speck

The little black *dit*, or dot, is often thought of as the beginning of life. In the Old Testament when God made First Man and First Woman, he fashioned them from earth, dirt, mud, depending on which translation one reads. Among other creation stories, the beginning of the world and its inhabitants is often made from the dit, from one grain, one single tiny dark dot of something.

Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who Run With the Wolves

The Big Bang that created the universe should have produced equal amounts of matter and antimatter. When a particle of matter bumps into its antimatter counterpart, the two particles annihilate. Thus, all of the matter should have annihilated all of the antimatter in a cataclysmic burst of radiation, leaving an empty universe for eternity. And yet, 13.8 billion years later, you — made of matter, not antimatter — are reading this news on a device which is also made of matter. Somehow, in the instant after the Big Bang, for each billion or so pairs of matter and antimatter, an extra particle of matter persisted.

Kenneth Chang, The New York Times 2025

During World War II, we bought sealed plastic packets of white, uncolored margarine, with a tiny, intense pellet of yellow coloring perched like a topaz just inside the clear skin of the bag. We would leave the margarine out for a while to soften, and then we would pinch the little pellet to break it inside the bag, releasing the rich yellowness into the soft pale mass of margarine. Then taking it carefully between our fingers, we would knead it gently back and forth, over and over, until the color had spread throughout the whole pound bag of margarine, thoroughly coloring it. I find the erotic such a kernel within myself. When released from its intense and constrained pellet, it flows through and colors my life with a kind of energy that heightens and sensitizes and strengthens all my experience.

Audre Lorde, The Uses of the Erotic

We see 'randomness,' everywhere, from the atomic to the universal, but what if we're limited by scale in our ability to see something else? Something more? Strangers on a street corner, from a distance, appear to move at random when in reality each one is walking with intention and choice. Cells, close up, move and activate seemingly at random when in reality they're parts of a greater, more fluid, harmonious, and systemic whole. What if we're ants walking along a painting, perceiving 'random' brushstrokes, when in reality we're part of a bigger, greater picture beyond our comprehension?

You are the Universe, Deepak Chopra

smudges, spots, each with weight and shadow. and between them you can see the canvas, something between/beyond.

The air is spiced with bay laurel and lemon eucalyptus and pepper trees. The scent retrieves all kinds of things he once knew and reminds him of things he never will. He breathes in for a long time. Phenomenal, to be such a small, weak, short-lived being on a planet with billions of years left to run

Richard Powers, The Overstory

No philosopher can explain the sublime better than this, standing between day and night. It was as if this were the moment God said, 'Let there be light!" You could not help but feel your specklike existence against the immensity of the mountain, the earth, the universe, and yet still feel your own two feet on the talus, reaffirming your presence amid the grandeur.

Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air

in search of a specklike existence

church of dots // religion of specks

I celebrate myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you

Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass