The Cosmic Serpent (15 page)

The word
twist
has the same root as
two
and
twin
.
Twisted
means, technically, “double and wrapped around itself.”

Why do Yaminahua shamans talk in twisted language? According to one of them: “With my koshuiti I want to see—singing, I carefully examine things—twisted language brings me close but not too close—with normal words I would crash into things—with twisted ones I circle around them—I can see them clearly.”

For Townsley, all shamanic relations with the spirits are “deliberately constructed in an elliptical and multi-referential fashion so as to mirror the refractory nature of the beings who are their objects.” He concludes: “
Yoshi
are real beings who are both ‘like and not like' the things they animate. They have no stable or unitary nature and thus, paradoxically, the ‘seeing as' of ‘twisted language' is the only way of adequately describing them. Metaphor here is not improper naming but the only proper naming possible.”
²⁰

 

I WENT ON to look for the connection between the language of spirits described by Yaminahua ayahuasqueros and the language of DNA. I found that “double and entwined,” or “twisting-twisting,” or “yoshtoyoshto,” corresponded perfectly to the latter.

The genetic information of a human being (for example), called “genome,” is contained in 3 billion letters spread out along a single filament of DNA. In some places, this filament winds around itself to form 23 more compact segments known as “chromosomes.” We all inherit a complete set of chromosomes from each of our parents, and so we have 23 pairs of chromosomes. Each chromosome is made up of a very long thread of DNA which is already a double message to begin with—the main text on one ribbon, and the complementary duplicate on the other. Thus our cells all contain two complete genomes as well as their backup copies. Our genetic message is doubly double and contains a total of 6 billion base pairs, or 12 billion letters.

The DNA contained in the nucleus of a human cell is two yards long, and the two ribbons that make up this filament wrap around each other several hundred million times.
²¹

As far as its material aspect or its form is concerned, DNA is a doubly double text that wraps around itself. In other words, it is a “language-twisting-twisting.”

 

THE TRANSCRIPTION ENZYMES read only the parts of the DNA text that code for the construction of proteins and enzymes. These passages, called “genes,” represent only 3 percent of the human genome, according to various estimates. The remaining 97 percent are not read; their function is unknown.

Scientists have found spread out among the non-coding parts of the text a great number of endlessly repeated sequences with no apparent meaning, and even palindromes, which are words or sentences that can be read in either direction. They have called this apparent gibberish, which constitutes the overwhelming majority of the genome, “junk DNA.”
²²

In this “junk,” one finds tens of thousands of passages like this: ACACACACACACACACACACACACACACACAC. ... There is even a 300-letter sequence that is repeated a total of half a million times. All told, repeat sequences make up a full third of the genome. Their meaning, so far, is unknown.

Molecular biologists Chris Calladine and Horace Drew sum up the situation: “The vast majority of DNA in our bodies does things that we do not presently understand.”
²³

Scattered among this ocean of nonsense, genes are like islands where the language of DNA becomes comprehensible. Genes spell out the instructions for lining up amino acids into proteins. They do this with words of three letters. “CAG,” for example, codes for amino acid glutamine in DNA language.

As all the words of the genetic code have three letters, and as DNA has a four-letter alphabet (A,G,C,T), the genetic code contains 4 × 4 × 4 = 64 possible words. These words all have a meaning and correspond either to one of the 20 amino acids used in the construction of proteins or to one of two punctuation marks (“start,” “stop”). So there are 22 possible meanings for 64 words. This redundancy has led scientists to say that the genetic code is “degenerate.” In fact, it simply has a wealth of synonyms—like a language where words as different as “jaguar” and “basket” have the same meaning.
²⁴

In reality, things are even more complex. Within genes, there are many non-coding segments called “introns.” As soon as the transcription enzymes have transcribed a given gene, editing enzymes eliminate the introns with atomic precision and splice together the true coding segments, known as “exons.” Some genes consist of up to 98 percent introns—which means that they contain only 2 percent genetic information. The role of these introns remains mysterious.
²⁵

The proportion of introns and exons in the human genome is not yet known, because so far, only half of all the genes it contains have been identified, out of a total estimated at 100,000.
²⁶

Along the DNA filament, “junk” and genes alternate; within genes, introns intermix with exons, which are themselves expressed in a language where almost every word has a synonym.

As far as both its content and its form are concerned, DNA is a doubly double language that wraps around itself.

Just like the twisted language of the spirits of nature.

 

WHAT DO THESE CONNECTIONS between DNA and the cosmic serpent, the axis of the world, and the language of the spirits of nature, mean?

The correspondences are too numerous to be explained by chance alone. If I were a member of a jury having to pronounce itself on the matter, I would have the conviction that the same reality is being described from different perspectives.

Take the cosmic serpent of the Ancient Egyptians, the “provider of attributes.” The signs that accompany it mean “one”
“several”
“spirit, double, vital force”
“place”
“wick of twisted flax”
and “water”
Under the chin of the second serpent, there is an Egyptian cross meaning “key of life.”
²⁷

The connections with DNA are obvious and work on all levels: DNA is indeed shaped like a long, single and double serpent, or a wick of twisted flax; it is a double vital force that develops from one to several; its place is water.

What else could the Ancient Egyptians have meant when they talked of a double serpent, provider of attributes and key of life, if not what scientists call “DNA”?

Why are these metaphors so consistently and so frequently used unless they mean what they say?

THROUGH THE EYES OF AN ANT