Page 200 - Dark Matter Issue5 Part II
P. 200
SHULA LEVINE
Everything is alive and communicating
I sit beneath a graceful old tree wrapped in tattered sacred cloth. Its deep, calm
presence fills me.
Soon I am traveling below the surface of the earth along the roots of the tree, am aware
of being underground, and of the incredibly complex network of information and life force
all around me. Aware of respiration. The entire community below the surface works
together in intricate beauty to feed and breathe and decompose and regenerate.
Everything essential comes from this energy pulsing around me. Information is passed
between species, bugs, roots, the microbes of the soils itself. Everything is alive and
communicating. I am aware that I can’t possibly understand this language, but I am also
aware that all I am supposed to understand is this gorgeous complexity. The Earth is
quite literally speaking.
Then I am walking on a quiet stretch of ocean beach. It is a familiar place, the shore of
Wellfleet, Massachusetts. A seal raises her head from the surface of the ocean and
makes eye contact with me. Then she is guiding me beneath the surface of the ocean.
Again I am aware that my senses are not equipped to fully comprehend what I am being
shown, but I have a sense of vast intelligence being transmitted. I experience something
like synesthesia— hearing smell, and tasting sound—there is so much information
pulsing within the water, between species, between elements. I am aware that though I
am unable to perceive and receive all that is here, it is enough to feel awe and deep
reverence for it
Then I am on what feels like an abandoned city street. It feels like a poor residential
neighborhood, run down, a heavy feeling of despondency in the air. There are no people
in this scene except for one young boy, maybe eleven years old, sitting on the steps of a
building. It is as though he has been waiting a long time for something to happen. I move
toward him with the feeling that we are in a silent movie— sound has been muted, a
