The smallest unit of time is incomprehensible.
We capture it in a mathematical statement, gratuitously plastered above.
We've got a lot of Planck times to get through before Imbolc arrives.
***
I just finished a wonderful novel, Requiem, Mass., by John Dufresne. I won't spoil it here (couldn't if I wanted to), but while I read in the wintry darkness this morning, I stumbled across these words:
We all feel more than we can imagine. We all imagine more than we can remember. We all remember more than we can know. And we all know more than we can say.
Amen.
And then he talks of Planck time. This is a long passage, and perhaps I should ask Mr. Dufresne's permission before tossing it out here.
Any meaning is better than none. Ask any Catholic or Hutterite or Hmong. You believe in a God who, in his exquisite loneliness, created the universe and little you. Or you believe that we, in our terrifying loneliness, created God. Doesn't matter which. Ask any Vietnamese child kneeling in the mud, praying, choking on her tears, feling the hot muzzle of an M16 at the nape of her neck, hearing the screams of her grandparents, inhaling the sting of smoke and cordite, knowing that this soldier here behind you, dear, is about to make his own meaning by firing a burst of bullets through your head. At that moment there is no arrow of time for you, there is no there, no then. There is only this singularity, this big bang. At that moment you are borrowing energy against time and shaping your brief life into a quantum of meaning.Not sure this would make sense in June. Makes sense now.
