A commissioned collaboration with geneticist Sir John Sulston two decades ago changed my own thinking and writing forever. Once you've seen that the genomic difference between your own body and that of a salamander or an apple tree is a rearrangement of the same base (pairs..) the borders between those bodies seem less sure. (poet Michael Symmons Roberts, Metamorphosis from Ovid to Marvel Comics, DT)
As I tend to say, the modern delusion lies in confusing different things for the same thing.
Metamorphosis in my lexicon is more like a manifestation of cosmic fecundity, from the stars above to the beasts of the fields. See prev. Titian The Rape of Europa (by Zeus as a bull).
If it's true that different things share similarities, the similarity is the primeval rhythm that is expressed in lust and the hunger to be part of something else (Leda and the swan, Apollo and Daphne of the laurel tree).
That is strength and grace and charm (seduction). What Symmons Roberts is talking about is simply an egotistical assertion that genes control shape.
For that to be so, genes have to be inside time in terms of a rhythmic curve of proportion and harmonics - as occurs in the womb over the gestation period prior to birth.
In fact, the exact opposite is the case; genes are convincing because they are entirely factual - ie consisting of base-pairs in a long chain. It's the material that's used - as a tapestry is woven out of colored fibres.
Anything that comes out of time - such as speech, song, dance, break-dancing, grace or charm - is a woven tapestry as opposed to the material it's made of. The time-dimension imparts a dainty realness that is seen in a frog's face as much as a princess's visage (God is a cartoonist?)
In other words, time is the missing ingredient of geneticists such as Sulston (or Dawkins, for that matter). It's because the time element is lacking that their egos are entirely caught-up in the logic of the factual universe of the genome.
A very similar argument comes into the plot of Francis Stevens' The Citadel of Fear. Stevens' points to a basic type who conforms to the scientific viewpoint. One is MacClellan, the stolid detective, who appears to banish from his mind those "facts" that don't conform to his bias (this is something like the "motivational arguments" we now know from the net, where people pick the facts that fit their case. Of course, there are an.infinite number of "facts" in a logical universe of genes, electromagnetism, algorithms that "they" preside over!)
"I smelled something queer myself when we went inside." This from Forester, an intelligent-looking but very young man. "Don't you remember I called your attention to it?"
"Yes, and I said you was dreamin'," snapped his superior. "If there was any smell it got out the windows before we reached there." (page 181)
Like Roc Sandford (prev) he does not see the physical substance and smell of decay (Max Romeo: " The more you look, the less you see").
"They" (the scientists) do not see it, and such primal rhythms of decay are corrupted, as happens in Stevens' yarn. In normal circumstances, renewal happens where the chthonic strength of microbial life is present (see Buffy quote on dried buffalo manure).
Where the cycles are strong, health is generated as on the African plains of yore (see van der Post on the fragrance of smoke on the savanna). Once there's a lack of balance, the microbes emerge in weakened hosts (see prev.)
Leaving things be allows in metamorphosis; the strength of microbial decay is somewhat similar to digestion, hence the presence of micro-fauna in the gut.
In Stevens' yarn the microbial and macro become one in a blend stirred by the scientifically-minded Archer Kennedy in his subterranean lab.
"These beasts have a faculty that they share with no other creature save the simplest organisms. They do no multiply slowly, but split in twos as easily as.."
The process of decay is insanely interrupted. Recognition of decay in the environment promotes healthy, clean and strong, lusty and smelly situations. Leaving things to decline naturally tends to impart a lively aura that is often charming.
The liveliness of these strong and dirty environments contrast with the dormancy of the modern sterile logic of so-called "health" that is akin to a Limbo run by egos of acolytes of sorcerers (see Darkchilde, prev.)
When.primal rhythms of chthonic decay are interrupted, there is no revival and this is what happens in Kennedy's laboratory beneath the dome of Nacoc-Yaotl. Whereas on the range, decay is part of a general cycle of revival and clean growth of animals and plants, in the enclosed space of his ghostlike marsh the clean cycles of life and death no longer apply.
The fact that scientists don't recognize it is immaterial. There is a dark side to the universe which can have a dark beauty of otherworldly decadence - in the Moth Lady or Miss Reed, the elfin maiden in the clinging green dress (the "chiquitta" from the story's start).
From the dead man he looked up to his mad Dusk Lady. She was watching him with dark, wondering eyes. Her wet, green gown clung to limbs and body, close as the green bark to a young tree, and the thick curls of her hair glistened black and shining.
Like some sorrowful spirit of the storm-torn forest she stood there, and Colin was ashamed before her. (page 165)
Darkness is part of reality in the clean and strong cycles of life and death that generate health and fertility. In the enclosed space of Kennedy's laboratory (somewhat akin to our modern hospital environments where we all wear the mask of Nacoc-Yaotl!) only information matters and not the grace and proportion of natural rhythms (of the cosmos).
Kennedy is delusional, insisting "I preside here", despite the glinting, profane presence of the carved black stone likeness of Nacoc-Yaotl.
No, as Colin O'Hara realizes, " Nacoc-Yaotl is another matter.". Kennedy's ego doesn't allow him to realize the obvious; that he is the prey of a black god where decay is a corrupted power, a profanity within the cosmic order of health and strength.
