#◟༺✦༻◞ fragments of light from the roots of truth ┊reference.┊

[reginrokkr]

◟༺✧༻◞ Mysterious box in a secret compartment.

Every line on this sheet of paper has a matching one right under it. From the handwriting, it looks like a child wrote on this first before an adult stepped in, held their hand, and taught them how to do it the second time. A piece of it has been burned away, and the remaining parts show signs of having been rescued from that same flame. The writings are as follows:

◜Remember always that it was the Alberich Clan, who did not have royal blood, who stepped in as regents when the strength of the one-eyed king Irmin failed. Though we could not restore Khaenri'ah to life, we of the Alberich clan should lead lives as those who blaze like fire, rather than those who wallow in the embers.◞

◜I saved this one memento from the fire "Father" made while he wasn't paying attention. This was in violation of our principles. Our clan's affairs should never be recorded.◞ [...]

[freedfromthegalactichivemind]

Balls

She-Ra fanfiction  Entrapdak Entrapdak Mini Month Rated PG - Slightly crude language / slang. (But probably nothing any 8 year old hasn’t heard).  Day 3 - Fear  Summary:  Hordak was confused about certain Etherian expressions.   -----------------------------

Balls There were some common Etherian expressions that Hordak, for the life of him, would never get.  When the truth of much of what had happened in his life had come out – old records of the Etherian Horde’s founding from lifetimes ago that he had only the vaguest memories of to the record of what had happened during those last moments with Prime in his last dedicated-Vessel aboard his ship, there was an expression of admiration (of all things) that was passed around.   The record of what had happened between him and Horde Prime may have been lost if Entrapta did not have hidden equipment on her person as part of her infiltration-mission.  She was his wondrous genius, brighter than any light Prime had ever provided and hers was a warm light, not a cold, sterile illumination.  Because of her, it was there for all to see.  It had been used as evidence in his trial.  It had quite probably saved his life.   The expression that Etherians used around him – especially his former soldiers, but quite a lot of people really, particularly the rough and the scuffled, Crimson Wasters and anyone hard-bitten was this:  “Hordak, man… he’s just got balls of steel!  Big, swinging balls!”   In learning the nuances of the Etherian common language – that which his in-built translation software did not pick up, he had known for a long time that “balls” in certain contexts referred to reproductive anatomy.  This was what caused his frustrating confusion.  His people’s reproductive organs were internal (and, as Horde Prime had chemically restricted them) unsuited for any actual reproduction. They were vestigial, a part of the root-species that they had been uplifted from before the cloning process began eons ago.  Prime had felt no need to do away with them entirely, but they did not function in the manner that similar structures on Etherians functioned and they certainly were not “swinging,” nor were they made of steel.   Entrapta helpfully explained to him that it was slang for “courage.”  She didn’t entirely get it, either.  One of the things she did not get about it was why female organs were not commonly employed in similar slang.  There was one culture that she knew of – the harpies if she’d remembered correctly, that did employ “boobs” in a similar linguistic quirk, as in “She’s got real boobs!” to denote “she’s got real boldness!”   Still, that was a rare phrase.   So, Hordak lived confused at the assertion that he had “humongous swinging steel balls” for surviving impossible odds, and for standing up to Horde Prime.  Even becoming educated about the slang left him puzzled.   After all, how could he be brave when he had been filled with terror? From the time he had been “taken back” into Prime’s fold, a coldness had run through his very bones!  With his mind reformatted and his body reconditioned, he remained afraid. He did not know if he had always felt that way. He’d wandered the halls of the Velvet Glove with this vague sense that things had been different for him, with the ghost of a memory that he had once been powerful.  He was supposed to have his chief joy in serving Horde Prime, yet what he’d actually felt, in hindsight, could only be described as fear.   When Catra had spurred his memory, he was afraid when he’d approached Prime for forgiveness.  He’d wanted so badly to rid himself of the uncomfortable feelings that he’d had – the fragmented tales of the Etherian Horde, his Horde, and its failure, of his broken conquest with Catra, and, most of all, Entrapta’s loss. That fragment had been the worst shard piercing his brain – that someone precious to him had died because of his failure.  He had believed that she had betrayed him and had left her to die.   He was fearful of the pain of the Mental Reconditioning Pool.  His own memories of having witnessed Brothers being immersed within it had shot the horror through him.  Had he been in it before?  Yes, although he could not recall specific times.  He knew, however – the pain keen in his mind.   His grief, however, had overcome his fear. There was terror, simply terror.  He was not courageous.  How could he have “balls of steel” when he had felt so weak and so small?   When Entrapta had been brought before Prime and he was before Prime’s throne, standing by as the Emperor was conducting a Little Brother at the Drilling of the Heart, he was smaller and weaker than he had ever been.  He was standing on his feet and armed, as a guard to Prime, but tremors ran through his hearts.  He kept himself controlled, however.  Perhaps if Prime had not been distracted upon the great Project, he would have been found out for his disloyal emotions and punished – or eliminated.  Entrapta was calm, even smiling and speaking words of defiance to Prime.   It was she who had the “balls” – or the “boobs” of steel.   Hordak was torn between his two lives then – the life of fear and the life of… love.   One was bound to overcome the other.   Entrapta, generally fearless, explained to him that he was acting in spite of his fear, which was the very definition of courage, and that, of course that overcoming was the “ballsiest” thing of all. He wished that he could believe it during the depths of the night when dreams of Prime came to him – but when Entrapta told him that he “had balls,” Hordak believed her.   How could he not?

[memxntomxri]

ｏｎｅ ｄａｙ

ꜱᴇʀɪᴇꜱ ᴍᴀꜱᴛᴇʀʟɪꜱᴛ | ᴍᴀꜱᴛᴇʀʟɪꜱᴛ | ʜᴏᴍᴇ

𝘱𝘢𝘪𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 - kuroo tetsurou x kozume kenma

𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘳𝘦 - angst

𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘤 -

dear tetsurou, i wish i had the courage to kiss you that night on the dorm roof, you know? or, kuroo wants to love kenma, but kenma won't let him because he knows he's leaving kuroo behind

written for kuroken week 2021 - day 1: domestic/college au/"sorry i didn't kiss you" - bubble gum by clairo

𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵 - 1.5k

𝘵𝘸 - su!cide, depression, anxiety attacks, generally horrible mental health, h0mophobia, one slightly gory scene (they’re watching horror), really bad anime references

𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘦𝘴 - straight up angst, also REALLY dark. DO NOT READ IF YOU CAN'T HANDLE STRAIGHT ANGST

｡o°✥✤✣ 　　 ✣✤✥°o｡

Dear Kuroo,

If you’re reading this, I’ll be gone, and I’ll be finally fulfilling your wish for me to use your first name

I wish I had kissed you that night on the dorm roof, you know?

The wind whipped around the two of them, biting into their coats and making Tetsurou’s hair even messier, if the bedhead gods would even allow that. Kenma wheezed like a broken record as he trudged up the last few steps, groaning as he collapsed next to Tetsurou on the ice-cold concrete, breath coming out in short, panting puffs.

“Why are we here, Kuroo?” he asked tiredly.

“Kenma, look! We can see the entire city from here! I come up here to think sometimes, or when I can’t sleep.” Tetsurou exclaimed.

As Kenma sat up from his prone position on the floor, he caught sight of the twinkling lights of Tokyo. It truly was beautiful, like jewels spilling out of a child’s toy box and catching on an ethereal light millions of kilometers away.

Tetsurou turned to look at Kenma, and the slight movement caused a bit of air to breeze through Kenma’s hair. He realized that they were oh-so-close, close enough that he thought he could count the individual eyelashes, as numerous as the stars, close enough that he could lean in and…

Kenma turned away, and for a moment, Tetsurou’s heart dropped. But then, Kenma’s soft voice filled the air.

“Not like this, Kuroo.”

Tetsurou backed up. For Kenma, he would wait forever.

He didn’t know how literal that would become.

I’m sorry I’m so selfish. I wish I could’ve let you go, let you move on, but I have so many things I wish I could’ve said to you.

Do you know that the day I knew I was in love with you,  it wasn’t anything special? I know that I always say that I want something “interesting” and that boring isn’t for me, but that day, we were doing the most mundane things.

It was the time we binged the horror movies and you were screaming the entire time. Do you remember? Do you remember how I held your hand, even though I was tired? Do you remember how I ignored my parent’s calls?

Do you remember how you smiled at me?

Tetsurou plopped down on the couch. “KYANMAAAAAA!” he called into the kitchen, where the bleached-hair male was making popcorn for their horror movie night. “It’s about to start, come on!”

From the other room, Kenma sighed. “Kuroo, you’re the one who insisted that we ‘had to have’ popcorn for horror movie night,” he said as he walked into the room carrying an overflowing bowl of said snack.

Without replying, Tetsurou grabbed an overflowing handful of popcorn and stuffed it into his mouth. Kenma sniffed. “Have some manners and stop eating like a 19th century barbarian, won’t you?”

Tetsurou rolled his eyes and patted the spot next to him. “Come on, Kenma! I even got your favorite blanket.” Kenma reluctantly sat down next to him, closer than he probably should have if he had wanted to keep his distance.

As the movie progressed, Tetsurou got increasingly louder and closer to Kenma, ending up clutching Kenma’s arm as a clown jumped out of nowhere and blood sprayed all over the screen. Suddenly, the suspenseful atmosphere was broken by the insistent ringing of Kenma’s phone. Kenma glanced at the screen, then put it on silent.

Tetsurou peeked at the device. “Hey, aren’t those your parents? Don’t you have to pick it up?”

“Nah.” Kenma replied shortly.

Tetsurou’s face broke out in a radiant smile, one that was genuine and looked like warm honey and bright days laying in sunflower fields.

“You know you looooove me, Kenma!”

He hoped there was some truth behind those words.

I’m grateful to the universe for pulling us together, even though sometimes I wish they hadn’t.

If we had never met that day in lab, I wouldn’t have stayed so long and let myself be broken more.

And you wouldn’t be hurting now.

I’m sorry, Tetsurou.

Tetsurou’s ears perked up as he heard an emphatic curse word filled his ears. Oya? What was this? He glanced over and caught sight of a boy with bleached hair and dark roots growing out shaking his hand. Oh wow, cute. Wait, what?

Tetsurou knew he was bisexual, but he’d never had this reaction so soon after just seeing someone for the first time. Whatever. The boy probably needed help anyways, and Tetsurou was just this kind.

He sidled up next to him. “Need some help?” he asked.

The boy glanced up at him in shock and actually hissed. “I’m doing fine just the way I am.”

Tetsurou put his hands up in a gesture of surrender, “Hey, just offering. Also, that isn't sodium. Kuroo Tetsurou, by the way.”

In the end, Tetsurou ended up helping Kenma the entire class, even through the smaller boy’s (half-hearted) protests.

He also figured out why Kenma intrigued him so much.

Hey, don’t beat yourself up for this, okay? It was inevitable.

You helped me so much, Tetsurou. Even though it hurt to stay for so long, I also saw so many beautiful things with you. Thanks to you, I was happy before I had to leave.

If you’re still not convinced, do you remember that day when Akane wouldn’t stop trying to touch me?

That was just one of so many times you saved me, Tetsurou.

Tetsurou ran after Kenma, calling his name (softly, he knew Kenma could be set off by noises sometimes). There was a girl in Kenma’s group in Business Management class, and she couldn’t seem to take a hint, always trying to toss an arm around his shoulders or tug him somewhere.

(Tetsurou did all that, but he knew that if Kenma actually didn’t want him to, he’d know by now.)

He found the smaller boy crouched in an empty classroom, arms over his head. “Hey, hey, Kenma. It’s okay. She’s gone now.” he said gently, kneeling down next to him.

“Can I touch you?” Tetsurou asked tentatively.

When he got no response, just a blank stare and tears running down Kenma’s face, Tetsurou sat down next to him, leaving a careful distance between the two of them.

“You know, I saw this new game at the electronics store the other day.” he said, trying to distract Kenma. “I think it’s the newest version of Mario Kart? If you want to, we can go pick it up this Friday then spend the entire Saturday playing.”

Still no response. Kuroo tried another tactic.

“I’ll buy you apple pie…” he attempted bribing.

“K-Kuroo?” came a muffled, broken voice next to him.

“Yes, kitten?” Kuroo asked, immediately attentive.

“Can you just… hold me?”

“Of course.”

That day, Tetsurou resolved to never let Kenma face anything alone again.

I told my parents about you. We both know how well that went. There’s a box of things from my childhood that I want you to have. They’ll mail it to your dorm.

There are so many things I wish that we could have done together that we never will. The first of those is that I wish I could have brought you home to my parents, but that’s not possible.

Did I ever tell you what they said that day?

Tetsurou paused outside of Kenma’s dorm room, apple pie in hand. He hadn’t dropped by in a week - finals were a bitch - and had planned to surprise Kenma with some of his favorite dessert as an apology for flaking on their weekly horror movie night.

The sound of his name paused Tetsurou in his tracks.

