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Thank you so much for sharing your insights, dear MHGinTN! I'm sorry to take so long to reply, but I wanted to mull over your ideas before commenting.

Your thoughts about the photon being in the present and the spatial/temporal distance as planes hits a key point that is often lost in these discussions. Namely, that the photon travels a "null path" - for the photon, no time elapses. That is because the photon is massless and travels at the speed limit of the universe, the speed of light.

Thus the photon is always in the present. Conversely, our physical sensory perception never sees the present (or future) but only the past since time elapses between perception of a photon and cognition of it.

Another very astute point you raise is that the photon may be a fundamental information (message) carrier. The easiest visualization of this would be to consider the photon a bit of information, which is to say binary - e.g. 0 or 1, left/right spin. That would be a vector quantity, but the photon may also have a scalar quantity, e.g. photon scalar irradiance.

Wave length is a factor here (e.g. 60 watt versus 100 watt bulb) and would effect photons per second for light as a communications medium. To put that in perspective, we consider digital communication in gigabits (Gbps) or billions of bits per second. Physically, by comparison, the distance traveled in a nanosecond (one billion^th of a second) at the speed of light or 186,282 miles per second - would only be about a foot.

At this point, I hasten to add that one of the Names of God is Light. But the meaning of Light in the relevant Scriptures is not physical light (photons) but rather His glory, i.e. Shekinah. The physical light is a metaphor for Shekinah and has indeed been used by God to make a point:

And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven: And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? - Acts 9:3-4

Thus not only is physical light a potential carrier of messages so is His Shekinah glory, i.e. "beyond" our concept of space/time as betty boop described earlier.

This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. - I John 1:5

Who being the brightness of [his] glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; - Hebrews 1:3

In him was life; and the life was the light of men. - John 1:3

There was a man sent from God, whose name [was] John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all [men] through him might believe. He was not that Light, but [was sent] to bear witness of that Light. [That] was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, [even] to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. - John 1:7-13

Lastly, I prefer to envision gravity geometrically.

The planes are actually more like membranes because gravity warps space/time. Indeed, positive gravity regions are like indentations or wells in three dimensional space. The higher the gravity the deeper the indentation. Conversely, negative gravity regions - if they exist - are like outdents or bubbles (think, swiss cheese) in three dimensional space. Some speculate the dark energy areas between galaxies may be comprised of negative gravity regions thus accelerating the expansion of space/time.

The photon for which no time elapses, either bends around the positive gravity region or falls into it (black holes) or changes trajectory as space/time itself expands or the geometry or "texture" of space/time changes (gravity regions form.)

But the kicker is the dimension or dimensions of time.

In effect, the spatial whole is not static, it is dynamic. Very dynamic.

The universe is expanding and accelerating. Stars within spiral galaxies are spinning around the high gravity center. Likewise, planets are spinning around stars. And the planets themselves are spinning.

Indeed, each of us are rocketing through space right now at more than 500,000 mph. And that rate would be exponentially higher for the subatomic particles within our physical bodies.

Thus I prefer to think of gravity at the root of temporal issues.

Put another way, under the big bang/inflationary model, space/time itself initially expanded faster than the speed of light. And, the observer based on the texture (gravity) of his location "in" space/time, will experience time passing differently. For instance, while a week elapses on earth, forty equivalent years may elapse in the vicinity of a black hole.

Likewise, because space/time itself is expanding, that photon for whom no time elapses will take longer to arrive. For instance, a photon sent from a star when it was a billion light years away may not arrive for ten billion years, long after the star "died."

So, in my view, gravity whether positive (which can be seen as you say, a clumping of particles which have mass) or negative (perhaps a higher dimensional affect if gravity is interdimensional) is the most important physical factor when contemplating the geometry of space/time.

Thank you so very much for all you insightful essay-posts!

God's Name is I AM