The theory that the entire evolution of life on
earth to the present is reenacted by all beings during their gestation from the
first cell division after conception to the emergence of their modern form from
womb or shell I’ve heard bandied about in many contexts. I have to admit such
comparisons are quite plausible throughout the wide variety and scale of life
forms covering the surface of this being of which we are all cells, Gaia,
Pachamama, Mother Earth.
Like any theory that keeps kicking around in my
ponderings it has given rise to tangential extensions into nearly as many
contexts. The earliest of which concerns the idea that, given that extremely
abbreviated experience of earthly evolution to the present in gestation, the
period of a modern human’s life from the first perception of sunlight to the
last appears to be a reenactment of the continuing social evolution of mankind
from the first opposable thumbs to finding fulfillment living out their lives
in cubic, air-conditioned isolation chambers viewing the natural world from
which they arose as an enemy to be conquered and exploited by pushing buttons
with stubby little fingers to make that now alien, civilized world better, more
heedlessness of the harm done to the planetary health none can survive without.
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| No matter where you go, there you are. |
Lest I get carried away into my old crackpot notions and forget the latest idea that made me abandon my sunrise vigil and drove my stubby little fingers here to the keyboard once more; it occurs to me that, having come to an understanding of the paragraph above, I have been slowly but surely returning to the preverbal existence of early man by my age alone. Over years of abuse, from screaming jet engines to southern sheriff’s saps, my ears now seem only to hear vowels and tunes, with consonants and lyrics quite indistinguishable. My eyes seem only to see landscapes and geometric shapes in the foreground, with leaves and letters on those shapes quite indistinguishable. I may not pick out your train of words, but through the dance of your body English and tune of your voice I can follow your train of thought as a metaphor with interchangeable variables. I may not be able to see your facial features at a hundred yards, but if I know you, I will recognize your walk and mood.
When I couldn’t read the blackboard from the back
of the 6th grade classroom my vision was suddenly made more particularly
articulate by being fit for glasses. I slowly began to rely on the written
signs all around me and ignore the reality going on all around them. The authority
of the written word, from “Keep off the Grass” to “Top Secret”, became
sacrosanct; immune to any experience in the contrary. I became an avid reader
in search of ethical heroes and scientific discoveries to challenge and/or
enlarge my own heroic theories and burgeoning desire for the reward of fame and
fortune in those books or imagined of their authors.
When I moved out of the city to the Dawgranch, I
stopped wearing my glasses because there seems to be nothing so specific
needing to be seen as is found in the traffic of speeding cars and urgent signs
of the city. At the pace of nature everything is as articulate as their
proximity requires my attention without fear of damage or delay. The once
hawkeyed sharp particulars in the distance have returned to being part of the natural
landscape I‘d learned to ignore.
When the cubical dwellers visit me I know when to
celebrate, sympathize with or object to anything they say by how they dance and
sing, no matter what the song and dance may be about.