“Mom, I swear, Kuroo-san isn’t like that - and even if it was, it’s got nothing to do with you.”

“M- Oh, Dad. Dad ! Uh-huh.”

“I’ve told you before, hanging out with a bisexual person who I might like will not turn me any gayer.”

“Mom, please, you’ll like him, he’s nice, has a great sense of humor - he’ll talk volleyball with Dad, Mom, can you please just try to listen?”

The sound of a phone hitting a wall.

Even though we never got to be together, thank you for the memories, Tetsu.

I hope you didn’t have to see me in the end.

Cold, so cold.

Why was his hand so cold?

Deft, agile, flying across a screen-

Alone.

Left alone, both searching for a way to pick the broken pieces up.

Why, why, why?

Why didn���t you tell me?

Why didn’t you let me help?

Why now?

Why, why, why?

Why wasn’t I enough?

Because I love you, so much that I know that you deserve someone who can give you all of themself, not the jagged edges and fragmented pieces that I would’ve handed over without a second thought if I had stayed.

One day, I hope we can meet again when I’m good enough for you.

I love you, Kuroo Tetsurou.

Kenma.

The two of them laid in a field of flowers, heads turned toward each other and bodies curled so that they looked like two sides of a heart, reaching for each other, yet with a gap that felt like a million light years separating them.

“Hey, Kuroo…”

“Yeah?”

“Nothing.”

I really tried.

｡o°✥✤✣ 　　 ✣✤✥°o｡

© ʙᴇᴛʜᴇʏᴅᴏᴄʀɪᴍᴇᴡʀɪᴛᴇꜱ 2021 - ᴘʟᴇᴀꜱᴇ ᴅᴏ ɴᴏᴛ ᴄᴏᴘʏ ᴏʀ ʀᴇᴘᴏꜱᴛ ᴡɪᴛʜᴏᴜᴛ ᴄʀᴇᴅɪᴛ

[mustafa-el-fats]

universal law

When we apply this Universal Law to improve the energetic structures living inside our own physical form or improve other types of structures we have operating in our lives, we will achieve beneficial, clear and efficient results. This is because we intend to live in harmony with the Law. All energetic structures, containers, houses, bodies or entities, must be defined to determine the energetic content and vibration within the structure. It is important to understand that this is a Universal Law governing energy and form. (See the third item) If the energetic or physical structure is not defined with a clear mission, purpose or intention, it means that the structure, container, house, body or entity will be invaded, infiltrated or used by dark forces who will take it over for their specific agenda. The act of commanding one’s space is participating with this Law, by defining the authority of which energies one allows into their body, container or house. This responsibility is with the individual person to command their space and defend their right to choose their authority. This is not something that God source or Christos families can do for you. This is because the Christos families are obedient to the Natural Laws of God, which never allow superimposition over another being’s personal will to choose. Unless the personal will is to annihilate or intentionally harm another species.

Three Layers of Ego Mind

In order to understand the Internal Structures of Ego, which we also refer to as the Houses of Ego, requires the awareness that there are three main layers. The three layers of mind work together to serve the functions of the ego in all human beings. Each energetic layer has separate functions yet all three layers are interconnected and directly impact each other. As we learn about the layers in the internal structure of the ego, this clarifies the purpose of identifying what the ego is and how it operates within us. When we understand how ego operates inside our mind we are better equipped to heal the energetic imbalances.

1D Memory Storage Unconscious Mind

1. Abuse 2. Trauma 3. Shock 4. Devastation

First Internal Layer: This is the root layer of our unconscious mind and it functions like a hard drive for the ego. In this hard drive is the cellular memory storage from all of one’s lifestreams. This means that cellular memories from past lives, present lives and future lives may all be stored in this memory hard drive. These memories are not given value when they are recorded, whether one may perceive them as good or bad these many multiple memories are stored on the root hard drive of every human being. Whether one was a fetus, baby, in between lifetimes, or unconscious when the body suffered abuse, it was recorded in one’s memory storage whether one currently remembers that event consciously or not.  

Because the planet was invaded and our individual memory and identity of those tragic events was erased, most all human beings have four main areas of cellular memory record in their unconscious mind at varying degrees. Those four main areas are: Abuse, Trauma, Shock and Devastation. Some people will feel these painful memories but not know what caused them or where they came from. Others will suffer from shock and will have shut these memories down completely as a coping mechanism. Others are very successful clearing these memories through emotional clearing practices such as with hypnosis and past life regression. Since this 1D unconscious mind controls our autonomic nervous system and autonomic bodily functions, unhealed trauma memories in these four main areas creates many kinds of physical symptoms and disease. These devastating memories have been partially described in twisted half-truths as the fall of humankind, or the genesis story of Adam and Eve in the bible. Starseeds have an earth mission to heal these memories and timelines in a multitude of ways.

2D Walls of Separation Instinctual Mind

1. Unworthiness 2. Shame / Guilt 3. Lack of Trust / SelfDoubt 4. Betrayal / Abandonment

5. Anger / Rage 6. Fear 7. Entrapment / Enslavement

Second Internal Layer: This is the instinctual layer of ego, which for many people remains a part of the unconscious mind as many do not pay attention to the cause of their instinctual drives or addictions. The first part of healing is to be willing to pay attention to drives though dedicated self-awareness. The second layer is directly impacted by the first layer to the degree the painful memory is experienced in the person’s hard drive. This second layer could also be called the pain body. It is the location where unresolved pain memories will manifest as instinctual drives within the person’s ego. If the 1D storage memories are not identified or cleared, the pain of these memories creates walls of separation in the 2D layer, as a pain body. The pain body further creates walls of separation which manifest in the ego as the seven primary mental and emotional states identified above.

These walls of separation isolate the ego self in the person, and as the person identifies with that ego state, they become disconnected from their inner spirit. This disconnection from the inner spirit creates a wall where another part of the ego identity may split off and may hide itself. This identity could have been created when one was a baby, a six year old child, a teenager, or even in other timelines. This phenomenon is called ego sub-personalities, and they may be hidden behind the walls as a result from deeply experienced trauma. These traumatized sub-personalities also hold a fragment of our spiritual energy. The goal of Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA) is to intentionally create these traumatized sub-personalities, which fragment the mind and spiritual body, thereby causing harm to the internal energy structures of the person’s aura. The current way this is enforced en masse on planet earth by the N.A.A. is through the Victim-Victimizer software program. When we are separated from our inner spirit, we are disconnected from our experience with God Source. The result is more Pain, Disconnection and Disease, which exacerbates the ego walls and perpetuates the cycle of misery. The goal of our inner spirit is to find and locate those sub-personalities to heal them, reclaim them as Children of God, so that the spiritual light can be reintegrated and brought back into wholeness.

3D Houses of Ego Conscious Mind

1. Addiction / Lust 2. Wrath / Rage / Vengeance 3. Greed / Avarice 4. Envy / Jealousy

5. Gluttony / Waste

6. Laziness / Discouragement 7. Pride / (+/-) Self-Importance

Third Internal Layer: This is the conscious mind layer of the ego, which we all perceive as a self or personality. If one pays attention to their conscious thoughts, one becomes aware if they are having negative ego thoughts as defined above by the Seven Houses of Ego. All Houses of Ego are formed by making judgments of people and the external circumstances. The third layer is directly impacted by the first and second layer to the degree the painful memory has created walls of separation and traumatized sub-personalities. If the main areas of the walls of separation are not dismantled and the sub-personalities brought into transparency for healing, these hidden influences control and manipulate the strength and power within the person’s Houses of Ego. Essentially the more weak and in pain a person is, the more strong their walls of separation and pain body, which create the judgments which build the Houses of Ego. In most cases the houses are also created as a coping mechanism to deal with the harshness experienced in the 3D world.

The Houses of Ego are a direct rejection of God’s spirit and repel the Christos spirit from dwelling within one’s body.  If the Houses of Ego are extremely strong and the person replays its characteristic behavior repeatedly, that ego behavior builds an internal house, which then attracts a spirit.  As an example, if a person has an addiction problem sourcing from unhealed trauma and replays the addictive behavior repeatedly, a House of Addiction will be built as an internal structure of the ego mind. Once that House of Ego is built internally, it attracts a spirit with the same consciousness energy that will match the vibrational quality in the internal house. The Spirit of Addiction is a demonic spirit.  So as one builds a House of Addiction inside their mind and body, it attracts a demonic spirit to dwell within their house. As the laws of energetic structure states, one has built an internal house and has thus created the energetic agreement for a demonic spirit to dwell inside that house. This is the consensual agreement that unaware humans make for demonic spirits to dwell inside their body, and then later the consent they give the predator force to use their body as a dark portal

[mbcoldstorage]

Transcendence of the analog image

https://forum.arsenal-berlin.de/forum-forum-expanded/programm-forum/ste-anne/essay-transzendenz-des-analogbildes/

"Art is magic, freed from the lie of being truth" (Theodor W. Adorno)

A return to a culture of origin - or an attempt at self-determination that can only succeed if you make peace with your past? STE moves between these two poles . ANNEfor a long time without clearly giving preference to one direction over the other. In any case, it is a film with biographical borrowings: The title of the feature film debut by the Canadian Rhayne Vermette refers to the city in the province of Manitoba where her family once settled. Even before any narrative constriction, there is a poetic evocation: Vermette's film is an ode to the land of her ancestors, who, like herself, are members of the Métis, an ethnic minority that, at the end of the 18th century, emerged from the union of French-born settlers and indigenous people Population groups emerged.

In the film, the land, both a visual object and a “state of mind”, appears as close as it is remote. Close, because for Vermette it is a familiar environment, a landscape that she knows all too well; enraptured because the landscape in STE. ANNE does not offer a realistic setting through which the protagonists move habitually. Rather, it is de-familialized here from the start: Even the first recordings of the film, shot at the interface between day and night, allow viewers to pass a kind of threshold, enter a twilight zone . One looks at painting-like images of a steppe-like nature with mighty cloud formations, in addition to the chirping of birds and a restrained ambient sound that briefly swells threateningly.

Scar in the family structure

The woman who tiredly walks through one of these pictures is called Renée. Years after her mysterious disappearance, she returns to the settlement where her daughter Athene lives, who has since been raised like her own child by Renée's brother Modeste and his wife Eleanor. Before we learn anything about Renée's motives, Athene addresses her mother, who was believed to be lost - in an intimate voiceover monologue, she expresses the hope that she can finally get closer and share the spirits that haunt her with her.

Vermette embeds this inner monologue by Athene in a scene of communal commonality, the film keeps coming back to scenes of this kind: people gathered around a campfire, a folk song is sung; People who gather at the table. After the atmospherically ambiguous beginning, the joy of meeting now prevails. However, the separation has left a scar in the family structure - not least, athenes self-image is challenged. Does she now have two mothers, is she “just lucky,” as she once put it to a friend?

For both her mother Renée and herself, the reunification leads to an attempt to get to know her own roots better. Vermette tells this process of approaching and confronting the past with the rules of a fiction that falls back on conventions. You can see repeatedly how mother and daughter leaf through family albums together, but in the first of these scenes the depicted father himself appears as a transparent ghost in the image section. This is not scary: he is eating an apple and looking down at the others in a friendly manner. One can take the scene as the first indication that STE. ANNEit is more about juxtaposition: about images that can be memories, visions or views or several of them at the same time, but which are rarely realistic documents.

Photographs have a special status as artifacts in film. Renée has a crumpled old picture of a Ste. Anne, which she has acquired and where she would like to settle one day. The picture is an object of longing and at the same time a hand oracle that shows her the way into a self-determined future - although her project only seems possible via the detour of the fulfillment of a mythical prophecy. Athene, in turn, pins her mother's photo from the family album on the wall. When she touches it, this seems to trigger a chemical reaction that trembles the film image and, in the form of changing shades of color, apparently activates an inner intensity of the image, its affective potential.

Physical interweaving of image and world

According to the semiotic Charles S. Pierce, the photographic image (on film material) maintains an indexical connection to reality. It is a physical sign, a light print and at the same time the result of a medial transmission. With her work, Vermette consciously connects to this physical interweaving of image and world. She even goes beyond that when she ascribes a magic to the picture, an excess or residue of transcendence that must remain hidden from the naked eye. Horror films (just think of the horrific photo of the girl at the beginning of Nicholas Roeg's DON'T LOOK NOW) have repeatedly appropriated this mysterious charge of images. In STE. ANNEit is more about a spiritual-cosmic flicker, about the coexistence of different levels of time and being. Images seem most likely to be able to connect to the cyclical principle of the Métis culture. The time level of the film therefore remains deliberately unclear, past and present seem to overlap; At the same time, however, the camera has always been the medium for Vermette itself to relate to these traditions in the present. The fact that she herself can be seen in the role of Renée (and various family members appear) gives this artistic examination of her own history of origin even more urgency.

