Detail highlighting the dust motes from “Støvkornenes dans i solstrålerne” (Dust Motes Dancing in the Sunbeams, 1900) By Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864-1916) Oil on canvas, 70 cm × 59 cm Ordrupgaard Museum. Photograph Public Domain.
Dust lingers in the ruins of empires, in the fading footprints of the past. It clings to the forgotten, settles upon the broken. T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land declares “I will show you fear in a handful of dust,” evoking a profound existential dread—the terror of insignificance, the finality of death in a world where nothing endures. Shelley’s Ozymandias presents the cruel irony that even the mightiest fall into dust, their ambitions erased by time. Shakespeare reinforces this democratic nature of mortality in Cymbeline, reminding us that: “Golden lads and girls all must, / As chimney-sweepers, come to dust” (Act IV, Scene 2). The biblical refrain, “For dust you are, and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19) serves as a humbling reminder of human mortality—our bodies fated to mingle with soil and ruin.
This narrative of dust as dissolution has dominated our cultural consciousness for millennia. Yet beneath this interpretation lies a profound irony: the very science that revealed our cosmic insignificance also offers us a path to transcendence.
As we began to understand the origins of matter itself, a counternarrative emerged. The spectrographic analysis of stars, the discovery of nucleosynthesis, and the mapping of elemental creation within stellar lifecycles revealed an unexpected truth: the dust of our being is not merely the residue of life lost but the particulate remnants of stars long dead.
This scientific revelation transforms our relationship with dust. No longer just the symbol of our inevitable decay, it becomes evidence of our cosmic lineage. In this expanded understanding, we are made of elements forged in stellar cores—carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, iron—the ashes of ancient supernovae. As Carl Sagan elaborated: “The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars.” (Cosmos, 1980)
The death of those stars gave birth to us. Thus, when our bodies return to dust, they are not returning to nothingness, but to the infinite. This is a poetic inversion of the traditional dread associated with dust. Instead of entropy as a reduction to meaninglessness, it becomes a return to something larger than the self.
Where Eliot shows us fear in dust, Carl Sagan tells us: “The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff.” Lawrence M. Krauss echoes this sentiment: “Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded…. You are all stardust… the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron …. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars.” (A Universe from Nothing, 2009)
The Paradox of Cosmic Fear
If one understands oneself as a finite being, bound to decay, dust is terrifying—it signifies loss. But if one understands oneself as an ephemeral expression of the universe, momentarily coalesced and destined to dissolve back into the great celestial flow, then there is no reason for fear. The end is not the end, but a return to origins.
So why does existential dread persist? Perhaps it is the ego’s reluctance to let go of selfhood. Perhaps it is the mind’s inability to accept that individual consciousness does not endure. Perhaps it is because dust, unlike stars, is silent. A ruined city, a forgotten name, a scattering of bones—all speak of oblivion, not grandeur.
As William Blake advised in The Proverbs of Hell, we “Drive [our] cart and [our] plow over the bones of the dead,” suggesting our instinctive fear of becoming that which is trampled and forgotten. Jorge Luis Borges captures this anxiety when he writes that “time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river”—we are both the eroder and the eroded, the dust-maker and the dust.
Yet, as a poem once attributed to Emily Dickinson but now considered of uncertain authorship reminds us: “Ashes denote that fire was; / Revere the grayest pile / For the departed creature’s sake / That hovered there awhile.” Dust does not truly vanish. It transforms.
Yet if the erasure of self is what we fear, we must ask: is selfhood truly lost, or merely transformed? If dust dissolves, does it vanish—or does it scatter into something greater?
From Dust to Light: The Redemption of Stardust
Yet if we understand dust not as an annihilation of self but as the very fabric of renewal, the fear dissolves. The metaphor itself must be rewritten: From dust we are made, from stardust we are formed. To dust we return, to the stars we return.
Walt Whitman intuited this cycle when he wrote: “I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love.” (Song of Myself, LII) His biological understanding of transformation prefigures our cosmic one—matter recycled through systems larger than ourselves.
If the metaphor itself shifts, then the meaning shifts with it. We do not fall into dust; we rise into radiance. We do not vanish into the void; we dissolve into the cosmos, as much a part of the next great supernova as we once were of the last. Even in knowing that we return to the stars, a quiet unease remains: what of the self? If I dissolve into light, is there still an “I”?
This cosmic transformation demands a new poetic language—one that recasts the traditional imagery of dust not as a symbol of loss but as a promise of renewal. If we are to truly grasp this shift in understanding, we must reimagine the very metaphors through which we comprehend our mortality. In the spirit of this reframing, I offer these verses that trace our journey from stardust to dust and back again:
From dust we are made— Not of earth, but embered light, Forged in stellar furnace bright, A whisper of stars in the cosmic shade.
To dust we return— Not to silence, not to loss, But scattered bright across the gloss Of galaxies that twist and burn.
