the poet: Henry David Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts on July 12,1817. After graduating from Harvard, teaching school, and working as a handyman for his mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson, in 1845, Thoreau moved to the shore of Walden Pond, a few miles outside Concord, where he lived for two years, building a small cabin of his own design, and writing his masterpiece, Walden, published in 1854. He died on May 6, 1862.

an old man: Matsuo Kinsaku (1644-1694) was born in a town near Kyoto, Japan. While still a young man, he was given a cottage named Basho An, "Banana Tree Hermitage." Henceforth known as Basho, after the name of his house, he became Japan's most renowned poet.

poem: At age forty-two, Basho wrote "The Old Pond,"  probably the most famous poem in Japan. One translation is: The old pond/A frog jumps in/Plop!

Startled: The amygdala is involved in our responses to stimulation that startles us.

let's now descend: J. LeDoux, The Emotional Brain. New York, 1996. p.172. "When it comes to detecting and responding to danger (one function of the amygdala), the brain hasn't changed much. In some ways we are emotional lizards." Ibid., p.174.

Cybele, herself: R. Eisner, The Road To Daulis. Syracuse, NY, 1987. p.169.

now will you: W.S. Merwin. From, "The Arrival."

attacked: "The amygdala responds to the initial visual representation--say, of a dog--by sending signals back to the same and even earlier layers of the visual processing system, and then by producing initial orientation of the attentional and perceptual apparatus of the brain: 'Watch carefully; this is important!' If the amygdala also registers the visual input as dangerous, it can establish elaborative appraisal--arousal processes that create a state of fear in the brain and then feed back to the visual system. First receiving from and then sending signals to the visual centers, the amygdala can rapidly bias the perceptual apparatus toward interpreting the stimuli as dangerous. All of this occurs within seconds and does not depend on conscious awareness." P.J. Siegel, The Developing Mind: Toward A Neurobiology of Interpersonal Experience. New York, 1999. p.133.

however, efforts: J.W. Renfrew, Aggression And Its Causes: A Biopsychological Approach. New York, 1997. p.24.

What chemicals: Some of the neurotransmitters found in the brain that have been linked to aggression are: Acetylcholine (ACh): "It is found in many areas of the brain, including the neocortex and the limbic system, as well as in many areas of the body....linking it to aggression usually relates to its function in the Onset Aggression System. For example, ACh is found in parts of the hypothalamus, thalamus, hippocampus, amygdala, and cingulate area." J.W. Renfrew, Aggression And Its Causes: A Biopsychosocial Approach. New York, 1997. p.86.

Norepinephrine (NE): Also called noradrenalin, has been positively related to aggression. This neurotransmitter is found in two major pathways that...pass from the brain stem to the cerebellum and hypothalamus, and connect to structures such as the thalamus, amygdala, hippocampus, septal region, and the cingulate, as well as the neocortex. Norepinephine is one of a the group of neurotransmitters called monoamines...which includes dopamine and serotonin." Ibid.; p.87.

Dopamine (DA): "Like NE, DA has several pathways that pass from the brain stem through the hypothalamus and into limbic structures such as the septal region, hippocampus, and amygdala. One pathway, called the mesolimbic, has special relevance to the Offset Aggression System, since it is a principal part of the brain's pleasure system." Ibid.; p.89.

Early Spring: "in the Phrygian cosmology an almond figured as the father of all things, perhaps because its delicate lilac blossom is one of the first heralds of the spring, appearing on the bare boughs before the leaves have opened." J.G. Frazer, The Golden Bough. New York, 1942. p.347.

buzzing: "Of all the insects represented in the ancient world, bees are foremost in ritual and symbolic meaning. They, too, represent birth, death, and reincarnation....The priestesses of historical descendants of the (Anatolian bee goddess)--Demeter, Rhea, Cybele--were called metissae, the ancient Latin word for bees.

Will the hive survive, will the gladiolas
Succeed in banking their fires
To enter another year?
What will they taste of, the Christmas roses?
The bees are flying. They taste the spring.
-S. Plath. From, "Wintering."

Roses bloom: "Cybele belongs to the Roman pantheon but seems to stand apart from it, assuming more the mantle of universal mother, as Gaia does in Greece. The Romans adorned her statues with roses, as they did those of Venus, and it may have been at the time her Mysteries were celebrated in Rome that the symbolism of the rose began to evolve as an image of resurrection, and the rose garden as the sacred world or hidden dimension of the goddess."  A. Baring and J. Cashford, The Myth of The Goddess: Evolution of an Image. London, 1991. p.403.

A biku: N. Kazantzakis, The Rock Garden. New York, 1963. p.47.

a young pine: After the death of Attis, "Cybele then took the pine-tree into her cave and lamented over it. The tree obviously signifies the son (lover)--according to one version Attis was actually changed into a pine-tree--whom the mother takes back into her 'cave,' i.e., the material womb." C.G. Jung, Symbols of Transformation. New York, 1956. p.423.  I read Cybele's 'cave' not as "the material womb," but as the skull-house.

His eyes: Studies show that some animals with amygdala lesions pay less attention to their visual environment, including changes in that environment, unless they are given substantial rewards for doing so. (See M.H. Bagshaw, N.H. Mackworth, & K.H. Pribram, "The effect of of resections of the inferotemporal cortex or the amygdala on visual orienting and habituation." Neuropsychologia Vol. 10 (1972) pp. 153-62.)

