The Continuum Concept (Arkana) by Liedloff Jean

Author:Liedloff, Jean
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2004-01-28T16:00:00+00:00

She does not initiate the contacts nor contribute to them except in a passive way. It is the baby who seeks her out and shows her by his behaviour what he wants. She complies fully and willingly but does not add anything more. He is the active, she the passive agent in all their dealings; he comes to her to sleep when he is tired, to be fed when he is hungry. His explorations of the wide world are counterpointed and reinforced by his resort to her and by his sense of her constancy while he is away.

He neither demands nor receives her full attention, for he has no store of longings, no ancient hungers, to gnaw at his devotion to the here and now. Consistent with the economical character of nature, he wants no more than he needs.

When he goes about on hands and knees, a baby can travel at a fair speed. Among the Yequana, I watched uneasily as one creeper rushed up and stopped at the edge of a pit five feet deep that had been dug for mud to make walls. In his progress about the compound, he did this several times a day. With the inattentiveness of an animal grazing at the edge of a cliff, he would tumble to a sitting position, as often as not facing away from the pit. Occupied with a stick or stone or his fingers or toes, he played and rolled about in every direction, seemingly heedless of the pit, until one realized he landed everywhere but in the danger zone. The non-intellect-directed mechanisms of self-preservation worked unfailingly and, being so precise in their calculations, functioned equally well at any distance from the pit, starting from the very edge. Unattended or, more often, at the periphery of attention of a group of children playing with the same lack of respect for the pit, he took charge of his own relationships with all the surrounding possibilities. The only suggestion from the members of his family and society was that they expected him to be able to look after himself. Though he still could not walk, he knew where comfort could be found if he wanted it – but he seldom did. If his mother went to the river or the distant garden, she often took him along, lifting him to her by his forearm and counting on his help to balance himself on her hip or hold on to the sling if she wore one to support his weight. Wherever she went, if she put him down in a safe place, she expected him to remain safe without supervision.

A baby has no suicidal inclinations and a full set of survival mechanisms, from the senses, on the grossest level, to what looks like very serviceable everyday telepathy on the less accountable levels. He behaves like any little animal that cannot call upon experience to serve its judgement; he does the safe thing, unaware of making a choice. He is naturally protective

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