231 A S E C R E T L I F E O F T H E H A N D S i g r i d H a c k e n b e r g y A l m a n s a * In Sanskrit the gesture of the hand—hasta mudrā1—calls forth the mystical and the rhapsodic, the divine and the earthly, demarcating in the surreptitious the “vanishing point”2 of “a secret knowledge”3 that, in the prospect of its disclosure, beckons die abendländische Philosophie4 (occidental philosophy) towards a μετά φυσικά5 of the in-accessible and irreducible. The rising and setting of a gesture, invoking the twilight of an apparition, as Hegel refers to it in his philosophy of history6 and philosophy of right,7 here traverses sol oriens8 and sol occidens,9 its ges- ture ascending and descending in a journey that is neither beginning nor ending. That which is secreted or withheld, or, in Merleau-Ponty’s words, “what is from forever and nowhere,”10 hints at a wellspring, and a future hastening toward the horizon of a “vanishing point”11 alongside what appear to be “strange distance[s]”12 where gestures not only “visible” and “from elsewhere”13 ruminate upon the most luxurious as well as the barest of things.14 In “a language of coincidences”15 and “coherent illu- sions,”16 that is, in the very language that promises a future to philoso- phy, we find ourselves floating beneath, beside, and above that which is language itself—gesticulating, as in a trance, amongst the very irre- ducible and most secret of things—wherein “with twilight closing in”17 philosophy finds herself embraced in the darkness of three rising suns. That which is unbound by Ocean and Sea, and due West of the land of Hiroshige,18 beckons sunrise Nihon にほん19 over many islands20 where clouds hasten along silken paths beside plum gardens, sudden s howers, and clear weather after snow.21 Just as centuries past, palatial gestures beckoned Forbidden Cities due North, passaging 中国/中华 China,22 in the manner of the surreptitious—glorious, meridian, and harmonious—evoking tranquility, profundity 文渊阁23 and celestial purity. Gestures hasten along shimmering edges and partitions, secret corridors and gateways of jade and coiled dragons24 conjuring entry- 232 P O L I G R A F I ways to silence, where imperial gesticulations and acts of resistance pass from hand to hand. Resonances, reverberations, and secret languages whispering Middle East, Prime Meridian, and Great Circle,25 gesturing toward Africa, cradle of civilization, amongst flowering cherry blossoms, lotus, hyacinth Ὑάκινθος, Hyakinthos,26 and Jasmine Revolutions. In the gliding gesture of jaguars traversing continents, centuries, and millen- nia, along the Great Mongolian Steppe, decorated by feather grass, we discover a language on the point of no return, where Alea iacta est “the die has been cast”27 in every hand. While hasta, meaning “hand” and mudrā, referring to a “seal,” “mark,” or “gesture,”28 in its mystical proclivity invokes Hindu and Buddhist spiritual practices, it may also be considered in saecularis29 as an abstract philosophical construct whose pretention revolves around the unoccu- pied and the unfurnished, a purely imaginary concept, readily empty- ing itself, positing nothingness, that is to say a nothingness which, in turn, signifies everything, but that is not to be confused with the “whole” and/or any particular notion of a “totality.” The secular and the sacred, nothingness and everything, the nothing and the every thing of nothing, East and West, South and North, latitude and longitude, meridian and cosmic constellations, masculine, feminine, and between, may therein be wit(h)ness30 to a μετά φυσικά in the plural that inadvertently trespasses the tangible and the intangible, crossing movements within stillness, infinitely assembling and disassembling themselves through gesture(s). An after beyond or otherwise “open to visions”31 wherein the “carnal ex- perience”32 imbues emptiness as the very passage of an opaqueness no less transparent, and “all true,”33 in mudrās that presage attestation and testimonial, oracular in their designation. Twisting and turning, ambling along the scenic paths of ancient Japa- nese gardens die malerischen Pfaden der alten japanischen Gärten,34 past waterfalls and the splendid appearance of teahouses where h anging cop- per lanterns sway gently in the midsummer breeze, the gesture of the hand hints at the perfunctory eloquence of a figuration invoking the spirit of contemplation, peace, and serenity. Mudrās referring to the lei- surely, the unhurried, in celebration of the gradual—that which enunci- ates itself through sheer indolence and languid pronouncement, whis- pering elegance and grace. 233 A S E C R E T L I F E O F T H E H A N D The secret gesture of the hand, in this instance, “a veritable touching of the touch,”35 fathoms each motion before the beginning, a beginning, that is, after an after, and, “by’m’by,”36 in “a language of life”37 welcoming joy38 and exaltation, notwithstanding sorrow, and by no means fearing death. To fathom a “vision other than our own,”39 which encompasses an infinite number of names, or, no name40 otherthanourown,41 let us say, that is intimately stranger42 and “has no name in any philosophy,”43 may be glimpsed, if only momentarily, through gestures hastening toward secret portals that beckon the “inexhaustible.”44 Gestures of the hand between borders of any and every kind, in this sense, may propose a μετά φυσικά that neither belongs nor repels, be- tween, within, beyond, before, behind, above, and beneath an esoteric and exoteric delineation, that is, at the margins of its very delimitation, fostering a μετά φυσικά of another sort, a μετά φυσικά that proposes a trespassing of borders and margins, without limits,45 in keeping,46 an ungrounding of twilight, so to speak, passaging emptiness, and habit, a threshold invoked through mystical gesture—by the mere wave of the hand—mirages gesticulated amongst passages, labyrinthine in charac- ter—μετά φυσικά as an act of birth47—wherein the falcon Circe Κίρκη Kírkē,48 the Owl of Menerwā,49 and the Swan of Saraswathi50 may co- incide. Gestures that, in turn, engage Nature and the Divine in the pronouncement of a philosophia perennis51 and sāṃdhyābhāṣā (twilight language),52 a μετά φυσικά maneuvering somewhere or nowhere between the secularsacred, pending upon “extralinguistic figures,”53 a passage into, before, after, and beyond taking place in multiple modalities and times, even beside time. We have to imagine a gesture “[s]ans domicile fixe”54 that travels else- where referring to Rioja (La Rioja) and rice cakes (mochi, idli, or puto),55 酒 saké56 and bread. A nomadism of the hand bedeviled with prophe- cies betraying any notion of a particular address, softening borders like rroma, rromani57 gypsies carrying the future in the passage of an echo through the cadence of an ancient song. Evocations that mesmerize and enrapture and may be wit(h)nessed58 at the horizon of a sparse and barely visible landscape, in the rumbling of a future, a voice, a garrison, a prison, a demonstration and act of resistance, or simply in the gesture of the preparation of a meal, telling jokes, or entering the ocean on a 234 P O L I G R A F I hot summer day. Gestures that enumerate the propensity of the hand to- wards multiple inflections revealing a μετά φυσικά that revels in its ability to transform, transgress, and alter itself through silken layers of geologic time, prior to that which calls human time. Unfathomable gestures that beckon that which is prior to the mystical, in a roving that transcends our notion of finitude and infinity, an un-imaginable secret time that belongs to no one, not even to Nature or the Divine, or to the word. Untranslatable hands, impregnated with mysteries remaining under cover: “ ‘You must not tell anyone,’ ”59 the secret of the nameless no name hand.60 We may therein consider a metá physiká61 of the hand gesturing to- ward intuition, mysticism, and nothingness, confounding reason as such, motioning towards an otherwise and beyond, through the ampli- fication of illusions, phantoms, and whispers, whose impermanence, alluding to discord and dissent, in a prefiguration of the an-archical,62 remain malleable, ungathering itself/themselves on the borders and mar- gins of multiple concepts and bodies where, too, that which ungath- ers itselfthemselves in the sea of unknowing, gestures toward a horizon beholden to secrets. In a hermeneutical evocation that is in the figura- tion of a breath or whisper, sonorous gestures engender numerous ca- dences, pertaining to the notion of concurrence, and “simultaneous [un] narration[s],”63 infinite in sense. In a collusion of “compresence”64 and “interpresence,”65 an ungathering, in the Hegelian sense as “opposed de- terminations,”66 or “contradiction” and “antinomy,”67 at once composed and de-composed, within “coincidentia oppsitorium” (coincidences of op- posites),68 allowing for a beyond which unfastening marginality mean- ders upon principles which infinitely gather and ungather themselves in the emptiness of every nothing that is readily emptying everything. In an inverted figuration of prophecy, remaining forever secret, the hand enters beyond arrangement and disarrangement. Polyphonic, contra- puntal, and indefinite in its arrangement, the gesture of the hand refers to an excess of tonalities and the promise of insoluble contradictions that make its multiple invocations possible. There is anything but clarity here, or let us say, the hidden is yet to be considered as another figuration pertaining to prophecy. In disar- rangement, secrets flitter everywhere and nowhere that is elsewhere. And 235 A S E C R E T L I F E O F T H E H A N D yet, the gesture is closest to its promised forbearance when listening to anyone’s silence. Black hands rummaging against a tender sky, the blackest hands (Malcolm’s), the finest, roughest, most beautiful hands, spiraling, spin- ning, ingesting language as if it were another form of sustenance or noise to be buried or celebrated alongside the sweet scent of honeysuck- le. Hands gesturing, politicking elsewhere like distant memories. The else and the where once again falling into disarrangement. Like rivers somewhere, some time, some place, in some room, in 1964. We are in Detroit and it is April. Malcolm X raises his voice: “We need […] a-do- it-yourself philosophy, a do-it-right-now philosophy, a it’s-already-too-late philosophy. […] Black Nationalism is a self-help philosophy. […] This is a philosophy that eliminates the necessity for division and argument. ‘Cause if you’re black you should be thinking black, and if you are black and you not thinking black at this late date, well, I’m sorry for you’ [applause].”69 We are in this instance referring to that which withstands. A hand that belies confusion, inheriting the tongue of lucidity, the roaring river of life whose elegance sanctions its prowess. Sitting side by side in the quiet, indefinite gestures that linger, ca- ress, and trespass the silent and the secret in “hands […] heavy with poems”70—scattered amongst ashes, beckoning “long years that flow as rivers flow, / when the sky is warm and a cool breeze plays / over the sur- faces, creating patterns that announce / all that is beautiful […]”71 “1. All for nothing / 2. and nothing at all”72 (Keyson)—gesturing light, dark- ness, wind, and silence “[a]t the [very] moment when daylight fades, [and] when silence invades an increasingly pure sky […],”73 where the secret that is beholden to every thing and no thing “moves from the un- known to the unknown” and mere apparitions meander upon the fur- tive (Bataille).74 A hand, we may state, that not only casts the secret but invokes it as that which is “of another order,”75 that which always lives “further on,”76 beckoning a state of diffuseness,77 its flowing and stasis a gesture of transformation, a slipping away78 “elsewhere.”79 A gesture thus spoken, as it were, a listening, where “everything […] gives itself to others.”80 It is as if the hand transgressed itself through the exhilaration of another. Its fingers cascading in gestures of laughter, disillusionment, hunger, and 236 P O L I G R A F I exile. Phantom fingers that adhere to the breath of the living and the departed: “I’ll be there wherever that is”81 that is death. The descent of time, the fury of the hand grasping and retrieving, then letting go, hands brimming with consolation, and bidding farewell, farewell my love, may you experience safe passage through the rivers that herald death, farewell beloved, farewell to the hand that is life. A rhythmic intonation motioning toward a μετά φυσικά of the (an) otherhand, and/or handedness—inclining toward the flight of the hand, such as handed fins, fingers, feathers, whiskers, claws, and jaws, a hand- like paw, pawing, treading lightly, beckoning the gestures of wolves (ca- nis lupus82) across tundra, forest, and desert, where birds of