(c)John Kendall Graham
August 2018
The truth of the idea about which I feel to think to write
this report from zone zero zero of perma-culturalism
this radical environmentalism
this true anarchism
does not have any words at all
was working aeons before the beginning of human language
before human beings, before any mammalian forms
before insects, before plants, before chromosomes
antedating microbes and stromatolites
the first organic structures on earth to show 3.5 billion years ago
The truth of this idea is not in the words I feel to think to write.
It is in the things themselves to which these words refer:
wind that whirls
water that swirls
earth that gyres
the twirl of smoke
the heat of fire
a truth paraded
in galactic space
as spiral nebulae
I want these words to fall away to nothingness
and let little things, living things I use words to name
bring human consciousness into the presence of the Spiral
acknowledge it as the sign of living things
a figure, Gregory Bateson wrote in a book
searching for and finding ways
to restore an essential unity between Mind and Nature
a figure that maintains its form (that is, its proportions)
as it grows in one dimension through addition at its open end
a figure embodied in the spiraling helixes of the DNA and RNA
a “Language” Watson and Crick said
to make the molecule’s function clear
being to Deliver and to Receive the messages Energy sends
perhaps then more accurately to be called
a Co-creative Conversation with Life itself
in its myriad forms.
Sunflower
Honeysuckle
Water Lily
Chrysanthemum
Frond of a growing Fern
twisted trunks of Chestnut Trees
varieties of Pine and their Cones
Aeroplane Seed of the Begonia
and the wisteria involuta that spread purple in summer
along the verandah of my farm house in Australia.
A Spider web shows the truth of the idea I share
as does the larva case of the Caddis Fly
so do Horns thrusting out from Wallachian Sheep
Alaskan Bighorn
the Asiatic Ibex
growth at the Spiral’s open end
a fact of Nature
its truth
entirely
independent of words
requiring no belief
observable to the eye
able to be drawn
as Leonardo Da Vinci did
in his studies of Spirals
as seen by him
in Ram’s Horns
in Smoke and Dust
and in Leda’s hair arranged like an Ammonite.
The Ammonite and other shells
reveal the spiral form that indwells
the Human Body
its anatomy:
Umbilical Cord
Papillae on the surface of Skin
Bones and Organs within
Gall Bladder
Sweat Gland Ducts
the Heart
in the structure of its protecting Ribs
the Clavicle, Humerus, Femur
and the internal ear or Cochlea.
Can you hear me?
Are you listening, taking in the spiral message that I bring?
Can you understand that it’s the ontological that holds the clue
to what in our use of words is false and obsolete or both
and what is true?
I ask because our linguistic practices
have shaped much of our cultural evolution
and still do.
Yes, the ontological can be difficult to find
and so to keep in mind
when the world has been put into words
some we are required to believe
and so become blind
to the difference between
words about things
and words about words
both kinds obtaining an equivalence
in the mental and emotional spaces
of people in all cultures of all races
whereby imaginary entities
with no real counterpart
move from nothingness but flatus vocis
to complete autocracy.
In this condition of fabricated imprecision
the Empire of Language Rules
creating on a planet
whose surface curves
“the level playing field”
where “economy”
as established in the oikos (“household”)
of the Ancient Greeks,
has lost its roots
and most of its branching resonances
“family”
“neighbors”
“local trade”
“mutual protection”
“communal gardening”
all being daily hacked away
by the constriction of “economy”
to a singularly fiscal definition by the Chicago School
and its fideistic acceptance by those who rule
who ask us to “believe” in what they say.
But wait!
Is not this request “to believe”
an opportunity to dispel
the economics of dismay?
an opening we can take
a way through the ontological haze
that Belief in Words has brought?
For isn’t there a “lie” in the middle of “beLIEve”
that should always counsel doubt
when hearing and or reading those who use this word
that they really do know what they write or talk about?
As belief plays no part in the co-creative conversation
in which DNA and RNA participate
the one Delivering messages that the other Receives as sent
there is no room for doubt
or conjecture
about the meaning of the message being made
by Spiral energy through its open end
wordlessly
through biochemical transmission
“Life” is the molecules’ message
no care for the “Correct”
devoted always and only
to transmit the “True”
its origin in feeling
this being what is really real
appearing then to be
the most reliable design
to use in our living.
It is for me. Is it for you?
spiraljohn 