Fear not the handful of dust— It is not death, nor mere decay, But embers cast upon the way, To rise once more in cosmic trust.
Thus, the fear in Eliot’s handful of dust dissolves when we see it not as an end, but as a beginning of something else. In the vast cosmic cycle, there is no finality—only motion, only transformation. The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam gestures toward this understanding when it speaks of being “Star-scatter’d on the Grass”—our elements returning to the cosmos from which they came. If all that we are, all that we love, all that we create ultimately returns to the stars, is that not immortality?
The Choice of Understanding
We return to the beginning, as dust does. The words of Genesis remind us: “For dust you are, and to dust you shall return.”
Yet now, having traced the journey of dust from earth to stars, we hear these words anew. Through the narrow human lens, we interpret them as a grim certainty—dust as ruin, silence, and the erasure of memory. We see only decay, the dissolution of self, the inevitable fading of all things into oblivion.
But through the enlightened cosmic lens, we recognize a deeper truth. Dust is not an end, but a transformation. It is not absence, but renewal. It is potential, energy, and the foundation of new worlds.
As Jorge Luis Borges reflects in We Are the Time:
“We are the time. We are the famous metaphor from Heraclitus the Obscure. We are the water, not the hard diamond, the one that is lost, not the one that stands still. We are the river and we are that Greek who looks himself in the river.”
Borges, invoking Heraclitus’ ever-flowing river, offers a vision of existence as movement, dissolution, and renewal. We are not fixed, immutable beings; we are the water, ever-changing, ever-returning to the whole. If we are dust, then we are not the dust that settles, but the dust that travels—the dust that, like the stars, finds itself scattered only to be reshaped into something new.
To understand this is to grasp something beyond the immediate and the visible. It is to move past fear into recognition: that what was once bound into form returns to the vastness, not in loss, but in continuation. That what dissolves is not diminished but remade, part of a cycle stretching beyond human time. What Yeats called “a terrible beauty” is born in this transformation—terrible in its finality, beautiful in its cosmic potential.
Perhaps it is our task, then, to choose how we understand our own dust—not as the extinguishing of life, but as its return to the great fire from which it came. In this cosmic understanding, we are not merely dust returning to dust, but light returning to light—briefly kindled, then scattered again, not into oblivion, but into reunion with the luminous whole from which we emerged.
The text explores the myth of Ninurta and the contemporary retelling of Azag’s story, emphasizing themes of power, complicity, and the consequences of forgetting history, blending prose and verse to convey a timeless lamentation.
Cuneiform tablet: nir-gal lu e-NE, balag to Ninurta Seleucid or Parthian Period, ca. 2nd–1st century BC Mesopotamia, probably from Babylon (modern Hillah) Clay tablet inscribed with a hymn of praise to Ninurta, the storm god and vanquisher of Asag, the demon of disease. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Object No. 86.11.349 (Public Domain Image – Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
On the Inspiration for The House of Azag: A Contemporary Lamentation
Inspiration often comes suddenly and from unexpected sources. While rereading Samuel Noah Kramer’s The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character (1963/1971), I came across a passage recounting the myth of Ninurta, “the god of the stormy south wind,” who in battle destroyed Asag (Azag), “the demon of sickness and disease, whose abode is in the kur, or netherworld” (p. 151).
This passage immediately sparked a question: How would the story of Azag’s heir unfold in the modern age of plague and divisive politics? And how might it be told in the style of a Sumerian lamentation or myth?
The result is a hybrid of prose and verse, a structure reminiscent of ancient lamentations, epic chronicles, and prophetic texts. The prose sections serve as a narrative scaffold, unfolding the events and guiding the reader through the cycle of tyranny, reckoning, and return. The verse distills the emotional and symbolic essence of these events into stark, prophetic utterances, in keeping with the brevity and weight of traditional lamentation poetry.
By blending these forms, The House of Azag mirrors the ancient mode of storytelling in which history, myth, and warning are inseparable. It is both a retelling and a foretelling, a meditation on the cycles of power, complicity, and ruin—and the price a people pay when they forget the past.
An Audio Reading of D.S. Yarab’s The House of Azag: A Contemporary Lamentation
The House of Azag: A Contemporary Lamentation
Part I: The First Reign
The Time of Pestilence
In the days of turmoil, when truth was cast into the dust and the air itself grew thick with sorrow, there arose a ruler from the House of Azag—Azag, the demon slain by Ninurta, yet never truly vanquished. His tongue dripped venom, his hand withered the harvest, and his breath carried pestilence upon the wind. The multitudes, fevered and blind, hailed his coming, for they had forgotten the old warnings. They did not recall the tale, the curse, the name:
From the House of Azag, Azag, the demon slain by Ninurta.
And so, in his first reign, he set forth a sacrifice—one not of fire nor incense, but of breath and blood, of silence and mourning, that the land itself might wail beneath his shadow.
