Seeing the Unseen

Knowing comes to us in many ways. Not all are rational. Not all can be articulated in words. Some of our knowing is knowing that mystery abides, that we will never have better than a fleeting, sidelong glance, or a brief glimpse beyond the veil.

Paul Laffoley

Paintings that function as metaphysical machinery. Article here. Slideshow here.

Alchemy: The Telnomic Process of the Universe, 1973. Source: http://paullaffoley.net/paintings/

Luigi Serafini's Codex Seraphinianus

Hypnogogic imagery brought into the waking world. Articles here and here, and here.

 

Composer Alexander Belau was inspired by the Codex to write a symphony:

The Voynich Manuscript

A mysterious book from Central Europe in the 15th or 16th century, by an unknown author, in a language found nowhere beyond its pages, of unknown import. Article here. You can page through the entire volume here.

 

Alex Grey

Access galleries of work by this visionary artist of physical and metaphysical anatomy here. Article here.

Source: http://alexgrey.com/art/paintings/soul/bond/

Carl Jung's Red Book

Carl Jung, Freud's contemporary and early colleague, was one of the greatest explorers of the human unconscious. Article here.

Gamelan Girdles the Globe

If I could choose the circumstances of an alternative life I might very well choose to be born in Bali at a time before modern Western influences. Bali, where "we have no art – everything we do is art", perfected a sustainable agriculture centuries ago; the people satisfied all their material needs with only three or four hours of work a day, and used the remainder of their time for creative endeavors and interactions with family and friends. Among the extraordinary achievements of the Balinese is their music, one form of which is the gamelan orchestra. I embraced this music wholeheartedly upon first hearing, as have many others, including Western musicians whose compositions were influenced by the gamelan.

Here is an image of a gamelan orchestra. Every gamelan is a set of matched instruments, in tune and in tone with one another. There are a number of amateur ensembles in the U.S. and I wish to someday have the opportunity to play with one of them.

Source:

fir0002 | flagstaffotos.com.au

This is a classical presentation from Bali.

This is Armenian-American Alan Hovhannes' Koke No Niwa (Moss Garden) for clarinet, harp, and percussion.

This is Californian-American composer Lou Harrison's Main Bersama-Sama (Playing Together).

And this is the British progressive rock band King Crimson's Larks' Tongues in Aspic Part 1.

Turkey Totem

The several local family groups of wild turkeys have flocked together in recent weeks and I've seen quite a bit of them, in the woods and fields and even around the house as they pass through on foot, snapping constantly at something – insects? grass and weed seeds? They're notoriously wary creatures, so it's been a rare pleasure to have so many up-close viewing experiences.

The hens lay large clutches of eggs, as shown in this image of a nest I stumbled upon last spring, but evidently not many survive.

The flock at the largest I've seen lately consists of four hens, nine juveniles, and a tom.

They roost high above in old growth hickory and oak trees. Beneath these trees, and in lesser numbers along the trails in the woods and around the fields, I've found lots of feathers and have been assembling these into a totem at one of the lane gate posts.

Speaking of rare experiences, yesterday I came upon a whitetail doe resting in tall grass in a clearing in the woods that did not startle until I was just ten feet away. She bounded off but only to a distance of about 60 feet, then turned and came several steps back toward me. We considered one another for about five minutes in which time she came forward several more steps before finally turning aside to be lost from view behind a bramble of blackberries.