When you take the time to look into the sky for a few hours, especially the night sky, and you observe the moon you know that it is not hanging there, you know that something is moving. When you think about it you know it is always moving and if you think further you understand that everything is always moving. The conclusion is that we are traveling together.
There is a commonly accepted view that who we are is determined by the sum of our thoughts and confined in a bag of flesh that is given shape by our bones. However careful scrutiny has revealed this to be an illusion. Accepting this illusion as genuine results in the troubles that we have in the world today. It results in wars between people and it results in isolating the individual and hiding him / her from him / her self.
This destruction of the self replicates itself in the world at large as people join themselves into groups, societies and governments, resulting in greater widescale destuctive activity. This is all derived from the illusion of a seperate self.
What is genuine is that everyone and everything is interconnected with everything else to such a degree that if you step back far enough it will become clear that everything is the expression of one living organism i.e. the universe. Once this is understood there can be a genuine caring for those we consider others because they, the others, are in reality our own self. Christian thought requires us to love others as we love ourselves, and this construction of reality allows that to happen as a matter of understanding the nature of life. It also opens up the door to a genuine ethical base that requires no artifice to make it work.
This is an idea that seems at first glance to be unusual: I think it is true. So I look at the sun and the moon and the stars and feel the breeze on my skin and I see it all and I see myself within the same setting they are in and part of it as well. I see myself moving with it endlessly, independent of this bag of bones and small collection of thoughts and ideas that are clamoring to identify me and chain me in one spot.
Step back and get the whole picture.That was the underlying idea in my mind when I took these photographs.
Enjoy the slideshow.
Text and photographs Copyright 2007 David H. Roche
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