Symmetry of Unbounded Time
“Enfolded Nature: The Symmetry of Unbounded Time” is a series of images that speaks to the evolution of perception from density to luminosity as being a process of returning to symmetry.
These images all start out as photo snapshots of nature. I go on walks in the woods and take pictures of the surface of rocks, moss covers, or mushrooms on trees. Whatever it is that catches my eye.
The digital pictures are brought into Photoshop where I mirror the frame horizontally, or both horizontally and vertically. If there’s an engaging pattern that emerges, or a figure of a being that wants to emanate, then I start to play with the colors.
Visual symmetry offers a calm resting place for the mind. It displays a sense of unity, balance and harmony. A feeling of wholeness. In ancient Tibetan, Hindu, and Buddhist cultures the use of mandalas (visual aids that use radiating symmetry) were rendered for the purpose of aligning oneself with the infinite nature of the cosmos.
Symmetry is also talked about in scientific platforms. The author Gevin Giorbran in his book “Everything Forever” has a chapter called “Enfolded Symmetry”. He extracts the work of the late 20th century American physicist, David Bohm, and uses the terminology of symmetry order in contrast to grouping order. Grouping order is the coming together of forms of the physical world. It is the birth of distinctions between “this” and “that”. Our minds are brilliant grouping order machines. Our mind perceives and unfolds what it perceives by categorizing and distinguishing. Symmetry order on the other hand dissolves differences. It is the formless ground, or the underlying whole, in which the physical world unfolds out of and enfolds into.
Absolute or perfect symmetry is described as being pure, vast, empty neutral space. It’s said that if the Big Bang is the ultimate pronunciation of our physical reality in which all the positives and negatives collide, then the evolution of this reality is the settling of these forces back into neutrality.
Neutrality is the calming of opposing forces, or perfect symmetry.
The symmetry in these images point to the vast timeless space that enfolds the world.
They are not meant to challenge the mind. They are inspired by and perhaps inspired towards, meditation.
An ever-present stillness is offered as we become aware of the space that surrounds and holds us.
This boundless neutral space embraces/supports/enfolds everything. And yet, this calming is not a stopping place. It is a doorway that leads to a multiplicity of expressions. Of beings. Of other universes that await to greet us.