Last night I sat a while, and all of creation washed over me as the clock ticked away. Never have I seen black so black, nor white so white, as in that instant; and although at first I counted the ticking of the clock there it lay, I soon lost the count of its ticking, and even of my breathing, so that it was all 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, ever and on. My vision washed out, leaving only the hazy impressions of the room, as if through a bright and all-pervading fog of light, only the windows were black with night, and the sable brushstrokes of Saotome-sensei’s calligraphy burning silently on the wall.
A thought came to me then, not as words spoken, but very clearly not from within myself, and said “there is only one place, and there is only one time, and that is where you are.” Even to write it down now is but a charcoal drawing of the shadow of that eternal instant, blurred by cruel precision. It is inexpressible, and yet I hold my hands between the candle and the wall, vainly wishing to show you the shape of what I have seen.
There is no number, there are no colours. Only that there is nothing, and that it is unique; we may call this the beginning of counting — constructing a something of nothing, and labelling it “1″. Only, too, that we cannot possess a colour but by contrast with its absence, and to this contrast we give labels. Dark, light, zero, one, black, white, day, night. To name, to abstract, and to compare, is the sum our abilities.
And so one year passes to the next. May it bring you joy and good fortune, in all that you do.
Filed by Michael at 14:00 under Poetry