The World of Master Ka

A Glance Over Our Shoulder

No noise from motor or machine fills the morning air. Settlements and cities mould themselves into the landscape and seldom does a building break the skyline. No electric lights fill the furthest corners of homes. By night, people look up from the darkened earth to the starry sky. Literally to heavens full of stars so numerous that almost no space seems to be left between them. The paths and roads are either dusty or muddy and only in the towns can one find anything like a paved street. Asphalt slumbers deep under the earth as undiscovered oil and the rain patters on leaves, on steppe, on soil and seeps away where it falls, except when a roof intercepts it and spreads the raindrops like a fan. The rivers have more branches than men veins in their body. Marsh and swamp cover large tracts of land, which are avoided by humans because they are filled with mosquitoes that spread an insidious fever. At dusk and dawn, the song of the birds in the forests is so loud that all conversation ceases. Of necessity, one either listens to the concert or covers ones ears to try to enjoy a little more sleep.

A splinter that has bored into the skin, a tiny cut that becomes infected. Trivialities that can lead to death. Birth brings the hope of new life yet carries mother and child painfully often to their death and families into the darkness of grief. Yet the seasons are the cart that hauls people out of the mud. Life calls. Work the soil, sow, harvest. A compelling force against which despair is weak. People’s hands change over the course of their hard working lives. Fingers thicken, palms broaden, and those who count themselves lucky will see their eyes dim and disappear behind a veil of wrinkles. Yet the clarity remains, within. Man and beast live in proximity. They must act wisely for both to survive. If you die, I die. A cow, an ox, a horse, a goat, a sheep, a dog. The hands of man know the bones of the animals. Whoever runs their hand along a cow’s spine will sense its power and the path that man and beast have taken together.

And just as today, men come into conflict with their fellow men, with bureaucracy and unloved superiors, with power-hungry leaders who incite wars. They must face ageing, and doing so come to terms with their own desires, their ambitions and their spleen. The arts, the healing arts, philosophy, Nature – all are yet closer to all, not yet splintered into disciplines. And in all, a refusal to take oneself too seriously, yet remain entirely oneself. This balancing act has stood the test of time. To refuse to let life’s joys pass by. Not to wait, but to look the wonders of your own existence in the eye every day, sometimes laughing, sometimes crying, and, very often, just so.

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