The concept heatdeath is so far beyond me, it's exhausting to try to grasp it scientifically, especially on the magnitude of the universe. But on the level of this planet we live on, it might be possible, in some way, to relate. Nature has laws which cannot be altered. The most basic is the law of life and death. Everything that is born will die. Everything grown with rot. Everything built will decay. I have come to believe it's a waste of time to consider the end of things. Perhaps because I've reached the age when one begins to grapple with personal mortality (Then again, maybe that's where embracing life really begins). I wish I would have known years ago what I'm contemplating now. It's simply that the time in between, in between birth and death, is what needs to be fully seen and appreciated. The time now, in this very moment. And in this moment I'm considering the never ending law of expanding. Unless we hold onto fears and choose paralysis, we will forever be expanding. Forever opening to more. To more of life in greater consciousness; awareness, knowing, understanding, relating, etc. I don't see life today as I did five years ago, or even a year ago.
Right now its easy for me to relate to life in the pattern of the spiral. On a small scale through the fern. It pushes through the dark earth as small green nubs of life. They respond to warm air and reach for light, first appearing in the form tight spirals at the end of slender shoots. As it grows it slowly unfurls and branches out, taking time to stretch into glorious displays of grace and beauty.
On a larger scale I can consider the spiral, the ever expanding process/pattern/law of nature, as in the solar system. There are many theories regarding its beginning but like the fern, it develops by unfurling, stretching\reaching outward, becoming more. Its beauty is unparalleled. And like the fern it will come to completeness. Its purpose will be fulfilled.
We are like all of nature, the fern as well as the solar system. We follow the same laws. The spiral as in human nature, unfurling, stretching and reaching outward, becoming more. Each with unparalleled, unique beauty. And like all of nature we will come to completeness in our time and our purpose will be fulfilled. What comes afterward? I expect nature will go on, ever expanding, ever growing, ever becoming. I don't know that the laws of nature can be stopped or changed. Perhaps we can embrace it and continually become more.
A fascinating subject and I'm quite sure it will circle around in me again and again.
So beautiful. It's interesting because humans don't physically expand like the universe or the fern (we grow then eventually we shrink); however, as you pointed out, it's our consciousness that expands (if we allow it) as a mirror of the literal expansion of the universe. The idea of pattens of like, like spirals, is really fascinating. I don't know much about the spirituality behind mandalas except that the shape and design is meant to represent the universe. Such a beautiful representation of connected & never-ending spirals and circles.
Taking a stab at this... I felt inspired after seeing Yayoi Kusama's art installation and wrote a poem (although I'm not sure it's entirely on topic). It made me think of how love and "being" transcends dimensions. Would love to hear how to improve/ or any feedback. Here goes:
I just LOVED the lines "I found you in waves / of heat" - because I read it as waves and imagined the ocean, and then had my interpretation flipped on the next line when the image altered.
(I wouldn't normally suggest any edits to a comment, but since you asked...) One question I might ask is where the speaker of the poem is now. You don't always have to address that as a poet (you don't always have to do any thing you don't want to in poetry-- ever:) but I wonder if situating where the speaker is now--thinking and feeling these things--would be an interesting exercise. Are they gardening, sleeping in bed, watching the person wash dishes, etc.
Another small idea I had was to consider a few more adjectives. I'm hesitant to suggest anything because its form moves so well and quickly while covering such a complicated topic. But one example might be something like "keen as prickled flesh" or "keen as hot flesh." I appreciated the "illuminated / concrete walls" -- illuminated as an adjective for concrete is SO wonderful. I could imagine a few more surprising adjectives like that where they fit in! Thank you so much for sharing. <3
Thanks for the feedback! I love the idea of including where the speaker is now. And I agree adding more adjectives would improve it overall. Thanks for the ideas! :)
My initial reaction to the idea of the universe dying a Heat Death is fear. Not too surprising I’m sure, even if the science shows that it won’t happen for a very long time. I have spent too much of my life contemplating “the end”. I know it’s not the best preoccupation I could have, but the habit started young. The earliest fear I can remember in my life was the “end times”. When I was taught the idea of the rapture at church, as well as heaven and hell, the fear enveloped me. Anytime I was alone or not distracted enough, I had a paralyzing fear that half of the people I loved would either be taken away from me in an instant or that I would be taken away from them. I had many grown people who I trusted in my life telling me that this was the reality and that it could happen at ANY time. This kept me on edge and always anticipating something terrifying happening. It was a lose-lose situation for me, because even if I was the best Christian I could be (which I always doubted I was due to my lack of faith and all this fear that I wasn’t supposed to be feeling) my dad and half my siblings were not on board, so we were being split up no matter if I got LEFT BEHIND or deemed worthy enough to be swooped off the earth. As my sister would say, those are “big emotions” for a child.
