"SALTATION" - THE MAGIC OF CHANGE IN TIME AND SPACE
Saltation - saltation (n.) "a leap, a bound," from Latin saltationem, "a dancing; dance," noun of action stemming of saltare "to hop, to dance," from salire "to leap."
The word “saltation” is used primarily in three places – in evolution, in neural transmission, and in geology. In evolution it refers to a sudden and large mutational change from one generation to the next. In the anatomy of the nervous system, it refers to the leaping that the impulse does, called “saltatory” conduction from node to node in myelinated neurons, speeding up conduction along the neuron’s axon 15 times faster than in non-myelinated axons. Click here to see a gif of how much faster the impulse travels through saltation. Finally in geology, saltation is the movement of hard particles such as sand over an uneven surface in a turbulent flow of air or water.
It’s tempting to see and feel these leaps, these evolutionary, physiological and geological changes, as jumpings across time and space. We could see being itself as leaping, dancing from person-to-person, from species-to-species, from one place to another in a turbulent flow. The space in between beings and things is like a synapse – a kind of place for micro and macro-neural transmission.
All movement and growth, whether evolutionary, psychological or physical, inevitably involves a leap into the unknown or the unpredictable. If we see this leaping as being fundamental to the fabric of time, of history, of space – we can be inspired by the dance of creation through which we are all connected.
Walter Benjamin in “Theses of the Philosophy of History” speaks of revolution as a “leap in the open air of history.” In this leap, the positive momentum of our ancestors’ dreams ideally joins with ours in creating a new, more just form of society.
The philosopher Søren Kierkegaard is associated with the concept of “leap of faith.” Any important life decision, whether in ethical, religious or practical life matters, is always made on the basis of insufficient information. As Freud noted, leaps of faith into what is not fully known, not completely understood, involve the willingness and perhaps the hope to be surprised – “When people are themselves are surprised by what they say, that’s when they are really making progress.”
From alchemical lore comes the tradition of leaps from one state of matter or mind to another more refined form or to a higher state of being. Religious and meditative traditions describe sudden experiences of enlightenment, in the many stories of saints’ or meditators’ awakenings.
Life is full of so many discontinuities over which we leap, hop or through which we dance. From the nerve cell, to turbulent particles, to self-growth, to revolution, and to evolution, saltation represents a kind of saving grace enabling the transmission of change over gaps in time and space as we move through natural, historical and individual life.
