-Alan G. Hefner (paraphrasing the Emerald Tablet)
As above, so below.
-Hermes Trismegistus
I woke up this morning feeling incredibly grumpy - poor sleep, and dreams in which people I trust became unapologetically opportunistic, and I kept waiting in line at an airport to exchange my ticket for a later flight so I could spend more time visiting family, only every time I almost reached the front of the line, I'd rush off to take care of something pressing, and then have to stand in line all over again. Sometimes my subconscious is not very subtle.
All of which has me thinking about choices and relationships and pruning. Neural pruning, to be specific, and its intimate relationship with walking one's Path; the way it mirrors in minute detail the larger decisions and actions we take. Micro and macro, internal and external. Spirit and corporeal. Art and life.
The night before I left Vermont, I lay in bed with my youngest godchild as she waited for her mother to come upstairs. Holding our hands millimeters apart from one another, we played a mirroring game I learned in a long-ago acting class, leading each other in slow, synchronous gestures and exaggerated facial expressions. Her sister is already past such games; at thirteen she's busy beating me in Bananagrams and cracking one-liners that I'm shocked she's old enough to say, let alone think up.
These kids amaze me: the ways they've grown and processed and adapted; the astonishing ease with which they've embedded themselves in my life; their innate ability to render life extraordinary - how is this possible?! This is how children overpower us, playing our own reticent hubris in their personal favor: we meet them in their delicate, thin-skinned beginnings, and they initiate this visceral, totally subtle, and all consuming change throughout our lives. Everything that used to be important pales. Any love you used to have is overshadowed. Years later, you catch site of yourself in the mirror, brushing your teeth with Hannah Montana toothpaste, and have A Moment.
Knowing children is an alchemy of the most delicious, insidious, and utterly humbling form.
