One Does Not Meet Oneself Until One

The Future Is Neither Ahead Nor Behind, On One Side Or Another. Nor Is It Dark Or Light. It Is Contained Within Ourselves; Its Evil And Good Are Perpetually Within Us.

Every Time We Walk Along A Beach Some Ancient Urge Disturbs Us So That We Find Ourselves Shedding Shoes And Garments Or Scavenging Among Seaweed And Whitened Timbers Like The Homesick Refugees Of A Long War... Mostly The Animals Understand Their Roles, But Man, By Comparison, Seems Troubled By A Message That, It Is Often Said, He Cannot Quite Remember Or Has Gotten Wrong... Bereft Of Instinct, He Must Search Continually For Meanings... Man Was A Reader Before He Became A Writer, A Reader Of What Coleridge Once Called The Mighty Alphabet Of The Universe.

It Has Been Said That Great Art Is The Night Thought Of Man. It May Emerge Without Warning From The Soundless Depths Of The Unconscious, Just As Supernovas May Blaze Up Suddenly In The Farther Reaches Of Void Space.

Perhaps A Creature Of So Much Ingenuity And Deep Memory Is Almost Bound To Grow Alienated From His World, His Fellows, And The Objects Around Him. He Suffers From A Nostalgia For Which There Is No Remedy Upon Earth Except As It Is To Be Found In The Enlightenment Of The Spirit--some Ability To Have A Perceptive Rather Than An Exploitive Relationship With His Fellow Creatures.

Once In A Lifetime, Perhaps, One Escapes The Actual Confines Of The Flesh. Once In A Lifetime, If One Is Lucky, One So Merges With Sunlight And Air And Running Water That Whole Eons, The Eons That Mountains And Deserts Know, Might Pass In A Single Afternoon Without Discomfort.