Recourse to the filmic carrier material is essential for Vermette's aesthetic approach. She shoots with a Bolex camera on 16mm and already with this practice refers to methods of experimental or avant-garde film; in interviews she mentions the tickle that results from the fact that you never know for sure what the finished image will look like in the end. In her short films, she made the materiality of the film an even more explicit topic, or rather linked the fiction itself to the volatility of the medium. In LE CHÂSSIS DE LOURDES (2016), who with STE. ANNE corresponds most strongly, she reflects on her flight from the family network and then works through the films and photographs that her father made with a camera that he passed on to her, as it were from the newly gained distance.

With the help of a flowing, yet high-frequency montage, she creates an undertow with the recordings from the house of her childhood, which, with the help of the medium of film, deconstructs that imaginary place that is commonly referred to as “home”. Memory is identified as a construction and the private environment, which one walks through again in pictures or rather scans through, is expanded into a collective space. By making the film material, the individual frames, the soundtrack and the perforation of the film strip visible, Vermette also turns the semantic units outwards. It rearranges and animates (right down to the processing of the individual cadre) the source material, not least through the sound,

LE CHÂSSIS DE LOURDES, as a (re) appropriation and extension of one's own family history, is nevertheless a differently polarized home movie than STE ANNE. Because only her feature film poses the question of how belonging to a traditional but already fragmented culture can be combined with the individualistic demands of a modern woman. Instead of following a progressive plot, Vermette creates passages which she then relates to one another using a method similar to sampling (she describes hip-hop artist and producer Madlib as one of her role models). Motifs are intoned, take a back seat and are taken up again later. One is the matriarchal structure of the Métis community, which is shown early on in the film in social togetherness, in which anecdotes about the past are exchanged. That sequence is particularly haunting in which the women in anachronistic costumes go from house to house as nuns with their faces wrapped in bandages. If you first believe yourself in a horror film, the scenario is later identified as a ritual that ends with the exuberant feast of the captured delicacies - a rebellious act that creates common ground among the women.

Metaphysics in moving images

Vermette embeds such passages in impressionistic landscape panoramas in which nature (and its spiritual forces) come to an independent present in the materiality of the film. The shots of barren autumn forests, wintery snowy landscapes and rivers, which have fragile textures and changing color intensities, do not just work as poetic inserts. Rather, they form the larger resonance space for the changes that are emerging in the family structure. The grandmother is repeatedly seen looking out into the night, at the moon and a stray dog, as if she saw a portent in them. Nature has a somatic quality that also manifests itself in the grain of the 16mm pictures or the veils of color that flicker around the pictures - an effect which is enhanced by the complex sound design. Once wrinkled hands plunge into a body of water, which seems to trigger a chain reaction on the sound level. When ice flowers on windows, ornate enamel and the swirl pattern on a body of water come together in a figurative dance, then it also tells of a cosmic roof over people and things.

This is also borne out by the highlighted scene in which the immanence of this community - one feels reminiscent of a film by Apichatpong Weerasethakul - emerges most clearly in the film: As in a daydream, Renée first climbs a hill in slow motion with tents on it. Then the horns of a bull glow in the dark, it snorts like a god of nature, while Renée tells of her premonition of a coming disaster. Did it create these pictures? She asks the being. Or is this just the sad result of someone else, i.e. representation itself?

That stays in STE. ANNE, of course, in the balance; But when you think about these questions you inevitably think of the director herself, the real originator of this metaphysics in moving images. Renée's path to independence is not only to be had at the price of breaking with the culture of origin. The idea of ​​standing on her own two feet with Athena paradoxically brings her closer to her own roots. The decisive factor, however, is the film medium, which prepares the ground for the reconciliation of the opposing worlds: their real life and the spiritual space of family tradition. Only this gives form to magical thinking.

Dominik Kamalzadeh is the cultural editor of the Vienna daily Der Standard and member of the editorial board of the film magazine Kolik.Film . He lives in Vienna.

[365daysofsasuhina]

[ 365 Days of SasuHina || Day Three Hundred Thirty-Eight: No Remorse ] [ Uchiha Sasuke, Hyūga Hinata, Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura ] [ SasuHina ] [ Verse: A Light Amongst Shadows ] [ AO3 Link ]

It’s one of the questions he’s asked most often...to the point where he’s become - quite frankly - rather exasperated with it.

“Do you regret it?”

‘It’ being a rather vague term, but one way or another, the word typically refers to any or all events from the time he left Konoha, to when he was dragged back. From the moment he’s back within the village, it seems to be the one thing anyone really cares to know about the time he spent outside it.

The simple answer is...no.

But most people aren’t satisfied with that. If he tells them no, and doesn’t explain...they get that look. One that tells him that he really should regret it. That he should be ashamed of the things he did.

At first, such a response doesn’t really bother him. He honestly couldn’t give less of a shit what anyone in Konoha thinks about him, really. Their blind loyalty to a place that’s - in actuality - committed a number of crimes, not just those regarding his clan, leaves him with a rather unfavorable opinion of most of them. Granted, your typical shinobi - let alone civilian - hardly knows about Konoha’s wrongdoings. But even those who do - his team, primarily - don’t really seem to have much concern about confronting them.

Something he isn’t going to let slide.

But that’s to be handled later. For now, he’s still stuck dealing with the dredge of the villagers’ opinions.

Because in reality...he doesn’t regret a single thing he did. Some things he might have done differently given his knowledge...but he also knows there’s no point in such thoughts. There’s no changing the past. And even if there were...the unknown outcomes of such changes may very well be even harder to cope with than his current circumstances.

He does, admittedly, regret killing Itachi. But he also knows it was his brother’s wish: his attempt to keep the peace, keep Sasuke blinded to the dark truths of their village...and end his own suffering. But the elder brother’s death - and the revelations Sasuke received after, from both Obito and Itachi himself - led him to the truth. To his current path.

And he can’t bring himself to regret that.

He doesn’t regret killing Orochimaru. Or his later decision to revive the snake sannin. Getting his teacher out of the way was necessary...just as much as it was to later revive them. Part of him may very well think that having the serpent alive is a risk...but it also was one that, overall, panned out in their favor. Orochimaru has done despicable things...but so too were they instrumental in overcoming obstacles.

Taka...is a difficult subject. Despite his best efforts to remain neutral toward them, there was no fully killing his need to protect people - to connect with them. As much as Karin annoys him, as much as Suigetsu prods at him, and as closely as he has to watch Jūgo...he couldn’t have done what he did without them. They aren’t exactly...friends. He can’t bring himself to call them that, but friend is a difficult subject for him. They’re an odd...in-between.

He certainly doesn’t regret killing Danzō. While he knows the rest of the council won’t receive the same fate - and maybe they don’t quite deserve it like the head of Root did - their actions were the direct allowance of the massacre. Danzō’s greed for their power and his want to remove them from his path was something Sasuke could never forgive - never let go unaddressed.

He had to die.

So, in truth...while some things have been harder for Sasuke to accept than others...he’s had to, really. He’d go mad overthinking it, doubting it all, asking ‘what if’ whenever it gets too quiet. He made his bed, and he’ll lie in it. There’s no getting his clan back. His brother back. His life back.

This is his reality. Regretting it will bring him no peace...no justice.

All he can do now...is move forward.

“Ah -!”

Dragged into a group outing, Sasuke pauses and glances over as one of their troupe seems to stagger. It’s currently him, Sakura, Naruto, and Hinata. The Hyūga has been hanging around the rather-fragmented team seven as of late. And it’s she who seems to crumple mid-step.

Being the fastest among them, it’s Sasuke who reacts first. With an arm around her waist, he keeps her on her feet, dark brows furrowing. There’s a rather violent ripple in her chakra.

Something’s wrong.

“Sakura,” he barks, bluntly but not unkindly.

Noticing as much herself, the rosette wastes no time in approaching. As Sasuke eases Hinata to sit (a bit difficult to do, given their position in the crowded shopping district), Naruto follows up.

“Hinata-chan! What’s wrong?”

“I...I’m fine,” she insists, tone a bit wispy as Sakura puts a hand to her chest, chakra shifting to a jade shade. “It’s just...m-my chest.”

“Your heart? Or your scar?”

“Heart…”

“When was your last cardiology appointment?” Sakura asks, immediately in medic mode.

Sasuke, serving as a bit of a chair at the moment, lets his brow furrow. Wait...her heart? She’s only seventeen, why would she -?

...oh...now he remembers. Their chūnin exams. Her spar against Neji. The blow to her chest that stopped the organ and required her to be evacuated to the hospital. He remembers hearing about her extensive hospital stay, and the weeks of therapy it took to strengthen her heart.

She’d nearly died that day.

“About, um…” She pauses to think. “...two months ago. Everything’s fine. It just f-flares up sometimes. I’ve been told it’s normal, I just need to rest.”

Sakura doesn’t look fully convinced, but relents. “...we better get you home.”

“But -?”

“We’re not about to keep dragging you around when you feel like this!”

“I don’t want to r-ruin it…”

“...I’ll take her home,” Sasuke then offers. “I’m not contributing much as it is. You two stay and finish up. I’ll make sure she gets there safe.”

For a brief moment, something flickers across Sakura’s face. “...all right. But if anything happens, you take her straight to the hospital! No ifs, ands, or buts!”

Hinata almost seems to pout, but doesn’t argue. “...I’m sorry, Sakura-chan.”

“Oh, please - a little outing is a lot less important than your health. Go get some rest. We’ll see you again soon, okay? Take it easy!”

“...I will…” Letting Sasuke carefully haul her back to her feet, Hinata starts leading the way back to her clan’s grounds.

Sasuke keeps his gaze on her from the corner of his unveiled eye, watching for any signs she’s worsening. She seems a bit out of breath, but otherwise passable enough. “...is this from the chūnin exams?”

With a small, weary sigh...Hinata nods. “...my heart is healed, but every so often I have a bout of arrhythmia. It’s never been anything serious, not since my therapy ended. It’s just something I have to deal with. Everyone always makes it so dramatic…”

“People worry about you. And if Sakura’s worried...there’s surely reason to be.”

“It’s been four years. I r-really don’t think I’m going to relapse. My primary medic says I’m fine, and she’s as diligent as they come. I keep up my appointments...everything else is just unnecessary fuss.”

“...all right, then.” He’s not about to argue. But then the other part of Sakura’s questioning surfaces.

“...Sakura said something about a scar…?”

To his surprise, she actually pauses. “...yes.”

He too slows to a stop. “...what was that from?” He likely has no idea - he was gone for quite some time, and odds are he just wasn’t around when it happened.

“...when Akatsuki attacked Konoha, I interfered with Naruto-kun’s fight against their leader.”

Subtly, his eye widens.

“I knew I wasn’t any match...mostly I just w-wanted to be a distraction. Maybe help free him so he could continue the fight. But I was overpowered before he could get loose, and the enemy impaled me with one of his black rods.”

At her words, a memory surfaces: that of Madara turning Tobirama into a pincushion with rods like that. Right before he -

“It went into my side, and...caused a lot of damage. Due to the rush, it was healed over very quickly, and I had a few c-complications that had to be fixed later with further surgeries. The scarring is a bit tight, so...sometimes I have trouble t-twisting my torso. I do yoga and kata to help with flexibility, but...it twinges sometimes. Sakura-chan likely thought that might have been what had me flinch.”

Sasuke considers her for a long moment. They’re still stopped in the middle of a road, currently empty beyond the two of them. “...you got that trying to help Naruto?”

“...yes. After I was stabbed, he flew into a rage...utilized his bijū and got free.”

“...I didn’t realize he cared about you that much.” It’s a blunt statement, but an honest one. From what he can remember...Naruto always called her strange. While Sasuke (and just about everyone else) could see it was due to her crush on him...the blond was always blind.

Hinata, however, doesn’t flinch. Instead, her head bows slightly. “...that was the day I told him I loved him. I don’t k-know if that had anything to do with it. He never mentioned it after that.”

“...wait.” Disbelief slackens his face. “...you confessed to him, risked your life for him...and he said nothing?”

“T-there was a lot more to consider - Akatsuki, the village, and -”

“But even after all this time...he hasn’t answered you?”

“...not directly.” Her tone quiets. “...but I t-think his reply is rather...o-obvious.”

“...that stupid prick,” Sasuke mutters.

“It w-wasn’t his -”

“You don’t regret it?”

His interruption makes her hesitate.

“...nothing? No remorse? I saw what you did during the war...you tried to do it again. All this effort doesn’t feel...wasted?”

She stares at him, expression unreadable. “...Naruto-kun doesn’t feel how I felt. And I h-hardly want him to force it, or...or lie. That doesn’t mean I regret doing what I did. I wanted to protect him. I w-wanted to prove I was strong enough to stand beside him. I might not love him anymore...maybe I never did. Not truly. But I can’t regret risking my own life for someone I care about. Even if we aren’t right for each other...I still care. I still want him safe, and happy. If the choice came up again...I wouldn’t hesitate. Naruto-kun is precious to me. I might not be what I wanted to be to him...but I’m still his friend. His comrade. So no...I don’t regret my choices.” Unblinking, she doesn’t censor herself. “...I thought y-you of all people would understand.”

