There are many ancient traditions that view man as a being with three parts: body, mind, and heart. It seems possible that the visitors view themselves as an entire species with three parts, judging from the three distinct basic forms that have been seen. (There are variants of these forms, and also more humanlike beings, but given the degree of perceptual error that must be present here, and the fact that the three basic shapes may have many permutations, there is no way to argue with any certainty that more or less than three forms actually exist.) It is not unreasonable to consider that a species with three basic forms would choose the triangle as its most basic symbol of self, as it would express both the nature of the species and a fundamental law of structure.
To begin an exploration of this law, I would like to return to Dr. X and his seemingly enigmatic experience. This man, who was at the time of his observation a prominent physician, experienced something very peculiar. But what happened to him is not without coherence. He was awakened in the night and looked out a window of his house, which had a magnificent view of the Loire Valley and the town of Arles in France. Hanging over the valley were two glowing disk-shaped objects. Electrical discharges were taking place between them. They moved closer to Dr. X, and he observed them to merge together into a single object. Later, he discovered a triangular rash around his navel and around the navel of his son. The rashes persisted for years and, despite extensive study, remained unexplained.
This case was reported and researched by Mr. Aime Michel, a Frenchman at the time eminent in the field of UFO research. The combination of the excellent witness, the strange physical trace, and the seemingly enigmatic nature of the observation caused Mr. Michel to decide that the UFO mystery as a whole was unsolvable.
The fundamental idea of the triad as a creative energy is that two opposite forces coming into balance create a third force. The rather theatrical event that Dr. X perceived was, intentionally or not, an illustration of this principle. Could it have been a communication, even a request for some sort of response?
The imprinting of triangles on myself and Dr. X may also have a similar significance.
The idea of the triad is not static. It is an expression of a series of emanations. The third force emerges when the first and second forces come into balance, and when all three are in harmony they become a fourth thing, an indivisible whole.
I do not wish to imply by this anything beyond a human context. It is possible for man to become more whole, for each of us to make our private journey back to the place of emergence, and find there the simplest and most real of truths: that we are all at heart the same, that every body contains every soul and has room for every act without reference to its quality. There is a deep, objective awareness of self and universe that is available to all of us.
We could be part of a triad that includes the visitors. They might be the aggressive force, entering us, enforcing our passivity, seeking to draw from the relationship some new creation.
But the triad can never come into harmony until there is a firm ground of understanding. We need not be blindly welcoming. What is required is objectivity. We must have a care, for if they are real it can be as persuasively argued that they are aggressive as it can be that they are benevolent. They take us in the night They introduce their instruments and thus their reality into our brains. It is, however, too easy to call them evil, just as it is too easy to say that they are saints, kindly guides from the beyond. They are a very real and immensely complex force, the provocative nature of which demands neither hate nor love, but rather respect in a context of intellectual objectivity and emotional strength.
In ancient Taoist thought the fundamental force in the universe was duality, the yin and the yang, positive and negative, thrusting and opening, seeking and waiting, male and female.
This was also thought by the Aztec and many other cultures to be fundamental to everything.
And the duality, when it was in harmony, formed the triad. Throughout this chapter I will draw primarily on the Aztec imagery, as a reminder of the fragility and seriousness of our situation if we are indeed dancing a real dance with real visitors.
The triad cannot become strong unless it is preceded by a strong duality. Without the friction of bodies there can be no child, and the universe cannot proceed. There must first be two forces, equal opposites, one that pushes and one that resists. Do the visitors perceive themselves as the aggressive force, seeking to open us to their presence. If so, everything depends on our slowly growing understanding, for unless we understand we cannot be their equal. Unless the two forces are equal, the triad will not have a chance to balance itself and the relationship will not be creative.
When the opposition between two is in balance, the third force emerges. Perhaps the French call the moment of sexual climax "the little death" because it suggests the passing of the parents and the turning of the generations. Or maybe because it is like the death of self that is involved in entering pure being, climax being a moment when the self is absorbed m ecstasy.
On the night of December 26 I felt psychologically destroyed, as if my very self had died.
It could be that the basis of the fear we feel for the visitors, and — it seems to me — they for us, comes from a biological, instinctive awareness that our coming together nay mean the creation of a third and greater form which will supplant us as the child dues his parents.
The third force is not a small thing: It is the immense progress of life, the very movement of the universe toward whatever goal it seeks. First and second forces are people struggling in a bed. Third force is at once their frantic union and the whole urgency and implication of creation. It is their mutual attraction, the friction of their bodies--and their child.
When the internal triad of mind, body, and heart becomes fixed in a state of permanent harmony, it is because the seeker has finally died to himself and all the allures of life. Out of this death the fourth state emerges. This is the ecstatic objectivity that the Western seeker cherishes, the nirvana of the Hindu, the blooming lotus of Zen.
The human being in a state of spiritual harmony is looked upon as a sort of cosmic egg out of which hatches the bird of resurrection, which is the phoenix, also characterized as an eagle, the symbol of the yin.
In the old imagery of the tarot, and in the gospel story of the Mama Feast at Cana, the feminine is viewed as a cup, the masculine as what is poured into it. The Aztec poets sang of the creative impact of the God and Goddess of Duality, and called the third force the song of the flower.
Distantly as I sit here on the porch at the cabin, I hear the roaring of one of our brooks, swollen by spring melt. The leaves shimmer on the trees, a swarm of Mayflies hovers in the sun. Suddenly two phoebes battle, a scream, a fluff of feathers, and then silence, both birds gone. At some moment, for a reason that seems to me to be as large and enigmatic as the universe itself, the female ceased to resist the male. The duality joined, the triad emerged, new life is now vibrant in her belly.
And both birds are a little older.
Each independent act of creation vibrates the whole web of the world, when the phoebe mates, when a woman takes the pleasure of a man.
It is hard for me to think that the relationship between two intelligent species would not be dense with creative potential.
When we were first married, Anne and I found a motto for ourselves in the Bible, from Ecclesiastes, "Two are better than one . . . and a cord of three strands is not quickly snapped."
Anne cross-stitched it and it has been with us ever since. The third strand is the love, then the child, then the long unraveling of the years. At last it is what is left of a lifetime spent together, the fading remembrance, the generations to come, and also the joy that ripens in souls.