Advent, Day 11: Let Me See You In Darkness (II)

(Day 11 of this year’s Advent series. Yesterday’s piece was about “life events”; today we consider bodies.)

Let Me See You In Darkness (II)

Let me see you in darkness,
As by no other light. 

With immensity
Or the point-contained hum
Of smallest wonder – 

With direction
Not betrayed by any map
Or star;

In stillness, roaring,
Wave, hum, muteness,
Shush, and susurration –

As if by teeth, or by root
Of wood or stone, 
Hollow bone, 
Xylem, phloem,
Fin or fruiting body.

What, when suntime things are gone?

What purpose free
Of need or use
Except to be –

No need to answer,
That which 
I could not contain;
Except that,
When seen by darkness,
We may be 
Of nature Same.

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Have you ever seen a cow scratch its ear? 

I am, naturally, asking with a purpose; the first time I saw this take place, I was utterly shocked. Awe-struck. The fact that a cow (technically a heifer, in this case) could have itchy ears, and also do something about it beyond rubbing against a fence post (my prior understanding of large quadrupeds was that they solved most things by rubbing against fence posts) – the establishment of this fact, via it happening right in front of me, reworked my brain regarding bodies.

This particular cow chose to scratch its ear using its back hoof, just like a dog would. The motion took place with nonchalance, even a kind of competent grace; this cow had definitely scratched its ear with its hoof before, and would do so again. 

It was a gesture that I had never conceived a cow body could perform. My impression of cows was always very…refrigerator-like: rectangular, heavy, don’t swing on them, milk inside. The word “non-flexible” didn’t describe them, because the word “flexible” wasn’t on the list of cow qualities to deny. 

Now, there is of course a reason for this…rabbit hole. (For all I know, some rabbit holes are actually dug by cows at this point. But “cow hole” really doesn’t sound right, so let’s just agree to treat that question with the ignorance it deserves.) It has to do with the question of bodies, embodiment: probably the one and only thing I am prepared to consider miraculous in this world, insofar as anything else you might name is just icing on a thousand-layer (genome-flavored) cake. 

That is to say: it is a true statement that I am attached to my body. It’s definitely odd, mysterious; I’m pretty sure I accidentally ate the operating manual while still in utero.

But I’ve gotten used to doing things a certain way while inside of it. I don’t give much thought to, say, scratching my ears. The fact that I typically use my hands for this is the reason I was astonished to witness a cow treating the matter of ear-scritches with precisely the same level of non-attention while going about it in a way so alien to my own approach that it…that it was really alien to my own approach! Thank goodness it wasn’t an octopus, you know? 

Do you know, though? Do I? About bodies beyond this one? 

Do I know if – for example – octopuses even have ears? (Nope! They have statocysts!) Do I know what it is actually like for a fly to taste with the chemoreceptors on its tarsi; do I know what walls feel like to geckos; do I know what the ground looks like to a squirrel in a pecan tree?

Do I know how the tree senses sunlight? 

Do I know the ways of Behemoth, or Leviathan?

No, no, no, no, no. 

I like to try, though. Since seeing that cow, and a few other instances in my life, I’ve found it a good little mental practice to occasionally sit down in whatever posture least tangles my attention, and imagine eight arms, u-shaped pupils, everted retina, and the ability to squeeze through tiny gaps. 

It’s never going to make it as a “mindfulness” practice. I have to keep a phone handy; few things highlight my lack of comparative anatomical knowledge like the sudden need for, say, a spleen equivalency. (At this point, I’m pretty sure the spleen is just a joke played on humans by literally all other life on Earth, who are still wondering when we’ll work out that we don’t need one.) 

But as a “care-giving” practice – as in, learning how to give care to the beings and spaces and systems all around me that I can’t understand – it’s top-notch. Most empathy and morality comes down to whether or not you can imagine something happening to you: imagine unto yourself, that you do not unto others. 

And if that doesn’t completely re-shape your headspace – 

There’s the ever-present question of how to address an itchy statocyst when all you have are muscular hydrostats to scratch with. 

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