paradise— paradisaeidae83—spread their wings in magnificent gestures of flight, while a humanhand signals peace, and the swaying of vitellina tristis84 accompany the passage of blue whales: Kingdom: Animalia; Phylum: Chordata; Class: Mammalia; Order: Cetacea85; Suborder: Mysticeti86; Family: Balaenopteridae; Genus: Balaenoptera; Species: musculus87— their flickering tails rising and sinking, plunging into deepest ocean, majestic torsos beholden to multiple eternities and incandescent futures. Gestures such as these, passaging the dominion of the immanent and the transcendent, heaven and earth, root and branch—entail a touching, caressing, flexing, stretching, curling, vociferating, and crossing of soma sōmatikos88 and psychē.89 Gestures therein embellished through the twist- ing, winding, and rotating of fingers or plumage, the bending of each extremity toward the force of a silence, the phantasmatic in this instance invoking a somatic gesture toward an apparition, unfolding the furthest point of its destiny. The hand taking placelessness, proceeding, going on, descendent and antecedent to itself herself his him them theirs selflessness, place(lessness) and/or body, humananimal, material and immaterial, be- yond self, in “an excess of all identifications to/of self,”90 through another before, gesturing toward an impending alterity of the hand—hūmānus,91 animalis meaning “having breath”92—belonging to the kingdom Plan- tae,93 Animalia, homo sapiens, homo generator,94 hūmānaf, hūmānusm,95 naturalanddivine, or Natural Divine, that is, artificial in kind,96 entreat- ing goddesses and gods deva devi dea deus97—in the manner of a visi- tation, non-hiarchical, and “an-archical”98 in delineation. A fluidity of the body that in turn gestures toward an architecture of nonaffirmation, 237 A S E C R E T L I F E O F T H E H A N D contentment, pleasure, and bliss, fostering the secret that is living itself. A rotation or revolution of the hand, in effect, that calls forth infinite instances or gesticulations, be they esoteric, exoteric, ethical, ecologi- cal, aesthetic, political, or erotic, opening the semblance of an interval or interlude wherein micro and macrocosm, the telluric and the celes- tial, finitude and infinity, gather upon pairidaeza99 and/or utopia in the delineation of an imparity and divergence that is “in accord with […] nature” (kata phusin)100 and “by nature” (phusei).101 The contortion of the hand, “the surface of an inexhaustible depth,”102 may be said, to draw the immeasurable through the hypnoticus103 (hyp- notic) as a somniferous gesture, a quietness or silence, in the rhapso- dic swaying of the hand surreptitiously engaging the senses, calling to mind, for example, the meditation of whirling dervishes, encircling the terrestrial and celestial in a sumptuous engagement of the visceral and residual, through the semblance of a recurrence and repetition. 104 In- voking alterity in the figuration of a hand that wanders toward the un anticipated, through the passage of an intimation to un likeness and un alikeness, a falling into, out or upward105 motion that inclines toward another order. That which in Sufi ritual or ceremony gestures upon “samā” (listen- ing)106 and“dhikr” (remembrance, pronouncement, and invocation),107 evoking a “Proximity to God,”108 also calls forth a μετά φυσικά of the immemorial, anterior, and anteanus (ancient)109 beginning(s)(lessness) to which Levinas repeatedly refers in Otherwise than Being or Beyond Es- sence, just as it calls forth the mystical within a secular proposition in the invocation of nothing(ness) nichts, de rien, res.110 A nothing meandering towards nothing(ness) nič, nada, niks111 in a, that is, of a future l’avenir112 already bereits113 passed bestanden114 and that has never jamais115 been pre- sent116 Gegenwart.117 That is to say, casting the divine upon Alterity, in the cultivation of strangeness etwas Seltsames,118 the gesture of the handed gaze, motion, or, sonority, in the figuration of an undisclosed language ma- neuvers on the very periphery of the sacred and profane, nothing and everything, fostering a μετά φυσικά of infinite possible meanings and interpretations, wherein, in Levinasian consideration, the (im)possible becomes possible.119 238 P O L I G R A F I The hand gesturing nothingness invokes the fullness of emptiness. The hand as a “coiling (enroulement) up of experience,” in Merleau- Ponty’s designation, dreaming “of an impossible labor of experience on experience,”120 here maneuvers through vanishing territories, undergo- ing, as it were, an act of deterritorialization,121 and strangeness, a for- eignness of sorts. Crowded with undue apparitions, however benign in figuration, the hand, thus gestures toward an extreme disarticulation of its content, ungathering itself in the corpus of an exteriority where tran- scendence enfolds upon immanence as its principle.122 That which endures perdure123 and lingers s’attarde124 also withdraws retir,125 esretira.126 The embellished gesture of the hand therein engages its evanescence, fostering an intemperate and/or extravagant ornamen- tation, in measure and improvisation, as it surpasses its own figuration, in the reflection of a recurrence and repetition that neither repeats nor recurs, in the semblance of an ornamentation that is “without any com- mon time”127 or delineation. It is thus that the recondite ritual of the hand, in a semblance of a disclosure or confession, and, in utter stillness, exceeds the very motion of its gesture, in the figuration of a gate, trace, pat, or stroke as it arranges itself in position, casting melodic rhythms of supposition through the incurring movement of silence, and still- ness. The hand, paw, or wing, engendering a form of concentration in the semblance of a diversion and distraction, invokes a spatial deliver- ance which enters upon the hand as if it were a face, a blind eye inces- santly engaging that which, in Levinasian terms, predates the ethical in an intensification of the body as the hand that empties its bread to the mouth of an-other that is the very ungathering of the figurability that is giving.128 That which precedes itself and faulters upon the “ ‘pre-originary’ or the ‘ pre-liminary’ ”129 is of “ a sphere enveloped and sealed against the other.”130 Yet, strangely, it is also a gesture that escapes both revelation and creation, taking the form of an indefinite evasion.131 That is to say, it is exemplary