Cybele was: R.D. Barnett, Phrygia And The Peoples Of Anatolia In The Iron Age. Cambridge, England. 1967 p.23.

frog, hidden: "Frogs have been the subject of more laboratory investigations than any other living creatures. Their anatomy has been studied and described more fully than that of any animal except man.....it is their remarkable capacity for surviving experimental operations that has endeared them to scientists, and made them suitable for many demonstrations and investigations where shock, loss of blood and infection would lay a lesser creature low. However scientific frogs have not all croaked in vain. Many important discoveries have been made with the help of the frog and prompted people like Carl Jung to pay thoughtful tribute to them: 'Given its anatomy, the frog, more than any other of the cold-blooded animals, anticipates Man.'"  G. Donaldson, Frogs. New York, 1980. p.76

"The frog's brain responds to only four visual stimuli. These are: a moving object; a moving object that enters the frog's field of vision and stops; a decrease in overall illumination; and a small, rounded object that moves erratically in the field of vision. The first three cells are known as 'predator-detectors': movement triggers a general alarm; stopped movement means potential danger from a predator; and a general darkening signals a stalking predator. The fourth cell sends a 'black-spot' message, the 'bug-alert,' which signals a dark spot against a shifting background of light and dark....For frogs, small moving objects mean food and large moving objects mean predators. If an object does not move, the frog does not respond. Thus, small moving objects trigger flicks of the tongue, while large moving objects trigger leaps into water." J.B. Ashbrook and C.R. Albright, The Humanizing Brain. Cleveland, OH., 1997. pp.16,18.

ambivalent ravens: The ravens are a sculptural array by John Connell. "In British folklore, and indeed European folklore in general and even wider afield, the raven is predominantly an ominous bird, but like the cuckoo and a number of other species, it has an ambivalent character. It is sometimes good and sometimes evil." E.A. Armstrong, The Folklore of Birds New York, 1970. p.71.

I love frogs: N. MacCaig. From, "Frogs."

both participants: J. Allman, "Faces, Fear and the Amygdala" Nature. Vol. 372, 15 Dec 1994. p.614.

hazy full moon: "As the great light shining in the darkness of the night, the moon, in all mythologies up to the Iron Age (c.1250 BC), was regarded as one of the supreme images of the Goddess, the unifying power of the Mother of All. She was the measure of cycles of time, and of celestial and earthly connection and influence. She governed the fecundity of woman, the waters of the sea and all the phases of increase and decrease....So, analogously, life and death did not have to be perceived as opposites, but could be seen as phases succeeding each other in a rhythm that was endless. It is not surprising, then, that lunar mythology preceded solar mythology in many, if not all, parts of the world." A. Baring and J. Cashford, The Myth of The Goddess: Evolution of an Image. London, 1991. p.21.

postmodern pastiche: "Pastiche is, like parody, the imitation of a peculiar or unique style, the wearing of a stylistic mask, speech in a dead language; but it is a neutral practice of such mimicry, without parody's ulterior motive, without satirical impulse, without laughter, without that still latent feeling that there exists something normal compared to which what is being imitated is rather comic." F. Jameson, "Postmodern and Consumer Society."   In, H. Foster, Editor, The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture. Port Townsend, WA., 1983. p.114.

a schizophrenic mind: "The fact of the matter is that in all of us, only a hairsbreadth below the level of conscious rational functioning, there is quite another state of being with an altogether different view of the world and an altogether different way of growing to meet it. And that state of being, or that world, since it is experienced in terms of images and symbols, metaphors and myths, is considered mad and worthy only of banishment from the sane world of common sense." J.W. Perry, The Far Side Of Madness. Englewood Cliffs, NJ., 1974. p.6.

fountain's five tiers: Serotonin, acetylcholine, dopamine, norepinephrine, and histamine. "The very fountainlike arrangement of the pervasive pathways of nerves releasing amines does not necessarily respect the precision and specificity of normal neuronal contacts, so that the modulating chemical is already poised to flood onto large arrays of cells." S.A. Greenfield, Journey To The Centers Of The Mind. New York, 1995. p.143.

I stood rooted: W. Herzog, Of Walking On Ice. New York, 1980. p.21.

signals the object:  J. Allman, "Faces, Fear and the Amygdala" Nature. Vol. 372, 15 Dec 1994. pp.613-4.

each place: H. Morphy, "Landscape and the Reproduction of the Ancestral Past. In, E. Hirsh and M. O'Hanlon, editors, The Anthropology of Landscape. Oxford, England, 1995.

in reality: W.R. Hess, Biological Order and Brain Organization. New York, 1981.

rocks: "Being a fierce and implacable goddess of the rocks, Cybele's centres of worship were most often located on mountains after which her local cults were commonly named (e.g. the Bercynthian Mother, the Dindymene, Sipylene or Lobrine Mother)." R.D. Barnett, Phrygia And The Peoples Of Anatolia In The Iron Age. Cambridge, England. 1967. p.22.

