All that exist

[WalterTrull]

Analysis. How this can be is analysis. Analysis is the process of saying, "this is made of that." It's something we humans do: we break things down into smaller parts in order to reassemble them. Or, in other words, we examine a larger bit of the world to identify smaller bits of the world that compose it, in the expectation that understanding the smaller bits will lead to a thorough understanding of the larger bit. And we take all these bits as if they were things in themselves.

The Buddha teaches that everything is not so much itself as it is made of everything else (interconnectedness). The motorcycle is not a thing separate from all the parts that compose it: they are none other than it. Yet we delight in treating the combined parts as if it were a thing separate from any of them: in assembling the parts, we give them one more bit in the world than previously was, we give them a name. And there are a lot of these (extra) bits whose existence is only by virtue of us naming them. (That is not to deny their existence, but affirm it.) But I digress.

Earth, air, water, and fire are not elements in the sense of assembly, so much as they are ways of seeing bits the world. To simplify, earth is solid. When bits come together to form a greater unit, there is purpose--the assembled motorcycle is greater than all its bits scattered about the floor. Operating together, the bits are stronger by virtue of a function and a purpose. Water is fluid, i.e. movement of bits, relative to itself and others. Each part of the motorcycle operates together, but each is doing its own thing, and in doing its own thing it is contributing to something greater (in the sense that "We are all One"). Wind is motivational force that brings bits together or pushes them around. Every bit acts relative to every other bit to affect their joint function and purpose: the handlebar relative to the wheel affects steering, and to the engine affects power, which affects speed--but also, relative to the driver who manipulates the bike, the handlebar affects where he wants to go. And fire is energy, the warm hum of each bit acting in accord with the others to affect the common functionality.

The elements are way of seeing things as connected, in an exercise of learning to see interconnectedness.

If you haven't already, you may enjoy reading "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance."

I sort of like it. It's just that I'm more of a trickle downer than a tower builder.

 

[sealchan]

Is a leaf really green, or does it simply reflect the blue and yellow spectrums of light making it, which absorbs only the red, appear to be green?

"Is the leaf the light it reflects?" is another question. It a wall the sound it absorbs or reflects? How silly or superficial is it to think of a leaf as green decor in our domesticated sense of reality?

Another question, is light ever green outside of a particular neural architecture that renders certain wavelengths different to the perceiving brain? If the light itself isn't green the are there green neurons that make it so? Do the neural impulses transmit this color somehow?

Interestingly, the chlorophyll molecules that absorbs light in the leaf have the same capability as the molecules in the retina which do the same. In plants light is used to harvest energy. In animals it is used for remote sensory awareness. This is an example of how nature can use similar mechanisms for much different purposes.

This belies, IMO, the notion of a forethinking designer.

 

[The Anointed]

Without the created eye, there is no colour. Without the created nose there is no aroma. Without the created ear there is no sound, only silent waves spreading out from some point.

 

[Quintessence]

This is something you seem to know a lot about. Would you mind very much directing me to a resource that could make me an expert on it in an unfairly short amount of time?

It's something I've done a lot of personal research on, and the lack of a good, simple resource that covers it all is part of why I did all the work on it years back. I haven't kept up on recent publications, but as far as I'm aware, there's no one stop shop that tells the story. I thought about writing that book myself and publishing it, but I'm fussy with such things and just haven't mustered it.

I originally started looking into this because traditional Pagan correspondence tables for the Elements put Elemental opposites next to each other on a seasonal rotation. That was just weird to me. Correspondence tables are notorious for their lack of transparency and footnoting, unfortunately. Being the academically-inclined person I am, I refused to take it at face value and demanded rationale. I came across a series of essays from a scholar more vetted in classical studies than I. Fortunately, this is still available here - The Ancient Greek Esoteric Doctrine of the Elements - and it's where I would start.

What Opsopaus writes flies in the face of standard Pagan correspondence tables and suggested they were wrong. I refused to take this at face value either. Surely such an error wouldn't have made its way into almost every single Pagan and occult correspondence table? I had a hard time believing that, so I followed Opsopaus' trail and did digging into the primary sources myself to verify what his essays were talking about. It's all there, and it isn't even difficult to find (Aristotle's "On Generation and Corruption" and other related writings are public domain). That gave rise to another research question - when and how did Pagan correspondence tables deviate from classical roots? Who broke the Elemental rotation? And that question is what really took me down the rabbit hole.

 

[sealchan]

Without the created eye, there is no colour. Without the created nose there is no aroma. Without the created ear there is no sound, only silent waves spreading out from some point.

Without the light filled environment there is no useful eye. Without the sound filled environment there is no useful ear.

The eye and light (as we commonly know it) have co-created each other. The same is true of a community and their understanding of God.