in its contradiction, “[i]n a space common to all” and yet pertaining to “the most secret region.”132 In a gesture that is accented toward disarticulation, the argot of the hand displaces herself engendering a disruption of linear time, which we may refer to as alltime or notime, an unoccupied time, or “dead- 239 A S E C R E T L I F E O F T H E H A N D time,”133 wherein soma and psyche tend to an imaginary and/or mystical plane, to an “other side”134 fostering nonactioninaction by the stroke of the hand. A form of handedness, its fingers in the guise of a contortion, the entire body in banishment, expatriate, in exile, outcast to another utopia “without locality or temporality,”135 while forming itself of a par- ticular bodily region that persists in the enactment of itself to another. The rhythmic somatic gestures accede to an exterior interiority that ac- costs the unknown as a gesture of the “unsayable,”136 effervescent in its delineation. A kind of shimmering that navigates upon the somatic and the psychic as a superfluous figuration, an invisible delineation mark- ing the sheer audacity of a disregarded and discarded language. We are here referring to a gesticulation, in a delineation of a random occur- rence, a mystical enumeration and/or practice that takes place “behind our backs”137 in the semblance of an “invisible ethics”138 (Schirmacher). Encircling the numinous gesture in an infinite accumulation of ran- dom formation(s), folding upon an incommensurable ratio, withhold- ing its form or limitation, hands may therein unfold themselves at the margins of flight, welcoming that which remains surreptitious and irre- ducible in a passaging that perpetually folds upon another, mysteriously escaping the light in the shadow of an arc; a handedness in this sense refers to a left or right-handed practice, in Tantric ritual the so-called “right-hand path” (dakṣiṇacāra) and “left-hand path” (vāmācāra).139 Dakṣiṇa in Sanskrit meaning “south, southern,”140 “[f ]acing the rising sun towards east,”141 also meaning “able, dexterous, clever,”142 and vāma meaning left,143 or vāmā gesturing toward that which ungathers itself as “woman.”144 Fingers and hands of the right and left-handed variety invoking the powers of immortality, and ambrosial cocktails, “bever- age of the gods”145 and goddesses, fingers slipping and sliding across “milk, curds, ghee, honey, and molasses,”146 and/or “excrement, marrow or flesh,147 semen, blood, and urine.”148 Hands gesticulating toward that which is “to smear” and “to do with flowers”149 alongside gestures related to offerings and gifts, incurring “reverence, honour, and adoration.”150 Gendered hands inclining towards the masculine and the feminine, in right-handed and left-handed mudrās, representing the masculine “as- pect of method and skillful means,” alongside the feminine “aspect of 240 P O L I G R A F I wisdom or emptiness,”151 respectively. Their association likewise symbol- ized in sexual meeting, in “the union [of ] form and emptiness.”152 In The Feminine and the Sacred, Kristeva and Clément repeatedly re- fer to the sacred as a passage or threshold “eclipsing time and space” and passing “in a boundlessness without rule or reservation,”153 demarcating “the space between […] life and death, body and corpse,”154 in an alli- ance of gestures “where the human sinks into animality and nothing- ness,” and the sacred meandering across bodily thresholds evokes “the absolute of spirituality,” where soma and psyche engage the very edges of consciousness and beyond, in “journeys to the opposite limit.”155 Herein, we may fathom gestures of the hand infinite in their manifestation and evocation, adorning the bodily through the intemperance of snakes, her- alding the unspeakable. Such a passage delineates prophesies of the se- cret and the “everywhere, always”156 alongside vanishing points157 heark- ening nowhere. It meanders not only upon the hypnotic, but also the telepathic.158 A metá physiká that passages “form and emptiness,” beside the secular and the sacred, that is at the very threshold, hands, wings, fingers, skin, and root, ocean and wind intertwined, that is to say, in an emptiness embraced by every thing and nothing. A metá physiká (un)bound by lotus flowers, petals flourishing in golden, white, blue, and black con- tours,159 harbouring fire, “vital fluids, evening twilight, [and] summer season[s].”160 Seasons decorated with the promise of one thousand and one blossoms opening and closing alongside the trajectory of the sun.161 We may likewise refer to the sorcerer’s hand “from a watchful dis- tance / while we dream of lying”162 through the sacred that beckons love163 “to drink from a woman / who smells like love”164 via the bearing of a fragrance, the languid scent of sex, in an attestation to that which calls forth the divine and the earthly to a surreptitious meeting of the two. In transition and passage,165 hands revealing intricate designs, beck- oning the proximity of the encounter, acknowledging the irreducible that is other wherein “love come[s] to pass between two freedoms.”166 The fragrance of love therein remains unseen, as it narrows itself along the contours and margins of another where “the breadth of your palm narrows mine into flame.”167 Evocations, strangely hidden and barely visible remind us of the mysteries that remain in the semblance of ap- 241 A S E C R E T L I F E O F T H E H A N D paritions, where hands gather themselves in syllables, forming sweep- ing curves, summoning aromas passed, and still to come. Secrets, too, that remain along the tapering edges of romance: “She did what women do—she stripped the bed […]”168 and refer to the insatiable: “Are you hungry? he asked. Have you eaten?”169 She replies: “I do not know how to cry, love; I gape / at my hands pulling us from these rings […]”170 (Foster). In turn, we may refer to the gaze of the hand, or handedness, as a prescient force, secret in its delineation, an unseeing hand, or, handed eye, no less prophetic, due to its blindness, in Merleau-Ponty’s considera- tion, as “something that would be before it without restriction or condi- tion,”171 that in its very blindness and/or incandescencelessness permits us “to bring ourselves wholly to the transparency of the imaginary, [and] think it without the support of any ground, in short withdraw to the bottom of nothingness.”172 A handedness that allows a crossing over to the other side, as it were, as