For some reason...her words sting in a way he doesn’t expect. But rather than feel a need to lash out, or reply with snark...he recoils, suddenly unsure. He never thought her capable of such a remark.

When it’s clear he isn’t going to rebuke, she sighs. “...I’ve given a lot for other people. But I’d never take any of it back. Just because it’s left me in a deficit doesn’t mean I should regret it. I still feel like I made the right choices...even if others might disagree. They’re mine to make...and mine alone.”

“...fair enough.”

A pause.

“...you don’t have to walk me back, I’ll be fine. You probably want to go home.”

“It’s not that far.” And he isn’t about to walk away from her rather bold statements. “Besides, Sakura will skin me alive if she finds out I left.”

“...all right.”

They don’t exchange any more words on the way, and Hinata turns back as she passes through the compound gate. “...have a good evening, Sasuke-kun.”

“You too. Get some rest. Remember, doctor’s orders.”

To his surprise, she manages a smile. “I will.” With that, she turns and soon disappears.

Mind full of thoughts he had no intention of entertaining, Sasuke eventually sighs...and turns back toward home.

                                                          .oOo.

     This isn't QUITE what I want it to be, but...it's late and I don't have time to redo or tinker xD      Sasuke, in my mind, fully accepts all of his decisions. Maybe a bit less out of actually finding them to be the best he could have done...and more just doing so for his own peace of mind. Sure, he has things he know he could have done better, but...only AFTER seeing how they played out. For his sanity's sake, he can't regret them.      Hinata, on the other hand, feels that she DID do the best she could. And while others might criticize her, especially her actions concerning Naruto, she doesn't regret them. Just because their bond didn't pan out how she'd wanted doesn't mean she'd NOT do her best to help him. He still matters. Her feelings still matter. They've just...changed. But that doesn't change the past, or how she views it.      So, two different interpretations. And I think that's an interesting comparison between them!      ...but it's also 3 am and I'm tired so maybe that's the only reason I'm so rambly xD      Either way, that's all I've got for now, and it's WAY past bedtime lol - thanks for reading!

[kcrabb88]

In a Mirror Dimly

Summary: Enjolras and Valjean bond at the barricade, discussing love and something they share in common. Written for Ace Mis Week 2019. 

Note: Aromanticism and asexuality definitely overlap here! That’s my personal experience/orientation, so that comes naturally for me when writing about ace things. Also, the title is a reference to a verse from 1 Corinthians. Thanks to @aflamethatneverdies and @librarianladyx for beta’ing! 

Valjean knows he shouldn’t get attached to these boys.

Because these boys will probably be dead soon.

Young men, he corrects himself, because they’re not children. But he has a habit of making any youth a child in his head.

He can’t help but feel fatherly toward them.

Perhaps he can convince them to run? Then again, maybe not. And how could he lead them through the dark of Paris unnoticed, even if he got them out?

Surrender? He flinches, digging his fingernails into his palms. That might mean prison. He swallows, unwilling to imagine these vibrant young men under that weight.

He looks over, seeing the one called Enjolras whisper something in Combeferre’s ear, a soft smile sliding onto the chief’s face.

He remembers seeing the tear running down the lad’s cheek after he shot the artillery sergeant. He remembers watching him step away for a moment and take a deep breath, because there isn’t time for grief.

Not here.

Enjolras brushes a stray strand of astonishing fair hair out of his eyes, not yet noticing Valjean studying him. Paris feels dark in this space before true daylight comes, clouds sweeping across the sky as a slice of blue edges into the black night, just a hint of red lingering on the horizon. There’s no light from the usual window lanterns, the few they have near the barricade emitting a dull yellow haze. The scent of gun smoke lingers in the air, never allowing Valjean to forget where he is.

He’d sensed the revolt in the air for weeks, months, before he heard news of the barricades today, but France has been roiled so many times since his birth that he can never tell when a spark will turn into something or when it won’t. The revolution was in progress when he was shipped to Toulon, and he remembers hearing news of the changes inside France: the revolution ending, Napoleon’s coup, and years later, his disastrous defeat in Russia. Then, Waterloo.

Nothing changed inside the bagne.

Valjean’s surprised when he glances up and sees Enjolras looking at him.

Then walking toward him.

“I was grateful for your help with the mattress to block the grapeshot, citizen,” Enjolras says as he approaches. “And for your bravery in giving your uniform to send another man away. My friends and I are thankful.”

Always citizen, rather than monsieur. Valjean’s intrigued again, even if he doesn’t quite know what to say. He can’t really say why exactly he’s here, though he’d heard Marius say I know him, so what might the other men here suspect? Perhaps nothing. Perhaps that Marius has only seen him in the street.

He realizes how much he’s used to keeping secrets. Always secrets, because he carries Toulon with him everywhere. The secrets grew heavier when he tore up his yellow passport and became someone else, when he took the bishop’s silver and started a new life. But with his secrets he also gained a sort of freedom. The freedom to be someone other than Jean Valjean and the damage that name carries with it. He’s only Jean Valjean at night, when he’s alone with his scars. Wearing another name gives him the chance to help others. It gives him the chance to love his daughter.

Valjean folds his hands together, praying he can get Cosette’s young man out of here even as the National Guard gets closer and daylight breaks into the night, the first hints of dawn reaching the barricade. He recalls Enjolras’ words from the speech he gave not long ago, the words cutting into Valjean’s heart because he doesn’t want these young men to die.

We are entering a tomb all flooded with the dawn.

Enjolras sits down on the paving stones, the first strains of morning light creeping toward his feet through the shadows as if drawn to him. The glow casts his youth into relief and washes the gravity from his face, the knowledge that this lad might perish—and soon—making Valjean’s chest ache. Smudges of gunpowder stain Enjolras’ hands black in places, but he’s bafflingly free of even a small injury.

“Do you have anyone worrying over you at home?” Valjean asks, because he doesn’t know what to say. He so often feels like he doesn’t know what to say, only what to do.

Enjolras pulls his gaze away from the sunrise. “My parents are at home in Marseilles, but hopefully they aren’t worrying yet because news won’t have reached them.”

“No wife or children like those men you sent home?”

Valjean wonders if there’s any way he might convince Enjolras to go home. He looks barely more than seventeen or so, even if he must be a good bit into his twenties. Valjean isn’t opposed to the politics, because he knows just how desperate so many people are, right now. How desperate they’ve been for years. He understands the inequalities and the cholera and the poverty. Those were the things he was trying to fix, in Montreuil, before it all went wrong. Those are the things he wants to help alleviate now, where he can, person by person.

But he doesn’t want these young men dying over this. He wants them to find another way, because there’s enough death in these streets already.

Enjolras smiles, possibly catching onto to Valjean’s motives. “No. I have never been very interested in romance or the…” red creeps into his cheeks, and Valjean suspects he doesn’t blush often. “…the other activities my friends occupy themselves with. So no mistress waiting, either.”

Valjean shifts the gun resting between his knees. “Too busy wanting to change the world?”

Enjolras runs a hand through his over-long fair hair, and the small movement makes Fantine appear in Valjean’s mind with a flash of vibrant, tangible memory, her golden hair cut short and ruined by the cruel edge of a knife. All these years later and he still aches over the fact that he couldn’t save her.

He probably can’t save all these boys either, only the one he’s come for, the one his daughter loves, and it hurts.

Truth be told he doesn’t even know if he can save Marius.

Even in the last excruciating moments, there had been hope in Fantine’s eyes, hope that she might see her daughter again. Even as she died, Valjean saw the life in her bursting at the seams with nowhere to go. He never had the chance to know Fantine, just as he won’t ever know Enjolras, but despite their differences in circumstance and age and gender, he recognizes the same radical, indestructible hope in both of them. In Fantine’s last days he sensed that she was never just surviving, but always looking for the tiniest fragment of joy in the dark, even if she was only holding on by her fingernails. He senses that same spirit in Enjolras, watching it shimmer in the air around them like a living thing.

If he could, he would give some of his years back to Fantine, so she could see her daughter again.

He would give some to these lads, too, and save them from the bullets awaiting them on the other side of the barricade.

But he can’t.

Enjolras’ voice draws him back toward the moment at hand, every second feeling precious, because death’s shadow creeps over the barricade even as the orange-red glow of the sunrise bursts over the Parisian skyline. “That is always time consuming, but my friends also find plenty of hours in the day for both their mistresses and their politics. I suppose I never felt the impulse.”

“I thought I heard one of your friends teasing and saying you were rather intrepid for a man who had no woman he loved,” Valjean says, finding himself talking more with Enjolras than he does with most people other than Cosette. “But I thought perhaps they just might not know that you did.”

Enjolras laughs softly, but there’s grief within the sound. “Oh, no. I keep no secrets from my friends. We are a family, after all. Bound together by love of the same cause, and years of friendship.” Enjolras’s voice cracks ever so slightly, his words growing heavy.

“You’ve lost good friends today.” Valjean almost clasps Enjolras on the shoulder, but he isn’t sure if the touch would be welcome, so he refrains, for now. “Not just compatriots.”

“Two of the best men I knew.” Enjolras glances over at Courfeyrac, Feuilly, Combeferre, Bossuet, and Joly, who stand nearby, a gleam of deep love in his eyes. “Bahorel and Prouvaire. Bahorel had a laugh you could never forget, and a formidable loyalty to those he chose as his own. Prouvaire had an absolutely astonishing soul, and poetry that could make any man cry, even if I don’t understand the finer points of the art form.” Enjolras touches his undone cravat, a bright-red against the more muted colors of the rest of his clothing. Perhaps a gift from the friends he mentioned. Then, his voice goes deeper, a dangerous anger puncturing the words. “Some of the national guardsmen executed Prouvaire point blank. It’s why I’m afraid the police inspector inside will meet his end here.”

Valjean tenses at that, Javert’s presence is a problem for him in a million ways even as he wishes to get him out of here unscathed. Javert is a thorn in his side. Javert could turn him in. Javert keeps turning up, and yet Valjean doesn’t want to see him killed. A strange sympathy for the police inspector wells up in Valjean’s chest, a sympathy of which he doesn’t entirely understand the root.

“I’m sure some people find it odd,” Enjolras continues, his words holding the ring of a confession. “My lack of a mistress or interest in marriage. But I have all I need with my friends.”

Valjean pauses, hesitant to share anything about himself with anyone, the instinct ingrained so deeply within him he doesn’t know how to undo it. He’s afraid to undo it.

“I understand.” Valjean speaks the words before he’s ready, but he does understand, and it’s almost a relief to hear Enjolras make his own admission. Their lives are very different, but that feeling is the same. “I have a daughter, you see. Not my blood, but…” Valjean trails off for a moment, an image of Fantine coughing until her whole body shook overtaking his memory. “…but my own nevertheless. The life I’ve led has never truly offered me the opportunity for marriage and the like, but then again I also haven’t found I desired any of that. So I don’t find it odd at all, if you want the opinion of an old man.”

Concern floods Enjolras’ face, his eyes widening in alarm. “You have a daughter and yet you gave yourself up for another man to leave? I didn’t know…I…” Enjolras is inarticulate now, and it’s a far cry from the beautiful ease of his earlier speech, the words he spoke to the crowd like a hymn caught in the wind. Valjean remembers how those words sunk into his old soul, watching as the flames of hope came alive in the eyes of the men surrounding him. Not hope for their own lives, necessarily, but hope for the future they all believe in.

Valjean does clasp Enjolras’ shoulder now. “Easy, lad. I know what I’m doing. I’ll be all right.”

Enjolras frowns, the earlier gravity returning. “I am far from certain that any of us are going to be all right, I’m afraid. I hate to see your daughter lose you. I’m sure she needs you.”

“I’ll be all right,” Valjean repeats.

He cannot say I faked my own death to escape a prison ship. He cannot say I once snuck into a convent by hiding in a coffin. He cannot say I have been through stranger things, and somehow survived. He’s honestly not sure if he will survive. But he has to try. He has to try to get Cosette’s young man back to her. Even if it means losing her, Valjean wants her happiness. She deserves her happiness. She deserves more than an old man like him.

Valjean’s eyes flick to Marius for the briefest of moments, and it doesn’t go unnoticed by Enjolras. Enjolras looks at Marius and back at Valjean again, some kind of recognition flashing in his face that he doesn’t voice.

“I don’t suppose there’s any way I can convince you and your friends to leave the barricade?”

Valjean speaks before Enjolras can, hardly knowing what he’s saying.

A sad smile graces Enjolras’ features as the sun comes up fully over the barricade, gold dripping from the ends of his hair when the light strikes him.

“We will not surrender. My friends and I will do this together as we have so many other things in our lives these past years. We will survive together, or we will not.”

There’s a finality in Enjolras’ words among the grief and the hope and the unshakeable love Valjean hears.

“That kind of family is a beautiful thing to possess,” Valjean says, his words turning tremulous, and he clears his throat against the wave of emotion crashing over him. “That kind of family, and something to believe in.”

