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Show 71. feeling of separateness. The mind knew the body, because one was part of the other, but each followed its own way. The best analogy I can think of is described by Delores LaChappelle, when she talks about skiing powder snow. There is some point when a good skier ceases to consciously steer the skis. In fact conscious control actually impedes his motion through the snow. The skis follow the body, and the will follows the body downhill through the turns. She recognizes that this state of consciousness depends on a complete trust in Nature. Such an experience, if one can call it that, requires full commitment, no turning back. I have observed, along with my friends, that it's always at the beginning of the second day that inexperienced or exhausted climbers retreat from routes on the faces of El Capitan. What, then, could Muir make of Tyndall's mechanical statement that "Imagination, however, must be strictly checked by reason and by observation?" This seemed to reverse Muir's own experience, and to confuse the issue. If it was anything, imagination was "soul life" and was based on observation, though more subtle. It reminded the observer of all the things he did not see, and did not hear. It wasn't simply a "mental picture," and certainly wasn't "unreal." No, imagination reminded Muir of the "sweet music of the tiniest insect wings," and the sounds of avalanches in the past, it saw "crystals of the rock in rapid sympathetic motion," and "the sound of stars in circulation." It reminded him that "The whole world is in motion to the center." |
