The Slow Breath

A cultural anthropologist visits and isolated aboriginal tribe and discovers their unique language may possess the key to time travel.

The Man does not understand the Slow Breath or the Sleep. His world does not have these things, and his mind cannot imagine the Mountain as anything other than a large hill.

The Man and his language give me understanding beyond the Mountain and the Jungles. My language does not teach the Man of the Sleep or the Slow Breath, though I wish that it would.

I do not fully understand this word “wish.” A wish, I think, is both a Thing and a Movement. My language does not know something that can be both Thing and Movement. The Man’s language gives me something that my people do not have.

My people do not wish. My people have.

The Witches are afraid of my knowledge and say that I am not a Witch. But I know that I am a Witch. The Witches know different things. Which thing which Witch knows is unknown to me.

The Man’s language makes me laugh. “Witch” and “which” and “wish” all feel the same in my mouth. Which Witch wishes with which Witch’s wishes? The Man’s language brings me joy to learn.

I know my language brings the Man many things, things like the Slow Breath, but he refuses to understand. He believes that because his language has more words it has more Truth, but I know that Truth does not concern itself with words.

The Man knows the Slow Breath, though he does not know it. I teach him the Slow Breath and he knows it, but he does not believe it. The Slow Breath teaches me about the Man and his world beyond the Jungle. He does not understand or believe what the Slow Breath teaches me.

He also does believe and does not understand, but he does not believe nor understand that he does. I do not understand the Man’s language enough to give him understanding, and he does not believe what my language teaches him.

The Slow Breath teaches me that he also does believe and understand. He cannot understand how he can both believe and understand but also not believe and not understand. He does not understand that his language has too many words for him to understand.

The Man asks me about what is because he does not know. I know but I cannot say. The Slow Breath is not taken to make words. The Slow Breath is taken to rest in knowing.

The Man comes with us on the hunt. He is afraid though he does not say it. Our spears and arrows are strange to him. He thinks we might hunt him. The young hunters make this joke in our language and the Man understands enough to understand their meaning but not their humor. I laugh so that he understands. He is afraid of the Jungle, I think.

In his world, he does not hunt, he tells me. He tells me that the camps in his world are much bigger than our camps, and the tents do not move, and some of the unmoving tents have only food in them for which you can trade.

I do not understand what the Man can trade for the food. The Man says he does not make clothes or tools, and he does not build the unmoving tents or work with the plants. So what does he have to trade?

Maybe their big camps are like ours but because they are so big and have so much food, anyone can take what they need!

But why would he say that he must trade if he does not need to trade?

I understand that in the Man’s big camps, they trade something like a leaf. He laughs when I say the only thing a leaf is good for is wiping your ass. One of the Witches lectures me about the leaf.

The Witches do not cannot laugh.

Maybe the Man is very important in his world, like a Chief or a Medicine Man, and he does not have to make real trade. The Man laughs at this. He tells me that he trades words and I joke that he must be very good at it because his language has so many words! He laughs again.

The Man is not afraid of the Jungle, I think.

I understand that the Man has come to trade words with us. I like to trade words. Trading words reminds me of the Slow Breath but the Witches scorn this thought because the Slow Breath cannot be traded. The Slow Breath simply is.

Trading words with the Man changes me, and the Witches, I think, are afraid. They want to understand the Man’s words, but they refuse to speak them. They refuse to even speak with him. They are afraid he might move my mind, but they do not believe that my mind cannot be moved.

They do not like this word “change”! In our language, a person does not change, a person is. As the world does not change from being the world when it rains, a person does not change, they say, not even when the person Sleeps.

I think maybe this is wrong, but I do not say this to the Witches. They say the Sleep is not change, the Sleep simply is, but the Man says the Sleep is the greatest change.

I think all the Man’s words give him understanding we do not have. But his many words also take understanding away, because he does not understand the Slow Breath and how it is part of the Sleep.

The Man asks me why our tents are made to move, and I explain that we must move to find food and shelter.

He says this is change, but I say this is moving. He says that it is changing places and I laugh because we move but we are still in the Mountain.

He insists that when we move we change place in the Mountain; he dos not understand the Mountain does not move. The Mountain is.

He asks me if I want to see his big camps. I say yes, but it is not.

He asks me why, and I tell him because it is not.

He asks why again and I don’t know why he doesn’t understand! It is not!

If it is, I know.

He asks how I know and I tell him I know because the Slow Breath tells me.

He asks if I can teach him the Slow Breath. He wants to know the Slow Breath but he does not. He cannot.

Also,

Thanks.