From Ponder About

Neat stuff in the world

There's an interesting place on the side of the road on the way to Carrboro from I-40 on Old Hwy 86.  It's a stone spiral that was built by architect John Hartley at the entrance to Stone Knoll neighborhood.

Stone Knoll is  a very nice subdivision with large, interesting houses on large, wooded lots that tend to be ornamented with flowers, gardens, yard art, hammocks and comfortable lawn chairs, play sets and a general air of happy, affluent families.

The side closest to the highway is a field of wildflowers and there is a little turn off from John Woods Road into the field.

 There are 4 tall standing stone in the cardinal directions and a flat stone in the middle.  These five have plaques with poems on them.  Hotlinks are to other websites that have the texts of the poems.

In the East is Maya Angelou's Inaugural Poem  written for Bill Clinton in 1993

To the North is Wilderness by Carl Sandburg

Wendell Berry  has a poem in the West.

And in the South, Mevlâna Jalâluddîn Rumi

There's a memorial tree over to the side but still within the spiral.

 It appears that Donna Lotstein was a lover of horses.

The stone in the center has the Navajo Way Blessing Prayer

I've seen a couple of places online refer to this installation as a "stone circle", but it isn't a circle.  If you are actually in it, you can see the spiral winding into the trees and outward, eventually petering out in the direction of Old 86.

You can even see it in Google Maps.

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Fiona, lying in her bed

"We ignore the blackness of outer space and pay attention to the stars, especially if they seem to order themselves into constellations. “Common as the air” meant something worthless, but Hackworth knew that every breath of air that Fiona drew, lying in her little bed at night, just a silver flow in the moonlight, was used by her body to make skin and hair and bones. The air became Fiona, and deserving—no, demanding—of love. Ordering matter was the sole endeavor of Life, whether it was a jumble of self-replicating molecules in the primordial ocean, or a steam-powered English mill turning weeds into clothing, or Fiona lying in her bed turning air into Fiona." 

— Neal Stephenson (The Diamond Age, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer)

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

I'm an extrovert.  MBTI ENtj.  When I had my appendix out last month, I was batshit by noon the next day because they left me alone in my room with no conversation.

My husband is an introvert.  We manage the difference by me going out into the world to be with people and him  going to the woods to be alone.  Several of my friends feel that it is their obligation to get me out of his hair.

And they're right.

We really enjoy each other's company.  But he really needs time alone in order to enjoy my company.  And I need company more often.

I work in a big company with lots of people around me and as much conversation as I want.  He works from an office in our home.  He can go a whole day in the presence of no other human than me.

And this works for us.

He's been reading a couple of things that talk about silence.

I sometimes long for silence.  Not aloneness.  But being present without chatter being a requirement.  When I am not talkative, many people say, "What's wrong?" and are puzzled when I say "Nothing."  They seem to be mollified by "I just don't have anything to say."

I sometimes think I'd like to have a Day of Silence.  But I can't do my work without communicating with coworkers.  I know how to have a day in the world without some communicating.  And writing notes to the barrista  in order to get a latte is cheating, imvho.  It's still communication, even if the talk is written rather than  spoken.  How do you shop without telling a salesclerk that you don't need hir help or that the card you are using is a debit,  not credit or "Wait, I have a penny"?

And I find silence calling to me (ha!) when I am most ... in the moment.  When the distractions are most intangible.

This I isn't programmed for solitude.  Being present with others is enough, though.

For a year, I've been trying to figure out a way to have silence of the mouth without estrangement of the world.  I don't seem to be making any progress.

Be

IIn this composition the word kun (‘be’) is simply inscribed in kufic script. The word alludes to the phrase in the Qur’an, ‘and the day he [God] says “Be”, and it is’ (Qur’an 2:117). 


From Stars on a Dark Night