#The cycle of death and rebirth

[drsilverfish]

Dean’s Soul in the Bardo -   The Art of Dying 1x06 The Winchesters

Catching up British-time, so a bit late to the party as usual, and coming to it fresh, as I like to do, without jumping into the time-line first. 

Screeches a bit because I am overwhelmed.

This episode suggests that, on one level, we can read every character in The Winchesters as manifestations of Dean’s consciousness, as he hovers in the “bardo”, the liminal realm in Tibetan Buddhism, between death and reincarnation. 

Mary - the leader and hunter who wants to get out of hunting; John - filled with wounded rage, Daddy-issues and violence; Carlos - the fabulous bisexual who dares to get into therapy and to go after the men he wants; Lata - the abused child who manages to chose love over violence - ALL OF THESE ARE ASPECTS OF DEAN WINCHESTER’S being, his experience/ soul/ desires <sobs a little because it’s beautiful>. 

Now I’m back on my meta, I’ve previously mused on The Winchesters as a reparative narrative told by Holy Ghost Dean Winchester; a counter-point to the traumatic narrative of Supernatural.

1x06 The Art of Dying offers further illumination and elaboration on that concept, namely:

The episode title, “The Art of Dying” is a George Harrison song, the right time-period for The Winchesters (1970), from his album All Things Must Pass. 

The Beatles, in keeping with the hippie counterculturalism of the time, were interested in Eastern spirituality, particularly Hinduism and Buddhism, and this Harrison song was inspired by his reading of Timothy Leary’s The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on The Tibetan Book of the Dead (1964). 

Harrison’s lyrics are about the religious philosophy of perfecting the soul through cycles of reincarnation:

“There'll come a time when all of us must leave here There's nothing Sister Mary can do, will keep me here with you As nothing in this life that I've been trying Can equal or surpass the Art of Dying....

There'll come a time when most of us return here Brought back by our desire to be a perfect entity Living through a million years of crying Until you realize the Art of Dying “

A theme which fits well with the Ouroboros (serpent swallowing it’s own tail as it ascends) narrative of latter-day Supernatural, which drew on Jung and esoteric alchemy to manifest the Winchesters’ journey as the journey of the soul towards God.  

The Tibetan Book of the Dead is the Bardo Thodol, which means “liberation through hearing in the intermediate state”. It is a 14thC esoteric text (or possibly older but that’s when the written text we have dates from).

John, Mary, Lata and Losy all struggle with pain, parent-induced and violence-induced and hunting-induced trauma, but they are able to communicate their feelings to one another in a way which is strikingly and remarkably different from the enormous struggles with emotional articulation which animated Supernatural, which we watched Dean suffer with throught his life. 

So we can read The Winchesters as Dean’s revelatory hallucinations in the liminal state between death and liberation (or rebirth) - his revelatory sexual and emotional healing soul-dreams (in which, and what could be more Freudian, he returns to the scene of his parents).

And look, Lata is teaching John, who surived being possessed by the vengeful spirit of abused-as-a-child and violently out-of-control Mac, how to meditate and achieve higher consciousness (with an image of a globe in the background):

And isn’t it interesting that the rare type of vampire which Mac’s vengeful spirit first possesses is called a “soucouyant”, which means (incongrously, one would think) “carefree” in French. But not so incongruous if The Winchesters is about the journey of Dean’s soul to liberation, to bliss, to being “carefree”...

[jambos6]

WELCOME BACK, BABES <3 That was quite a journey of watching you get nuked so many times in a row I literally lost count lol

lol yeah, it was a lot. I think I had 4 blogs total get nuked? Originally I was @jambos6 (now back in action), then @baccalonious (which also appears to be restored), then @baccal0nius (still dead), then @baccalon1us (also still dead), and finally @baccalonius. But now I'm back here for the foreseeable future!

[tiredeyes1975]

sorry for comparing everything to evangelion but. 2001 a space odyssey

[gh0st-4ss]

Ouroboros

, emblematic serpent of ancient Egypt and Greece represented with its tail in its mouth, continually devouring itself and being reborn from itself. A gnostic and alchemical symbol, Ouroboros expresses the unity of all things, material and spiritual, which never disappear but perpetually change form in an eternal cycle of destruction and re-creation.

