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Rethinking Nothingness

The western way of thinking tends to equate nothingness with nonexistence or annihilation, which of course makes nothingness an unattractive proposition. It also has the scent of atheism, and so is rejected as alien or contrary. But it would seem that the eastern way of thinking conceives of nothingness differently. Nothing would be more precisely understood as ‘no-thing’, or that is, stateless Being infinitely beyond any attributableness. This is simply extreme negative (apophatic) theology. So then, achieving nothingness isn’t nonexistence, it’s attainment of great knowledge of that no-thing.

And this way of conceptualizing God certainly isn’t alien to western thinking. The Via Negativa, in a less rigid form, is the theology of Byzantine and Oriental Christianity...God the ineffable. Latin Christianity (as well as the endless stream of sects that have split off from it) tends to employ cataphatic theologies, or the theology of attributes...a God of things. But even that isn’t so clear cut. The Byzantines and Orientals share the same creed (which paints God as things) with the Latins. Also the Latins have a deep tradition of the Via Negativa as seen in the mysticism of The Cloud of Unknowing or St. John of the Cross’ The Dark Night of the Soul. Also, while God is the unmanifest no-thing, he is also the manifest incarnation. More so, God places attributes on himself: God manifests himself in archetypes like lover, father, or judge; and God manifests himself in matter in a very real way like a flame, a son, or bread.

Bauform: I

Says Kermit the Frog, it isn’t easy being green. Sometimes it’s micromanaging pseudo-science, and sometimes it’s a new way of thinking.

The High Line: converting an abandoned elevated rail structure in Manhattan, being reclaimed by nature, into a public green space.

Black Maps: environmentally impacted aerial landscapes as abstract art.

The Dwell Home: a green, modern residential design competition. Not what modern was or what modern is, but what modern will be…that bowl.

Be careful what you ask for

Those who sacrifice to other gods will go to those gods. The ancestor worshipers will go to their ancestors. Those who worship the elemental powers and spirits will go to them. So, also, My devotees will come to Me.

What of the self-worshipers, shall they go to themselves...eternity constructed of infinite iterations of self and nothing more. What manner of hell is this; and so too the demoniac shall go to the demons.

Hunter Lake

  

  

  

At Rest in Motion

   At rest, I lie in a hammock.
   The hammock rocks fixed to the tall pines.
   The tall pines sway in the wind rooted to rock.
   The plates of rock shift over the surface of Terra.
   Terra spins on its axis...
   ...a terrestrial sphere orbiting Sol.
   Sol too revolves around the center of the Milky Way.
   The Milky Way races away from the universal...
   ...point of singularity.