• About PeterSIronwood

petersironwood

~ Finding, formulating and solving life's frustrations.

petersironwood

Monthly Archives: January 2015

Meditation on Change

13 Tuesday Jan 2015

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

IMG_4960A meditation on change….

Change is obviously relative. In order to have change or to perceive change, something must also remain the same. Otherwise, it is just chaos without any sense of change.

Change occurs at many different scales.
In order to explore change, I played the piano for a time. Playing different notes obviously makes for quite a different experience. But I also played exactly the same notes and changed the timing. I played the scales up and down, exploring the timing and the loudness variations. I played staccato and legato. I was reminded that the theme to “Joy to the World” is just the scale played down (with proper timing). I played the scale in a higher octave. I played the scale transposed into c#. These were all external changes.

Then, I decided to make “internal” changes. I listened to the quality of the notes. I felt the feeling of the keys on my fingertips. I listened to the spaces between the notes. Of course, to return to the theme of change at different scales, so to speak, sound itself is a dynamic change at several scales. Any give note is vibration but it also diminishes in loudness over time. But this does not seem to happen in a steady fashion. Even one note played seems to have a complex dynamic over time.

I decided to go for a walk. I mainly concentrated on internal changes. That is, I walked and played with changing the way I walked. I pushed off more with my toes. I pumped my arms more vigorously. I turned my body or my hips slightly with the steps. I turned my attention to the sensation of my feet on the ground; to my muscles making the movements; to the smells in the air; to the sounds of my steps; the traffic; mourning doves taking off; a tennis player bouncing the ball against a wall. For a time, I could hear the echo of his hits from a house across the street. I noticed that there was a change in the sound of the ball hitting the wall and hitting his racquet.

I walked by a fountain. The water was coming down in a pattern which, at some level, was unchanged but of course, in minute ways it was changing constantly. From the perspective of the individual water molecules, it was constant change. Some may have stayed for quite a time in the pool. Some might have had more exciting lives for a time.

I watched golfers on the driving range. All were obviously changing the position of the club through space as they attempted to hit the ball. None had mastered the dynamics of change. That is, none of them had the smooth and effortless acceleration of the accomplished golfer. Every swing had one or more glitches where the golfer was trying to “make it happen” rather than being the flow that is the happening of a great golf swing.

There were dead leaves on the ground. This made me think of the changing seasons. An old woman walked by and, like Yeats, I saw her as the young child she once was. I noticed how the branches of a tree “change” as one looks from the trunk to the branchlets and leaves. I thought of how there is an ever changing pattern of branch overlap as I walked by. These changes help me understand the structure of the tree. I recall that what I see is not the tree, but only the part that is above the ground. It is only the part that is alive right now; I do not see its ancestors or descendants. I do not even see the tree as a seedling or a crushed and fallen stump. I see a
snapshot of the tree’s life; a fleeting glimpse only. Even that glimpse, though intricate and beautiful, is only the merest shadow onto the senses I myself possess.

To be alive requires the acceptance of a fatal disease called life. Of course, Life, with a capital “L” goes on and on. Change. Change. Like the song about Bingo the dog.
Change is ubiquitous and inevitable. The only question is which changes to encourage, initiate or try to stem. Typically, it seems to me, it is more powerful to encourage changes you like than to try to stem the inexorable tides of change you abhor.

Subscribe

  • Entries (RSS)
  • Comments (RSS)

Archives

  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • May 2015
  • January 2015
  • July 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013

Categories

  • America
  • apocalypse
  • COVID-19
  • creativity
  • driverless cars
  • family
  • health
  • management
  • poetry
  • politics
  • psychology
  • science
  • sports
  • story
  • The Singularity
  • Travel
  • Uncategorized
  • Veritas

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in

Blog at WordPress.com.

Cancel

 
Loading Comments...
Comment
    ×