For some reason, the word Nommo, like hostile takeover or leverage buyout, sends ripples of nervous excitement through your plasma. You shiver. Nommo, like on Q-Jos Star card? That Nommo was supposed to be from outer space?
Rather like ol Jesus, but whereas the Scriptures are vague regarding the exospheric location of Heaven, Bozo tradition doesnt hesitate to list the Nommos specific address. They came from the system of the star, sima kayne. Sirius, to me and thee. Which, by the way, is precisely where modern science expects extraterrestrial contact to come from if e.t. contact is ever made.
Why there?
Proximity. Pure and simple. Sirius is in our neighborhood. Or just outside of it. Still one hell of a long distance from Cincinnati, but within range of a properly engineered spaceship. The mythology of the sub-Sahara relates how an ark landed on the earth …
So its only a myth.
Gwendolyn, Gwendolyn. Surely youre not one of those undereducated boobs who believes a myth to be a set of exaggerated facts. A myth, you ought to know, is a metaphoric method of describing, dramatizing, and condensing historical events and psychological states that are otherwise too complicated to be digested or appreciated by the prevailing society. So, pussy chops, when the Bozo and Dogon say that an interstellar ark once landed on the earth to the northeast of them-and lo! Whats to their northeast but Egypt?-they could be referring to an external event, a centuries long series of events, or a strictly psychological phenomenon, a sort of enchantment. In any case, the Africans say that when the ark touched down, its weight caused its blood to spurt to the sky. The way they describe the reddish rays emanating from the landing craft makes it sound suspiciously like some kind of a rocket ship.
At this point, Diamond flings the back of his hand toward your face with such force that you duck, thinking he is trying to strike you. A tad jumpy, arent you, sweetheart? Thats said to be the sign of a guilty conscience. You redden. He grins. And AndrE rattles a tire jack.
Diamonds hand, embarrassingly scented with the oils of your vagina, remains in your face. He is showing you his tattoo. This is a copy of a well-known tribal drawing that depicts three versions of the Nommo vehicle. It doesnt require much more than the imagination of a state legislator to interpret these circles and rays as various stages of the firing of rocket engines.
Okay. Yeah. I can see that, I guess. Kind of a stretch but I can see it. What I dont see is why youd have it tattooed on your hand.
Diamonds grin is almost boyish. Gets me excellent service in Bozo restaurants, he says.
How convenient.
You await further explanation but hear nothing beyond the rain typing its memoirs on the roof of the car and the process of Popsicle wrappers being turned into monkey confetti in the trunk. Fearful that Diamond will detect the latter sound as well, you are relieved when he finally says, You know, it may be an omen that its raining while Im telling you these things. Aside from being the monitors of the universe and the guardians of the soul, the Nommo were also called the dispensers of rain and the masters of all water. Supposedly, the purpose of the Nommos visit was to bring spiritual principles to the human race. Sometimes, when my brain is soft, I think I can almost hear these principles being transmitted by the rain.
Yeah? Hear voices, do you, Larry? AndrE uncorks a short shriek, and you exclaim, Wow! Youre right! Theres one now!
He glares at you so violently that you take his hand and squeeze his kooky tattoo. Just kidding, you say. But tell me something. If these aliens from Sirius, these Nommo, were the masters of rain and water, why were they hanging out in that part of the world? Where its so horribly dry?
Five thousand years ago, Africa was a lot wetter than it is today. Its deserts are a relatively recent phenomena. The Nommo would probably have found plenty of water. And there would have been large amounts of water aboard their spaceship, too. There would have had to have been.
And whys that?
Because, he says. The Nommo were amphibians.
FIVE-TWELVE P.M.
