professor sevenwell

For those who are curious, an exploration of the number 7 unfolds a universe of possibility and wonder.

Sir Issac Newton’s discovered in the 17th Century that white light could be split into the colours of the rainbow using a prism. 

Because SEVEN was a magical and mystical number in those times, Newton imagined that he saw seven colours in the rainbow (ROY G BIV ~ red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet) which beautifully coincided with his observation that there are seven notes in the diatonic musical scale. 

Newton conjectured that light, colour, music and sound are fundamentally entwined as a law of nature. Physically this is not so … metaphysically though it may be. This whimsical notion has become the basis for our collective exploration at The PaperBoats in a cluster of projects that we call Seventological.Wonderment.

 “We conscious beings share the ability to witness and reflect on the spectacle of existence, a spectacle that is at once mysterious, joyous, tragic, trembling, majestic, confusing, comic, nurturing, unpredictable and predictable, ecstatic, beautiful, cruel, sacred, devastating, exhilarating!

The cosmos will grind on for eternity long after we’re gone, cold and unobserved.

But for these few powers of ten, we have been. We have seen, we have felt, we have lived.”

Alan Lightman

RED, ORANGE, YELLOW, GREEN, BLUE, INDIGO, VIOLET ~ 7 little wonders

RED is to stop, 
To breathe, to listen, 
To dream and reflect.

ORANGE is the earth,
A request to accept
The cool, calm, wisdom, 
Of dirt and rock, 
Of silt and sand. 

YELLOW is the sun,
An invitation,
To connect
To everything and everyone

GREEN is to go,
Towards the mysteries and wonders,
Of tomorrow.

BLUE is the sky, 
Requesting your openness,
To all things that can be known.

INDIGO is the darkness,
Urging your wonderment,
Of everything unseen and unknown.

VIOLET is the edge of the rainbow,
A stepping stone
To dream  

RED, ORANGE, YELLOW, GREEN, BLUE, INDIGO, VIOLET ~ 7 little wonders

YOU

You are your creation of the world and You are part of everyone that inhabits your version of the world and You are responsible for the journey you are taking to discover who You are and how You should act in the world … and the end of the journey is to look back and see what you have become …  and at the moment of your departure, You physically dissipate leaving the precious imprint of your soul embedded in the ephemeral fabric of time and space.

Children in wonder, watching the stars
is the beginning and the end.

Dylan Thomas

The atoms we are made of — seven thousand trillion trillion atoms in each of us, on average — were forged in the furnace of faraway stars. 

Nothing is more joyful than being alive
to the colours and sounds
that elevate our sense of wonder
to the realms of amazement and awe!

My grandchildren asked me if Professor Sevenwell is true.

My answer? There is a certain kind of truth in every fabrication.

Dave Brown

It is only from a place of gratefulness that we can appreciate

the sheer WONDER of being alive!

Maria Popova

If you are curious, an exploration of the number 7 unfolds a universe of possibility, knowledge and wonder.

Professor Sevenwell

I travelled the world and the seven seas;
Everybody’s looking for something

Annie Lennox

The answer is in the wonder you find in the question

Professor Sevenwell

When we come to it we must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world.

Maya Angelou

For my part I know nothing with any certainty
but the sight of the stars makes me dream.

Vincent Van Gogh

A tree forms itself in answer to its place and the light

Wendell Berry

I live in answer to the light; angle my world to its benediction.
Living with light gives us a sense of the divine.

Nikki Gemmel

A THEORY is a system of explanations that ties together a whole bunch of facts. It not only explains those facts, but predicts what you ought to find from other observations and experiments.

So if you have a concept that is based on substantiated research, it’s a THEORY

But if you’re working off of an assumption that you still need to test, it’s an HYPOTHESIS.

Brett Weinstein – Truth Seeker

And when the dawn comes creeping in,
cautiously I shall raise myself to watch the daylight win.

DH Lawrence

Dawn is the time when nothing breathes; the hour of silence.
Everything is transfixed. Only the light moves.

Leonora Carrington

What is?

That is the dead past, already accomplished.

What could be?

That is the emergence of new being, new adventures brought about by a conjunction of living consciousness with the great expanse of paradoxical possibility.

J.B. Peterson

“Even though I understand that someday my atoms will be scattered in soil and in air, that I will no longer exist, I am alive now. I am feeling this moment. I can see my hand on my writing desk. I can feel the warmth of the Sun through the window. And looking out, I can see a pine-needled path that goes down to the sea.”

Alan Lightman

and in the end, the love you take
is equal to the love you make

paul mcartney – the real one