electric staccato: "Then comes expression:
                               taut, taut
                               loose and taut
                               electric
                               staccato
                             "The worker in parts, to create a whole, must have his parts, arrange his parts, arrange his parts, his parts separate, his parts so placed that they are mobile (and though they don't interchange you must be made to feel that they can); have his lines of connection, his life arteries of connection. And there will be focusing points, focusing on, well, spots of eye arrest. And these spots sort of framed within themselves. Yes, there will be big parts and small parts and they will all work together, they will all have the feel, that of possible motion." J. Marin, "John Marin By Himself." Creative Art. October, 1928.

that the brain: D. Hiehoff, The Biology Of Violence. New York, 1998. p.117.

which suggests: A. Baring and J. Cashford, The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution Of An Image. London, 1991. p.396.

corn dance: "A big Indian dance I attended--I feel my greatest human Experience--the barbaric Splendor of it was magnificent--the movements within movements are swell--and it kept up for hours." J. Marin. C. Gray, Editor, John Marin By John Marin. New York, (n. d.) p.58.

reindeer: The Reindeer Age, as the Upper Paleolithic is sometimes known, lasted about 25,000 years and passed through four phases during which there were considerable oscillations in the climate of the glaciation. Periods of greater or lesser cold or humidity were followed by dry and very cold episodes with strong prevailing winds. This had a great influence on the flora and fauna of man's environment." M. Ruspoli, The Cave of Lascaux: The Final Photographs. New York, 1987. p.15.

"Since the prehuman brain enlarged only when the ice ages came along, the betting is that climatic challenge had something to do with the Great Encephalization--probably not so much because of a more severe climate but because the constant disruptions created opportunities and slowed 'optimizing....' Climate often changes faster than biological evolution- for- efficiency can keep up--and so a brain that can function in various
different climates has an advantage over one that is merely efficient in a single climate." W.H. Calvin, The Ascent Of Mind. New York, 1991. pp.12-3.

Paleolithic caves: The cave at Lascaux "was an externalized replica of the internal cephalic image, where pictures are stored and concealed. If this is so, the cave not only holds the earliest visual images but also the first model of the memory and mind. Considered as a human invention, the cave would be an extended imitation of part of the person, as a rake is an imitation of the fingers or a scoop of the cupped palm of the hand." B.D. Lewin, The Image and the Past. New York, 1968. p.39

where I would: White Lake, Sullivan County, NY. This would also be the original site for the Woodstock Festival.

incunabula: "The first stages of anything; infancy, beginnings." Webster's New World Dictionary Of The American Language. New York, 1980.

"After interviewing Nick Herbert and being stuck with the check for lunch, I discovered that Mr. Herbert had scribbled a phone number on the back of the receipt (sic) before leaving. It was a New Jersey exchange, I recognized it almost instantly, and underneath it the letters E.C. were scrawled. Finally, a lead ! This had to be the phone number for none other than Emory Cranston, proprietor of INCUNABULA books. So, Cranston was still on Earth Prime, and accessible by phone. I went back to my motel room and dialed the number.

[ring]
[ring]

EC: Hello?
JM: Hi, is this Emory Cranston?
EC: Who wants to know?
JM: My name is Joseph Matheny. I got your phone number from Nick Herbert. I'm a reporter investigating the Ong's Hat story, and I thought you might give me some insight into where you came across all the material in INCUNABULA. I got the catalogue from a group of Culture Hackers in San Francisco. (silence)

JM: Is this Emory Cranston?
EC: Who did you say you were again?
JM: A freelance investigative reporter, doing a story on the travel cults and the Ong's Hat Institute.
EC: And who gave you this phone number?
JM: Nick Herbert. I was trying to find out where INCUNABULA is located now.
EC: (Audible sigh on other end of line) Oh, well. At least he could have warned me. But it doesn't really matter...after all, there's no "here" here anyway, so I won't be here tomorrow. Does that answer your first question?
JM: You mean INCUNABULA is located in "virtual space"?
EC: As far as your concerned, yes."
-J. Matheny. "Journal Entry," 1/23/94. Incunabula #3. www.gopher.well.sf.ca.us

next door: "on December 12, 1912, Marin married Marie Jane Hughes. Soon thereafter they bought a house in Cliffside, New Jersey, in which Marin has spent the winters ever since." D. Norman, Editor, The Selected Writing of John Marin. New York, 1949. p.xi. John Marin died in 1945.

A mountain: "(Cybele's) throne was the high mountain peak where heaven meets earth; 'The Lady of the Mountain' was one of her epithets." L. Redmond, When The Drummers Were Women. New York, 1997. p.110.

Goddess's face: In Roman times one of her great shrines was at Pessinus, where one version of the story of Agdistis-Cybele was told. Her worship there was sufficiently important for her cult figure, a black stone, to be transferred from there to Rome under the title of 'Bona Dea' in 204 B.C.  The latter is perhaps again an illustration of religious continuity in Anatolia, for a deity called the 'Black Goddess' was worshipped by the Hittites."  R.D. Barnett, Phrygia And The Peoples Of Anatolia In The Iron Age. Cambridge, England. 1967. p.22.

flashing back: "But while neurobiologists are quick to point out that they can't yet show in minute detail what goes on during a PTSD (Post-traumatic stress disorder) flashback, they can speculate plausibly how glutamate transmission might lay down a permanent trace through the brain that-in PTSD-would repeatedly allow an inherently innocuous noise like a care backfiring to provoke an uncontrollable onslaught of panic." M. Caldwell, "Kernel of Fear." Discover. June 1995. p.102.

regressive terror: Plunging towards Phrygia over violent water
                            shot on the wood-slung Berecynthian coast
                            Attis with urgent feet treads the opaque ground
                            of the Goddess, his wits fuddled, stung with phrenetic
                            itch, slices his testicles off with a razor-
                            flint, sees the signs of new blood spotting
                            the earth, knows arms, legs, torso, sans
                            male members and
                                                                SHE...
                            -G.V. Catullus. From #63. P. Whigham, Translator,
                            The Poems of Catullus. Berkeley, CA., 1966. p.136.

