Eleusis

1.

I'm not much of a card player,

but that's not to say I haven't been one

in my past. My problem these days

is that I know no one who likes

to play.

If I had some player friends, I'd try this game:

 (from neweleusis )

Eleusis

Eleusis gives players the

chance

to make up rules and impose them

on other players.

Players watch the cards,

seeking to determine the pattern

inductively.

The object is to guess the rule.  Those who think they can

declare themselves

Prophet

but then test the rule for awhile

to see if it works.

I like the idea of this game

because this is how

I approach life.

2.

Am I a prophet?

Probably not,

unless prophets are folks

who look closely

and read the clues.

 (from istotemdias)

What I do know

is that I like to solve puzzles.

Especially big puzzles

that the world gives me

to solve.

I rediscovered an intriguing puzzle

on my trip to Greece, which is also called

Eleusis.

But it proceeded the card game.

3.

Eleusis

is a site, some 20 km west

of Athens.

Today it is nestled amidst fields

of oil refineries,

but in ancient times,

it was a destination on a holy pilgrimage

that traveled from

Athens to Eleusis

once a year.

The pilgrimage honored the goddess

Demeter

and her daughter

Persephone

(aka: Kore)

At the heart of the ceremony was a

ritual ceremony, the contents of which remain a mystery

today.

This secret was so important

that initiates were threatened

with death

if they told what they witnessed there.  Great men like

Aeschylos

suffered brushes with death

for revealing too much

of the secret.

All we know today is that the mystery

had something to do

with the meaning of life

and death.

Now if that isn't intriguing, I don't know what is.

A fellow by the name of Edward A. Beach

has written a very nice online article about

Eleusis, so I won't tell the entire story here,

since he does it so well,

But the essence of the story is

a century's old mystery,

a puzzle whose solution

has been lost

both to the months and minds

of the ancient dead

and to the censoring spirit

of the Early Church,

for they caused the ultimate destruction

 of this incredible site

CLUE #1:

Those who were

initiated experienced

an eight day fast before the ritual.

This included a communion

at which they consumed kykeon:

"Meal and water mixed with fresh

pennyroyal mint leaves. . . ."

The grain in the drink is the symbol

of Persephone who -- according to myth --

dies, goes under the ground, than comes

back to life again.

The drink - kykeon -

may have contained a hallucinogenic

which was derived from

the extract of grain.

Kykeon might well have been one powerful

hallucinogenic, containing both the extract of

grain, and the fermentation of wine.

A communion of bread and wine pales next to that.

For sure.

CLUE #2:

The mysterious ceremony at Eleusis

in some way

brought the initiate

in direct contact with a semblance

of the experience of

life, death

and resurrection.

Notably the ancient

commemoration

was of a Goddess --

the Goddess of the harvest

and of earth itself -

Demeter --

and of her attempts to reclaim

the life of her daughter

Persephone -

who had been stolen

by Hades and taken

into Hell.  She is restored with a bargain,

more or less,

a deal with the devil to always return

to Hades

during the winter months, than

resurrect

in spring.

CLUE #3:

Dr. Beach even goes so far

as to suggest a trinity

played a key role,

in the figures adored at Eleusis:

Demeter (the mother: aka creator)

Persephone (the daughter)

Dionysus (the god of wine, sex, celebration

and theatre!)

Dionysus - the god of Eros.

In Classical Rhetoric, Eros would refer to the erotic appeal,

which is just as powerful as the other appeals -

Logos (the logical appeal)

Ethos (the ethical appeal)

Pathos (the emotional appeal)

Aristotle,

as we know him today,

belittled Eros as a strong appeal,

favoring the other three

(another trinity)

Anyway,

Dionysus, the Erotic,

may have played an essential role

at Eleusis.   Keep in mind,

that the Bacchanal

is closely associated

with Dionysus.

Dionysus  is also the god of theatre

and representation.

It makes perfect sense to me that he

had to be

present if the goal was to reproduce

a reality only truly accessible

to the non-human.

(from Hestia)

CLUE #4:

Women,

women,

women,

sex,

and pigs.

The sacrifice made at Eleusis

was a pig

because the pig

signified plenty.

Pigs -

the animal forbidden

by two of the monotheistic,

Abramic religions

were the sacred sacrament

at the ceremony at Eleusis.

Pigs,

that creature which we now know

is a close relative to humans

genetically.

