A baby lying in his crib

Imagine an infant lying in its cradle and the window is open, and into the room comes something, marvelous, mysterious, glittering, shedding light of many colors, movement, sound, a transformative hierophany of integrated perception. The c***d is enthralled, and then the mother comes into the room and says to the c***d, "That's a bird, baby, that's a bird." Instantly the complex wave of the angel, peacock, iridescent, transformative mystery is collapsed into the word. All mystery is gone, the c***d learns this is a bird, this is a bird, and by the time we're five or six years old all the mystery of reality has been carefully tiled over with words. is the sky," and we seal ourselves in within a linguistic shell of disempowered perception ...