“I am more alive than most people. I am an unpopular electric eel set in a pond of goldfish.”

                                   Edith Sitwell

Painting by Patsy Arrington Dorsett

   What does a fish know of the water? Albert Einstein asked this question as a way of pointing out that we humans have not a clue of the real nature of the cosmos in which we live. Our eyes lie to us, our cognitive patterns sabotage us. And so it is with the fish.

    I know this because I tested it. Last time I went fishing, I caught a very large and wise old catfish. Despite the fact that we Southerners love catfish -- and by “love” I mean dredged in cornmeal and fried -- I decided instead to question this wise old fish and I told him, “Fish, you appear to be old and wise.”

    He said, “I am one of the oldest of the old and wisest of the wise.” And, golly, he had the whiskers to prove it.

    So I said, “Then, I will let you go if you can answer one question.”

    The fish laughed. At least I think he was laughing because he suddenly started flopping about more enthusiastically. I took this for a “yes.”

    “Fish, what do you know of the water?”

    “We have recently,” he panted pompously and proudly, “become aware of this substance in our bodies. It is liquid and without it we would die.”

    “Is that all you know? What about that substance you swim around in?” I asked.

    He didn’t answer because, by this juncture, he had gasped his last. I tried to imagine what it must be like to be a fish, completely unaware of the full nature of the medium in which I lived. My imagination being a bit warped, this is what I came up with:

*     *     *

Once upon a time there were two small fry, Tad and Carp, and they were the best of friends. They swam everywhere together in the pond after school. (Fish take their schooling very seriously, you know.) They loved discussing the meaning of life. Older fish told them that sometimes the sky turned to ice for weeks at a time and food became scarce, and they discussed this, too, and what they would do to survive as grown-ups. They promised to be best friends forever and help each other make it through whatever life would send their way.

After school one day they were discussing what their teacher had told them, that their bodies contained a liquid substance within every tiny bit of their bodies, every little cell of which was a wee sack of this liquid, and that without enough of it, they would die.

Well, fish, being basically very skittish, began to be afraid that someone would learn how to steal the liquid from their bodies, thus making them ill or even dead. From time to time someone would be accused of stealing their liquid, taking some of their life from them. Whenever another fish was accused of this crime, the other fish would be horrified and the alleged offender was ostracized. Now we all know that is a punishment indeed, because fish survive best when they swim together.

One day, as bad luck would have it, Tad was accused by someone at school of stealing life liquid, and our little alleged perpetrator was shunned by everyone in his school. Carp pretended to go along with the others so that he, too, wouldn’t be shunned, even though he knew the accuser was just jealous of Tad’s beautiful, shiny skin.

After school, Carp swam as fast as he could to Tad’s sunken log to tell him that he would still be his friend if they could keep their relationship secret. But Tad was gone. Carp swam home desolated. The attention span of a fish being what it is, he soon adapted and got on with his life. He grew into a fine large fish, much admired by the lady fish. And he was smart, too. In fact, during this period of  his life, Carp invented the ladder to make it easier for other fish who needed to to swim upstream in order to breed.

He was with one of his lady friends, swimming lazily about looking for dark, wiggly spots that would suddenly appear in the sky. They had gone out for dinner.

Suddenly there was a roaring noise and a concussion wave hit him and his girlfriend. There was much churning and the appearance of what seemed to be shining orbs rising quickly back up to the sky.

Out of all of this kafuffle loomed a large creature. It had no tail and two very long things at the rear of its body with which it propelled itself around. On the front part of its body were two more appendages, but they were shorter. It’s eyes were on the top of its head and its mouth was very, very large. The cavernous mouth opened and it croaked, “Remember me, Carp? We haven’t seen each other in ages. It’s me, Tad, your best friend.”

Well, Carp was stunned. His girlfriend screamed and flashed away to hide. He said, “My best friend, Tad, vanished a long time ago. He didn’t even say goodbye. You don’t look at all like him.”

The frog looked at him sadly and said, “I am so sorry. I needed time by myself to sort things out because I know I did not steal anyone’s life essence. There were too many questions running around in my head about why this happened and the nature of existence. Then my body started to change. First, I started growing these,” and he straightened a long, crooked leg and waggled a back flipper at his friend. “Then my tail fell off. As if that wasn’t scary enough, I began to suffocate. So I swam for the sky hoping that I could find some help when suddenly my head broke through the sky and I was able to breathe.

“There is a whole world out there through the sky, Carp. There is this stuff called air that I now breathe. There are creatures who swim through this air called birds, and many other kinds of creatures living out there. There are these very tall beings who build huge cities and zoom around in machines. This world is vast and filled with wonder.” Tad’s eyes were shining with earnest excitement.

Carp became angry . “Why can’t you just say you are sorry you went off without saying goodbye? Why do you have to lie and insist on this preposterous story?”

“This world out there goes on forever,” Tad said. He was really getting excited now, trying to convince his fish friend of all that he had seen. “In fact, you live in one teensy bit of the whole vastness. You live in this liquid called water, which is really the same stuff that is in your body.”

“Oh, do shut up!” Carp bellowed. “I don’t want to hear any more ravings. Now I think everyone was right about you after all!” And he swam off.

Tad yelled after him, “But how can I possibly steal that which you are swimming in? If only you would become aware of it.” The frog then became very sad and realized that sometimes we are afraid of  the true nature of our existence and some, even those we love, want to remain ignorant. It’s very sad, but true.

*     *     *

    Remember this story the next time you, or anyone you know, is accused of stealing another person’s energy. And don’t you ever accuse another person of doing it.

    We live in an ocean of energy, as well as contain it within our cells. And most of us are completely ignorant of this fact or of its implications. Some of us are electric eels. It is all a bit scary because you must learn to gather from this infinite amount of energy and control it. To do so will eventually require you to grow into your quantum nature of many more dimensions and evolve into an incarnated luminous being. It is, after all, your birthright.

    We'll see you on the other side of the sky.

[See related essays in this blog: “When Hendrix Discovered Up” and the Quantum Consciousness series]