I’m so conscious of the evanescence of experience, so conscious
of the fact that everything we do, everybody we know, is carried along
on a tide of time and will disappear, that I have a strong sense of
wanting to pin experience down before it disappears.
Frank Auerbach
nothing can be pinned down, though~
Today there was a vapor trail up in the sky from a jet flying so high as to almost be a speck. It defined a line going east to west. Probably New York to L.A. And I suppose that inside that speck there were maybe some 200 people or more, talking back and forth, eating snacks, reading something, or looking out the window. The speck disappeared in less than a minute. Then there was only the billowing vapor trail. It too, disappeared a minute or so later. Then there was just the sky and me...all by ourselves.
ReplyDeleteI love your series of photos
ReplyDeleteAs much as we cling to the idea of wanting to hold onto things,moments,feelings,etc...
I agree we can't and I'm sure if we did, it will lose the beauty in why we love it so much
funny though, i thought the same thing when i came across that quote.
ReplyDelete(gorgeous post by the way, one of your finest in my opinion.)
I read your images and fell in love with the exactness of the hazy last dream pictured there. I went in search of words to help me express what I felt and discovered, quite by "accident", a Canadian poet whose words seem to fit so well with this post:
ReplyDelete"This is guesswork, this is love,
this is giving up gorgeousness to please you,
you beautiful dead to be. God bless
the weather and the words. Any words. Any weather.
And where or whom. I'd never taken count before.
I wish I had. And then
I did. And here
the weather wrote again."
-John Newlove
I love this first photo. She's like a saint or maybe Simone Weil or maybe a terrorist concentrating on something. Gosh, that does make me sound a bit weird!
ReplyDeleteWell, yes, since bridges are ladders of sorts I guess this is worth remembering?
Every beautiful form you have seen, every meaningful word you have heard-be not sorrowful all this must be lost; such is not really the case. The Divine Source is immortal and its outflowing gives water without cease; since neither the one nor the other can be stopped wherefore do you lament?...from the first moment when you entered this world of existence, a ladder has been set up before you...
--Rumi.
Too many metaphors in the kitchen spoil the pudding. We live for awhile, and then we are dust. So, between these two points, there is only one question: What do I want to do before I die? A true kiss from someone would suffice.
ReplyDeletebeautiful presentation Roxana, and something fruitful to contemplate on at this time of year.
ReplyDeleteyes it is part of the burden of our mortal cross to attempt to undo what time has erased.(so now we have hundreds of more photos with the digital cam,haha)
although along our mortal path we cultivate eternal karmic flowers and when we move beyond the barrier of the ego we can appreciate the efflorescence.
sending you new years kisses in the next snowfall . I hope it comes soon. wink
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO THE BRIDGE!!!!!!
ReplyDelete888888888888888888888888888888888
thankyou for the beautiful magical voyage of setting our dreams straight!in trails of stardust and beyond.
8888888888888888888888888888888888
8888888888888888888888888888888888
wishing the dream goddess and the dream princess joy and luck and the very best of life.
♥♥♥♥♥♥388888888888888888888********
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
=================================
888888888888888888888888888********
&
joyful kisses!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
very casually before bed and upon looking at old photo albums my lover remarked at an old photo of a young man with a clean smile...this is so and so...a relative...he's dead now...paralysed...but later in life..in his 60's or so...
ReplyDeleteand i withdrew and saw my body, my able hands holding the album, or did i?
and then today and the road and what might have happened and on the floorboard poetry.
no, poetry is not even a pin to hold us still, nor love, nor light and shadows, nor this thought, nor your incredibly rightful photographs. no, not even our scramble of fingertips.
but we can not exercise this fact enough into our minds. we can not exercise it enough from the root of our spirits.
xo
erin
Muy feliz año nuevo, princesa.
ReplyDeleteLa belleza de las fotos traen a mi mente lo que te dije en algún comentario acerca de las manos y los ojos...
ce compozitie extraordinara a fotografiilor,draga,am ramas acolo,intre atatea sugestii ivite in fiecare fir de par.imi este greu sa cred ca voi putea uita vreodata,ca nu se poate sa "prindem" in noi totul,chiar daca si noi facem atatea peripetii-nu stiu daca se poate face aceasta afirmatie in mod logic;dar exista atata gratie,orice sens ai da cuvantului,incat cred ca lucruri precum acesta pe care l-ai facut tu aici este de ajuns.
ReplyDeletewunderschöne bilder, voller schönheit..! so wie du die seele oder die erhabenheit oder das bewusstsein nicht sehen kannst, kannst du auch nicht sehen, dass die erfahrung und die erlebnisse bei dir sind und welche in dein - schönes - herz gelangen, entscheidest du selbst... höre nur, höre, liebste prinzessin!
ReplyDeleterenée
Happy New Year!! Love these and the sentiment, the last pic is amazing! Dreamt last night we met in Australia :)
ReplyDeletePersonally, though I live in time, or the appearance of time, I feel at my core something like an unceasing expanding/contracting evolution of consciousness. Maybe it's all there, buried in the cellular. Or maybe I tell myself this to feel better?
ReplyDeleteYour images pin down a myriad of deep emotions rather than mere moments.
