Saturday, January 20, 2018

Shepard for the Day.13

continuing: child's life in primordial hunter-gatherer times, when we became human..

"Now the child goes to the fringes of the camp to play at foraging.  Play is an imitation, starting with simple fleeing and catching, going on to mimic joyfully the important animals, being them for a moment, and then not being them, feeling as this one must feel and then that one, all tried on the self.

The child sees the adults dancing the animal movements and does it too.  Music itself has been there all the time, from his mother's song to the melodies of birds and the howls of wolves.  The child already feels the mystery of kinship: likeness but difference."

Paul Shepard
Nature and Madness
p10

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