I listened with delight as the physicist grappled with the conundrum....
"If anything should exist at all, well, it should all be, purely, light... so why are we here? We're continuously having to come up with new and more exotic particles to unpack the nature, the enigma, of matter, and that's just at the most basic level, without getting into the real mechanics of how it all configures into this marvel we see around and within ourselves"....
The 'dust' itself, then, is still a mystery, but how that dust 'springs' from light, becomes so diverse, and, wonder of wonders, then becomes capable of comprehension, of contemplation... that is truly profound. And what dust we are.
Whilst electronically "trawling' today for a clip to inspire or aid my thoughts, I found myself watching again that gorgeous moment in 'As good as it Gets' when Carol's beauty (played by Helen Hunt) is spied by Simon the Artist, and he encourages her to pose for him as he becomes inspired and entranced by the charm of her form. It's a good illustration of the moment which artists live to encounter, when beauty becomes so pervasive, you long to engage with it's sublime richness, whether using a pen, a brush or a camera to do so.
Most of us have stood breathless at the sight of some natural wonder - the canopy of the heavens, the radiance of a painted sky or the heart-felt pleasure of a rich, welcoming landscape. Scientists, I think, often encounter that same marvel when they see or ponder the simplicity and elegance of the physical realm, but I have found that it is when these graces are so richly blended in the line and art of the human form, clothed in the often unequaled maginficance of warm, endearing light, that we look upon perhaps the highest natural expression of physical beauty.The ' dance' between this form and light "speaks" loudly of our inherent, 'natural' spirituality, for all truly 'good' things are so in their most 'basic' sense - the handiwork of the divine. As in the case of light and matter, where the connection is so plain but so profound, so is our marriage to heaven and earth... formed of the clay, but 'containers' of a life, a shocking breath, that is not our own.
The interplay between natural light and the marvel of flesh never ceases to stagger me, and it speaks so well of greater things.
The scientist, the artist, the person who delights in all good things, will continuously joy and affirm this wonder as, perhaps, one of the deepest treasures that they can know and share when speaking of this present life.
Images of Erin by Me.
