Bang

[vaneramos]

How can I write, with a new universe erupting beside my head? Maybe not a universe, just an unexpected Amaryllis.

Mom gave me the bulb for Christmas in 2007. All winter while she died, it erupted. After it bloomed I didn’t know what to do. Mom used to set her Amaryllis pots in a shady part of the garden for the summer and next winter they would bloom again faithfully, but I had no such place. I couldn’t throw it out (most inactions attributed to laziness are actually deeply-disguised emotions). I didn’t water it. The pot sat on the back of my toilet all last year, its strapping long leaves defying my passivity. When they finally withered, I stacked the pot on a pile of junk in the hall. There it hung precariously for months.

Several weeks ago, a bud appeared. Out of nothing comes this Big Bang of vascular, erotic tissue, life out of death. The only plants that flourish in my apartment are ones that like to be ignored. Those fat leaves had absorbed all the nutrient needed to recreate themselves. Photosynthesis is a marvelous phenomenon. If I feed the plant a little now and neglect it for another year, will it repeat the performance?

The flower is an image of the universe: nothing gives rise to infinity and then implodes again.

Actually that’s an obsolete image, because latest cosmological models suggest implosion is unlikely. On the other hand, multiple universes are probable. Somewhere out there (In here? Just behind my shoulder?) various realities pop into existence at the same time.

Or not the “same time.” Time is an illusion, at least the orderly procession as we perceive it. It bends around ideas. Somewhere it even ceases to exist, though such places mean nothing as far as daily life is concerned.

Wrong again, now that I think on it. Some mornings feel like black holes. Perhaps the stuff inside a singularity is particularly meaningful, but how can I know, if the mind can’t go there and no information can escape?

There I go again with more inaccuracies!. Some scientists theorize certain information might escape, but I can’t remember what. It must have seemed irrelevant when I read it, but who knows? I was probably wrong about that, too.

I’m bumbling along, trapped within the meaning of an Amaryllis. I can’t even remember the name of the cultivar, the star that exploded, or the identity of this universe in relation to others and their inconspicious bulbs. This is the reward of sloth: leave something alone for 10 months or 13 billion years and it will surprise you. If I were diligent or fastidious, the space within these walls would be far less interesting.

Speaking of mind warps, here is the first published photo from the new piece of technology.

Comments

[inishglora.livejournal.com]

Beauty, on a wide range of levels.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[snousle.livejournal.com]

most inactions attributed to laziness are actually deeply-disguised emotions

Zing! So true and it is good to be reminded of it.

Cosmology is in the air these days, the science journals are full of leading articles about the cosmic microwave background, exoplanets, all kinds of things. I just commented to John that astronomy was getting really amazing again. So I've been feeling the influence of this on my psyche also.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Zing, yes, it's a prevailing but obscure truth of my life!

I have to agree. Astronomy has always fascinated me, but some peculiar discoveries and theories have become apparent recently. Perhaps we are on the cups of deeper understanding.

[rsc.livejournal.com]

One of the collection of quotations that is among my rotating Usenet .sigs is the following, from Walt Kelly: "There is altogether too much searching for meaning in this world. Who understands a buttercup?"

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

My point exactly, and much more concisely!

[abendstille.livejournal.com]

i love amaryllis, thanks for showing the photo!

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Here's another from two years ago:

[niyabinghi.livejournal.com]

Gorgeous flowers/photo and gorgeous entry!


This is the reward of sloth: leave something alone for 10 months or 13 billion years and it will surprise you.

-- :)

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Hehe, glad you enjoyed that!

[eloquentwthrage.livejournal.com]

That is a particularly beautiful variety.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Yes, it is stunning!

[bearfinch.livejournal.com]

I think what you were encountering there was the natural rest period of the bulb. The straplike leaves that persist collect food by photosynthesis, and then die back to let the bulb rest out the winter. So it's actually quite natural for it to be flowering now. :)

[avad.livejournal.com]

what a wonderful entry...:)
in love wih this passage especially: "I’m bumbling along, trapped within the meaning of an Amaryllis. I can’t even remember the name of the cultivar, the star that exploded, or the identity of this universe in relation to others and their inconspicious bulbs. This is the reward of sloth: leave something alone for 10 months or 13 billion years and it will surprise you. If I were diligent or fastidious, the space within these walls would be far less interesting."

xoxoxxo

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Thank you, D. This entry popped out of deep inspiration one morning. I love when that happens! Thanks for commenting on my scarf photo, too. :-)