Atonement, said the mythologist Joseph Campbell, means "at-one-ment." It means being at one with oneself, abandoning the fakery and falsehoods that turn the whole of a person into parts. More important than the dissolution of transgression is returning to the seamlessness of oneself and the One—as in the Big One, the Unknown but Familiar but Distant but Present but Ever-Knowing One. You know, that One.This evening a remnant of the children of Abraham will retrace a harrowing descent from Oneness to Noneness, and then slowly reach back again for At-one-ment. It's Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, a cycle of timeless time, people trying to be like angels, turning themselves inside out to get to the place from which they just might have come.
Walk it back, says R.E.M. Imagine the song as a conversation between some-one and that One.
What, what would you have had me say instead of what I said?Walk it back, says some-one. Walk it back, says that One. Take it back, they both say. Just reach back this one last time. One time, they say. Take it back. Walk it back. What else would you have them say? What else would you have them to do? Walk it back.
Where, where would I go?
How could I follow that except to do what I did?
Song of Ascent VI
Walk It Back | R.E.M.
All of the Songs of Ascent
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