I have no good reason that this post is a day late! I almost forgot about it, if you can believe that, maybe that’s healthy. Anywho, here goes.
The other day I was talking on the phone outside the library, sitting on a ledge beside the stairs, and made one particularly unbecoming sound (groaning about one thing or another, as it were) and looked down to see a child of about four or five looking at me skeptically. The child was sitting on the top step, blowing bubbles. He had one of those long wand stem things and an orange vial of soap. He was doing the important things. I then turned to see who I think was his sister, who was maybe almost one, leaning forward in her stroller looking at me, kind of squinting, as I continued to yammer on. You know how little kids can look directly into your soul, somehow see all of your secrets and mistakes and internal organs? It was that. Animals can do this too, and some adults but that is more rare.
Toni Cade Bambara refers to her own child in the same vein, “—the ancient soul who travels under the guise of being a thumb sucking daughter—”1
This way of looking has a kind of gathering affect, it is confrontational, almost arresting—unmediated connection between sentient being and sentient being if you will. There’s so much mediation as we grow up and learn to be distracted and follow the rules. We wear our disguises so much we almost forget they’re on! And yet, the essence remains, survives, no matter how buried it gets. These kids reminded me of this musing from Dr. Jaiya John:
“We often are very confused with regard to our own physical appearance and age..…we are led to believe that an adult is a finished thing that has its act together that is impervious, insulated from vulnerability and fear and insecurity and needing affection and embrace. The truth is that I observe these adults as we call them carry within them carry within us a primordial primitive always existent child…the heart of a child, the perspective of a child, the seeing of the world as a child. We have to remember…how small we felt as children how looming and large the world seemed to us and how towering adults seemed to us. As we walk around with each other as adults and engage with each other as adults we still have that child vulnerability we still have those fears insecurities uncertainties and need for assurance and affirmation, validation and so this where this message comes from for me about just our need to recognize that this child nature in us is there. If we can practice seeing each other as adults with a child nature I feel that it will elicit and liberate within us geysers of compassion and mercy. We will be more forgiving of one another gentler kinder to each other. We’re so harsh. I feel that largely that’s because we have forgotten that we are not invincible robots as adults at all. We’re always an unfinished thing we’re always tender we’re always sensitive.…let this be our starting place when we consider each other, engage with each other, reflect upon each other and react and respond to each other. Let it be our relationship with ourselves as well…..we still need to be loved on…this is our design.”
And speaking of geysers, Miranda July referred to her own mind as Old Faithful. lol. Which I really love. And maybe the Old Faithful inside of us is also the primordial primitive always existent child is the ancient soul. As Dr. John and many healers and teachers instruct, we could be on speaking terms with them and even speak to them kindly. And while we’re at it, they are really surveilling Old Faithful (the actual geyser), who ultimately cannot be predicted. But the people are still traveling from all over the world to see this giant SPURT, which makes me feel fondness for the human race. We love to go see an uncanny thing, I think. Beneath it all, with and without our disguises, the primordial in us loves to love the earth.
Working at It In Five Parts, Part 1 p. 17 ↩