Merleau-Ponty notes, a crossing “under my hands, under my eyes, up against my body”173 to the other. It is the hand that folds upon the inaudible and translucent, deaf, dumb, and blind; a mute hand attuned to the timbre of an infinitesimal gesture without as much as hearing a pin drop. Listening to that which is silence, exiled, and treading lightly, a blind eye gazing at the disarrangement that is si- lence. A hand that assumes whichever form it aspires to, kaleidoscopic, motley, and chameleon in configuration. A gesture blinded by the si- lence that invokes listening to the melody of another, as if silence, in relation to the proximity of a threshold, were a question of amplitude. A gesture of the hand that folds upon a measure of the anterior, a spatial threshold that enumerates the pronouncement from afar. In a hurry, the hand gathers itself: far and near, low and high, around the temperament of another’s secret, in a gesture beholding the unfamiliar and intimate- lystranger174 as a blessing, as if it werethe body of innumerable frequen- cies, incidences, and occurrences aspiring to an aisthētikós175 æ(s)thetic ascetic at once begetting chaos, interval, and measure. Moreover, that which maneuvers in deferment in the unseeing gaze of the hand motions a blind eye to another, remaining “behind […], in depth, [and] in hiding”176 in the manner of a secret temporality or coun- ter temporality, in Mary Daly’s words, “that is spatially as well as tempo- rally expansive,”177 in reverberation of the flesh, a rhythm of the hand, 242 P O L I G R A F I encompassing the immensity of the encounter as a traversal, fathom- ing an “immense latent content […] elsewhere which announces and which […] conceals.”178 In an encounter that remains incomprehensible in its surreptitiousness, the movement of the hand as an encroachment, a flickering, or caress.179 An opening that remains furtive and secret in its encounter, “unthought.”180 A gesticulation that residues and exceeds its very gesture, the hand living itself; a hand gesture, to be considered as an ornamental practice, treating each wave of the hand as if it were a curious jewel, each extremity at once encompassing an entire universe 宇宙 yuzhou (Mandarin Chinese: cosmos),181 and the barest of things.182 Perhaps, as in Ettinger’s delineation, referring to “that something that will always remain secret: the passage as the midst.”183 A translucent pas- sage writ through the residue of a feminine language that shelters the journey, even trespasses her(s). That which motions beyond the revealed into a dimension that is “transferred and etched without meaning, in secret,”184 and “forever enigmatic.”185 The hand, as if it were a gift, incurring “reverence,” manifests itself as an inexplicable alteration, a secret distance engendering “a language of coincidence, a manner of making the things themselves speak.”186 Sensations, in their turn, that manifest “something living,”187 the hand as a sensory modality incurring a means of approaching a secret, forth- coming but furtive, and therein beckoning “floating realities,”188 “from forever and nowhere,”189 in the manner of a “secret knowledge,”190 iri- descent and diaphanous in quality. This play of the hand offers a respite from the world, a handedness carried in the figuration of a reverie, a sheltering, and an exile, or that which, in Merleau-Ponty’s consideration fosters “the retiring of oneself with the leaving of oneself.”191 In gestures where secrets are indefinitely nearing and withdrawing, it is as if the sur- reptitious both diminishes and flourishes, ebbs and decays, in the distant proximity that is of the hand. It is like a tightening skin that sheds the moon, hands posturing, the skin forever.192 Where Bataille refers to a “slipping”193 and/or slippage and to “the silence that is no longer anything,” we may speak of the pristine si- lences carved in the hand, secrets beholden to silence, dyes cast enu- merating life and death, invoking the breath of stillness. Secrets of the hand, fingers, or tongues, therein beckon the silence of another keeping 243 A S E C R E T L I F E O F T H E H A N D their secret. Gathering upon the roses of Harpocrates194 and Tacita’s silent breath195 we may fathom the undisclosed in a metá physiká that engages the aroma of silence and stillness, in a place where we no longer recog- nize the shape of our names.196 Gestures alluding to the hidden possi- bilities, secret lives, and futures that have already passed, as silences slip between the crevices of another’s life, entering elsewhere. Secrets and si- lences remain beside sleep, past the time where the hand gestures depar- ture in the silence of an infinite greeting, drifting to stillness. This silence is of another’s (his) stillness, drifting between and beyond the echoes of time. Gestures such as these elucidate the obliqueness of the hand transforming itself into an infinite array of patterns. Invisible and divis- ible—gestures, however quiet, tiresome, or invincible they may appear, gather into a silent language holding every possible secret beholden to an elsewhere, in a silence that falls asunder into a thousand pieces, and whose order remains indefinitely shuffled, expanding onto the hither side of another life. We may thus fathom the hand as a traversal between earth and sky in the line of flight. Imagining a metá physiká of the golden gesture, we may on the one hand invoke Aristotle’s golden mean197—a movement toward balance, a tempering of extremes, the mean as a point of oppo- sition between two vices,198 known also as the “extreme and mean ra- tio”199—wherein the hand finds itself in pristine balance, the very tips of its fingers gesturing toward earth and sky, holding a meditative stance, achieving perfect harmony. While on the other hand, we may celebrate a somatic and psychic intemperance, the meridian, in this instance, per- taining to a peculiar paradox and superfluity of the hand, facilitating formative change. We may therein refer to gestures “which can move us out of a fixed state,”200 in Daly’s words, as a means of “changing and transforming everything,”201 trespassing notions of perfect balance and oneness, and opening a secret passage through which “leina-a-ka-‘uhane […] spirits [may] leap into the netherworld.”202 We propose a metá physiká “on the edge of the unconscious,”203 that is neither religion nor its contrary204: a metá physiká of reverie that in- vokes a journey “to the