'nothing can be pinned down, though~' Never let it be said that we never agree on anything.
ReplyDeleteHas the new year started on the secretly located bridge (somewhere in the black forest, perhaps)? Or do you beckon it with an open palm?
all i can see is a bouncing reflection, upon reflection, upon reflection of an evanescent experience, impossible to pin, for by the time it fully registers in my mind, it has been already gone, flown by, slipped between, no? only a burning sensation left on my loose fingers. thus i hold (fragments of it) . . . in my heart. i smile.
ReplyDeletemuch love,
and thankyou for all your wonderful masterpeices woven from the threads of life.
ReplyDelete***********************************
**********************************
and may all your dreams come true,
***********************************
********************************** after all this is only fitting that this would happen for the dream goddess.
HUGS and more new years kisses my beautiful friend.
Love the top pic.
ReplyDeletex
tides, time and roads - is it the time of year?
ReplyDeleteI guess I am now the little moth who flies in through your open window ; ) I was happy to see this post when it came. Though one may try to pin everything down, and though we may feel pinned ourselves, it is consoling to know that there is always freedom, a way out. Love.
ReplyDeletemyth, i relate so well to your story - it is during small moments like these, i call them "glimpses", that we reach another level of understanding of ourselves, and the world around us...
ReplyDelete(or so i fool myself :-)
musicwithin, clinging and longing to be free, one always moves back and forth between these two poles, it would seem...
Michael, thank you.
(and you are indeed the master of quotes, the previous one, from Cézanne, was not only so true and thought-provoking, but very fitting as well).
Lynne, i am amazed how well you put it, "the exactness of the hazy last dream pictured" - indeed, it is what i have felt myself about it, it might have been hazy but its message, what it spoke to me, was so clear. and precise.
i love the poem, thank you so much. (and i must laugh at these strange happenings, there are quite a few canadian visitors of the Bridge, though i had had absolutely no connection with this country before :-)
b, what wonderful Rumi- indeed, ladders, like bridges, no? :-)
ReplyDeleteand funny that you would think of a mystic, sort of, and of a terrorist at the same time - is there something connecting them, or why is it that we make this connection?
myth,
so this could be the supreme wisdom after all: a true kiss before one dies, and one dies peacefully :-)
dear Madeleine, thank you for your exuberant wishes and warm thoughts and rich musings here on the Bridge... yes, indeed, this proliferation of images, everywhere one looks on the internet, an endless flood of pictures... (so i must ask myself why on earth i am adding to this senseless obsession of "pinning everything down" hm).
bisous.
erin, this is it:
but we can not exercise this fact enough into our minds. we can not exercise it enough from the root of our spirits.
isn't it? this is our problem. at least this problem, we can "pin it down" :-)
laughing with you about this craziness, waving at you, so gratefully...
Wolfang, estoy escuchando ahora mismo al maravilloso Mercurial Balm... :-)
ReplyDeletemuchas gracias por tus pensamientos y tus lindas palabras, estoy sonriendo, deseándote todo lo mejor...
Cerasela, draga, da, câteva momente simple de graţie ne salvează, întotdeauna...
mulţumesc, oh.
Liebste Renée, vielen Dank fuer Deine schoenen und ermutigenden Worte, ja, Du hast recht aber manchmal wird einem doch ein bisschen melancholisch zumute :-) (und da braucht man eben Freunde, wertvolle Freunde wie eine bestimmmte Wolkenprinzessin :-)
Gute Nacht, schlaf gut :-)
thank you, Marion!!! in Australia? OH :-)
Stickup, the moments in themselves don't exist, i suppose, they only exist through these myriads of emotions we constantly weave into the tissue of being... thank you :-)
Prospero, i am happy we agree on that :-)
music, maybe, is free form this constant wish of "pinning down" reality, unlike words and photos - or no?
Tanya, i knew you would relate to this, i think this is what could be called a "japanese sensitivity", because the japanese culture has expressed it the most intensely, is focused entirely on this experience of the evanescence... but the feeling is universal, some are more sensitive to it, some are not... maybe it is a question of temperament, after all, as a good friend used to say.
ReplyDeletehugs :-)
Rachel, thanks! :-)
swiss, maybe :-) it is for sure _that_ time of the year for _me_, when i get into pondering again about the usefulness of it all, of the journey on the Bridge itself...
anonymous, little moth,
thank you :-)
yes, there is always a way out (or so they say, so they say, and some of the secret Bridge visitors say it as well, so it must be true :-)
one might think (and some do, i guess) that photography works this way -- to pin down experiences or things or people and make them last ... but no, just as you say, nothing can be pinned down, and the secret of every photograph is that it records a moment of disappearance ... then what an extraordinary act is the self-portrait, the gaze into one's own evanescence!!! ... these are very beautiful, indeed :-)
ReplyDeletewhy is it that we make this connection?
ReplyDeleteI dunno...you've just got that kind of face--where one makes connections!
:-)
But I guess the connection is the concentration, the focus on one thing. No?
Terrorist was probably the wrong word. Assassin, more like it.
b.
Beautiful. All of them.
ReplyDelete