Light And Dark

The Fleet Of Stars, 10.

Our primary sense is sight. We neither smell objects nor hear echoes from them but see them. Therefore, we associate (Biblical) "revelation" - and, still more explicitly, (Buddhist) "enlightenment" - with light.

"In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." (John, 1: 4-5)

"The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world." (John 1: 9)

(In one tradition, the light becomes a man. In the other, a man becomes enlightened.)

Although we are not intelligent sea-dwellers, like the Keiki Moana, they too might associate either revelation or enlightenment with sunlight becoming visible above them as they return from the depths. So what "revelation" might they find in the opposite direction in the cold, dark and pressure at the limit of survivability? Poul Anderson describes this "religious revelation" with two words and one phrase:

"...awe and mystery and the implacability of the universe." (p. 130)

- or, to summarize more briefly, awe, mystery and implacability. Yes, these words are appropriate. Personally, when I swam down so far that I suddenly experienced cold, darkness and pain in both ears, that was not a religious experience but I am not an intelligent seal!

We remember Anderson's The Merman's Children and "Homo Aquaticus," the latter an instalment of his Kith future history series - and also the Starkadian sea-dwellers in his Technic History.