[sleepy-writes-stuff]

DP X DC PROMPT #26

(I'm feeling angsty today.)

(#) = Notes at the end of post

(*) = Just me building off of other ideas.

✦

Going Supernova

The GIW have discovered his identity, and they don't waste time on using this knowledge to their advantage. They spent the last six months creating a weapon that not only hurts ghosts but absolutely obliterates them down to their very cores. After testing it for so long on minor ghosts and then discovering the local ghostly menace's secret, they have the bright idea to make an example out of Danny.

They ambush him as he's fighting the invading ghost of the day. Their first shot misses and hits the ghost they're fighting. As soon as the shot lands, the ghost freezes in place with a look of dread and horror.

They look up at Danny with tears in their eyes and has only a few precious seconds to say, "Run," before their skin cracks and they shatter, the miniscule shards evaporating into nothingness.

Danny is petrified and grief-stricken over what he just witnessed that he doesn't have the time to even twitch before the GIW lock their sights back onto him and shoot him in the back.

Agony consumes him. His chest burns, and his ribs rattle with the effort it takes for him to breathe through the pain. The civilians who were still on the scene gasped in horror as they watched their local hero's chest start to crack and glow from within.

What the GIW didn't know was that Danny had just recently elevated to Ancient status due to helping Clockwork with the timestream. That and with his status as a halfa, what they did will end in nothing but disaster. (1)

Danny spots his parents, sister, and friends in the crowd. His parents watched in awe and excitement while his Jazz, Sam, and Tucker looked at him with horror-stricken disbelief. Knowing what's to come and not having enough time to explain, he gives them a wobbly smile.

"I'm so sorry."

He whips around and rockets straight up into the sky. He breaks through the atmosphere in a matter of seconds and continues to fly at breakneck speed away from the little green-blue planet he calls home. He has to get away. He can't destabilize so close to them. He has to go even further.

His form is steadily breaking off into pieces as his human and ghost half fight and fail to keep him together. He can feel his human half dying and his ghost half barely holding on by a thread. He can't stop, though. If he stops here, the Earth will be destroyed from the backlash.

He had no worry for himself. After all, stars die all the time. That doesn't mean that's the end for them. They just take on a new form or even help breathe new planets and galaxies into life.

'A star's death is not the end!' He comforts himself.

He only makes it a few light-years further before his energy fades out to nothing, and he slows to a halt. It's only then that Danny starts to panic alone in the vacuum of space. The furthest he's even been from home and the comfort of his friends and family.

"No. No, no, no, no." He repeats over and over. "Not far enough. Not far enough! I'm still too close!!" (2)

His stuttering heart rabbits inside his chest along with his crumbling core. He hugs himself tight with the false hope that maybe that would stop himself from falling apart. He cries for his family, his friends, his planet. His life and lives he's about to take through no fault of his own.

Because for a star to give life, they must first destroy. (3)

"I'm sorry. I-I'm so sorry! Please!"

He sobs into his hands as the light of his core pulses one final time.

"Please." He whispers brokenly.

His core shatters, and he screams for the entire cosmos to hear. His form expands with immeasurable force and shakes the very foundations of creation. His desperate attempt to spare the Earth from his self-destruction was in vain as the waves of his shattered core ravaged the solar system and destroyed everything within its path.

The countless people and other creatures on Earth didn't even have time to blink before they were completely eradicated. Quick and painless but nonetheless gone.

It took centuries for everything to settle again.

It wasn't until countless millennium passed that the solar system began to take shape again. However, everything was reshaped and put back together as though with a child's memory of what it used to be from so long ago. Some things were bound to be different, like how Mars gained its own population of intelligent humanoid creatures. How Earth's own population started to develop extraordinary abilities and magic was able to be used more freely outside of supernatural species.

Soon, there were heroes popping up all over the universe of all shapes, sizes, and species. Some people were even reborn. They started remembering a life that, as far as they knew, never actually existed. How could it? None of the people they were before showed up in any records. There were records, of course. They just, unfortunately, no longer existed.

