Resonance!
My Whispered Words story outlined a mechanism whereby disparate segments of time could exist in close proximity to each other. The objective of this was to explain how the shape of Italy could resemble a modern symbol of force, a high heeled boot with a horse rider's spur.
The mechanism I outlined was fairly cumbersome, it depended on the reader accepting the view that while the physical body gave time a precise definition, the dream body was so timeless that Pliocene geology could be seen to reside in the vicinity of our age of Industrial Capitalism, where they bear a striking resemblance to each other.
The involvement of a symbolically creative dream body will remain significant in the present context, but much of the paraphernalia of the earlier rendition can be cast aside because there is an explanation of the shape of Italy which has virtually no moving parts, and which lends itself to the beauty of profound simplicity.
Resonance is a technical term in science and engineering, but it is also a matter of common knowledge since music accounts for resonance in a way that is very similar. It could be a useful construct, but in terms of the shape of Italy, resonance will not be the first thing you think of when exposed to its symbolic significance. On the contrary resonance presents us with an opportunity to observe a very subtle unity that binds every material thing in the sharing of a common symbolic identity.
In order to locate resonance in a more general cross-domain structure it is necessary to introduce a discussion of the shape of Britain. Introducing the observation of a novel spatial pattern, the Host Model of Earth provides a way of interpreting recurring patterns across different scales of matter. Its recurrence may be a matter of perception, but it may also point to the appearance of a deeper structural affinity.
In the case of Britain it may be regarded as a diminutive depiction of the global pattern; head in the vicinity of Scotland, its forelegs protruding west of Scotland's southern uplands, and its hind legs east of Lands End in the south of England. The recurrence of this pattern in the anatomy of animals suggests the inheritance of a quality that, in its most general sense, resembles one of harmonic resonance.
In the case of Italy you might want to jump to the conclusion that the rider's spur indicates a Renaissance object of cosmic reflection, but there is another sense in which it could refer to more recent times where the entire planet may be seen to be spurred by existentially critical developments in America. Which ever conclusion you prefer to draw is entirely up to you since symbolism like this is ambiguous even in the most formal of settings. The intensity of drama around us today would not have been considered possible by Renaissance observers only a few hundred years ago.
On first exposure to the symbolic significance of Italy you may want to conclude that it consists of a message from our cosmic ancestor addressed expressly to us as humans, a warning of the perilous times in which we live. A conclusion such as this is very easy to draw, but there is a more subtle interpretation of Italy that sees Pliocene and modern times sharing a cosmically deep but common harmonic resonance. It is resonance that helps us overcome the impulse to assign an intentional agency to geologic forms when they could be seen to simply resonate deeply in sympathy with each other.
In spite of how provocative a claim like this may at first seem to you, resonance is itself a fairly simple matter. You will no doubt be aware of how a guitar string works; it is plucked and it resonates at a frequency defined pretty much by the length of the string. But a closer look at the behaviour of the string will show that it is also vibrating at countless other frequencies which are largely inaudible because of the dominance of the fundamental. Indeed, it is even vibrating beyond our hearing at atomic frequencies, and all these notes are produced simultaneously.
Not only are guitar strings behaving like this. Everything may be viewed as shaking, rattling and rolling according to a deeply rhythmic syncopation. Indeed, all of life, on scales ranging from atoms, to stars and galaxies, is participating in this grand cosmic symphony, listening to itself, adapting, and casting variations on the melody.
Our Sun and solar system cast melodies which help to organise the behaviour of its constituent particles, and these resonate at different frequencies, so that it is not surprising to see evidence of the bits of music talking to each other. The vastly different scales of time indicated by the difference between the shape of Italy, and a nominal human wearer of footwear, is only a reflection of its unfamiliarity to us. If we were to succeed in developing a space-faring culture then such dimensions could become a matter of common knowledge.
Returning to the analogy of a string's overtones and harmonics, let me remind you that the entire spectrum of resonance occurs simultaneously when it is struck. If resonance is cast more generally as a relation of structural correspondence between systems of patterned behaviour, then its extension beyond acoustics becomes conceptually plausible, and an interesting possibility appears on the horizon.
Rendering the resonance of history as an analogy with that of this string, and Italy as an illustrative metaphor, a ground breaking implication follows. It is that the otherwise unforeseeable future could already exist as a pattern of harmonics, and that we may need to amend our beliefs about the present.
A guitar string is divided into two parts when a fret is pressed by the fingers. The lower part vibrates as the guitarist desires and, in terms of our analogy, it corresponds with the physical existence of our past history, and the history of the world. The fret defines a node on the string, is characteristically stationary, and corresponds with our beliefs about the present. In the case of the string the upper part is relatively stationary, but its essential harmonics remain with the potential of its being struck, as does our potential future history.
Just as there is a harmonic symmetry between the different octaves produced by a guitar string, there is a similar symmetry between the different scales of physical existence. The relationship between the Pliocene and modern times is an example of this symmetry but, to extend this trajectory into the future, the shape of Italy could support the view that a symmetry exists between what we are doing now, and the future course of human history.
You could learn the melody by 'sitting on the fret', that is, by attending closely to the present listening for the symmetry between the past and future, but in more general terms you could draw attention to the structured behaviour of energy in your life which seems to have an informational character.
If mass and energy are interchangeable, and if all physical systems are energetic by nature, then the structured patterns exhibited by such systems may be understood to carry information. In this sense, information need not be introduced as something external to physical reality, but may arise from the organisation of energy itself.
You could strike a chord in time with the rhythm of the melody, and find that you live on, at least as a pattern within the products of your life. And you could then become an indelible feature of the history we wake up to each and every morning.