opposite limit”205 of knowing, in a passage with- out return. A gesture of the hand re-imagining the bodily where we may approach the sensuous in all its possible differences and resistances,206 244 P O L I G R A F I ungathering what we fold upon Nature, in a metá physiká residing “in that transition and that passage”207 where the hand prefigures the cross- ing in an “exceptional” and “strange”208 fashion. A metá physiká of the hand therein meanders alongside the borders of the sensible and non-sensible, the sensuous and subtle body, the hu- manandanimal that crosses ideologies, territories, and borders. The sur- reptitious, in this sense, “lives always further on,”209 yet precisely in the moment. The hand thus fosters a “space of reverie”210 in “the reabsorp- tion of the sacred”211 in a metá physiká that is at once secretive and un- derhanded. A kind of passage reminiscent of a threshold, a gesture of foretelling that beckons the celestial and earthbound. It is of gestures that demand to be confused with the richest and the poorest of meanings, neither holding every thing or any thing in the gesticulation toward a language beckoning secrets. * Sigrid Hackenberg y Almansa is Assistant Professor of Art and Philosophy at the European Graduate School, Saas-Fee, Switzerland, and an Independent Study Director at the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts, Portland, Maine. N o t e s 1 Hand gesture – Sanskrit hasta mudrā. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mudra. Future refer- ences to en.wikipedia.org will be abbreviated as w. 2 Merleau-Ponty, M. (1968), The Visible and the Invisible (ed. C. Lefort and tr. by A. Lingis). Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, p. 119. 3 Ibid., p. 121. 4 Occidental philosophy – German Abendländische Philosophie. See http://www.enzyklo.de/ Begriff/Abendländische%20Philosophie. 5 Metaphysics – Greek μετά (metá) beyond, upon, or after – φυσικά (physiká) physics. See w/ Metaphysics. 6 Hegel writes: “World history goes from East to West: as Asia is the beginning of world histo- ry, so Europe is simply its end. In world history there is an absolute East, par excellence (whereas the geographical term “east” is in itself entirely relative); for although the earth is a sphere, his- tory makes no circle around the sphere. On the contrary, it has a definite East which is Asia. It is here that the external physical sun comes up, to sink in the West: and for that same reason it is in the West that the inner Sun of self-consciousness rises, shedding a higher brilliance.” See Hegel, G.W. F. (1988), Introduction to the Philosophy of History: With Selections from the Philoso- phy of Right (tr. by L. Rauch). Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, p. 92. 7 In the “Preface” of the Philosophy of Right, Hegel notes: “When philosophy paints its gray on gray, then has a form of life grown old, and with gray on gray it cannot be rejuvenated, but only known; the Owl of Minerva first takes flight with twilight closing in.” See http://www.he- gel.org/om/. Another translation appears as follows: “When philosophy paints its grey on grey, 245 A S E C R E T L I F E O F T H E H A N D a shape of life has grown old, and it cannot be rejuvenated, but only recognized, by the grey in grey of philosophy; the owl of Minerva begins its flight only with the onset of dusk.” See Hegel, G. W. F. (2004), Elements of the Philosophy of Right (ed. A. W. Wood and tr. by H. B. Nisbet). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 23. 8 Sunrise – Latin sol oriens. See w/Orient and http://www.enzyklo.de/Begriff/Abendländische%20 Philosophie. 9 Sunset – Latin sol occindens. See w/Western_world and http://www.enzyklo.de/Begriff/Abend- ländische%20Philosophie. 10 Merleau-Ponty, M., The Visible and the Invisible, p. 112. 11 Ibid., p. 119. 12 Ibid., p. 124. 13 Ibid., p. 140. 14 Ibid., p. 125. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid., p. 106. 17 See note 7. 18 Ichiyūsai Hiroshige (一幽斎廣重), Japanese ukiyo-e artist. See w/Hiroshige. 19 Japan – Japanese Nihon にほん (“the sun’s origin” and “Land of the Rising Sun”). See w/ Names_of_Japan. 20 Japan – Japanese Ōyashima 大八洲 (“Great country of eight (or many) islands”). Ibid. 21 This is a reference to Hiroshige woodblock prints from the series “The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tokaido (東海道五十三次 Tōkaidō Gojūsan-tsugi ) and One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (名所江戸百景 Meisho Edo Hyakkei). The full titles of the prints are as follows: “Clear Weather After Snow at Kameyama” (Tokaido series), “The Plum Garden in Kameido,” and “Great Bridge, Sudden Shower at Atake” (Edo series). See w/Hiroshige. 22 China – Chinese中国/中华. See w/China. 23 Pavilion of Literary Profundity – Chinese 文渊阁. See w/Forbidden_City. 24 We are here referring to the names of Palaces, Pavilions, Halls, and Gates of the “Forbidden City” located in Beijing, China. Ibid. 25 See w/Prime_Meridian. 26 Hyacinth – Greek Ὑάκινθος, Hyakinthos. See w/Hyacinth_(mythology). 27 The die is cast – Latin Alea iacta est. See w/Alea_iacta_est. 28 See w/Mudra. 29 Secular – Latin saecularis (in secular terms). See w/secular. 30 Ettinger, B. L. (2006), The Matrixial Borderspace. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, p. 147. 31 Merleau-Ponty, M., The Visible and the Invisible, p. 143. 32 Ibid., p. 150. 33 Ibid., p. 41. 34 The scenic paths of ancient Japanese gardens – German die malerischen Pfaden der alten ja- panischen Gärten. 35 Merleau-Ponty, M., The Visible and the Invisible, p. 133. 36 Kingston, M. H. (2003), The Fifth Book of Peace. New York: Vintage Books, p. 167. 37 Merleau-Ponty, M., The Visible and the Invisible, p. 126. 38 Lorde, A. (1984), “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power.” In: A. Lorde, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde. Berkeley: Crossing Press, p. 56. 39 Merleau-Ponty, M., The Visible and the Invisible, p. 143. 40 Ibid., p. 147. 246 P O L I G R A F I 41 Ibid., p. 143. 42 This is a reference to Ettinger’s term: “intimate-stranger.” See Ettinger, B. L. (2007), “Dioti- ma and the Matrixial Transference: Psychoanalytical Encounter-Event as Pregnancy in Beauty.” In: Across the Threshold: Explorations of Liminality in Literature (eds. H. Viljoen and C. N. van der Merwe). New York: Peter Lang Publishing Inc., p. 129 (pp. 105–132). 43 Merleau-Ponty, M., The Visible and the Invisible, p. 147. 44 Ibid., p. 121. 