, so are we, floating on this little blue marble at the edge of a galaxy among countless, beyond countless others… 

and I look up to the sky…

and I look up to the sky…

full moon illustration
Photo by Alex Andrews on Pexels.com

clouds laid out
like a flight of stairs
up the sky
onto the moon
my dreamer’s heart rise
to fly
above destiny’s bounds
to part this mortal ground
my eyes do not gaze
into the cold death of space
no stars dwell in the twilight now
the sensation of ascension
enamors my imagination
to that known twin, ancient friend
in this time of bright
when dimmed, the promise of return
might I ascend

notes: I looked up @ the sky and the clouds looked like a staircase…. and I thought… do I have the hops ? (I don’t know why this video made me laugh so much…)