3.9 David Lewis-Williams Part 3: A Temporary Death or A Foreign Life?

“Sometimes I have entered this world of darkness alone, or remained behind alone to finish taking notes or measurements. It is hard to admit, but such occasions are always accompanied by flashes of indefinable apprehension. The comfort you may find in the ray of light from the headlamp is disturbed by the pressure of the darkness that is always behind you – shadows seem to advance from all parts that are not lit up. The shaky well-being you may find in the beam of light is disrupted by the fact that it also makes you very visible, vulnerable, a highlighted eye-catcher for nameless things you are not able to see. It is ten times the uneasy feeling of being the ‘target’ in the child’s game where all the others try to get closer each time you turn your back on them, and you wait for the uneasy moment when you are touched by the winner. It is tempting to slip away from this by switching off the light, and entering a state of a peaceful nothingness that normally is not reached by living persons without the use of strong mind altering drugs. It is like being dead or unborn…On several occasions I have experienced the paralysing anxiety which today is known as ‘claustrophobia’. For me it is like a sudden horrible stench – one that is not noticeable until it is too late, at er you have inhaled it and it is inside you….Perhaps humans long ago also recognized, named, and had their own explanation for this phenomenon? Did they sense this as something coming from within themselves – or as entities in the cave itself?”

~Hein Bjerck

“At first, we are children of the darkness. Your body and your face were formed first in the kind darkness of your mother’s womb. You lived the first nine months in there. Your birth was the first journey from darkness into light. All your life, your mind lives within the darkness of your body. Every thought you have is a flint moment, a spark of light from your inner darkness. The miracle of thought is its presence in the night side of your soul; the brilliance of thought is born of darkness. Each day is a journey. We come out of the night into the day. All creativity awakens at this primal threshold where light and darkness test and bless each other. You only discover the balance in your life when you learn to trust the flow of this ancient rhythm.”

~John O' Donohue

Rock art links to explore: https://old.reddit.com/r/DilettanteryPodcast/comments/y1i1x6/rock_art_threads/

Sources: https://old.reddit.com/r/DilettanteryPodcast/comments/10hcgv8/39_david_lewiswilliams_part_3_a_temporary_death/?