While raindrops scurry down the windshield of the parked Porsche like sow bugs rushing to a rotten-wood festival; and the macaque continues to shred Popsicle wrappers in the trunk, as if he were employed in the document room of a Republican president, Larry Diamond, in his astringent drawl, drones on and on about large half-human amphibious creatures with webbed digits and fishtails who, according to the Dogon and Bozo, founded their civilizations. Apparently, they founded other, earlier, more important civilizations as well, for Diamond relates that the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Sumerians each venerated a group of beings who came from reedy, watery regions to bring written language and spiritual values to humankind. In the pictographic and cuneiform fragments from ancient Sumer, which represent the worlds oldest extant examples of writing, the half-man, half-fish is referred to as Oannes, and to Oannes is ascribed many of the deeds and functions that the Hebrews later appropriated for their heroes-Noah, for example-in the Old Testament. Jehovah, himself, may have been patterned after the amphibian Oannes, although the Dogon and Bozo insist that the Nommo were not gods but highly developed mortals.
Nevertheless, Diamond goes on, there are definite parallels between the accounts of the Nommo and the Christ stories. A French anthropologist was told by a Dogon priest that the Nommo divided his body among men to feed them and that the universe had drunk of his body. Sound familiar? You ever take communion, Gwendolyn? Swallow the leader?
After you have registered disgust at his pun, he continues. It is also taught that the alien amphibians will return. Yes, pussy pie. Yes, indeed. Coming soon to a pond near you. The Advent of the Nommo. Will you be ready? Are you prepared? Are you on the pad? You will be, if you stick with Uncle Larry.
You make a face and Diamond laughs. By the way, the celestial symbol of the Nommo resurrection is ie pelu tolo, star of the tenth moon. You cant find this star, not even with a radio telescope, because, according to the Bozo, itll only be formed when the Nommos ark descends. So ie pelu tolos not a star, per se, its a starship. Again, he shoves his pussy-perfumed paw in your face. Star of the tenth moon, he says, waving his tattoo. Youll notice that these orbs also resemble the eyes of a frog.
Yeah. And the moon does kind of look like green cheese, you mumble. You really dont know how to react to any of this. Is Diamond actually on to something significant, or has his brain been bungee-jumping off a piano stool? You are forced, more or less, to lean toward the former possibility because, otherwise, you have to admit you have just had the crowning coitus of your young life with a crackpot. I dont know what to say, Larry. I mean, essentially youre asking me to believe that civilization was brought to the human race by a bunch of swamp things from Sirius …
From a planet in the Sirian system, to be precise. The Egyptian word for the Sirian system, you might like to hear, also meant throne. And what do you do with a throne? You sit on it.
So that may be where sitting trouser comes from.
Good girl! Yes, perhaps. Among sub-Saharan peoples today, the phrase to keep seated means to behave in an intelligent, virtuous manner. Obviously, you dont have to look very far in any direction to ascertain that the general population is out of its seat in a major way. Loudmouthed ignorance and criminality abound. Its been a grand show, all these frightened fools and greedy gangsters on their feet, jumping up and down; but its starting to get a trifle tiresome, and, of course, its egregiously unfair to other species; to the animals and plants that have had the good sense and the purity all these millennia to keep seated. It could be marvelously refreshing, dont you think, were the Nommo to return and coax us back on our haunches. End all this pushing and shoving, this yammering for attention. Picture us squatting-Im speaking symbolically-serene and wise, like frogs on a lily pad.
You have to smile. Yes, Larry, dear, thats a nice idealistic fairy tale. Unfortunately, thats all it is. I mean, come on: to start with, the whole idea of these Nommo mermen is totally farfetched.
Before you bet the ranch on that, p
onder a few things. Its a mathematical certainty that therere intelligent life-forms in the universe besides us hooligan earthlings. Considering the vast age of many of the other solar systems, its also highly probable that a number of them have developed technologies more advanced than our own. Since were an innocuous little planet on the fringes of a mediocre galaxy-a kind of interstellar Timbuktu-any interested parties would likely hail from a relatively close system. The Sirian systems a perfect candidate. For more distant systems, we wouldnt be worth the effort. Well, our suns a great ball of fire, but its practically a snowball compared to Sirius A, whose luminosity is twenty-three times brighter than El Sol, even though its only half again as large. Any planet orbiting Sirius is going to be on the warm side. And probably cloud-covered at all times. Even through the vapor, it would be harmful to ones vision to look up at Sirius. Now, what sort of dominant, sentient life-form would evolve in that hot, brilliant, steamy world? Amphibious mammals, wouldnt you say?
