Know Thy Heart

“Between two worlds life hovers like a star, twixt night and morn, upon the horizon’s verge. ”
— Lord Byron

We all hear the phrase "follow your heart".  But really, what the hell does it mean?

If I truly followed my heart, I would be dead or stuck in some horrible prison somewhere.  We are animals with both reason and logic and our whole life is spent navigating between these two unruly masters who are actually governing what we do on a day to day basis.  Oh, and the fact that we are biologically hardwired.

It was recently pointed out to me that we can't always follow our heart.  And, I must agree with them - although, somewhat unwillingly.  However, we all try, I think, to find our heart in what we do and it this action which truly defines our world.  Yet, even armed with this knowledge, it is something I have great trouble in doing.

I quite often find myself swinging between the soporific desire to create "Hallmark moments", painting everything nihilistic black, or just mocking the whole damn thing as a fool's errand.  I can't find the middle ground, and I truly admire those that can.  Now, I don't mean to say that one is better than the other...just different...

Fuck it!  I don't really know what I want to say...but a little of it is in the Trover photo post below.  Try to enjoy it without the desire to mock it...but if you want to mock it or paint it black...Heh, who am I to stop you?.

Freshwater West

Freshwater West

As we turned the corner making our way further along the grassy slopes that sauntered beside the coastal rocks, we bid farewell to the welcoming jaws of Freshwater West.

The earth, sky, and water merged together on the horizon, a lazy point of everything and nothing, awakening both momentarily and infinitely.

We can dream when we are fully awake and, all the while, every part of your body knows something that the mind can't hope to understand; we are all poets both living and dead on a small green-blue orb in the middle of nowhere.

Trover Photo Post

View Scott Tate's photos on Trover

Lost in the Order of it All

“Remove all the traffic lights, yellow lines, one-way systems and road markings, and let blissful anarchy prevail. I imagine it would produce a kind of harmony.”
— Sadie Jones

Okay...just to let you know.  I don't really have a plan.  I live in utter chaos and I effing love it.  I mean I am a total nutter.  If there wasn't a closed door to stop me from wandering off into the ether in the morning, I would...oh, and my addiction to morning coffee.  So, this photos is from day 3 of the hike...I should actually post one from day 2, but I will get to that later. 

Many times on the walk, there was some confusion as to where the trail was. Here, you could easily think this is either a very good path, or a shitty road. The large tire tracks on the left kind of suggest the latter, which it is. So, if you plan to hike the Pembrokeshire Coast Path (and I strongly recommend it), bring a good book that details the path. And, if you plan on driving in Wales, I suggest bringing a very small car and a very large dose of courage.

By the way, these are the sand dunes where the Shell House was built for Harry Potter's final film "Deathly Hollows". Just to the left of us is where the house would have stood. 

Shell House Link 1

Shell House Link2

Trover Photo

View Scott Tate's photos on Trover

Walking in a Dream

“Reality is wrong. Dreams are for real. ”
— Tupac Shakur

As I looked forward to the last leg of the journey on our first day, I felt as if I was in a dream. I thought about the Celtic people who were here over 2000 years ago. I wondered if their life was more dream than reality. And what of our lives? We are consumed with social media, messaging services, mobile phones, an instant click on whatever your heart desires reality, but it pales to the soft light that colours dreams. There is no going back, but it doesn't hurt to visit once in a while.

This is from my Trover photos on the second day of my hike on the Pembrokeshire Coast Trail.

The rest of the collection is below:

Watery Mirrors

“The only journey is the one within.”
— Rainer Maria Wilke

Reflections...were they the beginning?  Certainly, there wasn't a particular time when consciousness began, but I can't help but think that watery mirrors were the first window that we looked through that gave us more than a simple visage.

The photo essay below is from photos that I posted on Trover.  It is a rough draft of something much deeper in my soul which I just can't frame correctly...someday...someday

 

Wandering Poet

““Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” ”
— Søren Kierkegaard

I work to make money so that I can eat.  I wander about and think so that I can live.

We are a sad world.  We spend all our time and energy creating things.  In order to do this, we destroy the Mother who bore us.  We work tirelessly trying to find our way off this warm, sensational organism called Gaia so that we can find a new home in the cold inorganic sprawl of space.

I suppose this is wandering too, but I am not sure that there is much thinking going on.

Below are some photos taken on a trip to Wales...there are quotes and some ramblings that accompany the photos...take a gander if you so desire.

View Scott Tate's photos on Trover

The Butterfly Selfie Effect

I find myself thinking about Zhuang Zi and his little story about the man dreaming he was a butterfly only to awake and wonder whether he was a man dreaming he was a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming that he was a man.  I am not entirely sure what he was trying to get at, but I suspect it has a little to do with our infatuation with our self.

Now, it is quite natural to want to define our self.  After all, "Know thyself" is inscribed on the Temple of Apollo at Delphi.  And, as individual organisms, we are biologically programmed to stay alive long enough to reproduce (this question merits much larger discussion for obvious reasons, but, in general, this is true and I don't want to get bogged down with it at present). However, I think Zhuang Zi was looking at a much deeper question which ,until recent scientific discoveries, was merely a philosophical question:  We are not entirely what we think we are.

Now, the purpose of these blogs is to bring up certain concepts that will be central to the story Time Is Space.  And, one concept is the possibility that we are not fully capable of truly understanding who and what we are.  It is, at times, an incredible conundrum, yet, it is an astonishingly absorbing question which can be quite satisfying to try and pry open.  

I am unable to answer the question for you, but I will leave you with a very fine video to watch on this subject.  It is a video from the Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell people and it is both entertaining and stimulating.