Fantasia of the Unconscious | Page 8

I don't know why I took the
trouble. If a fellow doesn't believe he's got a nose, the best way to
convince him is gently to waft a little pepper into his nostrils. And there
was I painting my own nose purple, and wistfully inviting you to look
and believe. No more, though.
You've got first and foremost a solar plexus, dear reader; and the solar
plexus is a great nerve center which lies behind your stomach. I can't be
accused of impropriety or untruth, because any book of science or
medicine which deals with the nerve-system of the human body will
show it to you quite plainly. So don't wriggle or try to look spiritual.
Because, willy-nilly, you've got a solar plexus, dear reader, among
other things. I'm writing a good sound science book, which there's no
gainsaying.
Now, your solar plexus, most gentle of readers, is where you are you. It
is your first and greatest and deepest center of consciousness. If you
want to know how conscious and when conscious, I must refer you to
that little book, "Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious."
At your solar plexus you are primarily conscious: there, behind you
stomach. There you have the profound and pristine conscious
awareness that you are you. Don't say you haven't. I know you have.

You might as well try to deny the nose on your face. There is your first
and deepest seat of awareness. There you are triumphantly aware of
your own individual existence in the universe. Absolutely there is the
keep and central stronghold of your triumphantly-conscious self. There
you are, and you know it. So stick out your tummy gaily, my dear, with
a Me voilà. With a Here I am! With an Ecco mi! With a Da bin ich!
There you are, dearie.
But not only a triumphant awareness that There you are. An exultant
awareness also that outside this quiet gate, this navel, lies a whole
universe on which you can lay tribute. Aha--at birth you closed the
central gate for ever. Too dangerous to leave it open. Too near the
quick. But there are other gates. There are eyes and mouths and ears
and nostrils, besides the two lower gates of the passionate body, and the
closed but not locked gates of the breasts. Many gates. And besides the
actual gates, the marvelous wireless communication between the great
center and the surrounding or contiguous world.
Authorized science tells you that this first great plexus, this all-potent
nerve-center of consciousness and dynamic life-activity is a
sympathetic center. From the solar plexus as from your castle-keep you
look around and see the fair lands smiling, the corn and fruit and cattle
of your increase, the cottages of your dependents and the halls of your
beloveds. From the solar plexus you know that all the world is yours,
and all is goodly.
This is the great center, where in the womb, your life first sparkled in
individuality. This is the center that drew the gestating maternal
blood-stream upon you, in the nine-months lurking, drew it on you for
your increase. This is the center whence the navel-string broke, but
where the invisible string of dynamic consciousness, like a dark electric
current connecting you with the rest of life, will never break until you
die and depart from corporate individuality.
They say, by the way, that doctors now perform a little operation on the
born baby, so that no more navel shows. No more belly-buttons, dear
reader! Lucky I caught you this generation, before the doctors had
saved your appearances. Yet, caro mio, whether it shows or not, there

you once had immediate connection with the maternal blood-stream.
And, because the male nucleus which derived from the father still lies
sparkling and potent within the solar plexus, therefore that great
nerve-center of you, still has immediate knowledge of your father, a
subtler but still vital connection. We call it the tie of blood. So be it. It
is a tie of blood. But much more definite than we imagine. For true it is
that the one bright male germ which went to your begetting was drawn
from the blood of the father. And true it is that that same bright male
germ lies unquenched and unquenchable at the center of you, within the
famous solar plexus. And furthermore true is it that this unquenched
father-spark within you sends forth vibrations and dark currents of vital
activity all the time; connecting direct with your father. You will never
be able to get away from it while you live.
The connection with the mother may be more obvious. Is there not your
ostensible navel, where the rupture between you and her took place?
But because the mother-child relation is more plausible and flagrant, is
that any reason for