online: 16 october 2015
modified: 8 october 2015
8 october 2015 a solar clock or human
sundial
...eating Jewish apple cake in the herb garden (or plant nursery) at
Kenwood... in which there is a solar clock made of stones set in a lawn
to mark the times of day...
...when one stands on a central stone one's shadow touches a numbered
stone that indicates the time... (i stood at half past twelve) a
semi-natural miracle of geo-mathematics that makes vivid the linked
relationships of sun and earth and time made visible... though
(philosophically) time is better thought of as 'the form of our internal
intuition' as it is defined by Immanuel Kant...
*Critique of Pure Reason, translated by J M D Meiklejohn, Everyman's
Library, Dent, London and Dutton, New York, 1969, (in Section II 'OF
TIME', pages 51-2).
...but the greater joy of this garden (so unwild) is that in the human
sundial one's whole body takes the place of a pointing hand of clock...
and thus seeming to become a physical part of the solar system...
...but perhaps a greater marvel of this garden is that its herbs are so
many and so beneficial (says one who lives on largely herbal diet... and
herbal medicines... perhaps what keeps him well in this his 88th year
which ended yesterday)...
...the inhabitants of this walled-in place of peace and health are many
creatures mostly out of sight: six molehills on the lawn... a mostly
absent robin in whose territory they lie... hundreds of worms i guess
and thousands of leaves... some autumn beech leaves are already
scattered by natural process on the grass... itself composed of
thousands more of sprouting blades of grass cut to a uniformity once
much admired until this era... in which a lawn can be seen as an
ecological crime (of monoculture)...
...and now and then a butterfly... plus human audience composed of
myself and other selves... each of us less incredible when seen amidst
this artificial order... as if we ourselves are entirely composed of nature and
naught else...
...and now three brilliant black and white and coloured magpies fly and
walk within a few yards of where i sit ... one catches a worm or
something... and flies ten yards to consume it away from the other
two... and then they fly away... (and did they spot the crumbs i
dropped?)...
...and now i go to drink some tea in the outdoor cafe... (what luxury
midst luxuries)... amen...
...no not amen... or even tea... instead i chose some onion soup with
bread and butter... and now i'm drinking water from the tap... said to
be purer than from a plastic bottle (which may transmit damaging atomic
particles to water during long stay in warehouses... said an informed
user of new technology... what can we trust today?)...
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