Silent Creation

With all that is going on in the world, in the Middle East and in our economy, let's pause for a bit of introspection, starting with a poem (once again we are scooping Cascade Lakes News & Views where this will eventually appear) by Sid Bolotin. Oh, yes .... like a voice in the wilderness, or a tree falling in a forest with no one there to hear it ... I repeat that your contributions as mentioned above are always welcome on this blog. (Note that we've fiddled with the format of the blog this week. Hope this is more legible and pleasing to our followers, all three of them.)
JL

The Inside of My Lids

Sid Bolotin

I close my eyes, and see

The dark gray of the inside of my lids

Then, released by the shutter

Of eyelids that block the external

Images begin their dance

As my mind unreels its film

Like a VCR on its own autopilot

Rewind, fast forward, pause

“If only” flashbacks

Happy images, peaceful ones

“What if” scenarios

Peek-a-boo into the future

Icons for meditative focus

As real as any movie on the silver screen

My inner orchestra’s sound track explodes

With audio provided by the chattering committee within

Show the film, quiet the clatter

Come back to my breath

Breathe into my heart

Back to the stillness, to no-thing-ness

To the inside of my lids

*** *** *** *** ***

Silent Creation

We’ve all heard the question which asks if there is any sound when a tree falls in a forest with no living creature nearby to hear it. Since sound is the result of vibrations felt on one’s eardrum, the answer seems to be “no” because there were no eardrums available to sense the vibrations. A totally deaf person, standing in the forest, might feel the vibrations, but would hear nothing.

Let’s go back to the beginning, when “chaos” was all there was, and if you are religious, you believe that out of this chaos, the universe and all that is within it was created. If you are not religious and believe that whatever happened to cause the universe to exist must have had a physical or chemical basis, that’s fine too.

The point is, however, that whatever happened occurred without any living creatures being there to hear the vibrations. Certainly the crashing and bursting of celestial bodies, the explosions, and once there was a planet, the rumbling of land masses as they tumbled into shape, colliding and rising and sinking into violent oceans all must have created tremendous vibrations. But there was no one there to hear them.

Today, I believe that scientists can look back and sense what these vibrations must have been by looking at their results. They can retrospectively calculate the force of the vibrations caused by what were literally earth-shattering events.

What you hear (the effect of vibrations upon your eardrums) is really not so important as the vibrations themselves and what caused them. A tree stood in the forest a minute ago and just crashed to the ground. That is what the vibrations caused by its fall represent. Whether an ear did or did not receive them as sound is not so important as the physical act of the tree falling. And so it was at the time of the universe’s silent creation. There may have been fury, but there was no sound.

JL