~ ~ ~

How does one end such an entry?

There is no end;

only mystery,

and a puzzle that far outshines

a 

card game.

If you've read my other entries,

you can probably see

why it intrigues me.

No place like nowhere

. . . . . which is everywhere.

Everywhere we live

is no where,

yet we make it somewhere in our life's experience --

Or let's put it another way:

every day

we wake up

and somewhere,

deep inside our guts

we know

we'll be lucky if we get through that day

alive.

Do you ever feel that way?

Every day we face

thousands of dangers

and threats

to our very lives;

and if we're lucky

we survive.

After all, we're all only

animals, and

if we had not become 

wise,

we would have remained animals,

in large part, and lived and died

like animals, who more or less recognize

and resign themselves

the cycle of the organism:

we move from physical life to spiritual life and back again,

in a constant

regenerative

cycle.

However,

because we are the most

vulnerable

of animals,

hu-mans built homes and

killed animals and plants and trees

so they could preserve their physical lives.

The more we hu-mans became aware

of the distance of time between life and death

(between being in a physical state and dreaming a physical state),

the more we grew to fear death,

and the more we imposed ourselves

on the lifecycle of other creatures on the planet.

(from:  hurstwick )

(wikipedia dugout )

( picturetrail )

The problem is

in each new stage of our

"civilization" -

ie: our ability to preserve the life

of our species,

we moved further and further

from the organism we are part of.

In our ticky-tacky life,

life becomes predictable,

and so we seek

more dangers

more challenges,

so we can feel

the quick of life

otherwise we're numb

 And this is why we seek out adventures.

We do it to remind ourselves that we are living dangerous lives;

every single day is a dangerous life.

We've sanitized our planet so much

that we don't even know that anymore

*

Artists live dangerous lives.

They dare to look at their environment honestly;

politicians, too

live dangerously.

But so does the busdriver

and the race car driver,

and the butcher

and the salesman,

and the mother

and the child,

and the teacher

and the student -

all seek something different, something that could challenge

their very existence;

they face their challenge,

and make it part of themselves.

Some choose to watch

the brave

make the challenge

and succeed.

We are the spectators,

who seek out the daredevils

who live right on the edge

of this life and the next.

We live in a world of too much spectatorship.

Too many people

are merely watching, while

only a few 

take the risk,

acknowledging

our immortality.

Who are you?

There's No Place Like Nowhere - Rhode Island Monthly - June 2010 - Rhode Island

John Lennon lovers, read on:

There's No Place Like Nowhere - Rhode Island Monthly - June 2010 - Rhode Island

Karyokinesis

1.

Our bodies

Are the avatars

That we have chosen to occupy

While we live out this lifetime

On this domain called

Earth.

Our bodies embody

And imitate

The divide that occurred

When the All

That is God/Allah/Yahwey

Felt the desire

To see Him/Herself

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness

And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air,

And over the cattle, and over all the earth,

And over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him;

Male and female created he them.

Male and female, for the male and female embody

The two parts that God had to assume in order to be able

To see God.

Our physical bodies are the imitation

Of the instant of creation,

Which is the instant

Of division

http://dictionary.reference.com/illus/illustration.html/ahd4/Karyokinesis/mitosi

2.

Within our physical bodies, too,

There are two sides –

Two sides of our brains;

Two sides of our beings.

We each contain two

And at the center of the two

Is a shimmering essence

Like a mirror

And if we can find that mirror,

And look in that mirror,

We can see ourselves in our

Entirety

That mirror is the soul.

That mirror is in the center

Of the mind.

http://wps.prenhall.com/hss_wade_psychology_7_mru/21/5603/1434603.cw/content/index.html

3.

This concept is so simple, yet

So complex:

We live in a world that is

Continually imitating

The Original Act of Creation

And the essence of

The Original Act of Creation

Is division:

Division necessitated by Desire,

Desire to observe

Ourselves

In our perfection.

http://beyondtherim.meisheid.com/?cat=32

4.

At our very cores,

We understand

That this is what we

As humans, on this glorious earth

Are trying to do.

We are trying to enact what God sought to do

At the moment of contraction

And division,

That is:

We are here to help God see himself,

His totality

In the creation she produced for that very reason.

We can be deceived

By false mirrors:

Lakes, and shopping center windows,

And full length slightly

Distorted mirrors

Nailed to our bedroom doors.

