Star

Once more, Michel Serres. I read this passage after having taken the picture above. It is my self-portrait, taken by the hand of Alexander G., Thursday, August 9, 2007.

“Sensitivity haunts a central and peripheral place – in the form of a star.

Have you ever tended goal for your team, while an adversary hurries to take a clean, close shot? Relaxed, as if free, the body mimes the future participle, fully ready to unwind: toward the highest point, at ground level, or halfway up, in both directions, left and right; toward the center of the solar plexis, a starry plateau launches its virtual branches in all directions at once, like a bouquet of axons. This is the state of vibrating sensitivity – wakeful, alert, watchful – a call to the animal who passes close by, lying in wait, spying, a solicitation in every sense, from every direction for the whole admirable network of neurons (…) At the center of the star is hidden the third place, formerly called a soul, experienced by passing through a channel that is difficult to cross. The soul inhabits this pole of sensitivity, or virtual capacity, at the same time that it throws itself forward and holds back, that is, that it launches itself halfway, the length of the floating branches of the astral body that explores space, like a sun.”