Bee Leaf

To be human means an ability to both process the world intellectually while feeling it instinctively. It means combining emotion with reason, nature with technology. As Leonard Shlain explains in his work The Alphabet Versus the Goddess, "We need the cooperation of both hemispheres of the brain, and we use both areas of the retina and we employ both hands," we cannot separate our logical left brain from our intuitive right brain. Unlike any other species, we alone have the ability to process our world on a basic, survival level and a higher, emotional state. On page 23 of The Spell of the Sensuous, David Abram speaks of rebuses, in particular the idea of using a pictographic bee and leaf as a visual pun to represent "belief." This exemplifies the base concept behind what it means to be human: that we take the physical around us and interpret it both intellectually and emotionally. We see a bee and a leaf as they are: parts of nature, but we are also capable of making the leap to a phonetic "belief" and the connotations which are attached to that word.

Man, typically having a dominant left brain, is forced to struggle with his ability to relate with his surroundings on an instinctual level. It means a clash between his rational processes and the basic need to interact with the environment to survive. It means having a detachment from the physical world, brought upon him inherently by his biology, but also by his development of speech and the written word. Shlain writes of this throughout Nonverbal/Verbal, and specifies that man gains an advantage over woman once the written word has been created. This means that woman, due to the written word including Adam's power in the naming of Eve as "woman," is now subject to a natural position of submission. Woman, naturally intuitive and emotional, is fated to struggle with man's ruling logic and reason. She does, however, have the advantage of remaining closer to her surroundings. The artist has one of the most difficult tasks mankind has given itself. To be an artist means being responsible for expressing emotion in color, in shape, in sound, in a form with which humanity can relate.

The Creative Impulse states "Our insistence on cognitive knowing may already have robbed us of some of our capacity for being human." In saying this, the text explains that our logical left side brain has separated us from the intrinsic human ability to see more than is there. We insist on objective science and logical reasoning rather than allowing our intuitive emotions to help us to see the world. We distinguish ourselves from nature, and even other humans around us, slowing down our capacity to care and to understand our world on more than a surface-level basis.

We have already lost so much of our connection with nature and each other, as Abrams shows throughout The Spell of the Sensuous, through the written word and loss of magic in our landscape that it seems difficult to regain any of this lost ability of humanity. However, perhaps our humanity could be regained should reintroduce a more oral aspect of communication. It is common knowledge that much of language is processed through gestures and intonation, and so increasing face-to-face socialization will help us to reconnect with others in our society. Not only in casual conversation does this apply, but in the telling of stories as well. The sense of magic that comes with a live story teller makes the tale all the more intense, and the additional human element of voice and gesture provide us with an easy connection to the plot, characters, and settings of the story. Should we return to our oral roots, it will help us to reconnect with that intuitive side of ourselves and regain some of our humanity.