[lit-ideas] Re: Simone Weil (Was: Kataphatic, Negative and Apophatic Theo...

  • From: Robert.Paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Robert Paul)
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: 06 Aug 2004 10:56:00 PDT

>With Simone I think a lot of it is a matter of intuiting.<

I was out talking to some of the rocks on our property, many of which I'd hauled
all by myself years ago up a rickety flight of stairs from the riverside to the
lawn of the place where we used to live--about fifteen feet or so, nearly
straight up, sweating like a slave in an Athenian lead mine--wondering which of
them were now willing to move to our soon-to-be-vacated present digs (they got
here in a moving van, after heavy negotiations with guys who think that real
movers only do pianos and oak tables), up to where we're going next (second move
for the rocks) where there's little room for them, and each one has to be talked
to--stay or go, how in love with this place are you--? but mostly they made
basalt noises and granite groans, and tried (it looked like) to appear as if
they'd been there forever _and_ as if they were ready for a new adventure, if
only somebody would pick them up, or five or six somebodies (it took three young
men per rock, in some cases, using simple levers, and a hand dolly), but finally
they all went, willingly, I think, ready to try it out. It isn't as if rocks get
to move across town on their own very often, and so they were glad of the ride
in Angel's truck, see a bit of the countryside, you know, get some air, check
out the competition in the stone walls by the roadside. But, hey, did they
really talk to me? Are stones stone talkers? Yeah, if you put your ear right
down on a rock, even if you have to scrape the moss away a little bit, you can
hear that groaning and rumbling, and cracking (cracking jokes, listening to rock
music). Does it make sense? Well, not _sense_ exactly, but it does have a kind
of rhthym, or pattern, as if rocks were pure Lockean substance, and who knows,
they might be, but let me tell you, they really don't think much of the old
Bishop, the one who thought matter was _stupid_. How'd you like to think that
the very essence of your being was _stupid_, and read that in every damn first
year philosophy anthology ever written? Or, maybe not: maybe they are tired of
those old stereotypes about how heavy rocks are, yeah, yeah, and how rocks
endure, yeah, yeah, but maybe Berkeley was right after all and rocks can get
free of all this mud and gravel and clay, and just exist, pure spirit, bound to
nothing, shadows in God's eye, there's a new day coming. Answer me, rocks, I
said. We haven't got all day. Angel, and Jesus, and Alex haven't got all day. 

They did, I think, answer. But a lot of it was a matter of intuiting.

Robert Paul
Somewhere near Lake Oswego
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