“No man can ever attain to anywhere near a true conception of the subconscious in man who does not know the primates under natural conditions”. Eugene Marais.
There was a recurring dream that occurred sometime during my first decade. I was a tiny toddler, still awestruck, and full of belief.
Once I had slipped into dreamtime, the visitors arrived, leaving behind a vivid memory of their animated faces. Cross-legged I sat with straight back, arms stretched, my hands resting on blue-gray bruised knees that had become like that after falling out of the Jacaranda Tree in front of the kitchen door. My tomboy energy followed me everywhere it seemed.
Surrounded by short racing-green grass, I faced a dense forest with a thirty-meter-plus high canopy. Winding through the trees slithered a low stonewall.
They ambled towards me, hundreds of Chacma baboons, walking in pairs or groups, in a line that stretched towards infinity. When close, they would climb on to the wall and sit, facing, but not looking directly at me while I watched. With no obvious acknowledgement of my presence, it was as if I could have been invisible - or simply an accepted permanent part of the landscape. They’d sometimes forage in the grass. Or else they’d groom each other. Adults looked ahead, you could easily assume they were meditating. And the youngsters played, taking every possible chance to tease and provoke.
Their faces expressed a wide range of emotion, their amber eyes reflected my own. The presence of the atmosphere seemed all consuming - compelling and magnetic yet slightly ominous in it’s power.
Once I leave the scene to awaken, darkness and silence invade the room’s spaces. This is not strange if you think about it, it is simply a transition back into the 'real" world.
“ Mummeeee….Maaaaaaaa……”.
I stare at the doorway, willing my mother’s soft sleep-creased face to appear. But there is no response. Earlier she’d tucked me in, leaving on the light, but now it is impossible to see in the dark.
Hugging my holy bed vest to my chest, I get up and stumble towards the light switch, pressing it on to find the familiar surroundings of humanity.
Climbing back under the bedcovers I lay awake wondering about the baboons; how they seem to see through my mind, beyond my skin, unmasked faces etched with age-old wisdom. There is something about their eyes, something that cannot be described with mere human words that moved the waves in the depth of my abdomen. Primates who sometimes act human, yet clearly are not - simultaneously strangers and siblings.
A few years later, the dreams had resided deep in my right brain waiting for the need to reappear and bring back their message.