@katharine.coles
Katharine Coles
@katharine.coles · 2:30

Are you an animal, too?

This numinous skin, the way flesh becomes everything and everything around it taken in, including all it's not but may anticipate or imagine, including drag its belly, including perform a hundred pushups on a rock and sun shining all in. A day's work and curling up at day's end into a ball of self under a leaf or thicket of softest green, waking again, noticing the sun has risen. Not another day keeps coming up, new going by

#body #poetry #animal

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@DBPardes
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 1:05

@katharine.coles

And I see some of the photos you post on Facebook of you when you wake up to the vista you have, and I can imagine how you want to just be at one with that and soar in that sky and crawl in those weeds in those forests. Like, just be reminding yourself always of that animal that is you. Beautiful. Thank you so much. That's such a magical invitation to think about this
@arish
Arish Ali
@arish · 1:21

@katharine.coles

Hi, Katharine. That was a beautiful poem. And the concept you talk about actually is something really interesting, because I have thought about it a bit in the context of consciousness and like, what what is it to be conscious as to be human, which is partly related to that. I don't know if you heard of this seminal paper called What Is It Like to at Bat? By the philosopher Thomas Nagel
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@Swell
Swell Team
@Swell · 0:15

Welcome to Swell!

@katharine.coles
Katharine Coles
@katharine.coles · 0:09
Arish, thank you so much for the suggestion on the Nagel article. I'm going to look it up right away
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@geo_rhymes
Nidhin George 🔷
@geo_rhymes · 1:38

@katharine.coles

Catherine, this is a really intricate topic, food for thought, rather, if you will. You speak of certain realities that we've come to either associate or disassociate ourselves with. I like that you said you try not to humanize animals, but that you respect them for who or what they are. And I find this a pivotal point in that a lot of humans end up humanizing animals and animalizing humans. And really, we don't have to live in the extremes
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