No one knew why, either. At least not until a magic user stumbled upon a tome belonging to what they knew as the Underworld. It told the story of a young boy who died too young and was destroyed from what he became afterward. How his destruction also destroyed the world despite the boy's efforts to save it.

This story was shared with the masses of people experiencing these memories of other lives, including the heroes who took up the mantle of keeping the Earth and other corners of the galaxy safe. They mourned the loss of a life so young, so bright and full of potential. They hoped that wherever the child ended up, that they were at peace.

Little did they know, the child was part of the universe itself, his very being woven into the fabric that makes up the night sky and everything that lays beyond. They can't see or hear him, but that precious child--the Ancient of Space--laid curled around the Milky Way itself with Earth cradled gently in his trembling hands.

✦

(1) Because of his status as the new Ancient of Space and the fact that he is half human/alive is the reason his destabilization took longer than the ghost he was previously fighting. An Ancient has immense power of the aspect of reality they control, and his human half was desperately trying to keep him alive. He can't live without his ghost half, though. It was also the power of his Ancient status that made his destabilization so explosive and damaging. However, him being a halfa is also what saved his existence in the end and allows him to still continue to be the Ancient of Space, as Space itself is always in a state of dying and rebirth. It just took several thousands of years to pull himself back into a semblance of what he previously was, but obviously irrevocably changed.

(2) According to scientists a supernova would have to be within 30-50 light-years to trigger a mass extinction on Earth. To be actually completely safe from one, however, it'd have to be 160 or more light-years away. Danny didn't even make it to 20 light-years before his core self-destructed, which is why he was panicking.

(3) As I'm sure most of you know, supernovae are essential to creating life, but that life is preceded by the death of said star.

(*) I haven't really thought of who would be reborn into which character. I originally thought of Jack Fenton being reborn as Bruce Wayne, but Bruce only disguises himself as a himbo while Jack actually is one. The only reason I thought it would work out it because 1) Jack's paranoia about ghosts and translating into Bruce's own paranoia 2) him regaining his past memories would explain his propensity to collect black-haired, blue eyed children because of his loss of Danny and 3) him and his relationship with Jason after he came back as Red Hood.

Other than that, I can't think of who any of the other characters might be. You can decide!

[buylookwhatyoumademedo]

absolutely loved the credit scene of the attack on titan finale. such a profound perspective shift to show yes, you can spend your entire life in pursuit of a singular goal, you can destroy yourself and others for it, shed blood and tears for it, kill and die for it, and time marches forward. Your story, which was everything at the time, is sanded down by the winds of time. and history moves on. you become a blip on the timeline. and what was all that bloodshed for?

[scullysflannel]

the nature of the x-files is that every so often someone invents remembering the 1997 golden globes again

[fadingstudentbananacookie]

Aegon II Targaryen - The Last Dragonlord

Mother / Maia Baia, House of the Dragon, Fire & Blood / George R.R. Martin, A Storm of Sword / George R.R. Martin, Bhagavad Gita / Vyasa, Sister Sable / T. Mountebank

The Coronation of Aegon II by Basitien Lecouffe DeHarme The Depiction of A Pheonix by Friedrich Justin Bertuch Ouroboros by zarathus Battle of Rook's Rest by iasve Baela Targaryen and Moondancer by Dough Wheatley

[cait-sith]

October 2023, Day 18: Antlers/Horns

Forgiveness.

[ballpitbee]

I absolutely love your streetlamp city stuff and how you can just look at all your toontown characters and make a whole new world for them. It's like that one post with how au art of mlp characters eventually evolved into their own characters with separate lore and names. It's so cool

THANK YOU!! I realised that aphter a while I was having more phun doing my own thing with my own rules and world building - so I yoinked those phellas away and put them in my new place!

