Relying on Resilience - Time after Time
I was listening to Stanley Jordan play jazzy Christmas standards on a live stream - a free solstice concert (info below) and he stopped to tell us that the Solstice is a place - not a time - it's a place where the earth and the sun are lined up so that the earth's axis is tipped as far as it can be in relation to the sun - and we keep coming back here - to this place - year after year.
Of course, it's not just a place, and it's not just a time - it's both. Sometimes I listen to lectures by Sean Carroll who a physicist at Cal Tec. He explains the big ideas - space-time, relativity, the standard model, dark matter, and more - but also, why they all 'work' but don't fit into one theory. A lot depends on your point of view in terms of time, space, and scale. He likes a physics joke - A farmer asks a physicist about how to increase milk production and the physicist thinks for a minute and says, 'imagine a spherical cow.'
But right now - when days are at their shortest and a myriad of multiple calamities confines us - I wonder if I even recognize where I am not even considering when I am - and this is before I even try considering a ball shaped cow much less Schrödinger's cat!
So, as the holiday approached with the prospect of not having the people and events that usually mark these days and bring structure to fill my life, I found myself thinking that perhaps I needed to focus on the concept of resilience. Maybe I should just be moving along with the cosmos knowing that while I'm damn sure not in control, I can still observe the ride.
It turned out that there was resilience. I felt connected. I talked to family on the phone. I went to zoom parties, (Thanks you hosts!) I exchanged text messages and email. I noticed the small but authentic responses to pictures of my mom's christmas cards from decades ago and some photos of holiday baking I posted on social media.The amazing thing about comments in real time on social media, is they can function to open a little window into a shared space-time between people. Particularly between people who have been connected already though space and time. So, through it all, I felt the safety net woven of those slim connective fibers hold fast. I found enough resilience to think I might look forward to this next go round the sun. I not only observed but enjoyed the holiday ride.
And maybe explaining space-time with music and art as a felt experience is just fine.
2021 - bring it on!
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