45 Catherine Clément notes: “it [the sacred] eclipses time and space. It passes in a boundlessness without rule or reservation, which is the trait of the divine.” See Clément, C., and Kristeva, J. (2001), The Feminine and the Sacred (tr. by J. M. Todd). New York: Columbia University Press, p. 30. 46 In Merleau-Ponty’s delineation, we may describe this as that which “would be emancipated but not freed from every condition.” See Merleau-Ponty, M., The Visible and the Invisible, p. 153. 47 Ibid., p. 33. 48 Falcon – Greek Circe, Κίρκη Kírkē (Greek mythology). See w/Circe. 49 Minerva – Latin Menerwā (Roman mythology). See w/Minerva. 50 Saraswathi – Goddess of learning (Hindu religion). See http://www.hinduwebsite.com/ hinduism/sarasavathi.asp. 51 Perennial philosophy – Latin philosophia perennis. See Jaspers, K. (1950), The Perennial Scope of Philosophy (tr. by R. Mannheim). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd., p. 76. 52 Twilight language – Sanskrit sāṃdhyābhāṣā (Vajrayana Buddhism and Hinduism). See w/ The_twilight_language. 53 Clément, C., and Kristeva, J., The Feminine and the Sacred, p. 78. 54 Bajević, M. (2002), … and other stories. Zurich: Collegium Helveticum, STW, ETH-Zen- trum, p. 43. 55 Rice cake – Japanese rice cake: mochi; South Indian rice cake: idli; Filipino rice cake: puto. See w/Rice_cake. 56 Rice wine – Japanese 酒 saké. 57 See w/Romani_people. 58 Ettinger, B. L., The Matrixial Borderspace, p. 147. 59 Kingston, M. H. (1976), The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts. New York: Vintage International/Vintage Books/Random House, Inc., p. 3. 60 Ibid., p.1. 61 Metaphysics – Greek μετά (metá) beyond, upon, or after – φυσικά (physiká) physics. See w/ Metaphysics. 62 Levinas, E. (2004), Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence (tr. by A. Lingis). Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, p. 11. 63 Bronner, Y. (2010), Extreme Poetry: The South Asian Movement of Simultaneous Narration. New York: Columbia University Press, p. 102. 64 Dilworth, D. A. (2009), “Jaspers and World Philosophy: A Critical Appraisal.” In: Existenz– An International Journal in Philosophy, Religion, Politics, and the Arts 4: 2, (Fall 2009). See http:// www.bu.edu/paideia/existenz/volumes/Vol.4–2Dilworth.html. 65 Ibid. 66 Hegel, G. W. F. (2010), Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: The Science of Logic (tr. by G. di Gio- vanni). New York: Cambridge University Press, p. 197. 67 Hegel is here referring to Kant. See Hegel, G. W. F. (1989), Hegel’s Science of Logic (tr. by A. V. Miller). New York: Humanity Books, p. 191. 68 Coincidences of opposites – Latin coincidentia oppsitorium. See w/Unity_of_opposites. 247 A S E C R E T L I F E O F T H E H A N D 69 X, Malcolm (1964), “The Ballot or the Bullet.” Speech, King Solomon Baptist Church, De- troit, Michigan–April 12, 1964. See http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/black- speech/mx.html; http://www.hark.com/clips/plmhjlrfsz-the-ballot-or-the-bullet-part-3. 70 Keyson, R. (2003), “Hands.” In: R. Keyson, Numbers. Sedona, AZ: SeaMoon Press, p. 23. 71 Ibid., “What I Wanted,” p. 37. 72 Ibid., “The Bells,” p. 49. 73 Bataille, G. (1988), Inner Experience (tr. by L. A. Boldt). Albany: State University of New York Press, p. 112. 74 Ibid., p. xvii. 75 Merleau-Ponty, M., The Visible and the Invisible, p. 7. 76 Ibid., p. 41. 77 Bataille, G., Inner Experience, p. 120. 78 Ibid., p. 124. 79 Ibid., p. 128. 80 Ibid., p. 129. 81 Keyson, R. (2011), Notebook. Los Angeles/New York: Private Collection. (Unpublished). 82 Gray wolf – Latin Canis lupus. See w/Gray_wolf. 83 Bird of paradise – belonging to the family Paradisaeidae (Latin). See w/Bird-of-paradise. 84 Weeping willow – Vitellina Tristis. See w/Willow. 85 See http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/species/mammals/cetaceans/bluewhale.htm. 86 See w/Blue_whale. 87 See http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/species/mammals/cetaceans/bluewhale.htm. 88 Somatic – Greek sōmatikos. 89 Psyche – Greek ψυχή psūchê (life; derived meanings: ghost, spirit); also refereed to as psychē. See w/Psyche and merriam-webster.com, respectively. 90 Irigaray quoted by Mary Whitford. See Whitford, M. (1988), “Luce Irigaray’s Critique of Rationality.” In: Feminist Perspectives in Philosophy (eds. M. Griffiths and M. Whitford). Bloom- ington: Indiana University Press, p. 120 (pp. 109–30). 91 Human – Latin hūmānus. See w/Human#Etymology. 92 Animal – Latin animalis (meaning “having breath”). See w/Animal. 93 Plant – Latin plantae. See w/Plant. 94 Schirmacher, W. (1987), “Homo Generator: The Challenge of Gene Technology and Re- sponsibility.” In: Technology and Responsibility (ed. P. T. Durbin). Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publish- ing Company, p. 203 (pp. 203–25). 95 Human – Latin hūmāna (feminine), hūmānus (masculine). See w/humanus#Latin. 96 Schirmacher, W. (1999), “Art(ificial) Perception: Nietzsche and Culture after Nihilism.” See http://www.egs.edu/faculty/wolfgangschirmacher.html. 97 Deity – Sanskrit deva (god), devi (goddess); Latin deus (god), dea (goddess). See w/ Deity#Etymology and w/Dyeus. 98 Levinas, E., Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence, p. 11. 99 Paradise – Old East Iranian pairidaeza. See w/Paradise. 100 Referred to by Aristotle as kata phusin – meaning “according to nature,” “in accord with […] nature.” See de Ste. Croix, G. E. M. (1992), “Aristotle on History and Poetry.” In: Essays on Aristotle’s Poetics (ed. A. O. Rorty). Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, p. 26. 101 Referred to by Aristotle as phusei – meaning “by nature.” See http://www.bookrags.com/ research/nomos-and-phusis-eoph/. 102 Merleau-Ponty, M., The Visible and the Invisible, p. 143. 103 Hypnotic – Late Latin hypnoticus. See w/Hypnotic. 248 P O L I G R A F I 104 Nietzsche, F. (1967), The Will to Power (tr. by W. Kaufmann). New York: Random House, p. 547. 105 See Piglia-Veronese, P. (2011), Upward Crashes Fracture’s Topoi: Musil, Kiefer, Darger. New York/Dresden: Atropos Press. 106 Listening – Arabic samā. See w/Sama_(Sufism). 107 Remembrance, pronouncement, and invocation – Arabic dhikr. See w/Dhikr. 108 See w/Sufism. 109 Ancient – Vulgar Latin anteanus. 110 Nothing – German nichts; French de rien; Catalan res. 111 Nothing(ness) – Slovenian nič; Spanish nada; Afrikaans niks. 112 Future – French l’avenir. 113 Already – German bereits. 114 Passed – German bestanden. 