Conversations with I and I

The truest thing we can say about existence is that we never saw it coming, but we can see it going. An honest account of existence does not happen ‘once upon a time’ or ‘in the beginning’. It happens suddenly. We are the ‘all of a sudden’. Presence emerges spontaneously, and the ultimate genesis is divine surprise. We don’t start, but are startled into process. This is the en-trance: the great initiation into embodiment. In isiXhosa, the body is called ‘umzimba’, which alludes to an abrupt shutting off (mba!) from unboundedness, into the cosmic home (umzi) of space-time. It comes as a shock, and goes as the shade.