When you have a computer with Web access, you can find photos of almost anything, taken by better photographers with better cameras than you and yours.
But it doesn’t stop us from indulging in the global festival of digital photography, that celebrates “I woz here!”—though mainly in the sunshine. In my outdoor shots, it’s usually sunny, just as in old family albums you see only high days, holidays and picnics. Photos help me remember where I’ve been and what I did, in this instance stroll by a stream in the public park, on Tuesday 15th March.
What is it that we respond to in Nature? Why does it lift my soul—or rather remind me what soul is?* The question has been asked by poet-philosophers enough times. This is Wordsworth having a go, in Tintern Abbey:
Though absent long,
These forms of beauty have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man’s eye:
But oft, in lonely rooms, and ’mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind,
With tranquil restoration: . . .
Nor less, I trust,
To them I may have owed another gift,
Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,
In which the burthen of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world,
Is lightened:—that serene and blessed mood,
In which the affections gently lead us on,
Until, the breath of this corporeal frame
And even the motion of our human blood
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul:
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.
Never mind the ‘Absolute’†. If there must be a label for some nameless thing that I get from Nature, let it be the ‘Sublime’, for that’s what Wordsworth calls it, later in the same poem:
And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.
Yet there is no point in just trying to walk in the footsteps of Wordsworth, even though his words are testimony and signpost. We—he, you and I—are sharers in humanity, so we can feel what he feels directly and for ourselves. Give thanks that we still have setting suns, the round ocean, the living air, and the mind of man—though we live in an age which fears that all these are threatened by insidious pollution. We don’t have to be poets or even readers of poetry.
We just have to be naked enough to let ourselves be touched, so that the fetters which circumscribe us may fall off, letting us embrace, and be embraced by, the All.
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* Annie Dillard advises writers to avoid use of the word ‘soul’. Well, note this, Annie, you are not my mentor and I am not a ‘writer’!
† As in the previous post.
a wayfarer’s notes 
Vincent, Beautiful pics.
It is amazing what the digital camera and computers have done to photography.
Taking the cue from John, I just added a blog list to my blog and instantly knew of this new post by you. It is a really neat gadget that I must thank John and his blog for leading me too. Makes blogging so much simpler.
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Ah, I love willow trees. (That is a willow tree, right?) Anyway, one of these days I'll write a post about it, maybe.
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Just to add what you call the Sublime is what I think others call Absolute, God or the Universal Consciousness.
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The element of pollution was probably heavy in so many ways in Wordsworth's time; different pollutants and also some we might recognise today. We read the idyllic words and select the beauty as he and others would have selected it, thereby selecting out anything unattractive.
I delight in your memory of the afternoon in the park. The tree appears to respond to the brightness and pleasure too.
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You sound like Ralph Waldo Emerson, sir.
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I love this series of photos, Vincent. I think they wonderfully capture the repetition of patterns in our world, from the infinitesimally small, to the infinitely large. Each shot drawing in closer, shows how similar the form and features of this grand tree, in multiplicity of scale. It smacks of fractal geometry and Fibbonaci… or perhaps more accurately, Fibbonaci and fractal geometry are beautiful mathematical representations of the glorious artistic symmetry of creation.
Maybe it is also an apropos reflection of the human impetus to capture the world around us in snapshots… the ultimate result of which is like Fibbonaci's sunflower; each kernel a photographer's collection, summing into the artistic whole of its individual parts.
Always a pleasure to read and ponder on your writings. 🙂
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Tim,
I hope not to embarras you but those Fibbonaci things were actually numbers, not flowers.
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The wonderful Fibbonaci blooms of spring ! 🙂
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ZACL, I don't doubt that in Wordsworth's time, there was already terrible pollution in the air and rivers near the new-fangled factories, which Blake complained about as “dark Satanic mills”.
However in those days they were relatively free of the fear of pollution. The average life-span was shorter but it was accepted as such.
A lot of people in Tokyo have been complaining that the fear of radiation is having more devastating immediate effects on Japan than the radiation itself, which may or may not have a long-term effect.
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Ashok, I just checked your blog list. I like the way it shows latest posts with thumbnails of their illustrations.
Yes there is something very widely experienced and variously named. I prefer not to give it a name at all, but but was inspired to go there by Steve Law.
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Yes, Bryan, it is a weeping willow. I look forward to your post and more in-depth visits to your new site.
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I don't want to emulate Emerson, John, but what must be, must.
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Glad you like them, Tim. Have researched the number series in about 10 seconds, John and (not wishing to embarrass you) discover that it can be plotted into a spiral which popularly carries its name. And the series can according to this site be spotted in the shapes detected in a sunflower.
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Oh my! I did not realize that Fibonacci also dabbled in botany. Thanks for the correction, Vincent.
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Vincent, as you have rightly pointed out and also Tim there are mathematical formulations and numbers behind this, actually behind everything in creation. Life, starting from that of the bacteria, emerges by one cell doubling into two then four then some cells stop and others continue doubling creating all kinds of complex mathematical series. Simple mathematical rules some with their own names can create complex and beautiful configurations as in fractal geometries as for example this photo created with the help of a fractal art software
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/TJrPd2tqphqJHFByJZt5qHu7Yh34PuEaT2ffzvAXlIc?feat=directlink
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Ashok,
Those pictures are breathtaking!
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I viewed all of them, not just the one.
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Thanks John.
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