Just after my first child was born in 2012, I decided it was a good idea to watch the Lars von Trier movie, Melancholia. The movie shows the lead up and then critical moment of the end of the earth through very personal perspectives. In some ways it heightened my fears, especially being in the vulnerable throws of new motherhood, but in another way, it pinpointed the exact moment that was at the root of my fear and made me feel not so alone in my intense fear. Cut to a couple of years later when my son entered his dinosaur phase and wanted to read dinosaur books every night at bedtime. It’s hard to read a book about dinosaurs that doesn’t talk about their untimely death by giant meteor or other theory. It never seemed to phase him, but It would send me into an existential spiral nightly.
A waking flicker (Ekphrastic using Yayoi Kusama's Infinity Mirror Room which I had the life changing experience of seeing in person in Sydney in 2007)
A small flicker,
Coming to life
Waking, growing, spreading, consuming space and time
How far can you see?
How long can you watch?
Illusions of distance and tangibility
Where are we?
Where can we go?
Continuous patterns all around into the infinite beyond
Step into a new space, a new time
Can you tell the difference, can you spot the second the flame changes from black to light?
Like that brief moment your breath is neither coming in nor out.
An unseen reality that beckons us to know, but we don’t know.
We don’t see.
There are some things out of reach, some ideas beyond our grasp.
what is possible, what can be perceived and what can hold true
So beautiful, Camille. Thank you for sharing! I can relate to your journal entry and being taught that "The End" should be welcomed (as long as you are good), which was very frightening as a child for me as well.
"Like that brief moment your breath is neither coming in nor out" -- what a line, made me stop and think about my own breath for a minute.
The idea of “heat death” is so vast and I find it a bit difficult to wrap my simple human brain around the entirety of the theory, the how’s and the why’s. However, at the same time I think the concept is very easy to grasp. I picture being being on a camping trip and huddling up next to another human body to keep warm through the night. Or some tragic, accidental plane crash in the mountains movie I surely have watched before but only remember certain details of like there was snow and the survivors held each other close for warmth. The concept itself makes sense because it’s something that most anyone has experienced and to think the universe, with how infinitely sprawling it could be, experiences that same thing makes me feel somehow more connected in a way I had never considered before. “Hey, the universe is just like me.” Or I’m just it, or I am the universe maybe even the universe is me. Far out, man.
I also enjoy the imagery of considering heat death in a romantic sense. As if between two forgotten lovers there was a black hole, nothing.
This is a fantastic topic. One that once I started walking with it for a minute began to show me more than I was expecting.
It is fascinating to think about the entire universe becoming a black hole. I imagine at that point something has to happen. Maybe another new universe? Another dream of Vishnu? No one knows. I find that comforting. Death is scary but it helps to remember you’re not alone. Every person, every animal, plants, insects, birds, everything that lives eventually dies, you’re joining all of your predecessors and colleagues and friends and family and everything that has ever lived in the place where everything goes, and eventually the planets and the sun and existence itself will go too. Whewww, crazy to think about, but it’s ok.
Haha, yes, this sounds similar to my response to Heat Death. It reminds us that literally everything expends its energy and dies, and we don't really know what that means for where our energy goes or how, or what comes after.
