Heroes Not Zombies

It’s the time of year where flowers are beginning to appear in the garden here. Not least the snowdrops which always make me think that we are on the cusp of the end of Winter and the beginning of Spring. The cycle of the seasons is the best evidence that Life isn’t linear. It loops, and spirals and circles and returns. I love that feeling of a rhythm over the year.

I know that many people think seasons don’t seem as distinct as they were in the past, but I’m not sure if that’s just a feeling we get when it’s not a nice day in summer, or when it feels unusually warm in the winter. However, yesterday’s news including warning of exceptionally high levels of pollen throughout the south west of France. Apparently some blossoms are a couple of months earlier than usual.

There’s no doubt the Earth’s climate is changing, and these disruptions to our familiar cycles are one of the alert signals. We still have these patterns of sprouting, flourishing, fruition and sleep, but maybe they are all shifting, maybe the balance between them has changed. Nature has astonishing powers of adaptation and I’m sure that’s happening already in the plant world, and even amongst many birds, insects and other creatures. Maybe we humans are late to the party. We certainly seem reluctant to change our habits and our lifestyles to respond to the changes in the climate (which are of our making, at least in part)

The underlying lesson I take from this though is that rhythms are important to us. We should learn to recognise them and to live according to them. They aren’t rigid, however, and we should be prepared to adjust to stay in tune with the rest of the planet.

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I love sculptures which have been placed outside. One of my favourite museums in the world is the Rodin Museum in Paris which, as well as having several rooms filled with his artworks, has a beautiful garden with many of his sculptures in it. I especially like to walk through the gardens and take my time with each piece.

This photo isn’t from there, however. It’s from a garden in South Africa. I’m afraid I don’t know the name of the sculptor but this one, in particular, stopped me in my tracks. It’s a face, but not a complete face. It’s made from strands or threads of metal and isn’t a whole head. The effect is one of emergence. It seems to capture a moment where the face either begins to appear in the world, or, on the other hand, where it is beginning to dissolve back into the garden. It’s impossible to know which.

We humans have many questions. We wonder, why is there something in this universe, and not, nothing? If the universe started with the “Big Bang” and spread rapidly in every direction, why isn’t matter spread evenly throughout? Why does it cluster into stars, planets, and all the physical elements on our planet? How did Life emerge from all the atoms and elements which came together on Earth? And, given that there is a universal tendency towards entropy, why has evolution followed a path of ever increasing complexity. It costs a lot of energy to create and maintain an organism as complex as a human being. And, finally, for today, what is consciousness?

There is a lot to explore there. There’s enough there to create a curriculum of learning and research to last a lifetime. I’ve been re-reading Iain McGilchrist’s “The Matter with Things” recently, focusing on the chapter “Matter and Consciousness”. I think he argues convincingly that consciousness comes first. That it precedes matter, and that matter is a “phase” of consciousness, just as ice, liquid water, and steam are phases of water. I like that perspective. It makes sense to me.

But why should matter, even if it is a phase of consciousness, appear in the universe? One explanation is that it allows the universe to observe itself. Living creatures, with their highly developed consciousness are able to experience the universe, and in so doing, the universe changes from a collection of objects to a community of subjects.

I think of all that as I look at this face emerging from, but staying within, the garden. And that brings me to another thought……that we are all individuals, not parachuted onto this planet, but embedded within it. We appear as a form of Nature, and slowing metamorphose back into it, in the same way as a wave appears on the surface of the ocean, briefly demonstrates unique, identifiable characteristics, then disappears back into the body of water, which it never really left.

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It was the tree on the brow of the hill which caught my attention. It seems to be standing there all alone. So, at first, it seems an image of separateness. Stand out separateness.

However, when I stop to think about it for a moment, I realise I’m looking at a uniqueness, not a separateness. I mean, this tree didn’t materialise out of the ether. It didn’t pop through from some parallel universe. A seed landed there, either blown in the wind, which blows over all the land, or dropped by a bird, or other animal, passing by, as the whole countryside is alive with creatures, flying, crawling, running over the surface, living, and growing amongst the stones, the bushes and the other plants.