Why amphibious mammals?
Because only mammals possess the brain size necessary to create civilizations and technologies. Amphibious mammals because to keep cool and protect their skin and eyes, they would have needed to spend much of their time in and under the water. Long ago, naturally, they would have developed tinted glass and air-conditioning, but since biological evolution lags behind technological innovation by millions of years, these beings, even today, would be as accustomed to, and perhaps dependent on, life in the oceans and lakes as we are to life on land. As mammals, theyd require oxygen periodically, but theyd be quite comfortable underwater. Theyd be a lot like dolphins with hands and feet.
You savor that image, I can tell.
Yes. Yes, he drawls. Its delectable to contemplate an ambulatory porpoise rocketing in to awaken humanity from its grabby trance, much as the porpoises I swam with in Florida awakened me from the trance of autism. He holds up his hand, but the one without the tattoo. Youre aware, I suppose, that in the fins of dolphins therere the skeletal vestiges of fingers. Yes, indeed. There was a time when dolphins could have performed card tricks or tickled the ivories. Conceivably, our big-brained, playful friends are related in some manner to the space-traveling Nommo.
Is that true? About vestigial fingers?
Cross my heart.
He doesnt add and hope to die, but then a cancer victim wouldnt add that. Well, you say, I concede that its plausible that entities like the Nommo could exist somewhere in the universe, and it may even be plausible that these entities hopped down to Africa and briefed the Bozo on astronomy, but when alls said and done, I cant swallow it. Sorry, but I do not believe thats how the Bozo learned about Sirius B.
You expect him to get huffy and call you hoptoad, but he smiles and says, Thats good, pussy gravy. Frankly, I dont believe it, either.
Surprise rings your eyes like a pair of goggles. Before Diamond can explain himself, however, there is a rapping at the passenger window.
FIVE TWENTY-FOUR P.M.
Your first fear is that AndrE has jimmied the latch on the trunk and is free and seeking retribution. Your second fear is that someone in the neighborhood has summoned the vice squad: you check to make sure your blouse is buttoned. When Diamond lowers the window, however, the Asian woman with whom he was flirting earlier leans in.
Excuse me, please, she says shyly. Im sorry. I wished to tell you that Dr. Yamaguchi has sent word he will come to the lobby at six oclock.
Why, thank you, Reiko, Diamond says. Ill be there.
Okay. Excuse me. Her nose is quivering ever so slightly, almost imperceptibly, but Diamond takes notice.
Smells pretty in here, doesnt it, Reiko? Are you old enough to remember the Beatles? Remember John Lennon and Paul McCartney? When they sang, theyd put their faces together at the microphone in such a way that theyd blend into just one face. He sighs. It was the most beautiful face Ive ever seen. Now, its the same when a man and a woman put their odors together, dont you think? They blend into the single best odor in the world.
Reiko withdraws gracefully and with dignity, but as she walks away she cannot help shaking her head from side to side. Diamond seems to have that effect on people.
FIVE TWENTY-FIVE P.M.
During the next half hour, cramped in the sex-saturated cockpit of the Porsche, accompanied by the silver whips and molluskan castanets of the rain; and uninterrupted by monkey chatter (AndrE apparently having grown bored and fallen asleep), Larry Diamond serenades you with a medley of unfamiliar and generally unfathomable notions. Here are the several that stick in your mind:
The Bozo received their information about the stars telepathically.
They, or, to be precise, their ancient ancestors, enhanced their telepathic abilities through the ritualistic use of so-called visionary compounds. Hemp derivatives and iboga, a flowering bush with a long history of use as a hallucinogen in West Africa, were certainly employed and enjoyed, but it may have been psilocybic mushrooms, sprouting from the dung plops of migrating herds back when the savannas were blessed with rain, that fostered the early Africans telepathic powers; that, in fact, provided the expanded awareness that allowed them to evolve to a more complex level than cousin baboon or cousin chimp.
