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If you divide 10 by 3 you encounter infinity. This video was inspired by Andrew Crane’s picture 0.333*.
Mathematics meets spirituality.
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A video: 10/3 = Infinity
Detlef
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The Janitor of Cosmos
Detlef
Filing a complaint at the janitor of cosmos might be hazardous.
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Video: Your Life
Detlef
Your life is not on a track like a train. It sails through the air like a bird.
May you all sail with ease in the winds of the world!
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Letters and meaning
Detlef
What’s the meaning of a letter or a number? We are so fixed on the meaning of writing that we tend to forget the lettering over it. Knowing the letters we forget about them. Not knowing them – we see them very clearly, as in this picture. We see the message “loves you”, which doesn’t make any “sense” as such – so we are able to concentrate on the appearance of the letters, on their “gestalt”:
By Detlef.This photograph of a graffiti on a wall leaves room for the contemplator’s mind to resonate according to its own pattern – not necessarily the pattern of the meaning of letters or numbers:
By Detlef.The inverse function of this approach would be to try to find meaning in nature. These drops on a blade of grass could signify a punch-card code or a Morse alphabet:
By Detlef. -
Sun of dignity in the cancer ward
Detlef
By “Detlef.Sitting in the corridor of the cancer ward I watched a woman in a bathrobe arduously moving to the window with a walker. She remained there in silence looking at the sunset. Suddenly she straightened up in her walker and said: “Ah, the sun, the sun. The beautiful sun!”I was deeply moved to witness so much dignity.
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The Next Level
Detlef
Rakshith Rao tweets the question wether or not to believe in a supreme being controlling our lives. I wonder whether such a being would know or even need the category “control”? What is there to control if you are a – or even THE – supreme being?
By Detlef.
Ryan writes about us human beings “blending in and standing out”. I like Ryans perspective because it makes me wonder: would we really be standing out regarded from the level of a supreme being? We are the same biological concept as the zebra, the frog, the fly. Do we really act that differently? OK: we have technology, we use artefacts we transform our environment. So do beavers. Homo Sapiens is more successful in the sense that we transform our whole planet – in the brief moment of our blossoming as a species.Could we even recognize a superior being? Superior regarding what? Intelligence? Knowledge? Those are all human concepts that wouldn’t necessarily apply to a superior being. From the point of view of the chimpanzee Homo Sapiens is an inferior chimp. Man is a very inferior zebra, an inferior dog. No wonder all other life forms seem to be inferior to us – we seem inferior to them, too.
Homo Sapiens stands out in one regard: we can kill all chimpanzees, all zebras, all whales – if it pleases us. But if there would be a virus able to kill our species – would we regard that as a superior being?
So there remains technological superiority, like in the science fiction novels. A species able to travel to earth from their planet would necessarily be superior to Homo Sapiens. A species able to build a noiseless car that’s powered by sunlight.
But “technology” is a very human concept, too. I believe – and I hope – the next level will have to do with the universal concepts of love and kindness.
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Made by Homo Sapiens
Detlef
Sometimes I feel like the whole universe might be drawn into the abyss created by Homo Sapiens and our use of technology. – But then again I like to look at human artifacts as being part of creation. We never stand opposite to nature. We are always a part of it. We never step out of creation.
By Detlef. -
Eternal exchange
Detlef
“The human soul is like water: coming down from the sky, rising up to the sky it has to go down to earth again: an eternal exchange.”
My free translation of J.W. Goethe’s poem “Gesang der Geister ueber den Wassern”
By Detlef.Alas: we should be careful with the word “eternal”, as even the source of all energy on earth, our sun, has a past, a present, a future – and an end, as this fine work by my friend Tim Grosvenor shows.
Or might even the end of the sun be just a passage within the “eternal” circle of life, the start of something fresh and new like a clear drop of water?
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Gates in the cerebral palace
Detlef
As we are getting older some of our capabilities get rusty. Some gates in the cerebral palace have been closed for a long time. Perhaps they were locked after a disgrace, perhaps pain was involved. Perhaps there simply was no longer an opportunity to use certain rooms – as keeping up the others involved so much care and work.
By Detlef.So one day you find yourself in front of a barred gate, which has obviously been closed a long time, and there must be a reason for that, and see: it won’t open because of all the weeds around – not to talk about the lock.
But the lock is rotten and the weeds are willing to give way. So: what’s holding you back?
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Being in tune
Detlef
Strange couple. One doesn’t have to do a lot with the other at first sight.
Yet here they are: Sharing a time and a place in a universe that is ultimately governed by Love.
They are in tune. Watching them I tuned in, too.
By Detlef.