In the Panthéon at the center of Paris, there is a pendulum clock a mile high. It reaches from the top of the dome to the ground below the ground floor.
My classes met on Rue de l’Estrapade; I marched past that marble dome daily. It should be free to visit, but you must pay an entrance fee; most of the Paris museums are free to “youths” under the age of 26, and yet, the Panthéon has a fee. Strange, in retrospect.
Anyway, there’s something about this pendulum clock that springs to mind. I think it’s that it continues to move by the momentum of the earth’s revolution. It doesn’t stop. I do think that they correct it once a day to ensure that it stays on time, but it does not stop.
That’s how I felt on the swing, tonight. I lay on my back on the swing, watching the tree sway above me, and without my moving – without any propulsion on my part, we swung on. As though the swing and I were Foucault’s pendulum. Rocking with the revolution of this swiftly spinning sphere.
Perhaps this is how I should be living. Less press, more flow. Let the earth move me, instead of attempting to move the earth.
Pendant. Suspend. Suspendre. Je suis suspendue…to hang, as if an ornament. Suspend. Pendre. Pendiller.
Pendulum. To hang – with movement influenced by momentum or gravity.
I like this.