While in a radically sensitized state (among Africans, the state produced by iboga is referred to as open-heartedness) imbibers, singularly or in groups, may have been able to pick up mental transmissions from the extraterrestrial amphibians whom they were to know as Oannes, or Nommo, and who were never to physically travel to our planet. It wouldnt have been necessary.
An even more likely and perhaps more portentous possibility, according to Diamond, is that the transmissions received by early Bozo came not from an advanced amphibian civilization orbiting Sirius but from a dimension of their own consciousness. The temptation is to label that dimension the higher mind, although it may actually be the lower mind, the aspect that Jung called the bottom below the bottom. In any case, it is an aspect of consciousness shared, but not easily accessed, by all human beings. It is the overmind (or undermind) of the species.
It is hardly astonishing that the overmind would manifest itself in an amphibious guise, for the simple reason that we land-based primates are essentially, ultimately aquatic.
Sperm swim in a liquid conveyance. The fetus forms and develops entirely submerged in fluid. Human embryonic development closely parallels the metamorphic stages of the frog. Until the umbilical cord is severed, newborn infants can thrive underwater. In its chemical composition, blood bears a most remarkable resemblance to seawater. Our bodies are more than sixty-five percent water. And our progenitors were marine animals who experimented with dry oxygen and became addicted.
In a manner of speaking, human beings are fish out of water.
The sea is the cradle we all rocked out of, and it may be the homeplace to which we will someday return.
There would be several important advantages in resuming an amphibious way of life. Since, for example, nearly three-quarters of the biospheres surface is covered by water, and since-thanks to a rampant stupidity compounded by the sinister designs of organized religion-overpopulation is reducing the quality of life, profaning the sanctity of life, and threatening the continuation of life, the oceans and great lakes constitute Earths final frontier, a vast area for resettlement and refuge. The seas are immeasurably rich in natural resources. Water blocks radiation, providing protection, therefore, both from solar rays streaming unchecked through a depleted ozone layer and from the nuclear fires almost certain to be unleashed sooner or later by any one of a dozen nasty little nations.
If global warming melts the polar ice caps, as some predict, we will have little choice in our resumption of an aquatic life-style.
Our race has long been titillated by images of a lost civilization beneath the sea. Some say it is legend, some say it is genetic memory, a few say there is small difference. Their common mistake is their relegation of this vanished utopia to ancient history. Deep consciousness is hardly bound by th
e constraints of linear time. Atlantis is in our future, not our past.
On the other hand, Atlantis may figure both in our future and our past. Surely we harbor pleasant cellular memories of dolphinlike romps in warm prehistoric seas, of gentle froggy transformations in the security of a water-filled womb. Lost utopias.
Scientists report that no creature on earth dreams as much as the human fetus. If the fetal brain has had no experience, if its newly formed mind is a tabula rasa, what then does it dream about? Do we imagine that the tiny swimmers dreams are dry? That no Nommo splash therein? That the mood is other than oceanic?
Oceanic, significantly enough, is a word we choose to describe the immense and ecstatic feeling of oneness-oneness with humanity, with the biosphere, with the Divine-that occasionally overtakes all but the hopelessly insensitive and frequently illuminates the contemplative and astute. In this context, oceanic is a spiritual term, and spiritual transformation is what the amphibian-sidereal connection is all about.
At some eschatological moment, having at last absorbed the values that the Nommo, literally or figuratively, came here to impart, we may ride the currents to the stars, where, in the dimension of the overmind, well experience closure with the godhead, eventually to embark on even higher tides to even stranger destinations requiring even more unimaginable transformations.
Meanwhile, at our present level of development, largely oblivious to our origins and our destination, we are half-asleep in frog pajamas.
FIVE FIFTY-FIVE P.M.
Diamond said a lot of other things, but these are the highlights, if that isnt too strong a word. These are the wild ideas with which you might entertain Q-Jo, providing Diamond hadnt already spun them around her turban at their Friday morning session and providing you ever see Q-Jo again. Oh, yeah, and there was the stuff about Buddha: how in almost every picture or statue where Buddhas extremities are shown, he has webbed fingers and toes; and how the seated Buddhas silhouette strongly resembles a bullfrog.