Enjolras blinks, wiping away a stray tear falling from his eye. “Those two things are all I have ever needed. Perhaps some might say that my lack of a mistress means I do not love, but that is not the truth.” Enjolras glances over at his friends again, and then at the sun casting the barricade in a golden glow, the light of a new day dawning. The dawn of the sixth of June. “I love so much I feel it might burst out of me at any moment. And sometimes it does.”

“I understand.” Valjean stands up at the same time as Enjolras, putting out his hand for the lad to shake. “I truly do.”

Enjolras accepts the handshake, his hand warm with life and kindness. “I hope that you find your way back to your daughter, citizen. Her name is?”

“Cosette,” Valjean says, something powerful filling him up as he says his child’s name, even more determined to get the Pontmercy boy back to her. He has never felt the kind of romantic feelings for someone like she possesses for that young man, but he does know what it is to deeply love, because she taught him.

“Cosette,” Enjolras repeats, handling the name with care. “Thank you for sharing a piece of yourself with me. It’s always nice to share something in common with someone when you didn’t expect it.”

Valjean nods, letting go of Enjolras’ hand. “It is. Thank you for talking with an old man.”

Enjolras smiles again before going back over to Combeferre and Courfeyrac, who each put an arm around him.

There’s still the matter of Javert inside the Corinthe. There’s still the matter of getting Cosette’s young man out of here. There’s still the matter of surviving long enough to do that. But Valjean marvels at the life on this barricade that is so obviously destined to end in death.

He marvels at the love all around him.

More words from Enjolras’ speech echo in his head, louder than the footsteps of the soldiers and the cannon fire on the other side of this chaotic, mismatched pile of wood that is the only thing standing between them and eternity.

Whence shall arise the shout of love, if it be not from the summit of sacrifice?

[reginrokkr]

◟༺✧༻◞ Perinheri (I).

This is a story from very ancient times indeed. It is said that in those days, birds had not yet split into domestic and wild kindreds. In those days, a crimson moon shone down upon the subterranean realm, and not the dark sun of latter days.

Due to the Kingdom's unique position, things from outside this world were always leaking into it. The Kingdom's weapons would wipe out the calamities slipping in, but what of all the other objects? Such as, say, a child who may have come from some destroyed world?

[...] (Naturally, no oceans in the traditional sense lay within the Kingdom's borders. The earliest founders of the Kingdom had once seen the majestic silhouettes of the mountains blur under the sun's searing glare, and the rippling reflections of the moonlight falling upon the sea's surface like a scattering of pearls. But at the time the story took place, only outsiders and those few who had left the Kingdom on official duties and returned could describe such sights to the ruler. The ocean and the sea were often used as a metaphor for the space projected by the stars.)

In anticipation of the arrival at their Kingdom of gods from beyond the so-called ocean — or rather, the arrival of beings who could transcend the gods — they founded an organization, an orphanage to take care of such children. In latter days, the orphans of the Kingdom and those who wandered in from outside were accepted as well.

[...] Perhaps it was the fear brought on by the darkness combined with hunger and exhaustion, but Perinheri did indeed see an illusion. The crimson moon, hanging high in the pitch-dark night sky, suddenly turned around, revealing itself to be a titanic, horrified eye.

Though the crimson moon set, and the dark sun descended into a yet darker dusk, that transcendental person from beyond who the Kingdom orphanage was awaiting never arrived. But unusual individuals they had aplenty, and many of those who strode forth from the gates of that orphanage became great knights of the Kingdom.

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Volume Five, Number 11

Cold rain, dead leaves, political corruption, diplomatic betrayal…it’s been a bleak couple of weeks on the home front, but at least the music is good. This time out, we check in with the estimable Ezra Furman (pictured above) and his blistering punk rock album, as well as a smattering of shoegaze, a low frequency trio, a black metal endurance test, acoustic entropy and the sound of black holes colliding.  You know, same old, same old.  Our contributors include Andrew Forell, Bill Meyer, Jennifer Kelly, Jonathan Shaw and Ian Mathers.

Blushing — Blushing (Wallflower Records)

Blushing by Blushing

Blasting out of Austin, Texas come Blushing (married couples Michelle and Jacob Soto on guitar/vocals and drums, Christina and Noe Carmona on vocals/bass and guitar) with their self-titled debut album, an impressively sophisticated addition to the shoegaze landscape. Blushing displays finely tuned dynamics, a keen sense of melody and joyous rushes of controlled noise. The interplay of twin vocals adds an ethereal Cocteau Twins sheen to the songs but Blushing aren’t afraid to let rip with layers of guitar. Producer Elliott Frazier of Ringo Deathstarr achieves space and separation in the mix that elevates this album above the basic quiet-loud-quiet formula. Underpinning all this is simply terrific songwriting and musicianship. Opener “So Many” starts with whispered vocals over strums and washes of guitar before the rhythm section enters, there’s a slow build before the track blossoms into a widescreen squall of almost psychedelic guitars and pounding drums then wanes into a feedback outro. Highlights “Dream Merchants” and “The Truth” bring classic shoegaze tropes and add a dreamy panoramic depth. Blushing is a band to watch and this is a gem of a debut.

Andrew Forell

 CARL — Solid Bottom (Astral Spirits)

Solid Bottom by CARL

“Bass, how low can you go?” CARL’s flow differs drastically from Mike D’s, but the question is undeniably pertinent. The Houston-based trio comprises three low end instruments — Damon Smith (since departed) on double bass, Andrew Durham on electric bass and radio, and bandleader Danny Kamins on baritone saxophone — hitting sonorities that range from ankle high to sub-sub-basement. But bulbous pitches can still be nimble, and so it is here. The interaction pits genre against genre, bow thrust against amp buzz, melancholy phrase against floor-rattling rumble, resulting in music that never feels at ease. Hey, Texas needs some opposition, and these folks are ready to show the way.

Bill Meyer

 Ezra Furman—Twelve Nudes (Bella Union)

Twelve Nudes by Ezra Furman

It was about the time that Ezra Furman started expressing his distinct identity—queer, cross-dressed, devoutly Jewish—that he turned into one of rock’s great songwriters. Today, freed of the need for self-abnegation, his songs balance a razor-stropped wit with sharp, assaultive hooks; he is not afraid to tell you his story, though he’s too literate and clever to deliver it unadulterated. His songs have a shape and a sting at the end like a good short story, but a punch that is considerably more visceral. “The kids are just getting started/they’ve only just learned to howl, and most of them throw in the towel/by the time that they turn 23,” he shouts raspily in “Evening Prayer aka Justice” and it leads into the kind of stirring, anthemic chorus that Titus Andronicus used to be so good at. “What Can You Do But Rock and Roll” rampages in a short-circuiting stop-start attack, like Green Day before they got so serious about themselves. In short, it’s a rock and roll of the sort that the culture has mostly abandoned, the kind that large men push to the front of Hold Steady concerts for, that causes Japandroids fans to punch the air. And yet it is not wholly of this man-centric tradition, simply because of who Ezra Furman is – lipsticked, cocktail dressed, smarter than you and willing to talk Torah. In short, here is a songwriter who has been killing it since Day of the Dog and Twelve Nudes, his latest, punk-est album (inspired equally by Jay Reatard and the Canadian poet Anne Carson) may just be his best. He is of the zeitgeist and also not, and you kind of wish more people were paying attention.

Jennifer Kelly

 Great Grandpa—Four of Arrows (Double Double Whammy)

Four of Arrows by Great Grandpa

“That’s why I hate you-ou,” cries Alex Menne in “Digger,” their voice catching in a hiccupping way that invites intimacy even at high volume. Her confidences are couched in an explosive swirl of country rocking countercurrents, concocted by the band’s two main songwriters, bassist and singer Carrie Goodwin and guitarist Pat Goodwin and executed alongside Dylan Hanwright (also guitar) and Cam LaFlam (drummer). The Seattle band’s second full-length is less brash and rock-centric than the 2017 debut Plastic Cough, which, perhaps because of their northwestern roots, elicited the term “grunge” from critics. This one is fuller, more elaborate and entirely devoid of Soundgarden references. It is decorated with lush, multi-voiced singing and baroque instrumental counterparts, and critically, uses a warmer more organic palette of instruments. That’s a violin and a banjo building out “English Garden,” not the buzz saw guitars of “Teen Challenge.” This rich, tuneful, grounded experiment might remind you of Ohmme, Hop Along or the Moondoggies, sleek but vulnerable, blown out but in control.

Jennifer Kelly

  Hatchie — Keepsake (Double Double Whammy/Ivy League/Heavenly Recordings)

Could it somehow be the fact that Harriette Pilbeam (late of Aussie indie rock band Babaganouj and here aka Hatchie, a family nickname) plays bass instead of the more standard frontwoman guitar that makes the singer-songwriter’s debut LP of new wave dream pop confections so singularly striking? Probably not, but Keepsake is assured and ingratiating enough it does leave one looking for the secret ingredient. Whether it’s the swooning likes of “Without a Blush” or “Secret” or the rougher emotional and sonic texture of “Unwanted Guest,” whether it’s playing against a sampled loop of her own voice on the chorus of “Obsessed” or achieving a particular kind of downward gazing transcendence through drum machine and synthesizer on “Stay With Me,” all of the songs here manage to hit on just the right combination of genre-appropriate beauty in texture with genuinely impressive melodic songcraft that whether Pilbeam sticks with this sound or not, she’s one to watch.  

Ian Mathers  

 Imperial Cult — Spasm of Light (Amor Fati/Sentient Ruin Laboratories)

Spasm of Light by Imperial Cult

This record consists of a single, 34-minute, largely improvised track, captured live in the studio. It’s all about endurance: the band’s, who must gamely thrash and bash at their instruments, with all of black metal’s requisite speed and intensity; and the listener’s, who has to commit a fairly significant amount of attention to the thing. Hailing from Holland, Imperial Cult are a new band, subscribing to the minimal web-presence policy of some other hyper-obscure acts, so it’s tough to say if they are of the “Satanists-and-we-really-mean-it” variety of continental black metal. If they are, the record’s grandiose gesture makes a certain sense. “Spasm of Light” may thematize the notion of eternal hellfire and torment. That, in turn, would raise other theological questions (do these guys imagine that declaring themselves devil worshippers and making this sort of music is their ticket out of forever in Bedlam? or are they looking forward to it?) that this reviewer isn’t all that interested in. More immediately concerning is the music. It’s pretty good, though to these ears, it’s more evocative of the epically inclined USBM bands of the Cascadian school — especially the early records of Ash Borer — than purposefully underground European occult acts like Novae Militiae (yes please) or Deathspell Omega (no thanks). Musically, that’s a good thing. Ideologically, who knows? Do these dudes wear cowls and sacrifice small mammals? Do you really want to know? Jonathan Shaw

  Minor Pieces — The Heavy Steps of Dreaming (FatCat)

Just gorgeous. Tape hiss master Ian William Craig and a Vancouver-based songwriter named Missy Donaldson join forces in an album that hangs right in the spectral other-space between conventional song and ambient soundscape. Craig, who is a classically-trained singer, sings lead most of the time. His clear, vibrato-laced tones with clouds and miasmas of electronic wash, mass-y harmonies and fragmented bits of guitar and piano. The effect in opener “Rothko” is both luminously polished and dream-like. “Bravagallata” reaches further up the register, twining Craig’s androgynous, unearthly tenor with the warmth of nestling, caressing harmonies; it shimmers in the interstices between icy modernity and comforting folk song. “The Way We Are in Song,” arises out of glowing, shifting electronic tones, yet feels wholly natural and unaffected. The way we are in this song is beautiful, touchingly human, but more so.

Jennifer Kelly

 The Pheromoans — County Lines (ALTER)

County Lines by The Pheromoans

The Pheromoans look at the world sideways, buttressing a workman-like rock and roll sound with murky embellishments of violin and synths. With a wobbly, wavery flavor of post-punk that might remind you, a little, of Blue Orchids, they match up dense woozy riffs with literate mumbles. They are the sort of band to ask “Sharia or Sheeran” and leave you shrugging, what’s the difference? This is the Pheromoans’ fifth full-length; their diaspora previously landed them on Upset! The Rhythm; but here the edges aren’t sharp enough, the punches not hard enough to evoke that label’s other bands. Yet there’s a disconsolate appeal to these wandering tracks. “Troll Attack” eviscerates electronic interaction against a Casio beat; both the music and the lyrics poke at unsatisfactory surfaces to find darker, truer muck underneath.

Jennifer Kelly

 Matthew Revert — The Inpatient (Round Bale)

The Inpatient by Matthew Revert

Some people get ready for surgery by making a bowl of Jell-o and making sure that the Hulu bill is paid up. Not Matthew Revert. His preparation for a date with the surgeon involved pitching himself into a new creative endeavor. None of his recordings to date, which have mostly involved acoustic entropy and electro-acoustic construction, will prepare you for The Inpatient. The album comprises ten improvised but structurally sound songs, all sung in nakedly emotional Spanish. Imagine Alan Bishop adopting a persona that is not immune to shame, and you’ve got an idea where this stuff goes. Prepare to be bemused.