For C.G. Jung, "The self-castration of Attis is not a move in the grand strategy of keeping mother for himself and himself for mother, but rather inevitably occurs when the regression (sic) libido activates parental imagos and elects to reestablish the infantile relationship with the female instead of continuing to develop and mature. Since the former childish affection cannot be reconstituted--because of the presence of the son's adult sexuality (a form of which Freud, unlike Jung, would claim was present even in the infantile relationship)--the offending organs must be removed, or else the son-lover must die." R. Eisner, The Road To Daulis. Syracuse, NY., 1987. pp.169-70.

you taste something: J.H. Austin, Zen And The Brain. Cambridge, MA., 1998. p.230.

being: "For artist or animal there is but one religion. At first glance it is simple. As simple as the animal (a sessile polyp or sea cucumber) or as complex as the animal's nervous system--as with a dolphin, a panda, or a man. The religion is being itself." M. McClure, "Wolf Net." In, Lighting The Corners. Albuquerque, NM., 1993. p.318.

both roads: "When two similar stimuli are used in a conditioning study, the thalamus will send the amygdala essentially the same information, regardless of which stimulus it is processing, but when the cortex processes the different stimuli it will send the amygdala different signals. If the cortex is damaged, the animal has only the direct thalamic pathway and thus the amygdala treats the two stimuli the same—both elicit conditioned fear." J. LeDoux, The Emotional Brain. New York, 1996. p.162-3.

I was changing: E. Eiseley, "The Dance of the Frogs." In, The Star Thrower. San Diego, CA., 1978. p.114.

the sickness: S. Semyonov. In, H. Kalweit, Dreamtime and Inner Space. Boston, 1988. P. 106

twisted: In Rome, within the time of Jesus' crucifixion, an effigy of Attis was hung from the branches of a pine tree. Here, the branches of the pine tree are the twisted emotions that led to Attis' death. He "must sever all connections because he cannot make the erotic connection (with his grandmother, Cybele), his (self) castration is not the enactment of a primal fear but the next worst thing to suicide: Eros has once again submitted to Thanatos." R. Eisner, The Road To Daulis. Syracuse, NY, 1987. p.169.

Cybele's name: B. Johnson, Lady Of The Beasts. San Francisco, CA., 1988. p.1988. p.306.

double-axe: The double-headed axe is found in works of art particularly in Mediterranean countries, but also in India and England. "Nowadays, the double-bladed axe (the labrys) is associated with the labyrinth, both being symbols in the Cretan cult. The labyrinth denotes the world of existence--the pilgrimage in quest of the 'Centre'. J.E. Cirlot, A Dictionary Of Symbols. New York, 1974. p.22. The double-headed axe is also a symbol for the butterfly; which, in turn, symbolizes psyche (soul).

the Zen story: The twenty-ninth of forty-eight koans of the Mumonkan, originally published in China in the thirteenth century by the Zen Master Mumon (1183-1260), reads: "The wind was flapping a temple flag. Two monks were arguing about it. One said the flag was moving; the other said the wind was moving. Arguing back and forth they could come to no agreement. The Sixth Patriarch said, 'It is neither the wind nor the flag that is moving. It is your mind that is moving.' The two monks were struck with awe." In turn, Master Mumon's poem reads:

The wind moves, the flag moves, the mind moves:
All of them missed it.
Though he knows how to open his mouth,
He does not see he was caught by words.

Z. Shibayama, Zen Comments On The Mumonkan. New York, 1974. p.215.

It's the mind: "By English-language convention what we see refers to the objects that the flow of data starts from, but what you have to work with is the data generated in you, not what the data is about. Naive realism is appealing: the idea that the world itself just appears to us (whatever that means). However, try closing and opening your eyes as you sit in front of your computer, and notice that something blanks out and is restored in sequence as you do so. The computer doesn't vanish when you do that, but something certainly has suddenly changed its character in a radical way. If you can avoid reposing within ambiguous idioms such as seeming and appearing, you may appreciate that there is a subjective content which is coming into being as you open your eyes and which is gone when you close them. Most people (including philosophers such as Ryle and presumably Wittgenstein) think that this content really is the world outside them, and so have trouble even understanding that there is a subjective pseudo-image." N. Bates, Journal of Consciousness Studies-Online. July 14, 1999.

