For the past three days, puppy Scampi and I have been taking our four mile walks (and yes, with painful right knee, see recent posts) predawn, so as to see the spectacular Venus/Jupiter conjunction in Cancer.
Unfortunately, I don’t take my phone with me. But I did find an image online of how it looks today, Venus having just managed to squeeze by Jupiter. Yesterday and the two days before, Venus was to the right of Jupiter.
With this kind of aspect between two unusually bright planets, it’s becomes obvious what an exacting conjunction looks like in the sky.
Such an enormous difference between actually gazing at such a magnificent display in the heavens, and looking down on human-created symbols to depict the same. The first invokes wonder, awe, “Oh my god, how astonishing!”; the second merely “aha, I got it. Data entered internally.”
In other words, looking at this display in the early morning sky and looking down at a screenshot of a small part of an astrological chart invoke utterly different attitudes. Which to choose?
Well, I’d say, ultimately, best to choose both, and integrate them. Connect right brain astonishment while gazing at a mysterious phenomenon to left brain words, images to depict such.
Behind left brain recognition, of course, exists a multitude of other words used to describe the symbolism of Jupiter, of Venus, and of Cancer, and their combinations, their connections to other symbols. In fact, is there any end to the human capacity to pour out explanations, descriptions, logical entailments, for any phenomenon, like this one: pointing to a tiny but potent (from our point of view) visual feast in the sky?
Question: Does our need to describe and explain and connect ad nauseam originate in our awe and wonder? Is this need an all-too-human attempt to give form to the awe, the wonder? To capture it? “Put it in its place?” As in, “Aha, I’ve got you now.”
In fact, how often do we — and I do not exclude myself here — simply work with these already established linguistic tokens, as a substitute for actually gazing in awe and wonder, at the sky above.
We worry about people on screens, how they are ignoring what’s actually going on both inside and around them.
Or do we?
The emotional tone of the first image says yes, the second? No, not really. Not if we introduce tiny children to screens. Plus, even if we want to keep them off-screen, they always manage to find a way. It’s like sugar, and even more so, intensely addictive. How many parents can successfully keep themselves off screen? If they can’t, how do they expect to do this with their kids?
So where are we? Here’s my question:
Is it possible to let go, not just of screens, but of language itself?
Well, those who experience telepathy say yes. We can. Check out the Telepathy Tapes. And once we do, the whole world changes. No longer will language, once learned, and I mean any language, from the most elementary to the most complex, be available to separate us from one another, or to corral us into specific groups.
(Not just different languages, nationalities; I think of the way academic philosophers speak a language known only to them! I think of my own doctor father, speaking to a doctor friend: again, their language, their concerns, were utterly foreign to my young ears.)
I’ve always wondered about the connection between thought and language, between the depths and the surface, and how the depths get buried to the point where only the surface counts, and then gets used, for both nefarious and exalted purposes.
And by “thought,” what do I really mean?
Well, I mean the original flow within which we are all immersed,
ideas sparking like sun-kissed drops
in the River of Life on Earth.
