The Body as Ecotone - Part 4 - Laurel Snyder

Bris as Ecotone - Laurel Snyder

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_____Priest: To what part of your body do you refer most often?

_____Young Man: To God

__________~Antonin Artaud

So—a baby gets born, and the baby has a body, and the body is good. Then God says, “Cut off a bit of that body, why don’t you? Just the smallest part—”

God wants to see what we’ll do. It’s an experiment.

We prove to be good subjects.

We cut. We snip. We hack a bit of the body away. We prove our excellent listening skills. We get a gold star, a lollipop. We get a god.

Except—

Except that now we’re the maker. Or the tiniest part. This dominion is now ours, not because it has been given to us but because it has been taken by us. We held the knife.

And who holds the knife? Who takes?

We have taken charge of the body with the body. And the world has followed the body’s lead. Our ears heard a voice. Our fingers fumbled for a blade. Our offspring (next, better selves) lay before us, waiting.

And—

Our hands become his hands. Our knife is his knife. And his knife is us.

We turned.