mike’s “tabula rasa”

Cheers Darren! Mate. Chum. Toerag! Tabula bloody rasa indeed. Just you wait ’til its my turn… I’ll show you tabula sodding rasa. I’ll tabula your rasa ’til you’ll regret ever having known me.

Hmm. I suspect you already do now I come to think of it.

Ok, tabula rasa the theme is then. Well, the tabula bit was fairly easy. But rasa?
For some reason I kept thinking “rosa”, which suggested red to me. Red tablet? That can’t be right surely? An overdose of Matrix if you ask me.

So dive quickly online and head toward dictionary.com where I find a number of definitions, all basically saying the same thing:

1. a mind not yet affected by experiences, impressions, etc.
2. anything existing undisturbed in its original pure state.
Origin:
1525–35; < L tabula rasa scraped tablet, clean slate

Right. Having found out what the damn phrase means that didn’t really take me much further forward.
Er… you could say my mind was a complete blank!

And that comment to myself was actually what started me on the train of thought that led to my contribution for the month.

Must confess I did flirt briefly with the ideas of a clean slate or a blank canvas sorta thing. But then thought it was a bit too obvious (oops… apologies to Tam and Mark… no reflection on their pics at all) and out of keeping with my customarily convoluted way of doing things.

But for you to gain even a glimmering of understanding of why I’ve ended up with this little set of pics (yep… more than one!) I feel some sort of an explanation is called for.

So are we all sitting comfortably?

Then I’ll begin…

Y’see, in many occult traditions the mind is associated with (or symbolised by) air, and emotions are associated with water.

However, in some traditions (and particularly the one to which I adhere) water can also be associated with the subconscious, with the functions of the conscious or “superficial” mind being dependent thereon.
So the subconscious could be said to be the “deep mind” if you will.

So here was my thinking then: Hmm, mind… water. But not the muddy swirling water of a mind overflowing with a lifetime’s experiences.
Rather, a crystal-clear formless mind, waiting for first impressions.

And there’s the first problem.

Cos there ain’t no such thing! Even the mind of a new-born babe has, at the least, notional form. By virtue of the fact that its already bounded by the wholeness that is the baby.
Its not Joe Bloggs’ mind; its the baby’s. Therefore its already circumscribed and hence has form of a sort… conceptually speaking.

In the way most humans comprehend things at least.

Nor, even this early, can it be entirely impressionless. For it is part of a greater whole… starting with the mother’s womb and working outwards toward the Cosmos as a whole. All of which will already have bestowed impressions thereon, albeit transient, ill-formed and unrecognised.

And of course the form itself will in some manner impress itself upon the mind.

Consequently, there ain’t no such thing as an entirely clean slate, or a pure state, or a mind totally unaffected by any impressions.

Just as well really, cos if there were my idea of a pic of some sort of water would be blown straight out the window.

How the hell can you photograph water that has no form or identifiable characteristics… and yet still see its water?
In fact, it wouldn’t even be water, would it? Cos to be water it already has some sort of form… er… thinking molecular structure terms.

Be a pretty boring photo to say the least! Basically a pic of nothing.

So, I’m thinking ok, its legitimate to bestow form on this water then.

The form of a bowl. Heh heh. Water in a bowl. Clear water. In a clean and clear bowl… glass or something. Easy!

Er…

This is still going to be a rather boring pic, innit? If the water’s that clean and clear we ain’t gonna see its there!

Hmm.

Aha! Water with bubbles in. Little bubbles. Teeny weeny bubbles in fact. Sort of sparkly water.
Yet they mustn’t form any particular mass or even be very clearly defined. Sort of representative of the tiddly little traces of the fleeting hints of impressions that already contaminate even the cleanest mind.

Yep. That’ll do me.

And play around with the light a little bit as well maybe… suggestive of all the impressions waiting to impose themselves on this ‘ere mind and cause all those little sparkly traces to coalesce into more discrete forms.

That’ll be the first two pics in this set then.

#1… deliberately out of focus, suggesting that formless “stuff” beginning to take on shape as a mind in its own right.

And #2… the formed mind, already holding the impression of the form its taken, and alive with the sparkly bits that are in the process of becoming. Some clear, some not so. Some already seeming to take on shapes under the influence of external impressions (represented by the various forms and waves of light). Some not.

Then we come to #3. Seemingly a complete departure, but in fact not. Even to the extent that exactly the same props were used for #3 as for the first two. And it ain’t been photoshopped or otherwise distorted either! What you’re seeing is what was there, in front of the camera.

But this is if you like representative of the subjective side… the mind “looking out”. Experiencing impressions but not yet able to recognise what they are, what they mean, or organise them into any easily identifiable form.
Basically, make of it what you will. And whatever you make of it will say nothing of its reality in itself but rather of the experiences already in your own mind!

Though if the phrase “in the mind’s eye” were to… er… pop into mind I wouldn’t be too miffed.

Heh heh.

Well, that’s what these pics are all about. Re the actual taking of them, that’s something else again.

They look amazingly simple and straightforward… yet you wouldn’t believe how bloody difficult it was to set the whole thing up to get just what I wanted.
And I use the word “bloody” in its most literal sense. The actual physical set-up was such, and so unstable, that it could so easily have turned into a total disaster… with blood being shed. My blood.
Its not funny I tell ya. The things I do for this photography caper, I must be a complete and utter idiot.

Or has that already been said?

Pic #1

Pic #2

Pic #3