Turtles

 

Just caught a glimpse of sea turtles as I clicked back to TVO and turned off the TV. I love the way they move through the water, flying in slow motion, their flippers such inadequate wings in air but perfect for water. They are among the oldest species on Earth, hardly changed in tens of millions of years. As they move past the camera, their indifferent gaze reminds us that what we call life is as remote and inhuman a phenomenon as the stars and galaxies. We live, but the life we think we live is an illusion, a play of shadows cast on the screen of consciousness, observed by an observer who cannot observe itself. The body continues to do what it does, and we notice almost none of its functions; yet we flatter ourselves into believing that what we can know of it and the world in which it moves is all the reality there is. We identify our experience with reality. I think the divine injunction against idolatry warns us against just this misidentification.

The turtles don't, apparently, suffer from mind; self sufficient and focussed on the operations of survival, they fly through the oceans and demonstrate grace.