"Those salty walls unable to contain you."
Another line from "Boundaries." Not my favorite, but relevant to something that has been on my mind.
Once, years ago, I remember that I rubbed my eye and was astonished to feel the hole in my skull that encircles my eyeball. I had the disturbing revelation that I am a skeleton. A rag, a bone, and a hank of hair.
Do it now. Touch your body anywhere and you'll feel that hidden entity that is your scaffolding. Your mysterious and fragile Dia De Los Muertos self.
Being a bit of a recluse and prone to spending entire days on other planets, I forget sometimes that I am more than what is in my head. I forget that I am in a head at all. I don't think of myself as disembodied. But I also don't think of myself as embodied.
I read an essay in an undergraduate philosophy class entitled "On Having No Head." I don't remember the author. I don't remember any particular lines. But I know the gist of it. The narrator, unable to see his own head, only the world that he perceives around him, decides that the world must be his head. Or that he has no head at all. He turns around on the top of a hill, in the manner of Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music, and all he can see are mountains and sky. No head at all. Like a dog trying to catch that elusive tail. So he supposes that the mountain is his head.
I don't feel like a body to myself. I certainly don't feel like a jangling skeleton. I don't feel like miles of skin. I don't feel like long hair. I feel like myself, which is something not found in the realm of salty walls. And yet there they are.
Once I read one of those spooky essays on astral projection. The author eluded to a "silver cord" that connects the traveller's soul to her body. Imagine a soul like an astronaut, jerking at the cord that connects her to her bulky home, trying to go just a little farther into the cosmos. The author said that if someone attempted to wake the astrally-projected individual, the silver cord would be broken or yanked, so that the poor ghostly astronaut would be carelessly and painfully thrown back into her body. Or something like that.
I feel that way sometimes. As if 70% of the time my mind is wandering into some world of its own making, as if I am blissfully unaware of myself as a body, and then someone tugs at me and I am jolted back to that skeleton. It doesn't bother me. I've not been caught trying to sneak my way into some sort of Nirvana state. But I'm suddenly aware of my own frailty. As a mind, as my self, I'm invulnerable. No walls contain me. But when I find myself in this body, I realize how easily I could be broken.
Once, years ago, I remember that I rubbed my eye and was astonished to feel the hole in my skull that encircles my eyeball. I had the disturbing revelation that I am a skeleton. A rag, a bone, and a hank of hair.
Do it now. Touch your body anywhere and you'll feel that hidden entity that is your scaffolding. Your mysterious and fragile Dia De Los Muertos self.
Being a bit of a recluse and prone to spending entire days on other planets, I forget sometimes that I am more than what is in my head. I forget that I am in a head at all. I don't think of myself as disembodied. But I also don't think of myself as embodied.
I read an essay in an undergraduate philosophy class entitled "On Having No Head." I don't remember the author. I don't remember any particular lines. But I know the gist of it. The narrator, unable to see his own head, only the world that he perceives around him, decides that the world must be his head. Or that he has no head at all. He turns around on the top of a hill, in the manner of Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music, and all he can see are mountains and sky. No head at all. Like a dog trying to catch that elusive tail. So he supposes that the mountain is his head.
I don't feel like a body to myself. I certainly don't feel like a jangling skeleton. I don't feel like miles of skin. I don't feel like long hair. I feel like myself, which is something not found in the realm of salty walls. And yet there they are.
Once I read one of those spooky essays on astral projection. The author eluded to a "silver cord" that connects the traveller's soul to her body. Imagine a soul like an astronaut, jerking at the cord that connects her to her bulky home, trying to go just a little farther into the cosmos. The author said that if someone attempted to wake the astrally-projected individual, the silver cord would be broken or yanked, so that the poor ghostly astronaut would be carelessly and painfully thrown back into her body. Or something like that.
I feel that way sometimes. As if 70% of the time my mind is wandering into some world of its own making, as if I am blissfully unaware of myself as a body, and then someone tugs at me and I am jolted back to that skeleton. It doesn't bother me. I've not been caught trying to sneak my way into some sort of Nirvana state. But I'm suddenly aware of my own frailty. As a mind, as my self, I'm invulnerable. No walls contain me. But when I find myself in this body, I realize how easily I could be broken.
posted by Autumn at 2:14 PM
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