The concept heatdeath is so far beyond me, it's exhausting to try to grasp it scientifically, especially on the magnitude of the universe. But on the level of this planet we live on, it might be possible, in some way, to relate. Nature has laws which cannot be altered. The most basic is the law of life and death. Everything that is born will die. Everything grown with rot. Everything built will decay. I have come to believe it's a waste of time to consider the end of things. Perhaps because I've reached the age when one begins to grapple with personal mortality (Then again, maybe that's where embracing life really begins). I wish I would have known years ago what I'm contemplating now. It's simply that the time in between, in between birth and death, is what needs to be fully seen and appreciated. The time now, in this very moment. And in this moment I'm considering the never ending law of expanding. Unless we hold onto fears and choose paralysis, we will forever be expanding. Forever opening to more. To more of life in greater consciousness; awareness, knowing, understanding, relating, etc. I don't see life today as I did five years ago, or even a year ago.
Right now its easy for me to relate to life in the pattern of the spiral. On a small scale through the fern. It pushes through the dark earth as small green nubs of life. They respond to warm air and reach for light, first appearing in the form tight spirals at the end of slender shoots. As it grows it slowly unfurls and branches out, taking time to stretch into glorious displays of grace and beauty.
On a larger scale I can consider the spiral, the ever expanding process/pattern/law of nature, as in the solar system. There are many theories regarding its beginning but like the fern, it develops by unfurling, stretching\reaching outward, becoming more. Its beauty is unparalleled. And like the fern it will come to completeness. Its purpose will be fulfilled.
We are like all of nature, the fern as well as the solar system. We follow the same laws. The spiral as in human nature, unfurling, stretching and reaching outward, becoming more. Each with unparalleled, unique beauty. And like all of nature we will come to completeness in our time and our purpose will be fulfilled. What comes afterward? I expect nature will go on, ever expanding, ever growing, ever becoming. I don't know that the laws of nature can be stopped or changed. Perhaps we can embrace it and continually become more.
A fascinating subject and I'm quite sure it will circle around in me again and again.
So beautiful. It's interesting because humans don't physically expand like the universe or the fern (we grow then eventually we shrink); however, as you pointed out, it's our consciousness that expands (if we allow it) as a mirror of the literal expansion of the universe. The idea of pattens of like, like spirals, is really fascinating. I don't know much about the spirituality behind mandalas except that the shape and design is meant to represent the universe. Such a beautiful representation of connected & never-ending spirals and circles.
Taking a stab at this... I felt inspired after seeing Yayoi Kusama's art installation and wrote a poem (although I'm not sure it's entirely on topic). It made me think of how love and "being" transcends dimensions. Would love to hear how to improve/ or any feedback. Here goes:
We are all light and darkness
blinking to a rythym
giving pause
to each energy or lack thereof
I found you in waves
of heat, in every sensation
Where there was no light, I felt you
as keen as flesh on fingertips.
While a flicker illuminated
concrete walls cascading into a freefall
of space and time
I, alone, could hear you breathing
without lungs or chest or bones.
but as a blind woman occupying melody
knowing "being" has no bound, no shape
-as endless points strung
to waves being pulled for eternity
I just LOVED the lines "I found you in waves / of heat" - because I read it as waves and imagined the ocean, and then had my interpretation flipped on the next line when the image altered.
(I wouldn't normally suggest any edits to a comment, but since you asked...) One question I might ask is where the speaker of the poem is now. You don't always have to address that as a poet (you don't always have to do any thing you don't want to in poetry-- ever:) but I wonder if situating where the speaker is now--thinking and feeling these things--would be an interesting exercise. Are they gardening, sleeping in bed, watching the person wash dishes, etc.
