Shepard for the Day.6

"The child begins to babble and then to speak according to his own timing, with the cooperation of adults who are themselves acting upon the deep wisdom of a stage of life.  At first it is a matter of rote and imitation, a naming of things whose distinctive differences are unambiguous.  Nature is a lexicon where, at first, words have the solid reality of things.

In this bright new world there are as yet few mythical beasts, but real creatures to watch and to mimic in play.  Animals have a magnetic affinity for the child, for each in its way seems to embody some impulse, reaction, or movement that is "like me."

In the playful, controlled enactment of them comes a gradual mastery of the personal inner zoology of fears, joys, and relationships.  In stories told, their forms spring to life in the mind, re-presented in consciousness, training the capacity to imagine."

Paul Shepard
Nature and Madness
p.7