Updown

Updown

Look down.

You see your feet, and your carpet, and also the carpet on the floor. This is where your vision ends. This is the navigable space in our everyday lives. The physical, ownable and monetizable space wherein the day to day happens. Each moment, your eyes stop at the floor, the wall, the doorway. This makes sense. This is the framework wherein experience happens for us. The consequences usually come from within a few dozen feet.

An animal like us, with sharp eyes and a big brain, and not much else, can garner so much from a cursory glance or a peek over the shoulder. This works, more or less.

But now, I want you to look down. And really look down. And try to see not with those two eyes you normally use, but use that third one. Use that one that’s buried under your mortgage and your alarm clock and your envy. Pop open that peeper and let’s explore.

And you peer down through the floor, and below your apartment is another apartment. An older woman lives down there. She doesn’t have a car. She stands outside and smokes cigarettes sometimes. She has a lifetime of friends and lovers and disappointment. If you talked to her from dawn to dusk you would continually be learning new things. Her inner world, her mind, is rich and elaborate. Her life has immeasurably impacted hundreds of others. You will never speak with her. Her stories trail away as we look deeper down.

You are now in the dirt. The topsoil. This is a universe unto itself. Worms, ants, plant roots, fungii, moles. A cold and dark ecosystem where nothing has eyes. We’ve got whole religious systems dedicated to the sun, and these guys don’t give a fuck. Nutrients filter down and get reprocessed and keep the daywalkers fat and happy. The damp and tunnelling crew keeps living here.

We’re deeper now, boring into the earth with our truesight. The geography has become sandstone and fossils. Imitations of living things become sluice casts. We can guess at these bodyforms, watch the continents drift. A fossil of a fern from back then looks just the same as a living fern today. This fractal spiral beauty recedes from view as we move farther down.

Now we’re getting into the gigantic slabs of iron, nickel, gold. The primal bones of our world roil here. Continents of minerals swirl deep within the earth. The capitalists would rape these if it were practical to do so to boost the next fiscal quarter’s profits. They have no means of extracting them yet.

Deeper still, mother earth’s heart is a burning solid ball of an iron-nickel alloy, so I’d wager it tastes and smells like pennies. A ten thousand degree sphere, still cooking from the creation of the universe. Old Faithful squirts because of this internal battery. The core of our planet is still mystery, because how could you possibly get there? Unless you were looking down like we are. Plunging through the heartmind of our mother. We continue through the aftermath of the birth of the universe. No big deal.

And as above, so below, sure. The other side of the world has everything I just talked about in reverse order. Dinosaurs, worms, apartments. Sure.

And if you stare down long enough, you’re looking up. Be careful with your reverence for the stars and the moon. There are constellations on the other side of the earth. Creation watches you back. Its enormity and cruelty watches you. Look up and be humbled by the night. Be proud of your son. Dinosaurs, worms, apartments. Sure.

Be humbled by the stark black gaze of your cat. Watch everything move without you. Be thankful. I love the winedark sea of the night. The stars shimmer. If this isn’t nice, what is?