November 2, 2022. A quick introduction to the website.
Look at the pattern this seashell makes. The dappled whorl, curving
inward to infinity. That's the shape of the universe itself. There's a
constant pressure, pushing toward pattern. A tendency in matter to
evolve into ever more complex forms. It's a kind of pattern gravity, a
holy greening power we call viriditas, and it is the driving force in
the cosmos. Life, you seeβ¦
And because we are alive, the universe must be said to be alive. We are its consciousness as well as our own. We rise out of the cosmos and we see its mesh of patterns, and it strikes us as beautiful. And that feeling is the most important thing in all the universeβits culmination, like the color of a flower at first bloom on a wet morning. Itβs a holy feeling, and our task in this world is to do everything we can to foster it.
And because we are alive, the universe must be said to be alive. We are its consciousness as well as our own. We rise out of the cosmos and we see its mesh of patterns, and it strikes us as beautiful. And that feeling is the most important thing in all the universeβits culmination, like the color of a flower at first bloom on a wet morning. Itβs a holy feeling, and our task in this world is to do everything we can to foster it.
β Kim Stanley Robinson, Green Mars
βSaxifrageβ means βstone breakerβ. These tiny, five-petalled
flowers are the toughest and most northernmost growing plants on
earth. By virtue of their pattern of growth, they split rocks and
flourish in unlikely places; they are in the business of
viriditas.
This website is a place for me to collect my own thoughts on, and attempts at, viriditas. Itβs a place Iβll try to ask (and answer) stupid questions, not be boring, wonder, celebrate, and if Iβm lucky, change reality in tough places. Like the little purple flowers.