Italo Calvino (again) has suggested that we may distinguish between two types of imaginative process: "...one that starts with the word and arrives at the visual image, and the one that starts with the visual image and arrives at its verbal expression." And if we think about it this can be extended to five through the senses and then beyond using the combinations of them. But I was thinking the other day about the sixth sense, not one of the five which we use to hear, see, smell, touch or taste but the one that makes us feel, for what sense records joy or pain or anger or love and then there are the associates, desire, passion, none of them a visual or a verbal expression. Writing "oh" so it can be seen as a visual image on this page, or uttering "oh" so it can be heard as a response to a visual seems to deny the expression its wider legitimacy when it is even a silent reaction to the sixth sense concentration of the soul miner; where the immediate reaction is one without language, of a Dialektic im Stillstand - dialectics at a standstill - for there is no way to express what it is; no language, however precise in choice of words and expression of the subtleties of thought and imagination (to paraphrase Calvino again) can match a moment of realisation that "oh" doesn't even get close to, for even the combined hearing, seeing, touching, smelling and tasting don't come close to being able to give it sixth sense definition - such vague clarity; such transparent mystery, such an "oh" ... and this clip is an "oh" for the ears and eyes and a wonderful heartbeat, can you smell it, taste it, feel it echo inside as something indescribable. Close your eyes and say "oh", I defy you not to sway while you listen:And here is Robert Juniper again, in playful mood this time, will the little fish say "oh" when she gets caught or will she be forever ellusive - and indeed will we ever know... oh!
