Imagining yourself

as imagining         an other.

Although each brain is a child of the cosmos, it is a morass of a hundred billion brain cells that generate electricity and release minute quantities of chemicals. Nothing is translated back again from nervous impulses, decoded into colors, shapes, or smells. Brain electricity and brain chemistry are ultimately all there is also a complexity of intra- cephalic connections.

This afternoon what has become increasingly clear is the key role of the amygdala in emotion, a function well suited to its position at a neural crossroads, where we entered the shadows of the Capilla de Nuestra Señora de Guadeloupe to light a candle for another friend who had recently died from cancer."The zeal for your house has eaten me up," was carved into a wooden seat.

Outside the cool cavernous chapel,
I contemplated a deciduous tree
planted in desiccated soil.