Hi all,
I felt you might enjoy the following excerpts from "The Spell of the
Sensuous," a book by David Abram (Vintage, 1997).
>From the chapter 'The Forgetting and Remembering of the Air'
"... Nothing is more common to the diverse indigenous cultures of the e=
arth
than a recognition of the air, the wind, and the breath, as aspects of =
a
singularly sacred power. By virtue of its pervading presence, its utter=
invisibility, and its manifest influence on all manner of visible
phenomena, the air, for oral peoples, is the archetype of all that is
ineffable, unknowable, yet undeniably real and efficacious. Its obvious=
ties to speech--the sense that spoken words are structured breath (try
speaking a word without exhaling at the same time), and indeed that spo=
ken
phrases take their communicative power from this invisible medium that
moves between us--lends the air a deep association with linguistic mean=
ing
and with thought. Indeed, the ineffability of the air seems akin to the=
ineffability of awareness itself, and we should not be surprised that m=
any
indigenouse peoples construe awareness, or "mind," not as a power that
resides inside their heads, but rather as a quality that they themselve=
s
are inside of, along with the other animals and the plants, the mountai=
ns
and the clouds."
"...Phenomenologically considered--experientially considered--the chang=
ing
atmosphere is not just one component of [our current] ecological crisis=
, to
be set alongside the poisoning of the waters, the rapid extinction of
animals and plants, the collapse of complex ecosystems, and other
human-induced horros. All of these, to be sure, are interconnected face=
ts
of an astonishing dissociation--a monumental forgetting of our human
inherence in a more-than-human world. Yet our disregard for the very ai=
r we
breathe is in some sense the most profound expression of this oblivion.=
For
it is the air that most directly envelops us; the air, in other words, =
is
that element that we are most intimately in. As long as we experience t=
he
invisible depths that surround us as empty space, we will be able to de=
ny,
or repress, our thorough interdependence with the other animals, the
plants, and the living land that surrounds us. We may acknowledge,
intellectually, our body's reliance upon those plants and animals that =
we
consume as nourishment, yet the civilized mind still feels itself someh=
ow
separate, autonomous, independent of the body and of bodily nature in
general. Only as we begin to notice and to experience, once again, our
immersion in the invisible air do we start to recall what it is to be f=
ully
a part of this world. ...[When that happens,] this breathing landscape =
is
no longer just a passive backdrop against which human history unfolds, =
but
a potentized field of intelligence in which our actions participate. As=
the
regime of self-reference begins to break down, as we awaken to the air,=
and
to the multiplicitous Others that are implicated, with us, in its
generative depths, the shapes around us seem to awaken, to come alive..=
.."=
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