A book introduction mindful of spiritual evolution

Lascaux Cave, France*

Obviously, because my blog identity is "Maine Writer", the title of the book, "Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine", by Alan Lightman, caught my attention, when it was on the "recommended reading", table, at the Topsham Public Library.

This meditative book ponders the transcending human quest to understand our perspective in the universe, from the author's point of view. I am transcribing the short introductory chapter titled "Cave", because the prose succinctly describes the evolving human condition, in relation to our never ending quest to understand, and ponder nature's beauties and civilization's mysteries.

Cave

1979. Smell of damp earth and stone. In the dim light, a small group of people talk in hushed voices as if entering a church, spellbound by the paints on the rock wall: bison and mammoth and horse, colored with red ochre** made from dirt and charcoal and bound with saliva and animal fat. I am without words, another ghost in the primordial cave in southwestern France. Font-de_Gaume it is called. The cave paintings date to 17,000 BC and were discovered by a local schoolmaster century ago. Hand-drawn shapes swerve and flow following the natural contours of the stone walls in one image, a fat horse bends down as if nuzzling a bison with bent head. Elsewhere, a herd of horses gallop across the stone plains, including a large animal with orange torso and black neck, and smaller beasts speckled in black and white. One painting in particular steals my attention - an entire bison drawn from what appears to be a single flowing line.

Clearly, these early humans were consummate artists with a heightened connection to nature. Did they also believe in an ethereal world? Did they believe in the invisible? What did they think of thunder and lightening, wind, stars overhead, their own beginnings and ends? They rarely lived past the age of thirty. 

Clad in the skins of animals they had killed and aware of their own impending demise, they must have looked up toward the unchanging stars with awe, and desire. In the foothills beyond the caves, these ancient people buried their dead in sewn garments and surrounded the prone bodies with tools and food for the next life. Was this time and this place where the longing began?

Nearby, someone strikes a match, against regulations and we all turn in surprise to watch the small fire. Shadows shift on the walls. Then the flame is gone, like these primitive ancestors of eons ago, like all living things, like the material world. 

*A Palaeolithic cave situated in southwestern France, near the village of Montignac in the Dordogne region, which houses some of the most famous examples of prehistoric cave paintings. Close to 600 paintings – mostly of animals - dot the interior walls of the cave in impressive compositions. Horses are the most numerous, but deer, aurochs, ibex, bison, and even some felines can also be found. Besides these paintings, which represent most of the major images, there are also around 1400 engravings of a similar order. The art, dated to c. 17,000 – c. 15,000 BCE, falls within the Upper Palaeolithic period and was created by the clearly skilled hands of humans living in the area at that time. The region seems to be a hotspot; many beautifully decorated caves have been discovered there. The exact meaning of the paintings at Lascaux or any of the other sites is still subject to discussion, but the prevailing view attaches a ritualistic or even spiritual component to them, hinting at the sophistication of their creators. Lascaux was added to the UNESCO World Heritage Sites list in 1979, along with other prehistoric sites in its proximity.

**ocher- a natural clay

Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine was published in 1918, by Pantheon Books, New York.