The Reign of Plague
He, of the House of Azag, heir to ruin, Crowned in blight and anointed in ash, Raised his hand, and the heavens grew silent, Breathed his word, and the earth was unmade.
Fevered winds bore his whispered decree, A covenant sealed in the shroud of the dead. And they, the lost, the beguiled, the willing, Bowed before the plague-born throne.
His altars dripped not with oil nor myrrh, But with breathless sighs and broken names. And still they called him savior, still they knelt, Though the air itself was thick with wailing.
The Judgment
Thus was the land cast into shadow, And the wise were scorned, the healers undone. Not by sword nor by fire, but by silence, Did the House of Azag reign.
Part II: The Fall and the Interregnum
The Elder Warrior’s Time
And so it came to pass that after the years of pestilence, when the land was burdened with sorrow and the cries of the forsaken rose to the heavens, an old warrior took up the mantle of the fallen city. He was a man of the elder years, not swift but steadfast, not mighty in arms but resolute in purpose. And he stood against the darkness, bearing the weight of the withered earth upon his back.
He drove out the ruler of the House of Azag—not by blade nor by fire, but by the will of the people, who in their suffering turned against the master of plague. The temples of deception cracked, the halls of power shuddered, and the great beast was cast into exile, retreating to the shadows of the wastelands.
Yet the abominable beast does not slumber.
The Warrior’s Triumph
He, the warrior of elder years, stood firm, His hands worn, his voice a beacon. And the people, weary of death and despair, Turned from the House of Azag.
The tyrant fell, his name a whisper, His throne an empty husk of ruin. And for a time, the land breathed free, And the winds carried no plague.
Part III: The Second Reign
The Return of Wrath
But the abominable beast does not die. Even as the warrior sought to mend the broken walls, the deceiver’s voice slithered through the ruins. He whispered of old glories, of stolen kingdoms, of vengeance against the weak. He promised dominion to the cruel, riches to the corrupt, and absolution to the faithless. And in the dark corners of the land, where grievance festered, where truth was forgotten, and where justice was mocked, they listened.
And the warrior—burdened by years, by the weight of a land divided—fought not with sword or fire, but with weary breath and reasoned word. And they laughed, for reason had no purchase in the ears of the blind.
Thus, through falsity and oath-breaking, through fear and fury, the House of Azag rose once more. And this time, not in sickness, but in wrath.
The Return of the Abominable Beast
He, of the House of Azag, whisperer in shadow, Spoke in silvered lies, and the deaf gave answer. He stirred the dust, and the bitter took arms, He spread his hand, and the oath-breakers swore.
Not by plague, but by vengeance, he came, Not with fever, but with fire. The halls of wisdom he razed, The scribes he silenced, the truth he unmade.
Part IV: The Willing Hands
The People’s Bargain
And when he, of the House of Azag—Azag, the demon slain by Ninurta, called forth his name from the abyss, they who had once trembled at his touch did not recoil. They did not remember the pestilence, nor the wailing of their own dead. Instead, they gathered at the gates, voices raised in fervor, hands outstretched not in defiance, but in welcome.
For he did not come as he had before, cloaked in sickness and ruin. This time, he came bearing gifts—promises of glories unearned, of burdens lifted from their shoulders, of enemies cast into the void. He did not call them to serve, but to rule. He did not ask them to sacrifice, but to consume.
And so they bent the knee, not in chains, but in hunger. Not from fear, but from desire.
And the warrior, standing upon the walls, cried out: “Have you forgotten?”
But they turned their faces from him.
The Willing Betrayal
He, of the House of Azag, called to the lost, And they answered, not with dread, but with praise. For he did not come with pestilence, But with crowns of dust and golden lies.
He whispered: “The land is yours.” And they rejoiced. He promised: “The labor is no longer yours.” And they knelt. He declared: “The past is a burden. Remember it not.” And they cast their own memories into the fire.
Epilogue: The Consequence
The Reckoning to Come
Thus, the gates were flung open, not by the tyrant’s might, but by the hands of the desperate and the blind. They, who had suffered under his reign, now lifted him upon their shoulders, crying, “He is the chosen! He will restore what was stolen!”
But there was nothing to restore. What they had lost, they had cast away.
And when the reckoning came, they wailed once more, Crying out, “How could we have known?”
But their hands were not clean.
For they had built the throne, brick by brick. They had paved the way, stone by stone.
And when the monstrous beast took his seat, He did not need to command them. They carried out his will before he spoke it.
Paul Klee, Rose Garden (1920, 44, oil and pen on paper on cardboard, 49 cm x 42.5 cm), Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus and Kunstbau Munich, on permanent loan from the Gabriele Münter and Johannes Eichner Foundation, Munich, CC BY-NC-SA.