(Course, I still LOOOOVE toontown- but nothing theres nothing I love better than going wild with ideas and whatnot X3)

[whorevader]

Anakin as Persephone will always be real to me... Some of her epithets include Executor of Justice and Mistress of Furies, like people don't realize that she in her role as Queen of the Underworld predates the abduction myth, that the false dichotomy of babygirl in a flower crown and broody death king is misogynistic and inaccurate to say the least... ANYWAYS point being Shmi as Demeter, Qui-Gon as Zeus, Obi-Wan or Padme as Hades, OR Obi-Wan as Demeter, Sheev as Zeus, and Padme as Hades, I am correct

[dawnsbreaking]

Transcription: Zayne's ST "Beginning"

i transcribed Zayne's ST story for meta purposes and thought I would put the transcription here for others to have it if they haven't unlocked it yet/to have it more accessible than it is in game

everything with "Foreseer:" is Zayne speaking directly, anything not attributed is the poem. i did it this way to make it easier to read the poem on its own, since that's what i hope to analyze in the future <3

Foreseer: Shift your gaze elsewhere. Foreseer: Your expression shall not even earn an ounce of my pity. Foreseer: Though it seems a night in the throne room was not enough. Foreseer: Perhaps you desire to be frozen with the wall as your paltry confessional? [Ice SFX] Foreseer: Better to yield now than later. [Page turning SFX] Foreseer: Could you still be interested in what I’m currently reading? Foreseer: …Certainly, ’tis a poem related to Astra. Its descriptions suit you. Foreseer: Would you like to hear it? - A great distance beyond, …. north of ice and snow, Atop the Divine Mountain, When Light pierces through howling blizzards, The divine sing of Destiny’s crest My Emissary devout, Will thou be lost in these celestial halls? Will thou have the courage to wait for Mine words? To unveil thy fate predetermined. - Foreseer: You appear to be fascinated. Foreseer: [Laugh?] Hmph, then don’t speak. - With the frozen kingdom awakened, Greedy ants fall into eternal slumber. The divine rest upon their thrones, Yet hidden daggers lie beneath their robes. Brazen trespasser, Arcticyons sing of thy requiem. Dost thou know where thy stands, Upon white, gleaming bones? - Foreseer: I don’t mind repeating this verse. Consider it a prophesy of your future. Foreseer: Are you frightened? Foreseer: If this is all your courage is capable of, you best forget about the Creatio Protocore. [Page turning SFX] - Traces of destiny like shimmering starlight, Bind people who have never met… - Foreseer: I’ll stop here. The last verse is rather strange. Foreseer: Do you truly wish to strike a deal? Foreseer: You ask far too many questions. [Ice SFX] Foreseer: Must your wild curiosity be satiated? - Celestial Savior, Is thou prepared? To save him from darkness? To be his sanctuary amidst rime and gale, To allow the descent… of miracles once again? - [END] here is the poem in its entirety without interjections just to make it easier to read:

A great distance beyond, …. north of ice and snow, Atop the Divine Mountain, When Light pierces through howling blizzards, The divine sing of Destiny’s crest My Emissary devout, Will thou be lost in these celestial halls? Will thou have the courage to wait for Mine words? To unveil thy fate predetermined. With the frozen kingdom awakened, Greedy ants fall into eternal slumber. The divine rest upon their thrones, Yet hidden daggers lie beneath their robes. Brazen trespasser, Arcticyons sing of thy requiem. Dost thou know where thy stands, Upon white, gleaming bones? Traces of destiny like shimmering starlight, Bind people who have never met… Celestial Savior, Is thou prepared? To save him from darkness? To be his sanctuary amidst rime and gale, To allow the descent… of miracles once again?

[bardicjustice]

feeling So Normal about these comparisons

Heartbreak goes home to die. Sidestep goes home to be reborn

[strawbubbysugar]

🎶Im just like you! you are just like me!🎶 sounding on the background as Prince Juniper and the jesters meet Dahmia and the princes until they find about the organic components of course jshsgs

Quick nobody think about how important souls are in both stories nobody think about it

[july-19th-club]

love season 2. i'm concussions! and i'm psychic visions! the headache brothers

[arcadian-vampire]

Been playing Sky: Children of the Light with @ravio-the-cabinet-man lately. It's a beautiful game