Aether

For thousands of years people have worked to construct a model of how things flow through the Universe. Aristotle and the Greeks thought that beyond earth and between planets and stars was an 'aether', a fifth element. When Michelson and Morley conducted experiments to measure the speed of light between mountain tops, they hypothesized light traveled through this same ether. So this week I have been making sense of my fascination with water flowing over rocks. When I looked at my history of photo taking I realized a theme. When I was a kid we lived near Ralph Stover State Park in Bucks County, PA. We spent family picnic time there and I remember rock stepping across the Tohickon Creek. I remember another time at Worlds End State Park . Here is the evolving theme of my fascination with shorelines, water and rocks.

Swirling

I realize that rivers are in at least two of my key nature places. The Ramapo River is a core low land feature of Ramapo Reservation in Mahwah. The park is magnificent because you can choose the watery low land hike, the ascending on road hike, the ascending through the woods hike with stream or without, or just a walk around the lake.

Being in the woods is often accompanied with the quiet that I enjoy. From the quiet I can hear my heart, my breath and I picture my heart beating, pumping and distributing fresh blood and O2. Being next to the river I listen to the rushing of water that overcomes any sound of cars driving on nearby roads. Only 30 yards wide in this area, the river sometimes seems like a stream. There are numerous places to sit, either on the shore, or slightly above the river. These are my places of nature watching, of meditation.



I like circles and spirals; especially where they exist in motion. The place where the river intersects the shoreline are natural spiral locations. The place where rocks, immovable objects, force the fluid water to go around them are perfect places for spirals. Emerson says about circles, "...the highest emblem in the cipher of the world".