115 Never – French jamais. 116 Levinas, E. Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence, p. 144. 117 Present – German Gegenwart. In relation to shifting notions of time, Mary Daly writes, “And when we meet in this way there is a shifting of the meanings of Past, Present, and Future […].” See Daly, M. (1998), Quintessence …Realizing the Archaic Future. Boston: Beacon Press, p. 199. See in addition her references to a “fluidity of time” on the same page. Ibid. 118 Something strange – German etwas Seltsames. 119 Levinas, E. (2002) Totality and Infinity (tr. by A. Lingis). Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne Univer- sity Press, p. 55. 120 Merleau-Ponty, M., The Visible and the Invisible, p. 112. 121 Deleuze, G., and Guattari, F. (2004), Anti-Oedipus (tr. by R. Hurley, M. Seem, and H. R. Lane). London: Continuum, p. 348. 122 Kristeva, J. (2009), This Incredible Need to Believe (tr. by J. Kristeva and B. B. Brahic). New York: Columbia University Press, p. 25. 123 Endure – French perdure. 124 Linger – French s’attarde. 125 Withdraw – French retir. 126 Withdraw – Catalan esretira. 127 Levinas, E., Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence, pp. 70–71. 128 Hackenberg y Almansa, S. (2012), Total History, Anti-History, and the Face that is Other. New York/Dresden: Atropos Press, p. 105 (forthcoming). 129 Levinas, E. (1998), “Humanism and An-archy.” In: E. Levinas, Collected Philosophical Papers (tr. by A. Lingis). Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, p. 133 (127–39). 130 Ibid. 131 See Levinas, E. (2000), “Reality and its Shadow.” In: E. Levinas, The Levinas Reader (ed. S. Hand). Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 132, 141 (129–43). 132 Levinas, E. (1998), “Humanism and An-archy,” p. 133. 133 Levinas, E., Totality and Infinity, p. 58. 134 Merleau-Ponty, M., The Visible and the Invisible, p. 119, emphasis added. 135 Ibid., 113. 136 Levinas, E., Totality and Infinity, p. 21. 137 Schirmacher, W. (2005), “Homo Generator in the Postmodern Discussion. From a Conver- sation with Jean-François Lyotard.” See http://www.egs.edu/faculty/wolfgang-schirmacher. 138 Schirmacher, W. (2000), “Cloning Humans with Media: Impermanence and Imperceptible Perfection.” See http://www.egs.edu/faculty/wolfgang-schirmacher. 249 A S E C R E T L I F E O F T H E H A N D 139 Right-hand path – Sanskrit dakṣiṇacāra; left-hand path vāmācāra. See w/Vamachara. 140 See w/Dakshina. See in addition: w/Dakshinachara. 141 See w/Vamachara. 142 Ibid. 143 See http://glossary.buddhistdoor.com/en/word/92187/vama. 144 See w/Vamachara. 145 See w/Panchamrita. 146 Beér, R. (2003), The Handbook of Tibetan Buddhist symbols. Chicago: Serindia Publications, Inc., p. 332. 147 Ibid. 148 Ibid., p. 327. See in addition: w/Panchamrita. 149 See w/Puja_(Buddhism). 150 See w/Puja_(Hinduism). 151 Beér, R., The Handbook of Tibetan Buddhist symbols, p. 222. 152 Ibid., p. 9. 153 Clément, C., and Kristeva, J., The Feminine and the Sacred, p. 30. 154 Ibid., p. 92. 155 Ibid., p. 24. 156 Merleau-Ponty, M., The Visible and the Invisible, p. 113. 157 Ibid., p. 119. 158 See Ettinger, B. L., “Diotima and the Matrixial Transference: Psychoanalytical Encounter- Event as Pregnancy in Beauty,” p. 117. 159 Beér, R., The Handbook of Tibetan Buddhist symbols, p. 9. 160 Ibid. 161 Ibid., p. 8. 162 Lorde, A. (1995), “Never Take Fire from a Woman.” In: A. Lorde, The Black Unicorn: Poems. New York: W. W. Norton & Company Inc., p. 111. 163 Clément, C., and Kristeva, J., The Feminine and the Sacred, p. 105. 164 Lorde, A., “Never Take Fire from a Woman” in The Black Unicorn: Poems, p. 111. 165 Clément, C., and Kristeva, J., The Feminine and the Sacred, p. 97. 166 Ibid., p. 63. 167 Foster, G. R. (2009), “Siena.” In: G. R. Foster, heart speech this. New York/Dresden: Atropos Press, p. 134. 168 Ibid., “Housebroken / Leda,” p. 95. 169 Ibid., “Sense / Persephone,” p. 42. 170 Ibid., “Leashed / Leda.” p. 91. 171 Merleau-Ponty, M., The Visible and the Invisible, p. 107. 172 Ibid., p. 111. 173 Ibid., p. 123. 174 See Ettinger, B. L., “Diotima and the Matrixial Transference: Psychoanalytical Encounter- Event as Pregnancy in Beauty,” p. 129. 175 Aesthetic – Greek aisthētikós. 176 Merleau-Ponty, M., The Visible and the Invisible, p. 123. 177 Daly, M., Quintessence …Realizing the Archaic Future, p. 41. 178 Merleau-Ponty, M., The Visible and the Invisible, p. 114. 179 Irigaray, L. (2005), Ethics of Sexual Difference (tr. by C. Burke and G. C. Gill). London: Continuum, p. 155. 180 Merleau-Ponty, M., The Visible and the Invisible, p. 119. 250 P O L I G R A F I 181 Cosmos – Mandarin Chinese宇宙yuzhou. See w/Cosmos. 182 Merleau-Ponty, M., The Visible and the Invisible, p. 125. 183 See Ettinger, B. L., “Diotima and the Matrixial Transference: Psychoanalytical Encounter- Event as Pregnancy in Beauty,” p. 116. 184 Ibid., p. 120. 185 Ibid., p. 122. 186 Merleau-Ponty, M., The Visible and the Invisible, p. 125. 187 Ibid., p. 108. 188 Ibid., p. 106. 189 Ibid., p. 112. 190 Ibid., p. 121. 191 Ibid., p. 123. 192 Lorde, A., “Solstice” in The Black Unicorn: Poems, p. 117. 193 Bataille, G., Inner Experience, p. 16. 194 Harpocrates – God of Silence (Greek). See w/Harpocrates. 195 Tacita – Goddess of Silence (Roman). See w/Dea_Tacita. 196 Audre Lorde writes: “I did not recognize / the shape / of my name.” See Lorde, A., “Artisan” in The Black Unicorn: Poems, p. 87. 197 See w/Golden_mean_(philosophy). 198 Murdarasi, K. (2008), “Aristotle’s Golden Mean: Classic Moral Theory from the Nicoma- chean Ethics.” See http://karenmurdarasi.suite101.com/aristotles-golden-mean-a56759. 199 See w/Golden_ratio. 200 Daly, M., Quintessence …Realizing the Archaic Future, p. 162. 201 Ibid., p. 102. 202 Kingston, M. H., The Fifth Book of Peace, p. 32. 203 Clément, C., and Kristeva, J., The Feminine and the Sacred, p. 1. 204 Ibid. 205 Ibid., p. 24. 206 Ibid., p. 37. 207 Ibid., p. 97. 208 Ibid., p. 139. 209 Ibid., p. 41. 210 Clément, C., and Kristeva, J., The Feminine and the Sacred, p. 38. 211 Ibid., p. 60. 251 A S E C R E T L I F E O F T H E H A N D B i b l i o g r a p h y 1. Bajević, M., (2002), …and other stories. Zurich: Collegium Helveticum STW, ETH-Zentrum. 2. Bataille, G. (1988), Inner Experience (tr. by L. A. Boldt). Albany: State Univer- sity of New York Press. 3. Beér, R. (2003), The Handbook of Tibetan Buddhist Symbols. Chicago: Serindia Publications, Inc. 4. Bronner, Y. 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