So much of life is binary, two-fold, two-
faced, too much. It seems that the initial
response to life, the immediate response, is
pure bi-polar good-bad, instantly. A bit of
tissue moves away from a bright light, or
towards it. This is my response: that it can
be a gray zone when no immediate response is
possible. Say you are interested in speaking
with someone and you are in a dark room,
possibly even outside in a new moon
situation, but you are walking about in the
dark while looking for someone and you bump
into someone. You may startle back and then
exhale to exclaim, "Whoosh! Oh, Jack! I was
looking for you!" To which Jack might say,
"In the dark, Jill?" But it doesn't matter,
Jill was looking for Jack and found Jack, so
that was "good", right? Well, yes, in the
short term, but in the immediate term, the
moment of contact, Jill stepped back and
inhaled sharply, before recognizing Jack's
leather jacket and exhaling like a hoot owl.
The owl was a symbol of wisdom, knowledge,
by virtue of an association with a version
of the Goddess.
Jill had a response that was from a
different part of her brain than the one
that "knew" Jack's leather jacket. In fact,
in a dark room it only knew "me" and "not
me- dangerous". This binary knowledge of
life is cellular. It comes from our spine
and the base of our brain; it comes from our
nerves in our fingers. Both Jill and Jack
and ourselves are a vast condominium complex
of cells and cell families. Just like any
small town most cells know or are aware of
the cells around the neighborhood. They are
much more aware of their families, the cells
they most have physical contact with. Some
cells just bounce around in fluids, like
"white bloods" and "the reds", who sometimes
get into altercations with other cells,
especially those from outside the
neighborhood, like rose thorns. There are
times when cells will die in the attempt to
kill other cells from outside the 'hood.
So it might be noted that racism is at it's
roots a cellular artifact. It should be
understood as that and treated as that. A
viral infection, such as re-writing history
can change an aversion to an insane hatred,
leading to a violent confrontation, death
and corruption. Corruption of the core
systems of the body will kill it, make it
incapable of going along with the everyday
needs of life. Cells die all the time. They
get replaced, until someday they don't. Then
some move on to other lifestyles. Compost.
Other compilations of living organisms may
recycle most of what is left. This is also
how cultures takes up the remains of other
cultures. They take up the knowledge, the
rituals, and the history of other cultures.
Suppose Jack had ingested a slice of rye
bread which had been made from flour
containing generous amounts of a fungal
infection called ergot that likes to grow on
certain cells. This bread now is being
digested in Jack's stomach and the
ergot amine poisoning has him seeing
everything in bright red flames and Jill's
eyes are burning coals while her hands are
those of a demonic banshee. So, naturally
when Jack said, "In the Dark, Jill?" he
meant the Dark Side, ie, Hell. So when she
reached for his face Jack did what any other
all American boy holding a bucket of water
would do: he beaned Jill on the head,
causing her to fall and twist her ankle.
Finding Jack in the dark like that was
really "bad" for Jill, and "bad" for Jack,
who continued on his psychedelic rampage for
another 12 hours and finally is arrested for
attacking a lamp post with a baseball bat,
and resisting arrest, assaulting an officer,
profanity and attempted sexual assault. Jack
had a real bad time after that.
Good - Bad? Who is to say? That's why they
call them "cell phones" so there is better
communication between the cells, and this
sort of thing doesn't happen. Jill could
have called someone, maybe Peter, and asked
where Jack was, whereupon Peter would
clumsily explain that they had gotten some
"bad bread, man" and everybody was freaking
out! She might have then tried to find a
safe place to sit it out, maybe called
someone else to meet her with a flashlight
somewhere.
Timing is critical, timing and experience.
If Jill had not wasted time hanging around
the 'hood with Jack and had got to night
school, or maybe taken classes in aikido or
intervention techniques, she could have
handled the encounter with a host of
variations.Alas for Jill, so many of them
would have gotten her hurt and Jack freaked
out, but at least two variations would have
had them making crazy monkey love under a
full moon, so that would be good.
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