Introductory Comments for Part Three (or maybe Four): Retrograde Motion

Part Three- Retrograde Motion

“The planets [like Mars] generally move from west to east in the sky. Occasionally, one of the planets seems to slow down, stop, and loop backwards, moving from east to west for a short time. After a short time, all the reverse happens and all is back to normal. The planet did NOT stop or move backwards in its orbit; for a while, the Earth was moving faster than the planet, overtaking the planet for a short time, making it seem to lag.”
-from the website, “www.enchantedlearning.com”, Sep 18. 2006

Memory is a loop in time, a lasso or a noose.

It holds everything near and dear and feared close to us, sometimes so loose that we can’t keep ourselves together, sometimes so tight that we can hardly breathe.

But what a fictitious thread it is! It is a story that will unwind when we do, a tale that will vanish when the author is no longer able to tell it firsthand. How essential memory is to us, and yet, how like a dream or a nightmare, how ephemeral!
So we hold it close, even as we try to escape it.

And we try to forget that memory is only a “matter” of perspective.

And a “matter” of time.