museum's window: "According to Kevin Walsh, museums now show that all trails lead to ourselves, create displays equating change with progress, and reprogram the past not so much as unlike ourselves but as a trajectory toward the present. The effect is like those representations of biological evolution with humankind at the top instead of the tip of one of many branches, In effect the museum dispenses with the past in the guise of its simulation, 'sequestering the past from those to whom it belongs.' Its contents are 'no longer contingent upon our experiences in the world' but become a patchwork or bricolage 'contributing to historical amnesia.' Roots in this sense are not the sustaining and original structure but something adventitious, like banyan tree 'suckers' dropped from the ends of its limbs. 'Generations to come,' Walsh predicts, 'will inherit a heritage of the heritage--an environment of past pluperfects which will ensure the death of the past." K. Walsh, The Representation Of The Past: Museums And Heritage In The Post-Modern World. London, 1992. In, P. Shepard, Traces Of An Omnivore. Washington, D.C., 1996. p.158.

the most likely: C. Wills, Children Of Prometheus. Reading, MA., 1998. p.183.

war raids: J. Hoskins, Headhunting and the Social Imagination in Southeast Asia. Stanford, 1996. p.14

Coyote: "The traditional oral literature of Native America, specifically its mythology, is populated by personages with names like Frog, Bluejay, or Bear, and in the western part of the continent, a character called Coyote is especially important....It is especially tempting to think that a trickster figure like Coyote is somehow to be equated with modern tricksters like Bugs Bunny--or, for that matter, Wile E. Coyote. But in the Native American context, Frog, Bluejay, Bear, and Coyote are not animals: They are First People, members of a race of mythic prototypes who lived before humans existed. They had tremendous powers; they created the World as we know it; they instituted human life and culture--but they were also capable of being brave or cowardly, conservative or innovative, wise or stupid." W. Bright, A Coyote Reader. Berkeley, CA., 1993. p.xi

Tibetan prayer flags: A person who wishes to have a flag made would start by purchasing the material, preferably cotton. "He then takes it to a monastery, where a lama prepares one of the wooden matrices which are invariably to be found in monasteries, inks it, and prints the required prayers on the customer's material in return for a small fee." F. Maraini, Secret Tibet. New York, 1960. p105-6. Although traditionally the flag is nailed to a tarcho, or wooden pole, these flags were strung across the lentil of the entrance to an apartment belonging to Margaret Hagerity, a student of  Tibetan and Zen Buddhism.

white bird: As C.G. Jung points out, "In modern Christian psychology a white bird always has an association with the Holy Ghost." C.G. Jung, The Visions Seminars. Zurich, Switzerland, 1976. p.163. Here the spirit has assumed a corporeal form, and drips blood; for,  as Jung goes on to say, "I am certain that there would be no spirit if it were not a part of nature." (Ibid., p.164.)

"If the spirit of god can hide in a small bird then our own flight,
too, is assured." -Jennifer Ley

we have: R. Tarnas, "The Transfiguration of the Western Mind." Paper presented to the Philosophy and the Human Future Conference, Cambridge University, England, 1989.

he smiled: "the acting principle, put too simply, is that in order to feel a certain way (to make the action look true), an actor produces the appropriate facial expression (and perhaps the gesture or posture as well). The psychological state of mind soon follows. I read that certain therapists used this technique, especially "smile therapy." To improve your mood you simply need to smile, the more broadly the better.
"It works. Sometimes I over do it and use the technique while walking on campus. I know I 'm doing it when students begin to give me big smiles as we pass on the sidewalk. Of course I like to see these smiles, so now I'm not sure if I'm act-smiling or real-smiling. My amygdala becomes confused (it is not very bright) and does the only thing it can: the freeze-flight response. I look happy, but I'm running for my life. It reminds me of that account I read about how country folk entertained themselves before the rural electric corporation brought modern life to the hinterlands: they had grinning contests." Greg Ulmer. http://web.nwe.ufl.edu/~gulmer

the extremely acute: P. Descola, The Spears of Twilight--Life And Death In The Amazon Jungle. New York, 1993. p.110.

the amygdala can house: D. Goleman, Emotional Intelligence. New York, 1995. p.18.

f one explores: G.M. Edelman, Bright Air, Brilliant Fire. New York, 1991. p. 27.

hypercritical: "Nations and states have always played with history. We remember what we want the way we want it to have been. Sinners become saints who become national heroes as we mold new national hermitages. History is modified to serve the needs of the present in hopes of influencing the future." W.L. Rathje, "Kosovo & the Archaeologists." Discovering Archaeology. July/August 1999. p.92.

the amygdala: J. Ledoux. "Parallel Memories: Putting Emotions Back Into The Brain: A Talk With Joseph LeDoux." Reality Club

we were tracking: O. Kharitidi, Entering The Circle. Albuquerque, NM., 1995. p.120.

Martín: M. Prechtel, Secrets Of The Talking Jaguar: A Mayan Shaman's Journey to the Heart of the Indigenous Soul. New York, 1998.

fear: "research by several laboratories has shown that lesions of the (amygdala's) central nucleus interfere with essentially every measure of conditioned fear, including freezing behavior, autonomic responses, suppression of pain, stress hormone release, and reflex potentiation. It was also found that each of these responses are mediated by different outputs of the central nucleus." J. LeDoux, The Emotional Brain. New York, 1996. p.158.

the alleged meanings: R.D. Barnett, Phrygia And The Peoples Of Anatolia In The Iron Age. Cambridge, England, 1967. p.21.

explaining the phenomena: E. Halfren, "Emotional Neurophysiology of the Amygdala Within the Context of Human Cognition." In, J.P. Appleton, Editor, The Amygdala. New York, 1992. p.191.

