Foundation 2: Stasis, Change and Enduring Forms
A leaf sprouts from a tree's
branch, it effectively and relatively ascends from chaos to cosmos.
It grows to the point of having a definite fixed form with certain
characteristics commonly associated with a leaf: it is green, it is
veiny, etc. For the most part, the form is preserved over its
lifetime, however, its characteristics change. Perhaps the change is
manifested in the greenness of the leaf changing in autumn to red and
becoming separated from the tree's limb, etc. The leaf as form, for
as long as it is in tact, stays the same, while it's characteristics
change, but what about the time before or after the leaf comes in or
goes out of existence? Is it an extension of something else? Has it
become a part of something else? Where it was a living leaf before,
is now a dying leaf when separated from the tree. It decays to just
bits over time losing its form and returns to the soil. It ceases to
be of cosmos and returns to chaos.
All of these things are as
mysterious to us today as they were to the ancient Greeks of
yesteryear (albeit in different ways), and they, like us, sought to
find an explanation for them. These excursions in thought require us
all to consider what stasis, change and enduring forms are.
