Despite the horror, we survivors were endowed with a will to survive. Or instinct. Or maybe it was faith.
Nimrod began to understand that what he was experiencing was, in spite of its appearance of novelty, something which had existed before__any times before. His body began to recognize situations, impressions, and objects. In reality, none of there astonished him very much. Faced with new circumstances, he would dip into the fount of his memory, the deep-seated memory of the body, would search blindky and feverishly, and often find ready made within himself a suitable reaction: the wisdom of generations, deposited in his plasma, in his nerves. He found actions and decisions of which he had not been aware but which had been lying in wait, ready to emerge.
The Street of Crocodiles
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Nimrod began to understand that what he was experiencing was, in spite of its appearance of novelty, something which had existed before__any times before. His body began to recognize situations, impressions, and objects. In reality, none of there astonished him very much. Faced with new circumstances, he would dip into the fount of his memory, the deep-seated memory of the body, would search blindky and feverishly, and often find ready made within himself a suitable reaction: the wisdom of generations, deposited in his plasma, in his nerves. He found actions and decisions of which he had not been aware but which had been lying in wait, ready to emerge.
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The creative process is a cocktail of instinct, skill, culture and a highly creative feverishness. It is not like a drug; it is a particular state when everything happens very quickly, a mixture of consciousness and unconsciousness, of fear and pleasure, it's a little like making love, the physical act of love.
Science has so far been unable to tell us how self-aware dogs are, much less whether they have anything like our conscious thoughts. This is not surprising, since neither scientists nor philosophers can agree about what the consciousness of humans consists of, let alone that of animals.
Percy wakes me (fourteen)Percy wakes me and I am not ready.He has slept all night under the covers.Now he__ eager for action: a walk, then breakfast.So I hasten up. He is sitting on the kitchen counter Where he is not supposed to be. How wonderful you are, I say. How clever, if you Needed me, To wake me. He thought he would a lecture and deeply His eyes begin to shine.He tumbles onto the couch for more compliments.He squirms and squeals: he has done something That he needed And now he hears that it is okay. I scratch his ears. I turn him over And touch him everywhere. He isWild with the okayness of it. Then we walk, then He has breakfast, and he is happy.This is a poem about Percy.This is a poem about more than Percy.Think about it.
If animals could speak, the dog would be a blundering outspoken fellow; but the cat would have the rare grace of never saying a word too much.
Black is a blind remembering, she thought. You listen for pack sounds, for the cries of those who hunted your ancestors in a past so ancient only your most primitive cells remember. The ears see. The nostrils see.