Thursday, January 15, 2009

drop, three, elephant

Posted by Picasa After a hard frost, the particles of rime melt to form drops like this one on on the end of buds. (Please click photo).

When visiting this blog, Dave King, has often commented, on the way disparate headings seem to link at a deeper level. It is not something I have deliberately sought after, but it may have something to do with the number 3. From the start, the idea of Best of Now, which came from Clare Grant's blog, Three Beautiful Things, was to focus specifically on three things every day. I have never been quite sure why three is so important, but it has always seemed to enhance the contrasts, which I have consciously looked for. Now, prompted by Dave, I have given further thought to the deeper links which seem to occur so often.
Drawing largely on the Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting numbers I have listed the following characteristics of the number 3, which may throw some light on the matter. Apart from the Christian Trinity, there were trinities of gods in Greece, Egypt and Babylon. There were three fates, three graces, and three muses. Paris had to make a choice between three goddesses. But more important, 3 was considered to be the first number by the Pythagoreans, because, unlike one or two, it possesses a beginning a middle and an end. To the Neo -Platonist philosopher Proclus, it is the first number because it is increased more by multiplication than by addition, eg 3 x 3 is greater than 3 + 3. It was Proclus who advanced the idea of triadic development, relating permanence, procession and return.
Somewhere in all that I sense that it should not, perhaps, be surprising that three disparate elements listed side by side are likely be linked in unexpected ways.

A parked motor bike, protected by a waterproof cover, fills up with wind. The cover is constructed to allow space for the handlebars, and these bag-like shapes become ears as the wind enters them, while the sheet, projecting over the front wheel and mudguard of the bike, becomes a trunk. The whole, as I pass it, I realize, has turned into an elephant.

2 comments:

herhimnbryn said...

I did click on the image and there is another tree in that drop of water. Another world in microcosm.

Roderick Robinson said...

Three - the deeper resonance. Trumpet players, as the multi-talented Julia will tell you, practice by blowing a key signature's triad but usually finishing off with the octave which leads to a much duller figure: four (notes, that is). It can be represented in a literary way: la-dah-di-dah! I rather suspect Julia can do this fast enough, ascending the chromatic scale, for most of us to imagine we're hearing real music.