Another small idea I had was to consider a few more adjectives. I'm hesitant to suggest anything because its form moves so well and quickly while covering such a complicated topic. But one example might be something like "keen as prickled flesh" or "keen as hot flesh." I appreciated the "illuminated / concrete walls" -- illuminated as an adjective for concrete is SO wonderful. I could imagine a few more surprising adjectives like that where they fit in! Thank you so much for sharing. <3
Thanks for the feedback! I love the idea of including where the speaker is now. And I agree adding more adjectives would improve it overall. Thanks for the ideas! :)
Heat Death journaling:
My initial reaction to the idea of the universe dying a Heat Death is fear. Not too surprising I’m sure, even if the science shows that it won’t happen for a very long time. I have spent too much of my life contemplating “the end”. I know it’s not the best preoccupation I could have, but the habit started young. The earliest fear I can remember in my life was the “end times”. When I was taught the idea of the rapture at church, as well as heaven and hell, the fear enveloped me. Anytime I was alone or not distracted enough, I had a paralyzing fear that half of the people I loved would either be taken away from me in an instant or that I would be taken away from them. I had many grown people who I trusted in my life telling me that this was the reality and that it could happen at ANY time. This kept me on edge and always anticipating something terrifying happening. It was a lose-lose situation for me, because even if I was the best Christian I could be (which I always doubted I was due to my lack of faith and all this fear that I wasn’t supposed to be feeling) my dad and half my siblings were not on board, so we were being split up no matter if I got LEFT BEHIND or deemed worthy enough to be swooped off the earth. As my sister would say, those are “big emotions” for a child.
Just after my first child was born in 2012, I decided it was a good idea to watch the Lars von Trier movie, Melancholia. The movie shows the lead up and then critical moment of the end of the earth through very personal perspectives. In some ways it heightened my fears, especially being in the vulnerable throws of new motherhood, but in another way, it pinpointed the exact moment that was at the root of my fear and made me feel not so alone in my intense fear. Cut to a couple of years later when my son entered his dinosaur phase and wanted to read dinosaur books every night at bedtime. It’s hard to read a book about dinosaurs that doesn’t talk about their untimely death by giant meteor or other theory. It never seemed to phase him, but It would send me into an existential spiral nightly.
A waking flicker (Ekphrastic using Yayoi Kusama's Infinity Mirror Room which I had the life changing experience of seeing in person in Sydney in 2007)
A small flicker,
Coming to life
Waking, growing, spreading, consuming space and time
How far can you see?
How long can you watch?
Illusions of distance and tangibility
Where are we?
Where can we go?
Continuous patterns all around into the infinite beyond
Step into a new space, a new time
Can you tell the difference, can you spot the second the flame changes from black to light?
Like that brief moment your breath is neither coming in nor out.
An unseen reality that beckons us to know, but we don’t know.
We don’t see.
There are some things out of reach, some ideas beyond our grasp.
what is possible, what can be perceived and what can hold true
Ever present and ever changing
So beautiful, Camille. Thank you for sharing! I can relate to your journal entry and being taught that "The End" should be welcomed (as long as you are good), which was very frightening as a child for me as well.
"Like that brief moment your breath is neither coming in nor out" -- what a line, made me stop and think about my own breath for a minute.
The idea of “heat death” is so vast and I find it a bit difficult to wrap my simple human brain around the entirety of the theory, the how’s and the why’s. However, at the same time I think the concept is very easy to grasp. I picture being being on a camping trip and huddling up next to another human body to keep warm through the night. Or some tragic, accidental plane crash in the mountains movie I surely have watched before but only remember certain details of like there was snow and the survivors held each other close for warmth. The concept itself makes sense because it’s something that most anyone has experienced and to think the universe, with how infinitely sprawling it could be, experiences that same thing makes me feel somehow more connected in a way I had never considered before. “Hey, the universe is just like me.” Or I’m just it, or I am the universe maybe even the universe is me. Far out, man.
I also enjoy the imagery of considering heat death in a romantic sense. As if between two forgotten lovers there was a black hole, nothing.
This is a fantastic topic. One that once I started walking with it for a minute began to show me more than I was expecting.
It is fascinating to think about the entire universe becoming a black hole. I imagine at that point something has to happen. Maybe another new universe? Another dream of Vishnu? No one knows. I find that comforting. Death is scary but it helps to remember you’re not alone. Every person, every animal, plants, insects, birds, everything that lives eventually dies, you’re joining all of your predecessors and colleagues and friends and family and everything that has ever lived in the place where everything goes, and eventually the planets and the sun and existence itself will go too. Whewww, crazy to think about, but it’s ok.
Haha, yes, this sounds similar to my response to Heat Death. It reminds us that literally everything expends its energy and dies, and we don't really know what that means for where our energy goes or how, or what comes after.