Pointing: "He stands aghast, with his eyes staring at the treacherous pointer, and with his hands lifted as though to ward off the lethal medium, which he imagines is pouring into his body. His cheeks blanch and his eyes become glassy and the expression of his face becomes horribly distorted...He attempts to shriek but usually the sound chokes in his throat, and all that one might see is froth at his mouth. His body begins to tremble and the muscles twist involuntarily. He sways backwards and falls to the ground, and after a short time appears to be in a swoon; but soon after he writhes as if in mortal agony, and, covering his face with his hands, begins to moan. After a while he becomes very composed  and crawls to his wurley. From this time onwards he sickens and frets, refusing to eat and keeping aloof from the daily affairs of the tribe. Unless help is  forthcoming in the shape of a counter-charm administered by the hands of the Nangarri, or medicine-man, his death is only a matter of a comparatively short time." H. Basedow, The Australian Aboriginal. Adelaide, Australia, 1925. pp.178-9.

gut knot: "From the amygdala projections extend out to every major part of the brain. From the central and medial areas a branch goes to the areas of the hypothalamus that secrete the body's emergency-response substance, corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH), which mobilizes the fight-or-flight reaction via a cascade of other hormones. The amygdala's basal area sends out branches to the corpus stratum, linking into the brain's system for movement. And, via the nearby central nucleus, the amygdala sends signals to the autonomic nervous system via the medulla, activating a wide range of far-flung responses in the cardiovascular system, the muscles, and the gut. D. Goleman, Emotional Intelligence. New York, 1995. p.298.

After the King of Phrygia died, leaving no heir,  some Phrygians set out on the long journey to the Oracle of Delphi. The Oracle declared that their next king would arrive in a wagon drawn by oxen. Soon after they returned with the news, Gordius and his wife rode into town on their oxen-drawn wagon, and as made king. The first thing Gordius did was to dedicate his wagon to the deity of the Oracle, and then hitched the wagon to a post in front of his palace with an enormous knot. Phryria prospered under Gordius, later under the rule of his son,  Midas. But when Midas left  the throne with no heir, once again Oracle was consulted. This time, they were told that whoever unraveled the Gordian Knot would be their next king.   Although many made the attempt, the knot remained tied. The Phrygians returned to Delphi for further advice. This time the Oracle said that whoever solved the riddle of the Knot would rule all of Asia. For many years the Knot  fast. Then Alexander the Great entered Phrygia with his huge army, determined to untie the Gordian Knot. After failing with the conventional solution, he drew his sword and sliced the knot in half.  Alexander was grudging, though admiringly, declared king.

a veteran: "The war in Vietnam spawned a near epidemic of PTSD (post-traumatic stress syndrome). In fact, U.S. soldiers' experiences there gave rise to what's now regarded as the classic form of the disorder. Vets like the Gunny, who is undergoing treatment at the National Center for PTSD (a unit of the Veterans Affairs Medical Center), in West Haven, Connecticut, are far from unusual. 'I can numb out for hours, not thinking of anything,' echoes George K., another patient at the center. 'But then something will remind me and take me back--the odor of a certain kind of wood burning, or even of a plant...'" M. Caldwell, "Kernel of Fear." Discover. June 1993. p.98.

sennin: (Jap.) According the Chinese legend, a sennin is a holy hermit who lives in the heart of a mountain and possesses magical powers, including flight.

flew: "When triggered, (the amygdala) gives rise to fear and anxiety which lead the animal into a stage of alertness, getting ready to (sic) flight or fight." J.R. do Amaral & J.M. de Oliveria, "Limbic System: The Center of Emotions." Brain & Mind. March-May 1998. www.epub.org.br

bilateral lesions: R. Joseph, The Naked Neuron. New York, 1993. p.82.

among the hunting peoples: M. Eliade, Shamanism, NY 1964. p.159.

is like the embryonic: C.L. Martin, The Way Of The Human Being. New Haven, CT., 1999. p.78. 

its croaking: "By learning the songs of the other-than-human beings, one became joined to them--more properly, one recollected one's ancient kinship (communion) with these beings. That which we call species distinction, species separation, would have been rejected as absurd and undesirable by human in that realm of mind and speech and artifice. Only a fool would imagine himself as somehow exclusively a human being. Through language and artifice one could recall and vivify the primal linkage (we might call it an evolutionary connection) to other forms of life, animal and plant. Language and art underscored Homo's bestial and vegetal identity, a hyphenated identity: 'I can be a frog or a fox and still be a person' (Robin Ridington)." C.L. Martin, In The Spirit Of The Earth. Baltimore, MD., 1992. p.18. (R. Ridington, "Fox and Chickadee." In, C.L. Martin, Editor, The American Indian And The Problem Of History. New York, 1987. p.133-34.)

the frog:. "Shunryu Suzuki-roshi said, If you have truly understood a frog, you have understood everything." P. Matthiessen, Nine-Headed Dragon River. Boston, MA., 1986. p.44.

Chinese history: J-F. Revel. J-F Revel and M. Ricard, The Monk And The Philosopher. New York, 1998. p.182.

stout candles: "Pss! It's not a secret anymore...", an installation by Cheryl Walker at the Harwood Art Center, Albuquerque NM, September 1999.

