Books

I think many people have the impression that books are unlimited commodities, but, of course, no commodities are unlimited. It fascinates me, however, that within this finitude, there exists great multiplicity. Earlier this evening, I was struck by the title of a book on the shelf, and lifted it down. It was called Different Doorway (Adventures of a Caesarean Born) by Jane Butterfield English. It's basically a kind of diary account of the author's therapy sessions uncovering the trauma (or other impact) of her caesarean birth. I love the fact that a book with this title exists. One more latent reality has been made actual in this world.

There's a foreword by Stanislav Grof, with whom English underwent therapy, and whose work, I believe, generally involves guiding his patients in remembering the perinatal experience.

Entries in Different Doorway include this kind of thing:

January 23, 1978
I feel an ambivalence about this project. The caesarean thing seems to be difference and unlimited possibility. To generalize about it does violence to its very nature. It is the first step toward an orthodox view of the unorthodox. Yet these ideas are emerging in myself and in others, and I'd prefer that a caesarean-born person rather than a non-caesarean-born person do the naming. I am aware that I'm as much creating something called a caesarean world-view as I am discovering something that is already there. Yet it begins to be clear that this is true even in what is supposed to be the most objective of sciences – physics. In my Ph.D thesis, did I create, or did I discover, a split energy level in the "S" recurrence of the A₂ meson?

And:

February 2, 1978
I see a connection between a caesarean's apparent lack goals and Taoist emphasis on being, rather than on doing or achieving.

The author bio tells me, amongst other things, that:

The best known of the four books she has illustrated with her black and white photographs of nature is a translation of Lao Tsu's Tao Te Ching.

It turns out that I've already been reading another book in which she had a hand, a translation of Chuang Tsu's Inner Chapters, a very beautiful edition with Chinese calligraphy and black and white photographs (these, also, I believe, taken by English). Her co-translator was Gia-Fu Feng, to whom, I believe, she was or is married.