the binary Split

Sun 12.15.19

      The memories of childhood that are most alive involve being with nature.  One Christmas eve at the convent, where most kids have gone home for the holidays, our small troupe of those who were staying got special treats, cocoa and toast in bed in the morning, Sister popped an album of classical music at bedtime, the food even improved a bit.  My special treat, very special, I was allowed to go sliding in the small hills in nearby fields.  By myself, at night, a good distance from the convent, cold biting at my nose and fingertips, but its beautiful, snow sparkling on this clear night. The world and I are silent at this moment. 

      The identity formed in the mirror is not present; the binary split of self and other is no longer.  Self was in that field experiencing life much like the hunter-gatherer people, the Paleolithic stoners who left behind their stone tools for us to discover them.  These people interacted with the world through the corridor of magic.  They didn’t think about solutions to their particular situation, they intuited it.  They were at one with nature, its inhabitants, its edible plants, its star system.  If you ask Google for images of stone age humans you will be presented with ravening beasts.

      I have always known that these people were as intelligent as we are.  They were assuredly better people than us; they could not afford the loss or ostracism of fellow humans.  Why did they not paint pictures of themselves in their sacred caves?  It was not for lack of ability.  What they left us were handprints  -- I am a witness – We have been here – They understood themselves as one with the animals.  They honored them with beautiful cave paintings, as the animals honored them by killing them ferociously.  I used to think what a horror it must have been for intelligent human beings to start life at such a primitive level.  But it is perhaps I who needs their pity.  They surely were not looking in the mirror everyday wondering who that person was, or trying to grasp its essence.  They were like that girl with her sled in the fields basking in the wonders of life.  Always we yearn to one, like they were, stable, knowing, connected. 

The favorite essay this month has been, Oy, Oy, Oy