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Step Across This Line Summer 2004 at Stanford University |
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WEEK
ONE—MONDAY Step Across This Line The first frontier was the water's edge. And there was a first moment, because how could there not have been a first moment, when a living thing came up from the ocean, crossed that boundary and found that it could breath. Before the first creature drew that first breath, there would have been other moments where other creatures made the same attempt or suffocated, flopping fishily side from side. There were perhaps millions of unrecorded retreats, these anonymous deaths before the first successful step across the waterline. As we imagine the scene of that triumphant crossing, our volcanic young planet, the smoky sulfurous air, the hot sea, the red glow in the sky, the exhausted entity gasping on the unfamiliar inhospitable shore—you can't help wondering about these proto-creatures. What motivated them? Why did the ocean so thoroughly lose its appeal that they risked everything to migrate from the old to the new. What urge was born in them that overpowered even the survival instinct? How did they intuit that air could be breathed—and how, living under water as they did, could they begin to grow the lungs that allowed them to breath it? But our extremely pre-human ancestor did not have motives in the sense that we understand them, the scientist in the room protests. The sea neither appealed to them nor did it disappoint. They had no intuitions. But were driven by the imperatives hidden in their uncracked genetic codes. There was no daring here, no heroism, no adventurous transgressive spirit. These beach crawlers did not travel from water to air because they were curious or in search of jobs. They neither chose nor willed their deeds; random mutation and natural selection were their mighty impersonal driving forces. They were just fish who by chance learned how to crawl. But so in a way are we. Our own births mirror that first crossing of the frontier between the elements. As we emerge from embryonic fluid from the liquid universe of the womb we too discover that we can breath; we too leave behind a kind of water world to become denizens of earth and air. Unsurprisingly then, imagination defies science and sees that first ancient successful half and halfer as our spiritual ancestor prescribing to that strange metaphor the will to change its world. In its victorious transition we recognize and celebrate the prototype of our own literal, moral, and metaphorical frontier-crossings—applauding the same drive that made Columbus' ships head for the edge of the world or the pioneers take to their covered wagons. The image of Armstrong taking his first moonwalk echoes the first movements of life on earth. In our deepest natures, we are frontier-crossing beings. We know this by the stories we tell ourselves, for we are story-telling animals too. There is a story about a mermaid, a half and half creature, who gave up her fishy half for the love of the man. Was that it then, we allow ourselves to wonder. Was that the primal urge? Did we come questing out of the waters for love? À Once upon a time the birds held a conference. The great bird god the Simburgh had sent the messenger a hoopoe to summon them to the legendary home far away on top of the circular mountain of Qaf which girdled the earth. The birds weren't particularly keen on the idea of this dangerous sounding quest. They tried to make excuses— a previous engagement, urgent business elsewhere. Just thirty birds embarked on the pilgrimage. leaving home, crossing the frontier of their land, stepping across that line, was in this story a religious act, their adventure a divine requirement rather than a response to a ornithological need. Love drove these birds as it drove the mermaid, but it was the love of god. On the road there were obstacles to overcome, dreadful mountains, fearsome caverns, allegories and challenges. In all quests, the voyager is confronted by terrifying guardians of territory and an ogre here, a dragon there. 'So far and no further,' the guardian commands. The voyager must refuse the other's definition of the boundary, must transgress against the limits of what fear prescribes. He steps across that line. The defeat of the ogre is the opening in the self, an increase in what it is possible for the voyager to be. So it was with the thirty birds. At the end of the story, after all their vicissitudes and overcomings, they reached the summit of the mountain of Qaf, and discovered that they were alone. The Simburgh wasn't there. After all they had endured, this was a displeasing discovery. They made their feelings known to the hoopoe who had started the whole thing off, whereupon the hoopoe explained to them the punning etymology that revealed the journey's secret meaning. The name of the god broke down into two parts, "Si" meaning thirty, and "Murgh" meaning bird. By crossing those frontiers, conquering those terrors, and reaching their goal, they themselves were now what they were looking for. They had become the god they sought.
Question: What frontiers do you wish to cross in this class?
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