Bill Meyer                        

 Marcus Schmickler — Particle/Matter–Wave/Energy (Kompakt)

Space is a place that has been exercising the minds of composers of late with recent releases by William Basinski (On Time Out of Time) and The Kronos Quartet (Terry Riley: Sun Rings) being two examples that use recordings from the deep cosmos. German experimental producer Marcus Schmickler, best known for his work as Pluramon, imagines the sound of galaxies colliding on his new piece Particle/Matter-Wave/Energy, a 37-minute block of immersive ambience based on Schmickler’s use of an algorithm to model gravitational data as a tool for sonification, a process that translates information into sound. The result is huge waves of tones that rumble, whistle and bleep like a swarm fleeing a storm. Through headphones this is an almost vertigo inducing experience as Schmickler evokes the sense of plummeting through a vast endless expanse of darkness. A fascinating and often unsettling piece, Particle/Matter-Wave/Energy works as a soundscape experiment rather than a casual listen, perhaps more to admire than enjoy, but it has a fluid physicality that rescues it from mere abstraction.

Andrew Forell

 Stein Urheim — Simple Pieces & Paper Cut-outs (Hubro)

Simple Pieces & Paper Cut-Outs by Stein Urheim

John Fahey barely made it into the 21st century, but his influence looms as large as ever. Stein Urheim, a guitarist from Bergen, Norway, is merely the latest to commit his confrontation with Fahey’s legacy to wax. He tips his hat to The Yellow Princess and other recordings of that vintage in this album’s accompanying book of tablature, but even if he hadn’t put it down in writing, you could hear it in his playing. Urhein is no rooky. He’s been recording with various bands since around 2004, working with singers and playing jazz, but this is the first time he’s anything quite like this. Urheim seems to be drawn to Fahey’s most virtuosic and lyrical work, and he has the chops to back it up, but also the performative confidence to let the music develop in its own time rather than chase after it. One has to put a bit of yourself into the music if you want to transcend the “sounds like Fahey” blanket that covers so many American Primitive guitar LPs. Urheim gets this, and he doesn’t take the easy way out by, say, applying his bluesy, acoustic picking to rustic themes or folkloric sources. Nor does he go for Fahey-esque textual obfuscation or faux-mythologizing. Instead he incorporates some samba gestures into the tunes, keeps them pithy and presses them on vinyl (by no means an assured thing on Hubro, which usually markets music via CDs and the internet). The album title proclaims this music’s simplicity, but Urheim’s is not simplistic so much as clear.

Bill Meyer

[akaneiro-fr]

                                      a greying tower alone on the sea;

Bavatica: glittering jewel of light and crystal; of broad marketplaces bustling with goods from across the tradeways and exotic spices and colours; of huge domed roofs and quiet spaces for scholars to confer and raise their voices in argument; of quiet introspective silences and places to take in the starlight, and yes, Bavatica, the crown jewel set into the necklace of the wine-dark sea.

                                         form prayers to broken stone;

Bavatica the ancient; her citadels strong and proud, her roots sunk deep into the stone of the cliffs, the old white rock the nameless beastclan had once mined, had once made mysterious statues and murals of. Bavatica of the wise councils, of the scholars, Bavatica where magic and wonder and laughter mingled in the streets, Bavatica the beautiful, the unsullied.

                                           in death’s dream kingdom;

(beneath: the city below; the stone city, the hollow city, with labyrinthine passages that mirror the arteries and veins of Bavatica proper; the city of dust and ashes; the city of cobwebs and dark things that lie dreaming, that sunlight and crystal and stacks of tomes in Bavatica’s famed libraries have forgotten, even if the hatchlings sing of the slumbering one, the King Below, in their little dark tunes.)

                                             between the essence;

The libraries: the beating heart of Bavatica. Collection after collection of ancient scrolls and tomes, lovingly cared for; the great observatory, perched on one of the highest of the cliffs, with its gaze permanently open to the wonder of the starry heavens above. Here is where wisdom meets wonder; here is where questions matter, more than answers, and here it is, the beating heart of Bavatica, where scholars sit and work in monastic silence, or bicker like councilmen, and this is Bavatica, city of scholars, city of wonders, where the scent of rare spices and fragrants drifts in from the nearby marketplaces.

                                                and the descent;

(beneath: descend, if you will, past the warnings, past the carefully-worked plates of hammered metal informing you that the Deeps of legend are only myth, that the true Deeps are merely just a few tunnels beneath the surface of Bavatica proper, but hatchlings sometimes repeat truths and the wise scoff because they are foolish, and the cartographers in their twilight wanderings know better, and beneath the shadows breathe and the shadows move and those with the ears will hear it—)

                                                                                         falls the shadow;

There is a king beneath Bavatica proper, the King Below, the slumbering king—

                                    And sometimes, the king whispers.

This tattered fragment was found tucked away in an old tome on the sewage systems of Bavatica during the governance of Prince Balidrin. I have not yet attempted to assess its age, nor its provenance. The references to the King Below, sometimes also called the King Beneath, are of interest. The slumbering king, as he is sometimes known as, is notable for his absence from any urban myths or legends concerning Bavatica. Indeed, the only references to the King Below can be found in a hatchling’s rhyme of middling popularity, dating back to the governance of Princess Talasin.

— Corazen-ssa-Ado

[butterflynotes-a]

A Garden’s Life

Fandom: Mystic Messenger Focus: Saeran Choi Version: Finished Zine Piece!  Originally Posted: 17th January 2018

I forgot to post this, but here’s my final piece for @saeranzine / Wither and Bloom. The original poem (which is much longer) has also been posted! Please check it out here. I had a lot of fun working with everyone!

There are many steps to planting flowers, from seeds taking root and stalks growing, to the flower’s bloom, and its death which follows all too soon.

As a child, he was a flower. but he had yet to grow, for the hole he was given had been too small and the seed of joy had yet to be planted, so he stayed as he was, between being alive and living, waiting to take root.

At one point, he falls through the hole, leaving gaps in his memory and the life he lived as soil crushed him beneath reality’s cruellest tricks.

It was later in life when he could grow, taking root in a healthy environment, with the right nutrients to thrive, the seed is just a distant memory now.

She wishes for an artificial flower and he promises to be that, for he is a naive child, oblivious to manipulation, something he will one day despise himself for when he looks back at all he has done.

The days of self-discovery as those of bliss, fake praise given to him by a woman he refers to as ‘saviour’ with high prestige. These are the days without sleep and food, where water isn’t necessary and he is her pawn - only vaguely aware.

He holds a bud, but light doesn’t reach him, so he cannot bloom - unless he is the kadupul, an agent of the night, blooming only in darkest hours surviving through the night, however he knows it - the dark truth behind - for everyone knew

the kadupul did not live to see daylight.

Perhaps he is a pink camellia, after he meets her in eternal night, But another takes the place he held, volatile and cruel, and he is simply gone as the life of a flower begins to draw to a close.

From then on, he morphs into lily of the valley - beautiful, yet deadly if handled incorrectly. This is him, yet not quite him, the one who sifts through fragments of vague memories  and voices he once knew. This is the flower  he loves but cannot have, for he does  not deserve it - nor what its meaning is - and he wonders if he is as deadly as the lily.

The garden withers in the coldness, the flower following, for it was not an evergreen, never there to live forever, no longer the flower he was.

He changes, another flower, same soul.

Only the deepest affection comes from his heart, scattered on the breeze for those he loves, out of reach, yet not quite.

A red carnation, affection and love. It suits him, he knows, for all he gives is kindness and care, because the red carnation is the love of a garden’s life.

He was the kadupul, the pink camellia, the lily of the valley and the red carnation he has become, he tells her, with his lips curved in a smile, as he speaks. I am an everlasting flower, just for you.

[communelifeblog]

A HOME FOR THE HEART

I. SOME THOUGHTS ON HEALING COMMUNITIES

“How did the rose ever open its heart

And give to this world all of its beauty?

It felt the encouragement of light against its being,

Otherwise we all remain too frightened.”

{~From the Sufi Poet Hafiz, translated by Daniel Ladinsky~}

Living in intentional communities (both spiritual & secular) as well as serving in therapeutic communities, have been two of the most “beloved” wings on my life’s path.  Like in the story of the young Buddha, many of us may embark on a sojourn seeking a cure or respite from personal sufferings or traumas.  My own life’s journey has led me to seek healing for myself, as well as to find ways to share in this gift with others.  All communities can be true “healing communities,” but I’ll  also use the term “therapeutic community” to refer to some specialized communities purposefully created  to provide help and support to those disabled or in severe emotional crisis.

All communities can be places of refuge for the wounded, or a way to go through difficult life transitions: Spiritual, emotional and psychological. As some births and rebirths are ordeals or very trying, we may need some help from friends or even seek some professional “midwifery” along the way.  Our therapeutic communities may take many forms: private, nonprofit or avocational; some are residential and others drop-in. They can run a range from therapeutic psychiatric units, community mental health centers, residential group homes,  A.A. and N.A. meetings {for alcohol or addictions recovery}, or a range of spiritual communities and meditation groups.

Trauma is not just physical pain, but also can be a wounding of who we are, or to who we perceive ourselves to be.  In many ways trauma can actually “dismember the self,” fragmenting our souls and life stories.  But life’s traumas can also be “initiators” to a better or  more authentic way of being. As in many sacred stories and myths, as in the Buddha’s, a wounding may start a journey.  Through the Hafiz poetry lines beneath the title, we can see that healing requires “light;” needing both enough real love to reopen the heart, as well as solid measures of truth & authenticity to grow.  And here often lies the gift of a community!

II.  JOURNEYS:

My first communal experience was not residential, it was in a 24-hour crisis hotline & outreach service; it was called an “alternative mental health service.” We were staffed by a group  of sincere people resembling some of the wild characters on the T.V. show “MASH.”  It was the type of place where most of our important decisions were made collectively in a group, and where co-workers would come out in the middle of the night to help you if your vehicle broke down. In my first few weeks of work my father became terminally ill and I needed to take leave for a week. Strapped for cash, I returned to find a full paycheck, as my new coworkers had each taken one of my shifts and credited their time to me.  This was my first communal support system. Folks were committed to one another. Working on a 24-hour crisis outreach team, going on domestic violence calls sometimes late night in an urban communities, one had to be able depend on one’s counseling partners.

I later lived in and helped to create therapeutic community residences for developmentally disabled people for Melwood in Southern Maryland. We were a part of the "Deinstitutionalization Movement" in early 1980s.  Most of our Folks had a diagnosis of mild to severe “mental retardation,” but had been co-warehoused in a large state institution for the “mentally ill.” Two of my clients had been there for decades.  Sadly, they often emulated the aggressive or disturbed behaviors of the institutionalized mentally ill people they had lived with.  Times were occasionally rocky, sometimes explosive, as we sought to find ways to work through aggression and experimented with nonviolent ways to work through conflict.  We certainly went through some difficult rites of passage, but as months passed we began to feel like we all had a true home and fully belonged.  Many love-bonds grew through our conflicts. I remember taking much inspiration from having read a book by psychologist Bruno Bettelheim called “A Home for the Heart” (1974).    One  wonders if at the root of much illness there is the experience of a kind of “homelessness,” an exile of heart, body or soul. In later years I also worked professionally in a number of community mental health settings including outpatient community clinics, crisis intervention, and in addictions rehabilitation.

III.  REFLECTIONS:

An aware community as a whole can act as a mirror of compassionate conscience, a kind of collective “enlightened witness,” supporting people in rediscovering their courage and finding their “true voice.”  This dynamic has also been a deeply valuable aspect of treating veterans with PTSD, offering a safer space to confront and wrestle with one’s shadows, and to better tame one’s dragons in the company of honest and caring peers. Perhaps a primary task for this  group, as in addictions recovery, is to cultivate both a clarity of understanding as well as a healthy collective voice of conscience.

Once one has experienced healing through community, one tries very hard not to injure the communal life.  In a true community a variety of “sacred communion” can exist, a kind of  radiance or charisma that a whole membership can share in. Sometimes this occurs for short Zen-like moments, sometimes longer. In the Quaker tradition there is an experience called a “gathered meeting,” where an experience of deep unity and consensus emerges in the community. It can be almost palpable. In its truest sense, deep healing occurs within this “communal spirit.” It is not necessarily religion-based, but rather a kind of “spirituality” grounded in the depth of commitment people have to one another, or the willingness to sacrifice time, energy and feeling for a greater good.  I believe this has much to do with an experience of something genuinely unselfish or touching, which may serve to free up our traumatized or frozen love. I think back on the many people I’ve known, both in intentional as well as therapeutic communities, who, like Hafiz’s Rose, overcame many fears when enough “Light” was present.

~Finis~

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Zamin K. Danty is a long-time communitarian who has also served as a counselor/therapist with people recovering from addictions and mental illness. On his journey, he also lived and worked with  mentally handicapped adults in a number of community-based residential programs.  Zamin has been a longtime student of Interfaith Spirituality and in past years has helped to form peace-building community with people of numerous faith traditions.

