The Precambrian Pulse

“In the dew dripping

On the broad-flanked hill,

Waiting for you

I stood dampened

By the dew on the hill.”

–Poem exchanged with Ishikawa, Otsu

“Waiting for me

You were dampened.

O that I could

Be the dew dripping

On that broad-flanked hill.”

–Poem exchanged with Otsu, Ishikawa

(composed during the Nara Period, Japan, sometime between 710 and 794 CE)

Eoastrion (fossilized cyanophyte); Gunflint formation, Canada

 “Eoastrion, a one-celled organism without a nucleus, resembling bacteria, about two billion years old.”

For over 2 billion years our older brothers, the cyanophytes, ruled sublimely over the world.  Details about these ancient creatures are decidedly foggy; somewhat like algae, but lacking nuclei; somewhat like bacteria too.  Their true nature can’t be known using the present tools of science.  Yet their reign as a predominant form of life on this planet is unparalleled.  As life became slightly more and more complex, leading up to the Cambrian explosion, eyes, sensory detection, and memory began to enter in to the equation.  Lungs, limbs, and social bonds eventually followed.  All seemed to be geared toward the transition of genes from one generation to the next.

I look at the vastness of the history of known life out of curiosity and awe.  But I also wonder about the role that my gut feelings play in such vast energy.  The ancient lovers quoted above, their longing, the heartbreaking magic of their failed rendezvous; was this all merely some cosmic card trick, something felt to be real but only a mask for selfish genes seeking replication?  We are shown our cards, they become shuffled and hidden in the decks of our minds, all the while their true face may be turned away from us- buried in the deepest recesses of our brains, grinning with reptilian glee as we suffer for something we are hardwired to do and to feel.  And so the most noble and boundless of loves may be a petty materialist trick at self-replication- still multiplying like our cyanophytic brethren, just with mystical illusions about intimacy, closeness, pairs bonded for eternity by the sheer power of what they feel.

It seems that in these times when we watch the useless hypocrisy of Victorian sexuality crumble before our eyes, when the oppression, possession and resource-consolidation that constitute the darker histories of traditional marriage become unbearably obsolete and finally overthrown, when humanity from any angle can be seen as multiplying out of control and shoving thousands of other species out of existence, consuming and breeding at a rate that insures starvation, disease and the possible destruction of all life, forever- where does this leave our noble, ancient lovers, clamoring waiting and pining for their possible union?  I know very well the taste of limerence; the incredible, elemental power of being in love; the wanting to be held quietly, safe from the abuse and confusion outside- the warm-blooded joy felt at snuggling as in some private burrow.  The boundless mysteries within the eyes of the person we love most.  Bonding and intimacy, emotions and selfless dedication, that lie far far beyond some societal obligation or imposition, even further beyond some material shadow play for something in return.  How can I say I idealize these things, when it is so obvious to me that they consist of a deeper, underlying reality, and those scattered movements on the surface of this profound ocean are the only things that strike me as barely real?  Career, hobbies, social status, tacit peer approval, relative expressions of power or success- all just tickling the surface like so many water bugs darting across a still lake.  Deep underneath the water’s surface, powerful currents of longing, closeness, intimacy- circular pulses between the lover and their beloved- are the things that actually stir all the fleeting nonsense above.

So can these primal energies simply be a Jedi mind trick of the body, simply yearning for replication?  Is that really all there is to it?  Or did Otsu and Ishikawa yearn for something more, some wholeness beyond gender, beyond mere social bonding- a wholeness exemplified by our venerable asexual ancestor?  Perhaps the balanced billions of years that simple being existed have something to show us about constancy in the face of change, staying power through temporary frustrations or disappointments.  Maybe our role as a gendered species is truly to reach a point where there is no need for love, romance, longing, being held- but I personally tried this route for over a decade, and it seems to me that we are not quite as independent as our asexual predecessors.  This hardwired yearning may just be a cynical way for replication of genes, some kneejerk grasp at immortality.  But I step back from that precipice that shouts of human lust and greed, people using and playing one another for transient self-gratification, throwing one another away the second they are bored like cheap plastic toys whose novelty has now faded.  Also from the other edge, that of transmission of property, name, and legacy to another generation, or the mere ownership of a supposedly lesser gender meant to prop me up and live vicariously through me.  I stand with Otsu, timelessly knowing that this isn’t about anything but my Ishikawa, a longing for true intimacy that will blanket us both like the dew-spattered dawn, sharing, natural and mutually whole…approaching the grace, if not the expanse, of the cyanophytic reign.