We can be deceived

And led to believe

That the image of God is embodied

In the exterior of our bodies,

When in fact our outer form is only

The exterior part of the apparatus,

The avatar,

Fitted with the necessary exterior

Accessories to help us live

On Earth

As we attempt to see

All of God.

5.

All of God is not

In your bedroom mirror;

All of God resides

Within you.

Your body is a sacred temple

Designed to help you explore

The creation God made

When he sought to

Create himself.

Your body imitates

The moment of creation

Your body is

The moment of creation

If you let it be so.

6.

There's another part to this:

The body's relationship with

The Earth.

Because Earth, too,

Is part of the imitation of the moment of Creation

Earth is continually creating

Rejuvenating,

Growing,

Blossoming,

Tearing down,

Slumbering,

Then

Creating again.

Like us, every day.

Dare I say that the Earth and the Sun

Are bodies, too,

Organisms created

In divisible parts

To imitate and perpetuate

The moment of the

Initial Creation

For as long is it might take

For us all to figure out that that is what's going on.

That's why we're here:

To acknowledge the

Awesomeness

And Supremacy

Of the Entirety

That, in a moment of weakness, got it into its head (before it even had a head) that it

wanted to behold itself.

An Abuser is. . .

1.
An abuser is a one who has been abused.
It is a one who has been held in violent positions
and had violent things done to them.
.  .  . . .things that tore away at the very core of their being.

And if the core of the abuser's being is good,
(which most likely it is,
because all humans are essentially
good)
So if the core of their being is good,
the abuser will hide the abuses they commit,
because they understand
what goodness truly is.

And sometimes they get angry at goodness, and want to do
horrible things to it
because the abuser's good core has been abused
and he wants everyone to be as bad
as he or she
perceive
himself or herself
to be.

That is the logic of an abuser.
It's hard for us to understand
that his intents have
always been good.

Always grounded in the good.

How much an abuser can or will abuse is directly proportionate to how much
the abuser has been abused.

So if the abuser has been damaged
torn to his very core
by the abuse of another,

he doesn't even remember
what goodness is.
He has to imitate it
and hope
he gets it right.


2
After living as many centuries as I have,
I know this well,
for I am a woman.  And
most women
spend a large portion of their lives
involved
with abusers.  Abusers masquerading as men
and scared to death that someone will find out

that 
they were abused.
Because to be abused is to NOT be treated as
human.
To be abused is to NOT
be treated as equal.
To be abused is
NOT
to be treated
as an equal part,
NOT
to be treated
at all
but rather to be insulted
to be ignored
to be
or perhaps
not to be

That is what it is
to be abused.

And only someone who has had that script
committed to their bodies,
committed to their brains
could in turn abuse with such intensity,
could abuse so much
that they would like to kill.
For killing is the response
to the ultimate abuse.
In other words:
if one has been
so abused
that they wanted to die
they will abuse til
their victim wants to die
or until
they are
dead.

3.
So think of it this way
like a palindrome,
and our bodies
are the template
for our thoughts
and our souls.

And the actions
that are performed
on our bodies
are the actions that
are inscribed onto our souls

which are the vessels of thought.
Thought is the matter that is produced
when the body and the soul
intersect.

Thoughts guide our bodies.



Now this is a huge logical chain that you really have to be following with me.
The way I'm writing this is so
antithetical to the way
a person should write on the internet. 

So if you've been with me this long
and you still understand, I wonder
 if that means you would say I'm smart

Or am I crazy?  Am I walking so close to the edges
of my brain that I've produced another reality
completely?  Isn't that what it is,
to be crazy?  To live so fully in another
reality, that you don't realize any more that
it isn't real?

Is that crazy?


4.
It's kind of strange because I see another palindrome
in that too.   And this one is pushing outwards
because the brain has two sides, you see.
And at the center of the brain
is a thin shimmering line
that is a mirror.

A mirror is a technology
(and an old one at that)
that imitates the mirror in
our minds.

at the center of our minds
is a primoridal mirror
that helps
us witness
the continual repetition
of god's initial encounter
with god's self. 
or rather, it helps
us witness
the continual repetition
of the initial encounter between
God's two halves.

And it will keep functioning that way
until we recognize that
that is in fact
what we are supposed to be doing.

At the fall of man
we were torn asunder.

