Conversations in the womb

In a mother’s womb were two babies. One asked the other: “Do you believe in life after delivery?” The other replied, “Why, of course. There has to be something after delivery. Maybe we are here to prepare ourselves for what we will be later.”
“Nonsense” said the first. “There is no life after delivery. What kind of life would that be?”

The second said, “I don’t know, but there will be more light than here. Maybe we will walk with our legs and eat from our mouths. Maybe we will have other senses that we can’t understand now.”

The first replied, “That is absurd. Walking is impossible. And eating with our mouths? Ridiculous! The umbilical cord supplies nutrition and everything we need. But the umbilical cord is so short. Life after delivery is to be logically excluded.”

The second insisted, “Well I think there is something and maybe it’s different than it is here. Maybe we won’t need this physical cord anymore.”

The first replied, “Nonsense. And moreover if there is life, then why has no one has ever come back from there? Delivery is the end of life, and in the after-delivery there is nothing but darkness and silence and oblivion. It takes us nowhere.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said the second, “but certainly we will meet Mother and she will take care of us.”

The first replied “Mother? You actually believe in Mother? That’s laughable. If Mother exists then where is She now?”

The second said, “She is all around us. We are surrounded by her. We are of Her. It is in Her that we live. Without Her this world would not and could not exist.”

Said the first: “Well I don’t see Her, so it is only logical that She doesn’t exist.”

To which the second replied, “Sometimes, when you’re in silence and you focus and you really listen, you can perceive Her presence, and you can hear Her loving voice, calling down from above.” – Útmutató a Léleknek

Moon is Walking

La, a note to follow So

At midday, by the corner of some street, somewhere, in some city, a teenage girl held a convex lens over some dead spear grass. She had cried. Now she sang.

Her voice reminds me of engines, water driven engines. It has a soul, which as though fueled by some deep emotion like grief, set her body aflame. But water, not grief, could be seen on her face. Tears mingled with sweat trembled down her smooth round face. Out of her little green eyes, I saw desire. Burning as it fled from her, and attacking the slowly growing crowd of onlookers. Her sweat-bathed body trembled in rhythm, but her hands were steady. So was her lips. Her music was electrifying, sweet melody. But she wasn’t singing, she was losing music.

Music and desire rose up the heathen incense to the Unknown One. She lowered her eyes, and prayed to ride the…

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My mom’s blue scarf (What childhood taught me about personal identity)

I had to deliver the speech below at a TEDx Bates College event. Enjoy.

I like to think of myself as a storyteller and a musician. I haven’t been called much of the later and perhaps I shouldn’t make my debut on a stage this big, so I’d tell you a story.

I have been called many things. A student, a friend, a brother, a son, a genius, an idiot… I answer to a lot of these names due to the very specific roles I played or will be playing. But there’s one I’m still getting used to, the name that readily falls out my mouth when asked to introduce myself. Akachukwu. Predictably, you don’t ask what that means. Mostly likely, you’re not sure and sometimes, I am not sure either. So I skip to I’m a Nigerian, student of Bates College,

And there was light

In My Father's Home

Musing on darkness. And light.

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” Gen 1:1 (NLT)

What happens when you hear the phrase, “does not exist?” Do you envision the object disappear from your mind and imagination? Does it thin out of sight in the horizon, or suddenly disappear like spirits into the thin air, jolting you back to normalcy? Or does it float over and out of our atmosphere to exist in some other mysterious heavenly body? If you’re like me, you mindfully shroud the object in a cloak of darkness, darkness thick enough to give you good confidence to convince anyone that the object indeed does not exist.

But is darkness an object? Does darkness exist?

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Two days after she was born

She died two days after she was born

She sat on a golden throne
and ruled my clay heart
she sat on the dark clouds
and spread her legs on the earth beneath
Her darkness was thicker than the black skin
and no flicker of light in view

Hope was gone, and

Uncleftish Beholding (The Atomic Theory in English)

I don’t speak English. In fact, I can’t. When it comes to language, there’s only one thing I am sure of, I don’t speak American! Poul Anderson’s essay “Uncleftish Beholding” (“Atomic Theory”) shows what English would look like if it were purged of its non-Germanic words, and used German-style compounds instead of borrowings (Latin, Greek, French, et al) to express new concepts. It has been culled from a source which culled it from the original source (“All One Universe“). I attempted including a few “non-english” translations next to some bolded words to assist you. And (if you’re not Chinese), before you give up you could read this article that explains how “Uncleftish Beholding” came about. I promise it explains a lot.

Uncleftish Beholding (The Atomic Theory) – Poul Anderson

For most of its being, mankind did not know what things are made of, but could only guess. With the growth of worldken, we began to learn, and today we have a beholding of stuff and work that watching bears out, both in the workstead and in daily life.

The day the music died

I met a girl who sang the blues,
And I asked her for some happy news
But she just smiled and turned away

And I went down to the sacred stone
Where I’d heard the music years before
But the man there said the music wouldn’t play