Kristin Hersh: The hive itself is evil and the bees are all fine.
Alice Walker: There is a sense of sinking back, with gratitude, into the vegetation.
Hersh: Exactly. I just felt like I didn’t belong on this planet.
Walker: This is only logical. But part of our work as humans, if we wish to live in peace on earth and not project our fears and errors onto others, is to get to know who we are.
Hersh: Yeah, yeah. You know, most of us are dead.
***
Walker: What many people don’t realize is that the soul can benefit from instruction just as the mind can, and that this instruction is readily available.
Hersh: Are you lying right now? That’s the kind of thing that doesn’t happen.
Walker: Such an event was unthinkable for many people until it actually occurred.
Hersh: Yeah, that was me, and that’s still me.
Walker: Who are we, after all?
***
Hersh: You get a bunch of old photographs, and you lay them one over the other, until what you end up with is not many images, but a skeleton.
Walker: There are lots of moms and dads and children and the occasional dog, lots of thatched palapas for sitting out of the sun, lots of food.
Hersh: What happens is you have this alternate personality who takes over during any trauma.
Walker: Years of my memory were erased or, rather, submerged.
Hersh: [Laughs] It’s a different perspective.