Periodically, I revisit the essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson. His writing style is sometimes jarring but just as often sublime (Henry James, in Partial Portraits (1888), observed that Emerson “never really mastered the art of composition” (p. 20) while also acknowledging that “he had frequently an exquisite eloquence” (p. 32)). The visit is always profitable.
While rereading Emerson’s perhaps most famous essay, Self-Reliance (1847), I found that after much of my recent reading focusing so heavily on things temporal, especially in the past month (e.g., Carlo Rovelli’s masterful works The Order of Time, Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, and Reality is Not What it Seems and Tom Siegfried’s lyrical The Number of the Heavens: A History of the Multiverse and the Quest to Understand the Cosmos), the following passage resonated in a manner it had not on previous readings of the essay:
“Man is timid and apologetic; he is no longer upright; he dares not say ‘I think,’ ‘I am,’ but quotes some saint or sage. He is ashamed before the blade of grass or the blowing rose. These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are; they exist with God to-day. There is no time to them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence. Before a leaf-bud has burst, its whole life acts; in the full-blown flower there is no more; in the leafless root there is no less. Its nature is satisfied, and it satisfies nature, in all moments alike. But man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time.”
Such an extraordinary observation and lesson—that there is no lamentation of the past, or anticipation of the future, only presence for the rose.
Lamentation, or regret more precisely, I have long regarded as the most useless of human endeavors, if it is more than rectification of error, amends to others, and lessons learned. Anticipation, or anxiety about the future, is also too often misplaced and misdirected energy. Yes, we can and should make plans, but when the energy and effort extend beyond the necessary such that the future becomes a thief of reason, serenity, and equanimity, we are perilously close to toppling over.
The image of the rose in the above essay also brought to mind, fortuitously or not, a wonderful piece of art, Rosengarten (1920) by Paul Klee, ensconced in Lenbachhaus, an art museum in Munich.
After reading Helmut Friedel and Annegret Hoberg’s words about Klee from Der Blaue Reiter im Lenbachhaus München (2007) at the Lenbachhaus website, I readily envision Rosengarten as exemplifying the same harmonious integration of presence and timelessness that Emerson attributes to the rose. Created in 1920, the painting merges organic and constructed forms into a rhythmic whole. Klee’s garden unfolds as a grid of irregular, red-tinged rectangles, delicately framed by black lines, with roses—symbols of growth and vitality—scattered like musical notes across the composition. These roses, like Emerson’s, embody the eternal present; their rounded, spiral blooms suggest continuous life and creation. For Klee, as for Emerson, nature’s rhythms transcend human constructs of time.
Interestingly, Klee drew inspiration from music, speaking of “cultural rhythms” in his Bauhaus writings and comparing his visual compositions to musical structures. In Rosengarten, he achieves a polyphony of visual forms, where the temporal becomes spatial, and each element contributes equally to the whole. Just as Emerson’s rose is “perfect in every moment of its existence,” Klee’s garden suggests an infinite unfolding—a melody extending endlessly beyond the canvas.
Both Emerson and Klee challenge us to inhabit the present, to find harmony in life’s rhythms, and to appreciate the completeness inherent in each moment. The rose, whether in prose or paint, invites us to rise above time.
In this piece, the author reflects on the interconnected nature of language and life, using the evolution of the Proto-Indo-European root “skei-” as a lens. This root gave rise to words like “science” and “shit,” which represent opposing concepts but share a common origin. The author explores how this linguistic duality mirrors broader philosophical and religious themes of light and shadow, good and evil. By drawing parallels to Jungian psychology, Christian theology, and the works of Dante and Rumi, the author highlights the interplay between knowledge and waste, creation and rejection, light and shadow as essential to the human condition.
Vitruvian Man (Pen, brown ink, and watercolor over metalpoint on paper, c. 1490) by Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519). Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice.
Language, much like life itself, often reveals the interplay of opposites—light and shadow, creation and destruction, knowledge and ignorance. The study of etymology, the history of words, can uncover surprising connections between concepts that seem worlds apart, offering us profound insights into the human condition. One such connection is found in the shared origin of the words science and shit. Though these words have come to represent vastly different ideas, they both trace their lineage back to the same ancient root: the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) root skei-, meaning “to cut” or “to split.” This essay explores how these seemingly disparate words, rooted in the same ancient origin, serve as powerful metaphors for the light and shadow inherent in the human condition and the perennial quest for understanding.
Proto-Indo-European Roots: The Seeds of Language
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is not a language we have direct evidence of—it is a reconstructed ancestor, a theoretical framework derived from comparing the languages that descended from it, such as Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, and Old English. PIE roots, like skei-, are the conceptual building blocks from which countless words in these descendant languages evolved. These roots are not words in the modern sense but rather represent basic, primal ideas—actions like cutting or splitting, states of being, or essential objects.
In PIE, the root skei- originally meant “to cut” or “to split.” From this simple, physical concept, a remarkable range of words has emerged across different languages, each bearing the imprint of its original meaning while branching out into diverse semantic fields. This evolution offers us a window into how the same fundamental idea can develop in different directions, leading to words that are as disparate in meaning as science and shit.