Meister Eckhardt: J. Cage. In, M. Roth and W. Roth, "John Cage and Marcel Duchamp: An Interview." Art in America. November-December 1973. p.74. Meister Eckhardt (A.D.1260-1327) was a Dominican priest and mystic, and scholastic.

"Eckhart kept warning us about the contingency of the signifiers we deploy. This warning reached its shrillest and most startling moment when, faced with the difficulty of getting  something said about God, he openly preached one day to what must have been a very startled congregation, 'Therefore I pray God that he may make me free of God.'" J.D. Caouto, "Mysticism and Transgression: Derrida and Meister Eckhart." In, H.J. Silverman, Editor, Derrida And Deconstruction. New York, 1989. p.32.

kindling: M.R. Trimble, Biological Psychiatry. Chichester, England, 1996. p.109.

imagining  yourself: Computerized image made from Jeanne S. Collins' chromogenic print, "Waiting." "Waiting symbolizes to me that hope never quite dies. I was diagnosed with breast cancer in July 1998. A mastectomy and chemotherapy followed. When chemo was finished, I checked every morning for signs that my hair was coming back -- a new beginning." Statement for Confronting Cancer Through Art, a juried exhibit sponsored by The University of Pennsylvania Cancer Center. October 1999.

freeze: "Freezing occurs not because it's necessarily the best thing to do this this situation, but because it was often beneficial when our ancestors and theirs were threatened by predators. Evolution's calculation works for most animals most of the time, because motionless prey often elude detection. But when a deer freezes as your car speeds towards it, it's paying the price of having a decision-free initial response to danger." J. LeDoux, "Joseph Ledoux on the Amygdala." Feed Magazine. Special Issue: "The New Brain." 6.21.99. www.feedmag.com/brain/index.html

he is: Earlier that evening I had watched part of the film Darkman III on TV. It is the story of a scientist whose face had been horribly disfigured by acid. As he had been experimenting with the growing of artificial skin, he now makes masks for himself, although each one only lasts about ninety minutes. Meanwhile, he fights the underworld, usually wearing a slouch hat and overcoat.

fear: "a tangle of input nerves enters the amygdala in two regions called the basal and lateral nuclei. Another important knot of nerves courses outward from an area called the central nucleus and leads ultimately to all the end points that administer the visible business of fear." M. Caldwell, "Kernel of Fear." Discover. June 1995. p.100.

a morass: S. A. Greenfield, Journey To The Centers Of The Mind. New York, 1995. p.2.

what has become: D. Niehoff, The Biology of Violence. New York, 1998. p.96.

deciduous tree: After Cybele was introduced into Rome, in 204 B.C., and given a temple on the Palatine Hill, the Attis cult was established, and tree symbolism became a prominent feature of his rites. Here, to me, a deciduous tree is symbolic of the "dying" of the god in Autumn, in the month of Halloween.

"A...glance at the quintessential symbols of Halloween reveals that they fall into 3 major categories: (1) symbols of death: graveyards, ghosts, skeletons, haunted houses; (2) symbols of evil and misfortune: witches, goblins, black cats; and (3) symbols of harvest: pumpkins, scarecrows, corn shocks and candy corn. The first two categories tap deep, irresolvable, pan-human dilemmas. Ways of dealing with and symbolizing death and evil are represented in some of the earliest archaeological remains of human ritual activity, yet no society in any  time or place has ever been able to completely overcome the reality of death--Mary Shelly's Frankenstein notwithstanding. Yet we consistently try. One way people in many societies face this reality involves viewing death as a transition and continuing a relationship with the dead, keeping the departed involved in the present world through séances, graveside visits, prayer or other communication. Ideas about an afterlife, or notions of ghosts and vampires, can also be understood as ways that cultures--and people in them--can challenge the finality and fear surrounding human mortality." K.C. Erickson and P. Sunderland. From draft of  "What's Behind Halloween; Where in the World Our Weird Rituals Originated." Horizon, the Sunday Science Supplement of The Washington Post. October 14 1998. p.H-01.

The zeal: One of a number of reliefs carved into wood in the chapel.

William Witherup: The poet William Witherup presently lives in Seattle, WA.

Camino Real: "The Camino Real was the umbilical cord of the (Spanish) colonies. It brought companies of soldiers, bands of Franciscan friars, fresh groups of colonists, semi-royal processions of governors--eighty-four of them--along with commandentes general and dignitaries of the Church on inspection tours, and ever-welcome newcomers to relieve officials who had been so unfortunate as to be assigned duty fifteen hundred miles from the luxuries of life in Mexico City. Northbound caravans brought supplies needed by the colonists. Southbound caravans carried raw products of the frontier: buffalo hides, jerked meat, piñon nuts, and Indian slaves to be sold in the mining towns of Chihauhua." F.L. and R.B. Fugate, Roadside History of New Mexico. Missoula, MT., 1989. pp.27-8.

it's present owner: James McGrath, a renowned teacher of art and literature.

on the one hand: G. Edelman. In, S. Levy, "Dr. Edelman's Brain." The New Yorker. May 2, 1994. p.63.

now I am more: J. McGrath. From, "Self Portrait." January, 1998.

