How many ways are there to slough off the responsibility of a self? Let me count some…

“Not having been born an animal is a secret nostalgia of mine.” Clarice Lispector – Água Viva (1973)

“[T]o be an animal, born at the opening of the eye, going only forward, and, at the end of the day, shutting out memory with the dropping of the lid.” Djuna Barnes – Nightwood (1936) 

“Come into animal presence. / No man is so guileless as the serpent.” Denise Levertov – “Come into Animal Presence” (1961)

“To remember is to betray / Nature, since the nature of yesterday / Is not nature. What has been is nothing, / Remembering / Is failure to see. / Move on, bird, move on, teach me / To move on.” Fernando Pessoa – from The Keeper of the Flocks (1914) 

“When I went outside, the wind began to blow. It was coming from a long way off with nothing to stop it. It turned me around. It opened my mouth. It undid my hair and lifted my skirt. It scattered me just like I liked.” Kathryn Scanlan – The Dominant Animal (2020)