The Evolution of Skei- in the Romance Languages
In Latin, skei- evolved into scire, meaning “to know,” which later gave rise to the word scientia and eventually science in English. This path reflects the metaphorical extension of “cutting” as a process of discernment, a way of separating truth from falsehood, knowledge from ignorance.
Beyond scientia, the influence of skei- in the Romance languages is extensive. Consider the Latin word secare, meaning “to cut,” which directly inherits the original sense of the PIE root. From secare stem a multitude of words in the Romance languages associated with cutting, division, and distinction. For example, the English word section derives from the Latin sectio, meaning “a cutting” or “division.” Similarly, segment, from Latin segmentum, refers to something that has been cut off or separated from the whole.
In French, the verb scier (to saw) also traces its lineage back to skei-, emphasizing the physical act of cutting. Meanwhile, the word ciseau (chisel), though phonetically and morphologically transformed, ultimately connects to the same root, representing a tool used to cut or shape materials. Italian retains the word secare (to cut), giving us sezione (section) and segmento (segment), maintaining the connection to division and separation.
Even more abstractly, the root skei- gave rise to words that convey the notion of separating or distinguishing in non-physical ways. The Latin discernere (to discern), combining dis- (apart) and cernere (to sift, to separate), encapsulates the mental process of distinguishing between different ideas or concepts. This term evolved into the French discerner and the Italian discernere, both of which continue to convey the act of intellectual separation and judgment.
The linguistic journey of skei- culminates in the English word science, derived from the Latin scientia. Here, science encapsulates the essence of skei-, as the pursuit of knowledge is fundamentally about separating truth from falsehood, understanding from ignorance. Science, in its most basic form, is the practice of discernment—of cutting through the noise to reveal the underlying principles that govern our world.
The Germanic Branch: From Skei- to Shit
In the Germanic languages, the PIE root skei- also left its mark, though in a different form. The sense of “cutting” or “separating” was preserved, but the focus shifted towards more physical, often bodily, processes. In Old High German, the word scīzan meant “to defecate,” directly preserving the sense of separation as it applies to bodily waste. This verb gave rise to similar terms in other Germanic languages: scheiden in Middle Dutch and skita in Old Norse, all of which convey the idea of separating waste from the body.
The Old English word scitan developed from this same root, referring to the act of defecation. Over time, scitan evolved into shit in Middle English, a term that has persisted into modern English with its meaning largely unchanged. Unlike its Latin counterpart, which evolved into abstract notions of knowledge and discernment, the Germanic branch retained a more literal, physical interpretation of skei-, focusing on the act of excretion.
This divergence is emblematic of the broader thematic dichotomy explored in this essay. The PIE root skei- gave rise to science—the disciplined pursuit of knowledge, marked by precision and intellectual rigor. Yet it also gave us shit—a word rooted in the most basic, physical processes, often associated with what is discarded or deemed unworthy.
A Metaphor for Life’s Duality
The linguistic journey of the PIE root skei- culminates in a profound metaphor for life’s duality: science, the pursuit of knowledge and enlightenment, represents the light, while shit, the rejected and discarded, embodies the shadow. This dichotomy between light and shadow is a theme that resonates deeply across various philosophical and religious traditions, each grappling with the tension between what is revered and what is reviled, what is illuminated and what remains in darkness.
Sassanid-era relief at Nassqsh-e Rostam depicting Ahura Mazda presenting the diadem of sovereignty to Ardashir I (180-242AD). Photograph by Wojciech Kocot / CC BY-SA 4.0.
In many philosophies and religions, light is associated with truth, purity, and the divine. In ancient Zoroastrianism, one of the oldest dualistic religions, the eternal battle between Ahura Mazda (the god of light) and Angra Mainyu (the spirit of darkness) symbolizes the cosmic struggle between good and evil. Here, light is knowledge, order, and goodness—concepts closely aligned with what we might associate with science, the disciplined pursuit of understanding that seeks to illuminate the mysteries of the universe. In contrast, Angra Mainyu is associated with the physical world’s corrupt and defiled aspects, bringing death, decay, and moral corruption—elements metaphorically aligned with shit, representing what is base, impure, and rejected.
However, it is important to note that while mainstream Zoroastrianism presents Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu as distinct and opposing forces without a common origin, a divergent tradition within Zoroastrianism, known as Zurvanism, offers a different perspective. Zurvanism posits Zurvan (Time) as the primordial deity, the ultimate source from which both Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu emerged. Just as the words science and shit diverge from the same linguistic root to embody opposing concepts, Zurvanism’s narrative suggests that the duality of light and darkness, good and evil, originates from a single, primordial source. This perspective mirrors the linguistic evolution we see with skei-, where a single root gives rise to words with vastly different meanings.
