Encounters with Mastodons and other Instances of Luminescence

First of all, allow me to say that the most difficult aspect of this assignment was not to find instances of illumination, but to determine which ones to write down--for if my body were an ideal machine, I would be in a perpetual state of recording such movements of thought! I think often people expect illuminations to be THE Illumination, but, really, is there such a thing? In some religions, that might be death, which would mean it is unattainable in this world, in this consciousness. So all we have are these small windows (I harken back to the mapping project of Dickinson's poem), glimpses of a luminescence so bright as to be invisible. And how many of these windows there are! Once I accepted that it wasn't the thing Illumination I was seeking, but rather the action or process of illuminating, smaller movements in observation and thought, progressions that built on top of each other, I was suddenly conscious of the presence of potential windows everywhere--it just depended on how deeply I chose to go into one or another--and sometimes, a journey into one window led into another.

I'll start off with my in-class venture, the first exercise that drew my attention to the glimmers of luminescence that dotted my field of vision like rays of light fractured onto the sea.

Rodica and I traversed the hallways of the Dude, at first looking for people to share their stories of illumination. We found a couple of willing divulgers, most of whom shared stories of how a favorite book had sharpened their perceptive faculties. One girl explained that reading about someone going through a situation similar to her own helped her understand and solve the issue in real-time. Is this why humans look in mirror or take pictures or record themselves speaking and moving? To experience something in the first person is indeed vastly different than observing in the third person.

We went on to pick up several items that caught our attention as being illuminating in some way. We found a posting for an HIV screening--illuminating in two ways: one to notify people of the event, the next to notify people of the conditions of their bodies. We picked up an engineer's discarded homework papers, some of which bore solutions, some of which merely confunding problems. Even though we couldn't solve these problems, exposure to the terms and the form/logic of the question was new enough to enrich our minds a bit more. We collected a "Wet Floor" janitor's sign, courtesy of Rubbermaid. This is an illumination some people might overlook; it is a visible signal of an invisible thing: water. Without the illuminating information this sign provides, one would slip in the puddle! Finally, we stumbled upon a fortune cookie fortune--how perfect! Illumination into the future--exactly what everyone is itching to find out.


















Occasion A - Tea with Terri Sarris

Before Thanksgiving Break, I got together for coffee with Terri, a film professor of mine from freshman year, and an old classmate from the same course. That class has always held a special place in my heart (and I don't use this phrase often) because it allowed me my first in-depth exploration of film (a childhood Love) as an expressive medium. We chatted about the thing that most college students struggle a lot with, especially during sophomore year as the pressure is on to declare a major. I wanted to know what the life of an artist was like, since I had not grown up around any artists, and my family has always downplayed and even trivialized the place of art in one's life. I find separation from art quite impossible, nonetheless (a suitable place to quote: "Science is how we live, art is why."), but separation from the sciences equally impossible. I like to think that while science studies the evidence of life, art studies the process. These systems of approach are often concentric to me, and besides, why would I give up another way of processing Life when it offers me a richer view, prepares me better for the next step, if there is or isn't any? I enjoy my life more when I can operate in both systems, or even better, both at the same time. I love looking for instances to combine art and science, and one of the reasons why I love this class so much is because Professor Moss demonstrates how to integrate them ever so gracefully through her poams. Professor Sarris said something that was spot-on, I think, that science you can't logistically pursue on your own, but art you can always do "on the side." This gives me hope as a student of the sciences and the arts, especially when current society dictates that the fields be separated in order to maintain some sort of order. Maybe not enough people have demonstrated how to integrate effectively, but I think this is changing, with events like "Arts and Minds" popping up all over the place. Technology, I feel, is an important bridge between the two.

Occasion B - A Trip to Ruthvens Natural Science Museum and Planetarium

Rodica and I made a trip to the Natural Science Museum to check out the Planetarium show on Black Holes. I've always hungered for dark cosmic knowledge ever since I read Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time in high school. What a trip to head over to the other side of Matter! Unfortunately, that enlightenment was to be saved for another day, as so many families were in town for break that tickets were all sold out....

Not to be daunted, we bought tickets for a regular night-sky survey instead, and wandered the hallways of the museum (one of the places for illumination) while we waited for the show to start. Here are some of my encounters:







Awesome! I've had dreams about mammoths/mastodons, and never really knew the difference between the two, but this exhibit cleared it up for me cleanly. It was quite humbling to stand next to the massive skeletons (and plaster ones at that) of these creatures--from another world entirely--and wobble with emotion in socks that probably couldn't have covered one threatening incisor.


The evolution of underwater hearing mechanisms. Did you know underwater hearing adapted from dry land audition? In water were ye formed, and to water will ye return....




A shell large enough to hold Aphrodite herself! As I chuckled to Rodica (suppressing an involuntary shudder), boy would I have hated to sit in one of those things while the inhabitant was home....


I had a dream about this concept (using insects and other creepy crawlies to form some sort of visual pattern) about a week before seeing this presented at the museum. It's a creative idea--an organic mosaic, but a little chilling at the same time, not in the least because I had dreamed about it before.


A weasel! I used to beg my parents for a weasel every year because the song "Pop goes the weasel" tickled me to no end. Anyway, I had no idea weasels were this tiny, and it kind of creeped me out to imagine how fast a thing of this stature could move.


I've always been drawn to badgers, especially so after reading "Badger" by John Clare.


The expressive body placement of this bobcat snagged my eye. Its marble eyes lost none of the savage desire to escape its glass enclosure.
Of all things, a carnivorous puffball FUNGUS! Yes, fungi are vicious things that devour flesh. Or at least, this one is notorious for committing such human-esque acts. One wonders what secrets bloom beneath this deceptively serene white surface...inviting, like a pillow case....


Finally, I had to capture the sad eyes in this wolf. It really amazes me how much of the expression, the yearning of the animal is preserved even in synthetic eyes. Maybe I insert it myself, but it makes these exhibits all the more powerful. I connect with them on a knowledge-based level, and an emotional level that serves almost as a preservative for objective information.


And some isolated instances of luminescence/ossified moments of truth or, more often, questioning of certain truths (points on which I lacked resources to dwell upon!) that I was quick enough to pin onto paper:
- Is marriage at some point simply realizing that you're too committed to someone to back out? Does any "successful" endeavor in life demand such dogged commitment?
- What if my education thusfar has been merely miscomprehension?
- Illumination does not necessarily mean revelation
- Can art be maintained as a "luxury?"
- What exactly is the mechanism by which art changes people? By a mirror mechanism? By simply allowing an observer to feel a particular state again?
- The necessity of feeling--is it a weakness?
- Tethers shape identity; complete amnesiacs (no memory of past or potential memory for the future) must write constantly to compensate for lack of memory. Who are these people who retain all normal human function--feeling, thinking, acting, expressing--yet are on some level incomplete because they have no memory?