Plague Journal, Meditation East Of Eden
Another day East of Eden. There are times, when for a moment I think this is paradise, or better that it could be. Those are the times when my body and mind registers beauty or meaning. Almost always I am taken by surprise. If I am lucky, I have a pad and pen at hand to note my thoughts. At others times a camera is close enough that I can bring the lens to bear upon a vanishing scene. Maybe paradise comes as a note of music, a voice and a melody that strikes deeply, plaintively giving expression to our condition. I am satisfied that the best songs, the majority, are sad songs.
Human existence is experienced as a suspension between the before, the nothing from which we came, the “before” of our earliest memories, and the after, that is the certain knowledge that one’s life has a terminus. There is very little of what we know of which we have the right of certainty. Our expiration date, the precise date (unknown until it arrives,) is an item of knowledge that comes with certainty. There’s no reason at all to believe in exceptions.
Granted at first blush that strikes me as grim, a “sentence” casting a shadow over all else. On the other hand, the knowledge always present just behind awareness… Is not consciousness always a veil? The fact of a time before we were here, as surely as there will be a time of our absence from this world, our/my eternal darkness, — can add poignancy, inspiration to live well, to marshal our resources to inhabit our roles with passion, with dedication… To be, — alive with others, to be on stage is god-like is it not? As long as it lasts…
A few days ago it rained. On my way to my customary session of writing at Starbucks, I waited at the traffic light. Facing me was a rising sun over the bridge that spans the Fox River. The sun was a glowing ball of fire, illuminating the road, and the drops of water that speckled the windshield. Fire, Air, Earth and Water. By a stroke of good fortune, I took a photo of the scene.
Yesterday our granddaughter spoke her first distinct words. She is almost two years old. She was seated in her chair finishing her breakfast. The day before her parents had taken her to the zoo. I asked her directly, “Did you go to the zoo yesterday?” She responded with sufficient clarity for understanding. “I did go.”
Language is the beginning, the pivot point, the launch pad of departure away from the surround-manifold of sensation. We are able to use language making distinctions in the mind, to compose experience in terms of symbols, words, or mathematics, or one of the art forms. We use multiple languages for many purposes.
With language, the trouble also begins. It dawns that this is not paradise, but we live East of Eden, outside of paradise, subject to limitation, to becoming victim of misunderstanding, of making a mistaken judgment call. By language we betray others too. Or the very worst, — victims of collective delusion, stampeding lemming-like with everyone else over an abyss.
Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος.
In the beginning
was the word.
And the word was with god,
And the word
was god.
— Gospel of John chapter 1 verse 1
2 thoughts on “Plague Journal, Meditation East Of Eden”
Only remotely related, but there is a connection nonetheless: Yesterday I was revisiting the notion that we are composed of ancient material, that the matter within us has been around for billions of years. Our minds, our organs, our bones are a compilation of stardust and once we are gone, once the sun has enveloped the earth during its final red giant stage of life, we will once again be returned to the stars. This will happen regardless of human negligence or the potentially dystopian outcome of our self-destructive nature.
This may sound odd, but I find some comfort in that inevitability. The world moves on despite us. This is the ultimate equalizer, for each of us is subject to certain laws of nature. In that sense, air, water, and earth are all ephemeral. Only fire and its ever consuming lust for returning the matter that has wandered off, back into the fold, has some aspect of permanence and even that will eventually succumb to the life cycle of the universe. Anyway, just a few additional thoughts on a Sunday morning.
Your thoughts make good sense to me. All life here is powered by our sun. At some time in the future, this planet will be enveloped by our dying sun, — not that you and I will be around.
I too find comfort in the idea that matter is recycled, and then at some point is transformed to energy. I suppose that appreciating this brings a degree of satisfaction. The big picture, the ultimate resolution is out of our hands. But in the meanwhile we are morally obligated to do what we can for one another. The work is not always pleasant, a matter of a simple good will, a charitable act. There is always opposition to overcome. There is no sharp line of demarcation between good and evil.