This brought to my mind the reality of how we humans, every one of us, emerges within a matrix of environments, physical, social, cultural and so on. We aren’t parachuted onto this planet. We are made of the exact same atoms and molecules as everything else which exists here, all the products of furnaces and explosions in distant stars. Every one of us is a reconfiguration of matter here on Earth. A temporary reconfiguration, but a unique one.

It’s this apparent paradox which pleases me most – every one of us utterly unique, but wholly connected to all that exists, has existed, and will exist in the future. Being part of the whole doesn’t mean being separate, but, nor does it mean being the same as everything else. This tree is not the same as any other tree on this hillside. Every seed grows in its own unique way, experiences the weather events day by day, which contribute to its shape and ultimate size. There are no two trees which are identical.

And even more so, for we humans, we are all unique, all different, all to be celebrated in our diversity, but remain, wholly, inextricably connected to all else which has, does, and will exist.

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I’ve visited Copenhagen a number of times, but always in November or December. It’s cold at that time of year. One thing that really strikes me is how every cafe you see has some outdoor seating and on the seats they have blankets for the customers to use to keep them warm.

I don’t see that in France. At least, hardly ever. I’m not sure if it’s still the case, but it used to be that you were more likely to see outdoor heaters blasting over the heads of customers sitting at tables outside in the winter, but, not so much blankets. I don’t remember seeing it in Scotland either, but in Scotland there isn’t such a street cafe culture as there is on mainland Europe.

It seems to me that this is an excellent example of cultural adaptation to weather conditions. There’s that famous old saying that there is no such thing as bad weather, just inadequate clothing. Blankets fall into that category of the right clothing for the weather, even if you only wear them while sitting sipping your street coffee.

But there’s something else about the virtually universal outdoor seating with blankets in Copenhagen. People must really like to be outdoors. I don’t know what the smoking rules are in Denmark, but I’m guessing it’s not just smokers who like to take their coffee outside in all seasons. I admire that desire for fresh air.

And there’s a third thing – beauty – these blankets are often brightly coloured and patterned. They make the seats seem even more inviting, don’t they?

So, three things impress me about this phenomenon – adaptation to weather conditions, a preference for fresh air, and a desire to see beauty. It works!

I wonder how we will adapt to the changes in the climate. Will habits change to be a better fit with the weather? What will we prioritise?

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It’s easy to think of water as formless….simply taking the shape of whatever is containing it. But when we look at the ocean we see that mass of water constantly forming structures – waves and channels. It’s just that none of them last for very long.

When I looked at this photo I took of the water in a fountain I was struck by just how varied and complex were the structures on the surface of the water. There are so many different shapes and patterns here, all in existence in the exact same moment.

This, for me, is one of the benefits of photography. Although I was aware of the water splashing and circling around in the fountain as I looked at it, I just didn’t clock the sheer quantity of different structures emerging and disappearing….maybe, not least, because it was all changing so quickly.

There is so much to be gained from slowing down, from pausing, and taking the time to really notice the present moment. Photography can help with that. Especially when it comes to browsing through your photo album at a later date.

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I’m quite a fan of benches. I’ve got several photos of different benches I’ve come across over the years, usually when they are in a quiet place, under trees, or, facing a wonderful scene, like looking over a valley, off to mountains, or across a lake or the sea.

It’s not that I frequently feel the need to sit down. It’s that a bench is always an invitation to pause.

When I worked as a GP in Edinburgh we had two surgery premises, one in Portobello, and the other up near Cameron Toll. So pretty much every day I’d be driving between the two places, and my favourite way to go was through Holyrood Part. I’d pass a bench at the side of the road. There might be somebody sitting on it, or it might be empty, but, invariably I’d look at it with a sense of longing….thinking, if only I had time to just pull up here, and sit there for a few minutes. Of course, I never did. I was always rushing to get to the next patient, or to start the next clinic.

It’s important to pause. It’s really important to step out of the flood of demands and habits which keep us in a kind of autopilot through the average day. And the best way to do that is just stop. Just stop for a bit. You don’t have to learn to meditate, but you can do that in your pause if you want. But what actually helps is to simply interrupt the automatic pilot, stop, observe, reflect and contemplate.

It’s refreshing and it brings you back into the real world of the present moment, away from all the ruminations and hoped for, or feared, anticipations.

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