Just as the duality of light and darkness is central to Zoroastrian thought, Christianity presents its own understanding of these forces, offering a distinct yet parallel exploration of the tension between good and evil. Although Zurvanism was influential for a time, it was eventually deemed heretical by mainstream Zoroastrianism, which maintained a strict dualism without a common origin for good and evil. This divergence in religious thought parallels the Christian perspective on light and shadow, good and evil.
In Christianity, light is often used as a metaphor for God’s presence, truth, and divine guidance. The creation story in Genesis begins with God’s command: “Let there be light” (Genesis 1:3), bringing light into the void and establishing the foundation of the universe. However, it is essential to recognize that God is also the creator of darkness and shadow. Isaiah 45:7 affirms this: “I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all these things.” This verse underscores that both light and shadow, good and evil, are within God’s dominion.
An illustration from “Milton’s Paradise Lost illustrated by Gustave Dore.”
God is also the creator of Satan, originally an angel named Lucifer, who rebelled against God’s authority. According to Christian tradition, as depicted in Paradise Lost by John Milton, Satan’s rebellion leads to his expulsion from Heaven and his fall into Hell. Milton vividly describes Satan’s fall, portraying him as a once-glorious being who becomes the ruler of a realm of darkness and despair, a place of punishment that is also part of God’s creation. In Paradise Lost, Hell is depicted as a kingdom of “darkness visible,” where Satan and his fallen angels are condemned to eternal torment.
This depiction of Hell is further elaborated in Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, particularly in the Inferno. Dante places Satan at the very center of Hell, a realm of perpetual darkness and despair. Here, the damned suffer in various circles filled with filth and excrement, symbolizing the moral corruption that led them to their fate. Especially vivid is his articulation of the fate of flatterers, recounted in Canto XVIII:
“Here we heard people whine in the next chasm, and knock and thump themselves with open palms, and blubber through their snouts as if in a spasm.
Steaming from that pit, a vapour rose over the banks, crusting them with a slime that sickened my eyes and hammered at my nose.
That chasm sinks so deep we could not sight its bottom anywhere until we climbed along the rock arch to its greatest height.
Once there, I peered down; and I saw long lines of people in a river of excrement that seemed the overflow of the world’s latrines.
I saw among the felons of that pit one wraith who might or might not have been tonsured— one could not tell, he was so smeared with shit.”
Illustration for Inferno Canto XVIII by Gustave Doré (1832–1883), from The Divine Comedy: The Vision of Hell by Dante Alighieri, translated by H. F. Cary, M.A., 1892. Cassell and Company.
The image of Satan presiding over a kingdom of darkness and filth powerfully illustrates the connection between evil, rejection, and waste—concepts intimately tied to the notion of shit. In Dante’s vision, Hell’s filth is not merely a punishment but a reflection of the inner corruption of the soul, manifesting physically in the environment of the damned.
Darkness and shadow, therefore, are not merely the absence of light but are active forces within the world, created by God to fulfill His divine plan. Just as light reveals and guides, shadow obscures and challenges, reminding humanity of the consequences of straying from the path of righteousness.
The shadow—represented here by shit—carries connotations of what is hidden, ignored, or rejected. In Jungian psychology, the “shadow” represents the unconscious mind, the darker, hidden parts of ourselves that we “cut off,” deny or repress. Jung’s concept of the shadow is not just an abstract idea; it is a fundamental aspect of the psyche that influences behavior, decisions, and self-perception. The shadow is composed of all the aspects of our personality that we do not wish to acknowledge, the traits and impulses that are contrary to our conscious self-image. These elements are not necessarily evil, but they are often perceived as such because they conflict with the ideals and norms of society or our personal moral compass.
Jungian psychology teaches that the shadow must be confronted and integrated into our conscious awareness to achieve psychological wholeness. This process, known as individuation, involves bringing the shadow to light, recognizing it as part of ourselves, and reconciling it with our conscious identity. The failure to do so can result in projection, where we see our own shadow traits in others, or in the shadow manifesting in destructive behaviors.
In a similar vein, Samuel Beckett’s wayfarers in Waiting for Godot find themselves mired in a cyclical existence, often lying in ditches—literal and metaphorical—beset by a sense of futility and degradation. These ditches, filled with the mire of their own making, symbolize the excremental realities that we, too, must navigate. Here, the clash between our lofty aspirations and the baseness of our condition becomes starkly apparent. It is in such moments, where the struggle between light and shadow is most palpable, that the human quest for understanding reaches its existential depths.
A critical part of Carl Gustav Jung’s own journey involved confronting what might be considered the ultimate shadow: the filth and shit inherent in life itself. In a pivotal dream, which Jung described in his autobiography, he saw God defecating on a cathedral. This shocking image challenged his previously held religious beliefs and led him to a deeper understanding that both the sacred and the profane, light and shadow, are intrinsic to the truth of human experience. For Jung, recognizing and integrating these elements was essential to achieving psychological and spiritual wholeness.