Our downfall was that we wanted
to see ourselves.

Our reparation comes when we recognize
that this is true.

Let me tell you the story
of the Fall of Man,
according to Makropoulos:

(that by the way, is the blog entry that precedes this one, and I beg you to refer to it to maybe even help you understand this one.)

When God saw himself, we saw the physical form of
the woman, which is by far the more beautiful
half of humanity, because she has the responsibility
of imitating god
she has the responsibility of
imitating
the creator
she is the face
 of the creator

woman is the creative force

the ALL

that you see and desire to see;

the man IS the mirror,

the one with

the capacity to reflect

half of

God.


In addition

. . . . the man is also

The Other Half

of God,

the element he produced so

He could

reproduce himself.


This is not to put down

men

or mirrors,


but rather it is to make it clear that

the male half

has a few different functions:

it helps the female half

see how extraordinarily beautiful

she

that is . . . the beautiful thing that is God

is. 



But also,
since god is imperfect as long as she is divided
and looking at herself,
it was most efficient to produce a mirroring device
that had two functions.


God does, after all, have a little German in him; she is quite economical in design concepts.

So the mirror also had the physical capacity to reproduce the disparate body that was once

the double of God,

until the two of them figured out

what the hell is going on.

Why are you over there

and me over here?

And why am I

a woman?

why am I

Makropolous,

why was I

chosen


to live


this



long



?



Because I have to tell this tale.

Seeing ourselves in the mirror

1.
I used to tell people that I wished I could see myself when I walked through a door.  Any door.  I wished I could see the physical impression I made, the whole me, the me with my strengths, and all my visible weaknesses.  It has taken a long time to be able to do that.

Then I had a lover who was my mirror, and I saw how beautiful I was capable of being,  but also how vulnerable.  Because I did not know the impression I made,  I was so wrapped up in my inner life, my outer life was neglected, and that naivete was written all over my demeanor.

It's true: mirrors have become terrifically important to me these days, as an image, as a motif, as a way of understanding.  See my earlier entries on mirrors and the palindrome.  If you dare.

2.
One of my favorite themes from Rumi is this, which is said to be the saying of the "everlasting and eternal Lord":
"I am not contained in the heavens or in the void
or in the exalted intelligences and souls; 
but I am contained, as a guest,
in the true believer's heart,
without qualification or definition or description,
so that by the meditation of that heart
everything above and below may win from Me
abilities and gifts.
Without such a mirror neither earth nor time 
could bear the vision of My beauty.
I caused the steed of My mercy to gallop
over the two worlds. 
I fashioned a spacious mirror."
From this mirror appear at every moment
fifty spiritual wedding-feasts;
pay attention to the mirror,
but don't ask me to describe it.

The mirror; the vanishing point; the reflecting surface; the point of juncture where the two reflected sides of the palindrome meet.  This juncture is the abode of God.


3.
Sometimes we get so hung up at the imperfections that we see in the mirror.  That zit, for instance, right below my eye.  It's slowly going away, but I know it's there, because I can even see it, just at the lower range of my vision.   I could become so obsessive about it, trying to hide it with make-up, or I could just let it be.  I've been letting it be, taking a small delight in the fact I can see it a little, and each time I let myself be conscious of it, I remember what I saw in the mirror that morning.  That imperfection unites me with my whole self, if that makes any sense.

But I also know it's there because of all the chocolate I've been eating.  So I'm trying not to eat so much chocolate.

4.
Google earth is amazing.
Google earth makes it possible to see stuff like this:

This is the volcano erupting in Iceland.  (source: FromTheOld )

Or this:

(source: gearthblog )

(This was actually taken from the Space Station traveling overhead.)  This is a result from the Chilean earthquake.  Also the following entry, which includes images of Haiti after the earthquake.

Getting cameras up into the distant skies over our planet gives us the opportunity to get a mirror image of ourselves, flaws and all.  Remember the awe the world felt the first time it got an image of Earth from outer space?  Yes, this planet is beautiful!  But right now it's erupting, showing us some pimples and fractures, and points of change.


My question is simple: how can we go on ignoring them?  The earth is trying to tell us something about itself.  It's showing us something we all need to see: what our collective self looks like as it goes spinning through space.

We can either keep ignoring it, being so self-involved that we can pretend it doesn't matter.  Or we can pay attention to the signs.

