Yet it was revealed further along in the course of this reflection that this haughty "builder" or, ( with more modesty) , The child who plays at making houses was nothing more than one of the two avatars of the child- who-plays. There is, in addition, the child-who-loves-to-investigate-all-things , who delights in digging in and being buried by the sands, or in the muddy sludge, all those exotic, impossible surroundings ... To indicate this change ( if only for myself), I started to speak of him by means of the flashy word, the " pioneer"; followed by another more down to earth, though not lacking in prestige, the "explorer". I was then led to ask which, between the "builder" and the "pioneer-explorer", is the more masculine, the more enticing of the two? Heads or tails?
Following which, scrutinizing ever more closely, I beheld our intrepid "pioneer" who finds himself ultimately become a girl ( whom I would have liked to dress up as a boy) - sister to pools, the rain, the fogs and the night, mute and virtually invisible from the necessity of staying always in the shadows - she whom one always forgets ( when one is not inclined to mock her) ... And I as well found opportunities as well, for days at a time, to forget her - to do so doubly, one might say: I tried to avoid seeing anything but the boy ( he who plays at making homes)- and even when it became impossible all the same to deny the other, I still saw her somehow in the guise of a boy ...
As a suitable name for my "promenade" in fact, it doesn't work at all. It's a phrase which is totally "yang", totally "macho", and it's lame. Not to appear biased it would have to also include the other But, strange as it may seem , the "other" really doesn't have a name. The closest surrogate would be "the explorer", but that too is a boy's name, and there's no hope for it. The language itself has been prostituted, it lays traps for us without our being aware of it, it goes hand in glove with our most ancient prejudices.
Perhaps one could make do with "the child-who-builds and the child-who-explores". Without stating that one is a "boy", the other a "girl", that it's a kind of single boy/girl who explores while building and while exploring builds .... Yet just yesterday, in addition to the double-sided yin-yang that both contemplates and explores, another aspect of the whole situation emerged.
The Universe, the World, let alone the Cosmos, are basically very strange and distant entities. They don't really concern us. It is not towards them that the deepest part of ourselves is drawn. What attracts us is an immediate and tangible Incarnation of them, that which is close, "physical", imbued with profound resonances and rich in mystery- that which is conflated with the origins of our being in the flesh, and of our species - and of That which at all times awaits us, silently and ever welcoming, "at the end of the road". It is She, the Mother, She who gives us birth as she gives birth to the World, She who subdues the urges or opens the floodgates of desire, carrying us to our encounter with Her, thrusting us forwards towards Her, to a ceaseless return and immersion in Her.
Thus, digressing from the road on this unanticipated "promenade", I found, quite by accident, a parable with which I was familiar, which I'd almost forgotten - the parable of The Child and the Mother. One might look upon it as a parable of "Life in Search of Itself" . Or, at the simple level of personal existence, a parable of "Being, in its quests for things " .
It's a parable, and it's also the expression of an ancestral experience, deeply implanted in the psyche - the most powerful of the original symbols that give nourishment to the deepest levels of creativity. I believe I recognize in it , as expressed in the timeless language of archetypal images, the very breath of the creative power in man, animating flesh and spirit, from their most humble and most ephemerable manifestations to those which are most startling and indestructible.
This "breath", even like the carnal image that incarnates it, is the most unassuming of all things in existence. It is also that which is most fragile, the most neglected and the most despised ...
And the history of the vicissitudes of this breath over the course of its existence is nothing other than your adventure, the "adventure of knowledge" in your life. The wordless parable that gives it expression is that of the child and the mother.
You are the child, issued from the Mother, sheltered in Her, nourished by her power. And the child rushes towards the Mother, the Ever-Close, the Well-Understood - towards the encounter with Her, the Unlimited, yet forever Unknowable and full of mystery ...
This ends the "Promenade through the life's work of a mathematician"
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