[tomasorban]

Chinese Alchemy

References about alchemy are to be found in the myths and legends of ancient China. From a book written by Edward Chalmers Werner, a late member of the Chinese Government’s Historiological Bureau in Peking comes this quotation from old Chinese records: “Chang Tao-Ling, the first Taoist pope, was born in A.D. 35 in the reign of the Emperor Kuang Wu Ti of the Hari dynasty. His birthplace is variously given as T’ien-mu Shan, Lin-an-Hsien in Chekiang, Feng-yang Fu in Anhui, and even in the “Eye of Heaven Mountain.” He devoted himself wholly to study and meditation, declining all offers to enter the service of the state. He preferred to take up his abode in the mountains of Western China where he persevered in the study of alchemy and in cultivating the virtues of purity and mental abstraction. From the hands of the alchemist Lao Tzu, he received supernaturally a mystical treatise, by following the instructions in which he was successful in his match for the Elixir of Life.” This reference demonstrates that alchemy was studied in China before the commencement of the Christian era and its origin must lie even further back in Chinese history.

Egyptian Alchemy

From China we now travel to Egypt, from where alchemy as it is known in the West seems to have sprung. The great Egyptian adept king, named by the Greeks “Hermes Trismegistus” is thought to have been the founder of the art. Reputed to have lived about 1900 B.C., he was highly celebrated for his wisdom and skill in the operation of nature, but of the works attributed to him only a few fragments escaped the destroying hand of the Emperor Diocletian in the third century A.D. The main surviving documents attributed to him are the Emerald Tablet, the Asclepian Dialogues, and the Divine Pymander. If we may judge from these fragments (both preserved in the Latin by Fianus and translated into other languages in the sixteenth century), it would seem to be of inestimable loss to the world that none of these works have survived in their entirety.

The famous Emerald Tablet (Tabula Smaragdina) of Hermes is the primary document of alchemy. There have been various stories of the origin of the tract, one being that the original emerald slab upon which the precepts were said to be inscribed in Phoenician characters was discovered in the tomb of Hermes by Alexander the Great. In the Berne edition (1545) of the Summa Perfectionis, the Latin version is printed under the heading: “The Emerald Tables of Hermes the Thrice Great Concerning Chymistry, Translator unknown. The words of the secrets of Hermes, which were written on the Tablet of Emerald found between his hands in a dark cave wherein his body was discovered buried.”

Arabian Alchemy

An Arabic version of the text was discovered in a work ascribed to Jabir (Geber), which was probably made about the ninth century. In any case, it must be one of the oldest alchemical fragments known, and that it is a piece of Hermetic teaching I have no doubt, as it corresponds to teachings of the Thrice-Greatest Hermes as they have been passed down to us in esoteric circles. The tablet teaches the unity of matter and the basic truth that all form is a manifestation from one root, the One Thing or Ether. This tablet, in conjunction with the works of the Corpus Hermeticum are well worth reading, particularly in the light of the general alchemical symbolism. Unhappily, the Emerald Tablet is all that remains to us of the genuine Egyptian sacred art of alchemy.

The third century A.D. seems to have been a period when alchemy was widely practiced, but it was also during this century, in the year 296, that Diocletian sought out and burnt all the Egyptian books on alchemy and the other Hermetic sciences, and in so doing destroyed all evidence of any progress made up to that date. In the fourth century, Zosimus the Panopolite wrote his treatise on The Divine Art of Making Gold and Silver, and in the fifth Morienus, a hermit of Rome, left his native city and set out to seek the sage Adfar, a solitary adept whose fame had reached him from Alexandria. Morienus found him, and after gaining his confidence became his disciple. After the death of his patron, Morienus came into touch with King Calid, and a very attractive work purporting to be a dialogue between himself and the king is still extant under the name of Morienus. In this century, Cedrennus also appeared, a magician who professed alchemy.

The next name of note, that of Geber, occurs in or about 750 A.D. Geber’s real name was Abou Moussah Djfar-Al Sell, or simply “The Wise One.” Born at Houran in Mesopotamia, he is generally esteemed by adepts as the greatest of them all after Hermes. Of the five hundred treatises said to have been composed by him, only three remain to posterity: The Sum of the Perfect Magistery, The Investigation of Perfection, and his Testament. It is to him, too, that we are indebted for the first mention of such important compounds as corrosive sublimate, red oxide of mercury, and nitrate of silver. Skillfully indeed did Geber veil his discoveries, for from his mysterious style of writing we derive the word “gibberish,” but those who have really understood Geber, his adept peers, declare with one accord that he has declared the truth, albeit disguised, with great acuteness and precision.

About the same time, Rhasis, another Arabian alchemist, became famous for his practical displays in the art of transmutation of base metals into gold. In the tenth century, Alfarabi enjoyed the reputation ofbeing the most learned man of his age, and still another great alchemist of that century was Avicenna, whose real name was Ebu Cinna. Born at Bokara in 980 A.D., he was the last of the Egyptian alchemical philosophers of note.

[ulfwolf]

Into The Light -- Musing 196

The light perceives nothing but light —The boy unfurls

It set out as a ripple in my feet and rose from there. Up through my calves, up through my thighs, my groin, my stomach, my lungs and chest and throat and into and through and out of my head like a glorious geyser erupting.

In my journal I later descried this as an “orgasm of the soul”.

Yes, I am well aware that the word “orgasm” is somewhat tainted (carries some not necessarily desired baggage) and perhaps demeaning and should have no business encroaching upon a spiritual experience but the fact remains: that is what it felt like: a rush that rose and roamed past and a thousand-fold outdistanced its physical counterpart.

No, I am not saying that there is such a thing as a spiritual orgasm, I’m just saying that this is what it felt like—my kneejerk description once I had a chance to catch my breath and look that the experience with less orgasmic eyes.

Building up to this—

The year is 1968. The month is August. My fiancé is still off in London and by this time (she’s already a good month overdue to return) not being very faithful (was my guess—which turned out to be the case); and me, I am hitchhiking from one Swedish town to the next trying to find a job, as in trying to find a firm that not only deploys the computer system that at this point I am pretty expert at (as an operator), but also has an opening and likes what they see in me. A daunting and so far unsuccessful task.

The thing was that I had recently given my notice at the firm I had worked at for the last couple of years because I was going to France to be a poet (I had the notion that I had been Baudelaire in a previous life, so I was in effect going home—or so ran my reasoning, or what masqueraded as reasoning—I think more rational minds call it imagination).

My plan to return to my Baudelaire roots ran into some serious trouble, however—as if me not speaking even a little bit of French wasn’t trouble enough. As it happened, this was the very summer that the Paris students picked to revolt and the bus company that was to bring me home to Paris cancelled the trip and refunded me my ticket. No way they were going to France under these unstable circumstances, not recommended at all.

So, here I am, fiancé-less and stranded in Sweden without a job (my firm—all too happy to see the back of me since they had no use for dead French poets, apparently, and would not take me back) and by now also without a place to live.

So, I headed for Gothenburg (second largest city in Sweden). Gray day. Not warm. Dreary town. No jobs to be had.

I figured Malmo (third largest city) next, and hitched a ride with a trucker going in that direction. He could take me as far as Helsingborg, he said, a smaller town about thirty miles north of Malmo.

“You don’t want to go to Malmo,” he tells me me as we approach his hometown, and went on to tell me that Helsingborg was the much nicer town. Friendlier. Not sure where it ranked size-wise, but I took him at his word, and decided to try my luck there.

Still no jobs though. But the guy at the employment agency and I got along really well. Recently divorced he needed someone to talk to, so he treated me to a nice lunch and then offered me to stay at his place (a small house by the beach a few miles north of Helsingborg—a place called Viken) for the night, perhaps longer. Say, until I found a job. I gladly accepted.

He was a good and very kind man (see my “Leif the Kind” fragment in this section).

As a matter of fact, a few days later he did find me a job. Not a computer job, but as a nurse at the then Santa Maria Hospital, which was a psychiatric hospital catering for the less fortunate, mentally. Would I want it?

I knew nothing about nursing the mentally disturbed, but that, he said, was not a problem. The hospital would train me in what I needed to know.

It wasn’t like I was expected to treat anyone, he said, just look after them and clean the floors. Sort of lunatic-sitting with grown-ups in the building is how I understood it.

Well, beggars can’t be choosers and all that. Again, I gladly accepted.

And yes, the hospital did provide training (of sorts—see the “Crash Course” fragment in this section); and not only that, it also provided a decent salary and room and board as part of the deal.

By now, I’m a happy beggar.

So began my late summer at Santa Maria.

Now, an important part of this story is that at this time I have begun a quest. For real this time. And not a petty one either: No, the grand one, the one for truth. Truth (capital T).

And as it turned out, that hospital—of all places—was the perfect place for such a search, as the story will tell.

I cannot pinpoint when I, purely intuitively, conceived, or decided, that the capital-T Truth, the one we’re all looking for, and have been since time immemorial, is that truth that is proven by everything. By every single thing; it seemed obvious to me. Anything short of everything would not be the ultimate truth, would it?

Truth, to be ultimate, so my thinking went, in order to be the one and only superior, capital-T Truth, must prove everything, and must be proven by everything; or it would not be ultimate. Stood to reason, I figured. So, that decided, I set out to gather evidence.

What would prove the Truth? Who was to decide? Well, I was. By what criteria? By my own intuitive sense of what the Truth is. Hold up in court? Doubt it. Right for me? Absolutely.

It is a strange fact—and I believe it is a fact—that the spirit can tell the fake from the real. The spirit, once it actually takes the time to look, does know. As in you know when someone is lying to you. As in you know what is right and what is wrong. In your heart of hearts, you know. That’s the thing. You know.

And I felt that I would know truth when I saw it. So, as I said, I set out to find it, gathering evidence.

A smile—Truth.

A river—Truth.

A polluted river—Not Truth.

A flower—Truth.

The sunrise—Truth.

The sunset—Truth.

A tender kiss—Truth.

Greed—Not Truth.

A pen that works really well—Truth.

That particular cloud—Truth.

A seagull—Truth.

Jealousy—Not Truth.

Harm—Not Truth.

Happiness—Truth.

Hashish—Not Truth.

Friends—Truth.

A new toothbrush—Truth.

A broken mirror—Truth.

Seven years of bad luck—Not Truth.

A really good meal—Truth.

Imagination—Truth.

Delusion—Not Truth.

Beer—Not Truth.

Music—Truth.

Poetry—Truth.

Alarming News—Not Truth.

Grief—Truth.

Et cetera, et cetera.

No, I didn’t write these things down; rather, I placed them inside an imaginary frame, upon an imaginary canvas, and I knew that when I had collected all the evidence I needed to collect, the picture inside the frame would then come alive. And alive, it would be the Truth. This was another intuitive know, but there you have it. So, I continued my gathering of evidence.

An amazing incident provided a huge piece to his puzzle, provided a large Truth.

His name was Kaiser, or that is what he was called (see the fragment “Kaiser” in this section). He was a patient at Santa Maria, and had been there ever since the end of the Second World War, when he had been transferred from one of the German concentration camps to this Swedish hospital.

Kaiser had not spoken a word since his arrival—hence he was deemed seriously mentally ill. In fact, or so I was told, Kaiser had not even smiled since his arrival—more grist for the mentally-ill mill.

All day, he would shuffle around the ward (never lifting his feet to walk), head bowed down, face set in a permanent frown (not unlike President Nixon’s, come to think of it). Every now and then he would cast a furtive glance in your direction, or at someone else, then he’d shuffle on, on his endless, shuffling way.

He was considered un-reachable as a human being. Beyond help, really. And the only treatment he received was two large daily doses of those drugs that mental hospitals give patients to make them more tractable, and which makes keeping things (like floors) clean so much easier.

One day I decided (again, intuitively) to bring my guitar to the ward and sing for them. The head nurse saw nothing wrong with that, and agreed. Might even do them some good.

So, I sat down and began to play. Soon most of the day room had gathered around me, curious, scared, confused some, and some intent on touching me and my guitar to make sure that this was really happening.

This is when Kaiser stopped shuffling around, and instead almost stormed in among the gathered throng and physically pulled away from me those who tried to touch me or my guitar. Done making sure I was not interfered with, he planted himself right in front of me, standing straight, and with the biggest grin on his face, shining really.

I had a hard time believing my eyes (as did, it turned out, the other nurses as well). The moment was magical, and riding on this magic, I just kept playing and Kaiser kept smiling. Then it was time for their meal and their meds.

Sitting up in bed that night, writing in my journal, I noted this amazing Truth (referring to Kaiser): The Spirit, I wrote, is that thing in a human life which cannot be killed.

Kaiser’s spirit, however deeply it had been buried, rose to the surface that day, and erupted in a smile. I knew this was a truth, an incredibly valuable truth.

The next day the head nurse called me into her office. Quite something with Kaiser, wasn’t it? she said. I agreed.

“Interesting that it was music that finally made him smile,” she said.

