Edges

I don't like edges and I don't know why. They're sharp, and that seems dangerous. They define separation and I'm more comfortable with continuity. They are finite and I like to think about the infinite. And yet there they are, everywhere.

I've been focusing on the weeds that grow by the lake, first to think about the ground to stabilize my vertigo, and then to consider beauty in something that many find a nuisance. But now, the town has cut them all back. They are no longer a transitional wide sort of gradual entrance to the lake. They are now chopped and brown. They have edges. They are the edge. Even my stretches of imagination can't make them beautiful.

I can walk around to other parts of the lake and find frame-able, pretty scenes, but at the spot that I've been examining, there is just a brown edge. And it's been so rainy and hot that the lake also has overgrowth that's pretty ugly. I look back at earlier lake photos I've posted here, and really, they're prettier. So, I've found that when ideas like this nag at me, there's some message I need to hear, and usually through blogging here, I can find it.

Not this time though. I think I'd be forcing the issue if I take a guess right now, so I'm posting the concept and we'll see what develops in the followups.

Laws and Weeds

"Behind us, as we go, all things assume pleasing forms, as clouds do far off. not only things familiar and stale, but even the weed at the water-side, the old house, the foolish person, -- however neglected in the passing, -- have a grace in the past." (from Ralph Waldo Emerson's Spiritual Laws)

My father and I were discussing laws this morning. The definition of a scientific law is that it generalizes a body of observation. I'd say the same is true of Emerson's Spiritual Laws.

And that explains why humans are drawn to observe and draw conclusions. Maybe the calming feeling that comes from observing nature is an instinct that has developed in humans to point us to the richness of everyday life. Today's contribution from me is my latest collection of weed-by-the-water-side photos.

I like the idea that all things assume pleasing forms. I have always believed that, and so I can be distracted on occasion by anything, because it is all workable, all good, all a pleasing form.