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musingsSouth American travel

Child of the Sun

By December 16, 2007One Comment

To my unborn nephew/niece- but an inkling in your apache mammas belly.
Whatever being you be- for at this point biology has not yet markated you a loin or groin (dangly irrelevant pieces of flesh they are)
Child of the Sun I grow impatient for your arrival,which is why I find myself writing you- a somewhat premature letter. A letter whose words you might only grasp many years from now. I write to you from the Island of the Sun in Bolivia (La Isla de Sol) for this morning I watched the sun wake over that vast expanse that is Lake Titicaca. Deep from slumber it yawned, setting world and imagination ablaze. More impressive was it for the fact that years ago your parents stood at this same place, beheld this same majesty. Your mother back then a dread locked lioness, your father-benign beanied gnome.
It is a sight ,that if ever love seemed tentative, uncertain (not that your parents ever did) after witnessing such a awakening- would prove no more. For those who have shared in the most ancient and basic of wonders, the birth of the sun, might never look back. Might then and there conspire to stike the flint, start a little fire of their own.
And so it was that watching this that I thought of you back home, growing so tenaciously in your mothers tum. I thought of you, who were yet to open your eyes, take gulp of this glorious air. Partake in a world both horrific and terrific. I thought of you child of North and South,of colliding continents. Gender less, nameless Gemini, constellation and confusion of my own. Com padre to my stars , I assure you- a cosmos worth thriving, striving, surviving beneath.
But I digress, for but a minute ago I was talking of the Island of the Sun which according to Incan Myth (after seeing such a sight, I would not hesitate in calling it pure unadulterated fact) is said to be the place where the sun -prince Hellios to some, was born. Here that the first rays of light were said to have swept over a gloomy globe, waking a world that had previously only ever known perpetual night. Let there be light, it is reported the almighty said, and so there was. Illumination beyond our comprehension. Now who in fact the Almighty was and is (or if he exists at all) I will leave to you and your abundant curiosities to grapple with, this may take some time. Be patient
Again being the bumbling spring of an Uncle I am, I have wondered from my source, the very point and purpose of this letter. So back we go to standing on that chilly 6 o ‘clock slope. With a myth in mind, miracle in eyes, I meditated on you. Orb still hidden from us, as the sun was when I first woke to meet it. I don’t doubt for a second that your entrance shall be as wondrous, moving and mythical as this. This that has occurred for centuries and shall continue to do so. I am more then fond of your conceivers, your gods or padres. They are in short two of an exemplary kind. Listen to them, love them for they know better (at least at first.) And when you are grown enough, take this journey, stand on this same hill, this place where those of mutual blood have gaped in simillar awe. Witness and be humbled by a birth that proceeded your own. Think of us, those who have shone before and those who shall shine long after.Write a letter to the next, as I have to you.
Until then burn, burn,burn. From me, here in the present, writing to you in the future, soon to be past (how fast it all flew). I long for the day, I get to shake your diminutive palm, behold your shining face and say- Welcome Child of the Sun- too long we have been expecting you.
light everlasting
Neil
PS… Happy birthday to your Father- for I post this letter on his Birthday- Him a Sun of a different kind- but beautiful one at that.

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