Buber wrote an “Author’s Preface” to Daniel, a book of dialogues that he first published when he was thirty-five. This short preface begins with an anecdote from a hike and ends with an insight. Buber’s trek included a pause, a “viewing station” (see the blog entry for September 26, “Way-Stations Along the Path”), leading to a moment of insight that had germinated in the course of his day in nature.
After a descent in which I had to make use of the late light of a dying day without a halt, I paused on the edge of a meadow, now sure of the safe way, and let the twilight come down upon me. Not needing any support and yet wishing to mark a fixed point as I lingered, I pressed the tip of my walking stick against the trunk of an oak tree. Then I felt in twofold fashion my contact with being: here, where I held the stick, and there, where it touched the bark. Appearing to be only where my body was, I nonetheless found myself there, too, where my stick found the tree.
In that moment the nature of dialogue became clear to me. For the speech of a person, wherever it is genuine speech, is like that stick; that is, it is truly directed address. Here, where I am, where the ganglia and organs of speech help me to form and to send forth the word, here I “mean” the person to whom I send it, I intend this person, this one irreplaceable person. But also there, where he is, something of me is delegated, something that is not at all substantial in nature like my being-here, rather pure vibration and incomprehensible; that remains there, with him, the person meant by me, and takes part in the receiving of my word. I encompass the one to whom I turn.
— Martin Buber, “Author’s Preface,” Daniel: Dialogues on Realization 47 (emphasis added)
Buber begins by situating his insight in a transitional moment near the end of a day of trekking. At that point he had transitioned from wilderness to tamer surroundings and he was giving himself to the liminal reality of descending darkness. He then makes a gratuitous gesture of contact—he presses the tip of his stick against an oak tree. Three things come together: his hand, the stick, and the tree. The resulting Gestalt becomes an image of dialogue: first he is aware of his body-mind in his act of speaking—he acts, he expresses, he intends both the message in the moment and the unique person to whom it is addressed; second, like the oak tree, he is aware of the other person in his or her uniqueness, “the person meant by me and [who] takes part in the receiving of my word.” Third, the walking stick represents “the between,” that in which “something of me is delegated, something not at all substantial.” This “between” is there, with the other person, and actually becomes part of that other person’s receiving of the speaker’s word. This “between” both is—and is not—the speaker and the person being addressed. Buber’s insight on the trail reaches its climax in the self-awareness of the I of I-Thou: “I encompass the one to whom I turn.” This is the twofold awareness of self and other—the sense of being with—in the moment of genuine dialogue. (See Turning to the Other 158)
Don, I believe I have had such an experience. My wife and I were walking through a forest here in Missouri. I encountered a wonderfully barked tree (later found to have a "plated" bark). It stood, I thought, proudly, at the head of a seeming line of such similarly barked trees. As I had my phone camera, it seemed that the tree spoke without words, commanding my respect as an individual who must be recognized. So, of course, I composed a photograph (as opposed to making physical contact with the tree), in an attempt, I felt, to capture this moment and this individual, this proud tree at the head of a line of siblings. I later learned that this short-leaved pine was native to Missouri and much diminished in population due to foresting and infestation. It must not be forgotten, I felt. And its portrait now hangs in our home. I think I may understand what Buber felt.
ReplyDelete