214
So connected are all such referential points on the compass of biological experience that, as A.K. Coomaraswamy explored by way of “the native connection” of
cross-cultural mathematical relationships, “the beginning of all series” [is] “the
same as their end.”
5
Jains, conversely, suggest that the finite mathematical points at
any origination or conclusion are fictive. The genetics of human associations do not
come close to intimating that open forum of interspecies biosemiosis in which
humanity evolved. Foxes speak earnestly with snails; people with birds; lions with
lambs. This conceptualization of our lives within a greatly expanded timeframe and
order of molecular magnitudes eclipses steadfast paradigms, like Western
Civilization, or singularity points within genetics, where we can experiment with
our future.
In fact, at a moment’s notice, our introspection explodes upon a fuzzy logic of
frontiers that heed no formalism, no rules. Orientation flees conventional attitudes,
embracing the most conceivably eclectic of all thought experiments, a meditation as
anonymous as a signature the size of a river in Georgia, for example. With their
eternally changeable whims, nocturnal enigmas, and nonlinear nuances, such rivers
are without authorship or guidance. Their reality is that of some history that does
not comport with river genetics, but the ebb and flow of utterly unpredictable human
events at larger scales. The connections have no science by which to proffer predictions or coordinates. They may flood or dry up and disappear, like the Sarasvati of
ancient Harappan culture in India’s Thar Desert (Fig. 23.1).
We stand beside banks vastly overflown this winter, one of countless documented
January floods, where the Oconee heads wide and bristling toward its convergence
with the Ocmulgee, the western tributary of the Altamaha. It flows past the South
Appalachian Mississippian mounds, dating to their eleventh-century constructions
by their indigenous occupants, and heading—in total 357 miles—into the Atlantic
near Darien. It is the largest freshwater system east of the Mississippi. Her traditional peoples still speak Chackasaw, Choctaw, Creek-Seminole, Hitchiti-Mikasuki,
Apalachee, Alibamu, and Coushatta, all languages of the Western and Eastern
Muskogean peoples. Overhead, at least 425 bird species are known to have made
their way at one time or other.
6
And to all sides at least 84 dominant reptiles, including 46 snake species like the magnificent and at-risk Eastern Indigo, one of which
lies dismembered, chopped in half, perhaps by a sadistic biker, there in front of us.
On a sandy ridge 1000 feet away, above the high-flood mark, are burrows of the
alligator snapping turtle (Macrochelys temminckii), some exceeding 200 pounds,
making it the largest freshwater turtle in the world. We have seen aquatic salamanders, the Eastern Hellbender, one of 80 or so known amphibians in the state; Oconee
burrowing crayfish, from among 20 crayfish species; dozens of the 125 glorious
dragonfly species; and half of the 112 mammalian species known to exist in the state
5 See “Kha and Other Words Denoting ‘Zero,’ in Connection with the Indian Metaphysics of
Space,” in Coomaraswamy, 2: Selected Papers, Metaphysics, Edited by Roger Lipsey, Bollingen
Series LXXXIX, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ., 1977, p. 220
6 See “Georgia Ornithological Society, GOS 2018, https://www.gos.org/2018-checklist, Accessed
April 19, 2019.
23 A River Somewhere in Georgia
So connected are all such referential points on the compass of biological experience that, as A.K. Coomaraswamy explored by way of “the native connection” of
cross-cultural mathematical relationships, “the beginning of all series” [is] “the
same as their end.”
5
Jains, conversely, suggest that the finite mathematical points at
any origination or conclusion are fictive. The genetics of human associations do not
come close to intimating that open forum of interspecies biosemiosis in which
humanity evolved. Foxes speak earnestly with snails; people with birds; lions with
lambs. This conceptualization of our lives within a greatly expanded timeframe and
order of molecular magnitudes eclipses steadfast paradigms, like Western
Civilization, or singularity points within genetics, where we can experiment with
our future.
In fact, at a moment’s notice, our introspection explodes upon a fuzzy logic of
frontiers that heed no formalism, no rules. Orientation flees conventional attitudes,
embracing the most conceivably eclectic of all thought experiments, a meditation as
anonymous as a signature the size of a river in Georgia, for example. With their
eternally changeable whims, nocturnal enigmas, and nonlinear nuances, such rivers
are without authorship or guidance. Their reality is that of some history that does
not comport with river genetics, but the ebb and flow of utterly unpredictable human
events at larger scales. The connections have no science by which to proffer predictions or coordinates. They may flood or dry up and disappear, like the Sarasvati of
ancient Harappan culture in India’s Thar Desert (Fig. 23.1).
We stand beside banks vastly overflown this winter, one of countless documented
January floods, where the Oconee heads wide and bristling toward its convergence
with the Ocmulgee, the western tributary of the Altamaha. It flows past the South
Appalachian Mississippian mounds, dating to their eleventh-century constructions
by their indigenous occupants, and heading—in total 357 miles—into the Atlantic
near Darien. It is the largest freshwater system east of the Mississippi. Her traditional peoples still speak Chackasaw, Choctaw, Creek-Seminole, Hitchiti-Mikasuki,
Apalachee, Alibamu, and Coushatta, all languages of the Western and Eastern
Muskogean peoples. Overhead, at least 425 bird species are known to have made
their way at one time or other.
6
And to all sides at least 84 dominant reptiles, including 46 snake species like the magnificent and at-risk Eastern Indigo, one of which
lies dismembered, chopped in half, perhaps by a sadistic biker, there in front of us.
On a sandy ridge 1000 feet away, above the high-flood mark, are burrows of the
alligator snapping turtle (Macrochelys temminckii), some exceeding 200 pounds,
making it the largest freshwater turtle in the world. We have seen aquatic salamanders, the Eastern Hellbender, one of 80 or so known amphibians in the state; Oconee
burrowing crayfish, from among 20 crayfish species; dozens of the 125 glorious
dragonfly species; and half of the 112 mammalian species known to exist in the state
5 See “Kha and Other Words Denoting ‘Zero,’ in Connection with the Indian Metaphysics of
Space,” in Coomaraswamy, 2: Selected Papers, Metaphysics, Edited by Roger Lipsey, Bollingen
Series LXXXIX, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ., 1977, p. 220
6 See “Georgia Ornithological Society, GOS 2018, https://www.gos.org/2018-checklist, Accessed
April 19, 2019.
23 A River Somewhere in Georgia