a small corral: "The (Dalai Lama's) teachings were tricky. They would almost trick people into taking vows. I took one. I promised to be kind for the rest of my life. I walked out the door and said what does this mean? Then a friend got hold of a monk, and she said, 'Did I promise too much, too little?' He told her, 'You know, the mind is a wild white horse, and when you build a corral for it, make sure it's not too small.'" L. Anderson, "Taking Chances: Laurie Anderson Talks With John Cage." Tricycle. Summer 1992.

a snake: Joni Adamson Clarke quotes from  L.M. Silko's Almanac Of The Dead: "Crawling through a barbed-wire fence that marks the boundaries of a gaping crater left by an abandoned uranium mine, Sterling sees thirty-foot mounds of virulently radioactive slag uranium tailings which blow in breezes that carry them to the springs and to the Rio Paguate. 'Here was the new world of the Destroyers,' Sterling thinks, 'here was destruction and poison. Here was where life ended.'" (p.760.) Howarth goes on to say, "But, remarkably, it had been here, in this environmentally exploited place, that (an) ancient (sacred) sandstone snake had emerged. J.A.Clarke, "Toward an Ecology of Justice." In, M.P. Branch, et al., Editors, Reading The Earth. Moscow, ID., 1998. p.13.

We have come: W. Witherup. From, "Two from Rancho Cieneguilla."

black volcanic rock:  In Roman times one of her great shrines was at Pessinus, where one version of the story of Agdistis-Cybele was told. Her worship there was sufficiently important for her cult figure, a black stone, to be transferred from there to Rome under the title of 'Bona Dea' in 204 B.C.  The latter is perhaps again an illustration of religious continuity in Anatolia, for a deity called the 'Black Goddess' was worshipped by the Hittites."  R.D. Barnett, Phrygia And The Peoples Of Anatolia In The Iron Age. Cambridge, England. 1967. pp.21-2.

"The Black Stone (al-hajar al-award)...is a meteorite, therefore from beyond the earthly ambiance. Abraham and Ishmael are said to have brought it from the hill of Abu Qubays nearby Mecca where it had been preserved since coming to earth. According to the Prophet, the stone had descended from Heaven whiter than milk but turned black as the result of the sins of the children of Adam although something of its original luminosity survives. The stone also symbolizes the original covenant made, according to the Our'an, between God and Adam and all his progeny, through which all members of humanity accepted on the 'pre-eternal moment' (al-azak), when the covenant was made, the Lordship of God." S.H. Nasr, Mecca The Blessed, Medina, The Radiant--The Holiest Cities of Islam. New York, 1997. p.31

inaccessible: "Prehistoric planners must have considered the routes leading to selected chambers as well as the chambers themselves. Route and destination were part of the same design, a journey often deep into the cave and an ordeal, since depth is as much a matter of suspense as what you pass on the way of actual distance and difficulty of access." J.E. Pfeiffer, The Creative Explosion. New York, 1982. p.105.

Humpbacked Flute Player: "It has been suggested that the hump is possibly a pack, and that the figure may represent Aztec or Toltec wandering traders, who once came up into the Southwest with trade items." G. Snyder. Mountains And Rivers Without End. Washington, D.C., 1997. p.160. r.: Galisteo Basin, NM. Photo by D. Muench. ca. 1968-69.

shamans: "Shamanism as left its legacy in medicine, mythology, culture and religion. In addition to its social legacy, shamanism has over many centuries left us physical remnants, the most visible of which are petroglyphs. Throughout the canyons and mountains of the Southwest there are spectacular stands of jumbled stone and weather-worn towers of rock. J.R. Cunkle and M.A. Jacuemain, Stone Magic of the Ancients. Phoenix, AZ., 1996. p.21.

the oldest: R.D. Barnett, Phrygia And The Peoples Of Anatolia In The Iron Age. Cambridge, England. 1967. p 21.

Ts'its'tsi'nako: L.M. Silko, Ceremony. New York, 1977. p.1.

this skull: "The skull on the hill..." is from R. Bringhurst, "Danxia Zichun."

Sandia's face:

If you slept with the weight of a mountain
in your heart...an old homosapien evolved
from stone...
descending from some place
like the Milky Way or even Venus...
racing toward us, but who knows,
we may be just a dream of a Big Bang
longing to be One.
R. Burkhart. From, "Sandiaman."

a link: M. Stone, Ancient Mirror of Womanhood. Boston, 1990. p.199.

Sibyls: "The earliest Sibyl claimed to be half divine, the daughter of a nymph. The Delphic Sibyl identified herself with Artemis....However, the Phrygians and Lydians had no native system of divination, but depended on sending to Caria for the interpretation of omens, just as Romans sent to Etruria for haruspices? If they had taken over the practices of divination from their predecessors, the Hittites, there is no evidence that these would have included anything like Sibylline." H.W. Parke, Sibyls and Sibylline Prophecy In Classical Antiquity. London, 1988. pp.10,54.

her crown: "Wearing her battlement crown, shaped like a fortified tower on the city wall, (Cybele) embodied the city itself, whose walls, like the natural landscape, rose from her womb to protect her children." L. Redmond, When The Drummers Were Women. New York, 1997. p.110.

to leave: When leaving Chicago, Lew Welch wrote "Chicago Poem," the last passage of which reads: