The Art of Memory When we can traverse the plains of memory, stopping at each fire to warm ourselves before we start again on our journey, there is a world inside a world that keeps going on to infinity. If we are lucky enough to hear the eternal melody that is at work in these moments, many fine hours may come upon us. But sometimes the solace and hospitality are too much and we live with our new found companions, taking them along wherever we go, as a shadow upon our eyes. The memories of Thoreau, or the early frontier narratives of Indian captivity, are something that I have felt eternal and unchangeable in human nature, not for any piece of information they have given me, but because my melancholy has always found peace in their environment. For some the world is old or the world is new, but the point is that we tend to look at it through memory. One memorable event confounds all future celebrations; we remember so as not to forget, but we do not remember that we are able t
September 3rd, 2013 A gray day or a colorful tree is somehow more sacred to my vision because it no longer relies upon the sun to illuminate our thoughts, but whatever has entered and formed our memories, it brings to a hidden relation with the earth. For we are no longer bearers of the sun, but approach the dark universe with a silence that has fulfilled a journey we knew long ago. But we are now just setting out and the clouds and the falling leaves are a tale that we must tell again. Douglas Thornton