The Christian concept of sin and the Jungian shadow share significant parallels. Just as sin is what separates humanity from God, the shadow is what separates the conscious self from the full realization of the psyche’s potential. In both cases, the shadow or sin must be acknowledged and transcended to achieve a higher state of being. The metaphor of shit, then, becomes a powerful symbol for the shadow—something that must be expelled or transformed if one is to attain spiritual or psychological clarity.
Just as the light of science allows us to discern truth, the exploration of the shadow—be it in Dante’s dark realms, Jung’s psychological depths, or the moral struggles depicted in Christian theology—reveals the complexity of the human condition. It challenges us to confront what we might prefer to ignore, to recognize that the pursuit of purpose or truth is not only about enlightenment but also about grappling with the darkness within.
In addition to the psychological insights provided by Jung, the teachings of the 13th-century Persian poet and mystic Jalāl Al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī offer a profound perspective on integrating the shadow. Rūmī, known for his deeply spiritual and allegorical tales, explores themes of love, transformation, and the human journey toward divine understanding.
In one tale from his Masnavi, the Prophet Mohammed encounters a man known as the Huge Eater, who, after a night of excessive eating, defecates in his bed. Rather than chastising him, Mohammed quietly cleans the soiled bedclothes. This act of humility and compassion profoundly moves the man, leading to his spiritual awakening.
Rūmī’s tale symbolizes the cleansing of the shadow—what Jung might metaphorically describe as the basest parts of our psyche—transforming what is impure within us into something pure. As Rūmī writes, “When the body empties and stays empty, God fills it with musk and mother of pearl. That way a man gives his dung and gets purity.” This stanza underscores the transformative process, where acknowledging and cleansing these shadow elements leads to spiritual growth. It also subtly alludes to the idea of “cutting off” or removing what is impure to make room for the divine.
Just as Muḥammad’s act of dealing with literal shit in Rūmī’s tale leads to the man’s transformation, so too does the integration of our shadow lead to deeper knowledge and understanding. This mirrors the duality discussed throughout the essay: the interplay between science and shit, light and shadow, and the continuous process of transformation that defines the human experience.
But this exploration of light and shadow, science and shit, extends beyond the mere experience of these dualities. It speaks to the human quest—the relentless search for truth that drives our existence. This quest is fraught with tension, as illustrated in the imagined dialogue I recently wrote between da Vinci and Beckett. Da Vinci, the archetypal figure of the Renaissance, represents the light of reason, the pursuit of knowledge through science and art. Beckett, on the other hand, embodies the existential struggle, the shadow of doubt, despair, and the acknowledgment of the absurdities that define human existence.
Their dialogue captures the essence of this tension: the push and pull between the desire to illuminate the world with knowledge and the recognition of the inherent limitations and darker aspects of that pursuit. It is within this tension that the human search for truth takes place, a journey that is neither straightforward nor devoid of shadow.
In their imagined conversation, continued anew here, Leonardo da Vinci, the Renaissance polymath, questions Beckett about the purpose of his work, Waiting for Godot. Da Vinci, who devoted his life to the pursuit of knowledge and the perfection of art, sees in Beckett’s work an unsettling reflection of the human condition—a world stripped of certainty, where meaning is elusive and the quest for truth is often met with silence.
Da Vinci: “Your characters wait endlessly, in vain, for something—or someone—that never arrives. Is this the conclusion of your inquiry? That we are condemned to wait, to search without hope?”
Beckett: “Leonardo, your works capture the beauty and order of the world, but what of the chaos, the emptiness? My work reflects the shadow, the nothingness that underlies our existence. The quest for meaning is not always met with light; often, it is swallowed by the void. Yet, in the waiting, in the recognition of the absurdity, there is a truth—perhaps not the truth we desire, but a truth nonetheless.”
Da Vinci: “Yet, to acknowledge the void is not to surrender to it. Even in the shadow, there is form, there is structure. My studies of anatomy, of light and shadow, reveal the underlying patterns of life. Can we not find meaning even in the darkness?”
Beckett: “Perhaps. But meaning in darkness is not the same as light. It is ambiguous, fleeting, and it demands a confrontation with the parts of ourselves we’d rather not see—the shadow, as Jung might call it. We cannot have one without the other, can we?”
Da Vinci: “No, we cannot. My work has always sought to unify—to bring together the light and the dark, the known and the unknown. Your work, in its starkness, Samuel, reminds us that this unity is not easily achieved, that the search for truth is fraught with difficulties, and that sometimes, the answers we seek lie in the very questions we ask.”
Beckett: “And so we continue, each in our own way. You with your light, me with my shadow. Both necessary, both incomplete without the other.”
This dialogue between da Vinci and Beckett reflects the core of the human experience—the pursuit of knowledge and meaning, which inevitably involves grappling with both light and shadow, science and shit. It is through this dialectic, this ongoing tension between opposites, that we inch closer to understanding the complex reality of our existence.