“Amazing,” I agreed.

“Do you know what he was before the war?” she asked.

I didn’t know, and told her so.

“A concert pianist,” she said.

The impact of that almost made me cry. Kaiser was a musician who had just heard live music for the first time in twenty-five years, and that live music had brought him, the unkillable spirit, awake.

Into the frame of Truth, Kaiser went, smiling and all.

A few days later I had a vision of sorts (see “The Painting” fragment in this section). I saw life, the world, the universe, everything, as a painting set in a vast and beautiful frame. And everyone and everything in that painting looked up and said “good,” looked down and said “bad.” They looked up and said, “God,” looked down and said, “The Devil.” They looked up and said, “heaven,” looked down and said, “hell.” Looked up and said, “beautiful,” looked down and said, “ugly.” Looked up and said, “strong,” looked down and said “weak.” And so on through the seemingly endless dichotomies we surround and choke ourselves with.

Yet, for all these up-and-down certainties, all that I could see, standing outside and not being part of the painted (un-painted, as it were), was a painting: neither good nor bad, neither ugly nor beautiful; it was just a painting. An illusion.

I also saw that I would have to consider myself “painted” in order to buy into and experience (and live by) those dichotomies.

Another Truth: A good patient-friend of mine was six feet tall and all muscle, but with a mental age of perhaps five. He had gotten it into his head that I was a prince from India. Why? I wondered. Because I was not afraid of the elephants, he explained. Right.

I liked this man so much that I wanted to give him my gold puzzle ring, you know those that consist of six or eight interlocking strands of gold that you must put together just so, or they will remain six or eight separate strands (see the “Bror and the Ring” fragment in this section).

Having decided to give this to him, I realized that I would have to teach him how to put it together, for were I to give it to him, and were he to drop it and then not be able to put it together again, well, I was afraid that this would break his heart.

So, I told him I was giving him this ring, let’s just sit down and I’ll show you how it works. And so, we sat down and took it apart and put it together again many times. And then he tried many times, and failed many times.

I showed him many more times. He tried and failed many more times. I showed him again. He tried again. Failed again.

After what seems like an hour, he looks right at me and says, “Keep the ring. I can never learn how to put it together. And if I drop it, and it breaks, it would break my heart.”

Huge Truth.

One night I read an essay by Bertrand Russell where he proved to me that God (as I had thought of him up to this point—old man, long white hair, dressed in white, among the clouds, omniscient and more vengeful than forgiving) couldn’t possibly exist, at least not as bandied about. I saw it, and was immensely relieved to learn this. Huge weight off my shoulders, and:

Huge Truth.

I read other essays by other philosophers and then realized that all philosophers are “we” with each other. All are seeking the same truth. All are of the same mental race. (Huxley, whom I had not read at the time, called it “The Perennial Philosophy”).

And looking about, I saw many other mental races, and more clearly than the physical ones.

One night I realized with full clarity that Home is where you are. And that you cannot possibly be anywhere but Home, no matter where you go.

Huge Truth.

In some ways I felt like a growing river.

And then I wondered: What is it, really, that makes me think?

Again, intuitively (and I lived on this plane most of the time now—it is now September of 1968), I saw that the first thing that made me think was my body.

If thirsty I think of water, if hungry I think of food. If tired I think of sleep, if horny I think of sex. If hurting I think of lessening the pain. If cold I think of warmth, and vice versa. The body, and all its intricacies and its many currents of phenomena, yes, it certainly made me think.

All right, I reasoned, what if I did not have a body. What, then, would make me think? And, I also asked myself, absolute purity, wherein does it hide?

Were I not to have a body, were I not to be influenced at all by its many needs and desires, I saw that all I have learned from others, from the world, would then make me think? My father’s little lessons, my mother’s, my teachers’ many instructions, and the many societal and environmental lessons I had learned from the moment I could perceive, yes, they made me think. They gave me a framework, values, they gave me solutions, they gave me entire philosophical systems, a psychological foundation, to think with. Yes, indeed.

But what if I didn’t have that? What if I had never been taught, indoctrinated, or influenced, then what would make me think?

I tasted this question with my entire being before the answer rose as a big sun within me. Then, it said, then I would make me think.

And this, I decided, would be the sphere or space of Free Thought, of certainty, of harmony, of purity. This truth rippled up and down my spine.

And then I wrote in my journal: “I experienced the proof that experience is a proof.”

Then I also concluded, that the truest state of existence, then, would be that after death: no body, no environmental indoctrination. Just You. And it never for a second occurred to me that I might cease to exist at body death. Not a chance.

This would also be the absolute purity I sought.

Then I wrote in my journal:

I have found the connection, all that now remains is to prove it to humanity.

The connection is cognizance of the space of Free Thought, the cognizance of this space’s unimaginable width.

It is this universal well, this core of truth that forms the pure thought.

You can call this core the Soul, or the Good, or God, or Brahman, et cetera.

Do I really see any limitations within me?

Are the any limits for Humanity?

No!

The absolute fulfillment is when everything, and I mean everything, is a proof for this core, for the soul.

No, the thought is larger than that, more nuanced.

I find truth in Plato, in Baudelaire, in a feeling, in an answer, in a smile, in all being.

Everything is directed towards the same core, everything a proof for the pure.

And it is when everything gives me impressions, when everything is absorbed to clarity, when everything proves the same thing, that truth has reached fulfillment.

Yes, I am convinced.

At that I put my journal down and tried to catch some sleep—with mixed success.

The following morning (no, I don’t think I slept much during the night) I went to see a friend of mine to share with him what I had discovered. The morning was warm for the season; I remember a light rain.

As it happened, my friend was not in, but his girlfriend was, and I just had to tell someone about this.

So, I sat her down, Listen, I said. Listen to this.

I asked her for pen and paper. She found some. I drew three concentric circles.

There are three concentric fields of thought, I said.

One, your body (pointing to the innermost circular field)—dictating thoughts of food when you’re hungry, sleep when you’re tired, water when you’re thirsty, sex when you’re aroused.

What if you can escape this circle?

Two (pointing to circular field between the first and second circle), indoctrination: education and upbringing—dictating thought based on others’ opinions, lessons learned, parental influences, experience, and so on.

What if you can escape this circle?

Three (indicating the circular field between the second and third circles), outside these first two fields lies the space of Free Thought, where You are free to do the thinking yourself.

This is where You make you think.

And at this very moment I awoke. As I outlined these fields to my friend’s girlfriend, it was as if I actually expanded outward beyond body, beyond indoctrination—as if I left them both behind and fully entered the space of Free Thought.

And while in the space of Free Thought the question simply arrived, and spoke itself: Is there a field outside the field of Free Thought?

In my next breath, the answer arrived, and it said, quite clearly: That would be “Nirvana.”

And as the word—it was like a whisper, as if an angel had stooped down to let me in on a secret—arrived, I felt a ripple in my feet, which grew to fountain up my legs and shot through my chest and head and into light: all was light. Intense, joyful, amazing, vibrant, light.

I was an I no longer, I was light, experiencing itself.

I don’t know for sure how long this lasted, a minute perhaps, maybe five, maybe longer, perhaps shorter. After a while (however long), the room softly returned and with it my friend’s girlfriend, who looked a little concerned perhaps. I looked up at her and all I said then was: “Now I know.”

I left then, and walked back to my own room. On the way I ate an orange. And as I ate it, I could feel each swallow slide down my throat and enter my stomach. I could I perceived everything about and inside my body.

For days after that I hardly thought a single thought. My head was like a quiet forest lake, no ripples.

I knew.

A boy unfurled.

 ::

P.S. If you like what you’ve read here and would like to contribute to the creative motion, as it were, you can do so via PayPal: here.

[madamlaydebug]

INTRODUCTION We take great pleasure in presenting to the attention of students and investigators of the Secret Doctrines this little work based upon the world-old Hermetic Teachings. There has been so little written upon this subject, not withstanding the countless references to the Teachings in the many works upon occultism, that the many earnest searchers after the Arcane Truths will doubtless welcome the appearance of this present volume. The purpose of this work is not the enunciation of any special philosophy or doctrine, but rather is to give to the students a statement of the Truth that will serve to reconcile the many bits of occult knowledge that they may have acquired, but which are apparently opposed to each other and which often serve to discourage and disgust the beginner in the study. Our intent is not to erect a new Temple of Knowledge, but rather to place in the hands of the student a Master-Key with which he may open the many inner doors in the Temple of Mystery through the main portals he has already entered. There is no portion of the occult teachings possessed by the world which have been so closely guarded as the fragments of the Hermetic Teachings which have come down to us over the tens of centuries which have elapsed since the lifetime of its great founder, Hermes Trismegistus, the "scribe of the gods," who dwelt in old Egypt in the days when the present race of men was in its infancy. Contemporary with Abraham, and, if the legends be true, an instructor of that venerable sage, Hermes was, and is, the Great Central Sun of Occultism, whose rays have served to illumine the countless teachings which have been promulgated since his time. All the fundamental and basic teachings embedded in the esoteric teachings of every race may be traced back to Hermes. Even the most ancient teachings of India undoubtedly have their roots in the original Hermetic Teachings. From the land of the Ganges many advanced occultists wandered to the land of Egypt, and sat at the feet of the Master. From him they obtained the Master-Key which explained and reconciled their divergent views, and thus the Secret Doctrine was firmly established. From other lands also came the learned ones, all of whom regarded Hermes as the Master of Masters, and his influence was so great that in spite of the many wanderings from the path on the part of the centuries of teachers in these different lands, there may still be found a certain basic resemblance and correspondence which underlies the many and often quite divergent theories entertained and taught by the occultists of these different lands today. The student of Comparative Religions will be able to perceive the influence of the Hermetic Teachings in every religion worthy of the name, now known to man, whether it be a dead religion or one in full vigor in our own times. There is always certain correspondence in spite of the contradictory features, and the Hermetic Teachings act as the Great Reconciler. The lifework of Hermes seems to have been in the direction of planting the great Seed-Truth which has grown and blossomed in so many strange forms, rather than to establish a school of philosophy which would dominate, the world's thought. But, nevertheless, the original truths taught by him have been kept intact in their original purity by a few men each age, who, refusing great numbers of half-developed students and followers, followed the Hermetic custom and reserved their truth for the few who were ready to comprehend and master it. From lip to ear the truth has been handed down among the few. There have always been a few Initiates in each generation, in the various lands of the earth, who kept alive the sacred flame of the Hermetic Teachings, and such have always been willing to use their lamps to re-light the lesser lamps of the outside world, when the light of truth grew dim, and clouded by reason of neglect, and when the wicks became clogged with foreign matter. There were always a few to tend faithfully the altar of the Truth, upon which was kept alight the Perpetual Lamp of Wisdom. These men devoted their lives to the labor of love which the poet has so well stated in his lines: "O, let not the flame die out! Cherished age after age in its dark cavern--in its holy temples cherished. Fed by pure ministers of love--let not the flame die out!" These men have never sought popular approval, nor numbers of followers. They are indifferent to these things, for they know how few there are in each generation who are ready for the truth, or who would recognize it if it were presented to them. They reserve the "strong meat for men," while others furnish the "milk for babes." They reserve their pearls of wisdom for the few elect, who recognize their value and who wear them in their crowns, instead of casting them before the materialistic vulgar swine, who would trample them in the mud and mix them with their disgusting mental food. But still these men have never forgotten or overlooked the original teachings of Hermes, regarding the passing on of the words of truth to those ready to receive it, which teaching is stated in The Kybalion as follows: "Where fall the footsteps of the Master, the ears of those ready for his Teaching open wide." And again: "When the ears of the student are ready to hear, then cometh the lips to fill them with wisdom." But their customary attitude has always been strictly in accordance with the other Hermetic aphorism, also in The Kybalion: "The lips of Wisdom are closed, except to the ears of Understanding." There are those who have criticized this attitude of the Hermetists, and who have claimed that they did not manifest the proper spirit in their policy of seclusion and reticence. But a moment's glance back over the pages of history will show the wisdom of the Masters, who knew the folly of attempting to teach to the world that which it was neither ready or willing to receive. The Hermetists have never sought to be martyrs, and have, instead, sat silently aside with a pitying smile on their closed lips, while the "heathen raged noisily about them" in their customary amusement of putting to death and torture the honest but misguided enthusiasts who imagined that they could force upon a race of barbarians the truth capable of being understood only by the elect who had advanced along The Path. And the spirit of persecution has not as yet died out in the land. There are certain Hermetic Teachings, which, if publicly promulgated, would bring down upon the teachers a great cry of scorn and revilement from the multitude, who would again raise the cry of "Crucify! Crucify." In this little work we have endeavored to give you an idea of the fundamental teachings of The Kybalion, striving to give you the working Principles, leaving you to apply therm yourselves, rather than attempting to work out the teaching in detail. If you are a true student, you will be able to work out and apply these Principles--if not, then you must develop yourself into one, for otherwise the Hermetic Teachings will be as "words, words, words" to you. THE THREE INITIATES.