Stonehenge: Instruments Of Timelessness

Stonehenge: Instruments of Timelessness

A great achievement of neolithic man stands on a plain in England where there is a 360-degree view of the horizon. This configuration of stones, with its massive uprights and lintels has remained an enigma for centuries.... Many believe that this ancient circle functioned as an observatory for the study of the heavenly luminaries and served a priesthood in arranging an annual calendar of religious ceremonies and festivals. With others attention is focused on the sheer physical accomplishment. But for those who dwell and ponder and look deeper into this magical arrangement there is more. An indefinable force persists and pervades. The effect is to silence one with wonder. These uncompromising stones radiate an awesome prescience. Although the uprights and lintels obviously served as windows and doors one senses a greatness coming through yet another door. A greatness which perseveres in another dimension and causes chronological time to melt away. There is indeed mystery here: of boundaries that unbind and of instruments for the measuring of time which lead to the timeless. We may never know for certain why ancient man assembled these stones but man's humanity can sense the nobility and feel the aspirations that materialized into a great internal idea. Sentinel-like, these stones stand as if encompassing all inner and outer boundaries. Stones uplifted aspiring and balanced. Stones: chanting a ring of protective power for the sacred space within.

—Paul Caponigro, from "The Stonehenge Portfolio," 1967-72

In theory one is aware that the earth revolves, but in practice one does not perceive it, the ground upon which one treads seems not to move, and one can live undisturbed. So it is with time in one’s life.

-Marcel Proust, from Within A Budding Grove

For these cameraless images I introduced carbon into water, creating a mark that is an organic record of the fluid's behavior, both of its own accord and due to my interventions. I work on large pieces of clear polyester and introduce an electric current to enhance the molecular movement of the liquid. Total evaporation can take up to one week, at which time I crop out my "negatives," which are enlarged photographically.

—Charles Lindsay

Time is the substance from which I am made. Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that devours me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the ñre.

—Jorge Luis Borges, from “A New Refutation of Time”

There is a sacred bond between slowness and memory, between speed and forgetting....

-Milan Kundera, from Slowness

We are condemned

to kill time: thus we die bit by bit.

-Octavio Paz, from “Cuento de los Jardines”

...a demonstration was planned for twelve noon one day during that August. Apparently the people were frightened of reprisals by the Russians... the wristwatch says 12:20 and the streets are empty.

-Bill Brandt, from Personal Choice, 1983

We were very tired, we were very merry— we had gone back and forth all night on the ferry

—Edna St. Vincent Millay, from “Recuerdo”

Everything comes if a man will only wait.

—Benjamin Disraeli