Yin and Yang motif featured at the center of the reverse side of the silver fifty-cent piece from Kirin Province, Empire of China, issued during the reign of the Guangxu Emperor (1875-1908). Coin image courtesy of Stephen Album Rare Coins.
The Taoist concept of Yin and Yang further encapsulates this duality, with Yin representing the shadowy, passive, and receptive aspects of the universe, and Yang symbolizing the bright, active, and creative forces. Unlike the Western dichotomies of good and evil, light and darkness, Taoism teaches that these forces are not in opposition but are interdependent and interconnected. Yin and Yang exist in a dynamic balance, each necessary to the other—just as science and shit both derive from the same linguistic root, and just as light and shadow originate from the same source. This balance reflects a more holistic understanding of duality, one where opposites are seen not as conflicting entities but as complementary forces that together create a unified whole.
Thus, from a single ancient root, we derive two words that reflect this timeless duality: science, the light guiding us toward knowledge and understanding, and shit, the shadow symbolizing what is cast aside, hidden, or ignored. This divergence serves as a powerful metaphor for the duality inherent in human experience and our ongoing quest for truth. Just as light and shadow originate from the same source, so too do our highest ideals and our basest realities emerge from the same fundamental force.
Recall that Dante’s journey in The Divine Comedy culminates in the Paradiso, where the pilgrim is ultimately united with the divine light, a symbol of ultimate truth and understanding. This final vision represents the fulfillment of the human quest for knowledge and the transcendence of earthly shadows. While Dante’s Paradiso offers an idealized conclusion—one that many might consider beyond the reach of human experience—it underscores the universal journey through light and shadow, science and shit, a path marked by both striving and imperfection.
Indeed, in exploring the relationship between science and shit, we confront the uncomfortable truth that both are essential parts of the human condition—two sides of the same coin, each reflecting different aspects of our quest to understand and navigate the world. The light of science allows us to discern, to separate truth from falsehood, illuminating the path ahead. But the shadow of shit reminds us of the inevitable waste, the parts of our existence that we might prefer to forget but which are nonetheless integral to the whole.
Tracing the evolution of skei- from PIE to modern English deepens our understanding of the intertwined nature of knowledge and waste, creation and rejection, light and shadow. This exploration reveals that these seemingly opposite concepts are, in truth, two sides of the same coin—each essential to the human condition, each a reflection of the complex interplay of light and shadow that defines our existence, and each a testament to the perpetual human quest for truth.
Bibliography
Beckett, S. (2011). Waiting for Godot. Grove Press.
Beekes, R. S. P. (2011). Comparative Indo-European Linguistics: An Introduction (2nd ed.). John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Boyce, M. (2001). Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (2nd ed.). Routledge.
Dante Alighieri. (2003). The Divine Comedy. Trans. John Ciardi. New American Library.
De Vaan, M. (2008). Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the Other Italic Languages. Brill.
Fortson, B. W. (2010). Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction (2nd ed.). Wiley-Blackwell.
Graver, L. (2004). Beckett: Waiting for Godot (2nd ed.). Landmarks of World Literature. Cambridge University Press.
Ploughing scene in Suffolk (oil on canvas, 1824-1825) by John Constable (1776-1837). Yale Center for British Art, New Haven.
In a quiet village, there lived a diligent farmer who worked tirelessly on his land. He took great pride in the crops he grew, ensuring that each seed was planted with care and nurtured with patience. His fields were always bountiful, feeding not only his family but also the entire village.
One day, as he was plowing a new field, the farmer unearthed a strange, dark seed. It was unlike any seed he had ever seen, and though he was curious, he was also wary. The farmer considered casting the seed aside, fearing it might bring misfortune, but a voice within urged him to plant it.
After much deliberation, the farmer decided to plant the seed in a secluded corner of his field, where it could grow without disturbing his other crops. He tended to it with the same care as his other plants, watching as it sprouted and grew into a tall, sturdy tree, its leaves a deep, rich green.
As the seasons passed, the tree bore fruit—small, round, and gleaming like gold. The farmer, unsure of the fruit’s nature, hesitated to taste it. But one day, during a terrible drought that withered his other crops, he had no choice. He bit into the fruit, and to his surprise, it was not only delicious but also quenched his thirst and filled him with strength.
The farmer shared the fruit with the villagers, and soon they all marveled at its miraculous properties. The tree continued to bear fruit, regardless of the weather, and the village never again knew hunger or thirst. The farmer realized that by trusting in the unknown and nurturing it with care, he had uncovered a hidden blessing.
Moral of the Fable
Sometimes the greatest rewards come from taking risks and nurturing what is unknown or unexpected. The fable emphasizes the value of curiosity, patience, and the willingness to embrace uncertainty.
Northcoast Antiquarian 