And some stop being so self-indulgent.

Endless Time & The Palindrome

1.
Numbers are the perfect language.  They are simple and pure.  They tell no lies, nor pretend to be more than they are.  They are, simply. Quantities.  Measurable.  Finite.  They strip all of physical existence to its barest essence: being.

2.
The ultimate question IsThereAnInfiniteNumber? boggles the mind because to be able to say "infinity" is to be able to say the unsayable.  Endless time.  The ultimate oxymoron, and the ultimate palindrome:

"endless time"

is the collision between the unsayable (and undefinable, so don't expect me to do so)

and

the absolutely sayable - for time and the sayable are absolute partners.  To be able to say what one is able to say is to find that moment on that brink of having nothing to say.  And that is a perfect moment.

To be able to say (and represent) those two things at the same time, is to be able to enter into the realm of perfection.

2a.
Oh, does that make sense?  The realm of endless time is the realm of the palindrome.  The realm of the palindrome is the realm of collision.  The realm of the palindrome is the realm of resolution.  To see yourself in the mirror is to enter the realm of absolute completion, because you are really only half yourself.

  
 3.
The realm of endless time & the palindrome is the ability to say the Double Negative, The Vanishing Point, which is also the Beginning Point.



This is why theatre is so absolutely amazing; because it is the point at which the live (that which is presented for the first time) meets the re-presented (that which is presented for the first, the second, and the umpteenth time).

Let me say that again: theatre is the place where the presented (live) meets the re-presented (that which is presented for the first, the second, and the umpteenth time).

We, the audience, are the presented, because when we come to any live event, it is the very first time that we, the audience, have presented ourselves into that situation.  We do it authentically, live, with no idea on how we should act or react.     //////////     Performers have re-hearsed so they could re-present an event to us.  An event from which we will, hopefully, learn, because by learning we realize what we should not do again.  That's the essence of tragedy, right?

When living people go to a play, their experience is, in essence, equal to endless time.  Or rather timeless end, because the audience is trapped in the realm of time, and the end is not.

So, ultimately, the realm of endless time & the palindrome - of theatre itself -  is the realm of where the living meet the eternal, which is where the time-bound meet the time-less, which 

When living people go to a tragedy, they are continually satisfied that they are not the ones who are dying as they meet their end.  (And their end is not in their untimely death, but it is rather in the moment of their conjoining with multiple representations of their most feared end.) 

For everyone meets their own death at the moment that they encounter their reproduction. Everyone suffers their own extinction at the moment when they discover that they are reproduceable, and replacable, in duplicate.

Time passes in the blink of an eye when you're as old as I am.

No, I haven't posted in a while. And the Blooger world has passed me by. This new technology sometimes baffles me, though I must confess to loving it, too.

Much has happened to me, some of which I may share at some time. The challenging part of being my age is that I've known so many men, and generally, I've learned the types. There are really very few male types. But every now and then one comes along that baffles me, even scares me in his originality. And that is what I've been involved with, until I realized that if I really wanted to live until I was finished living, I really might want to get out of his life. Or get him out of mine. I hope I did it soon enough.

Yes, some people call me a risk taker. I went to a counselor who called me that, and then her conclusion after talking to me for about an hour was that I am an alcoholic. That Twentieth Century; it really was a century of hang-ups. Anything that was done in excess became an illness. One has to understand, though, the anyone who does things in excess is just being human in high gear. And unfortunately, some can't handle it. Indeed, no one can handle it if you push it too high - everyone reaches their limits. A Romanian friend made the comment to me just the other day that we strive to reach our inadequacies. We strive to find our limits. And when we find them, well we try to break through them.

When I was child, oh way too long ago, I was terrifically shy. Everything was a limit for me. You'd think I wouldn't remember that far back, but I do. Because I am still always already that terribly shy fearful child. And whenever I feel myself settling back into my fearful self, I do something else to exceed my limits. The thing is - at 424 years old, well, your outermost limit keeps becoming more extreme and extraordinary.

But I do have my limits.

Like aging children. We are really just aging children. For a period of time, we play the game of society - society is, after all, nothing but a game. The child inside of us learns to play it; some of us learn to play it better than others, because we're a little more keyed in to the folks who are setting the rules. But as we get older, well, the game gets a bit boring. This is why older people become so absolutely childish. They just resort back to their essential selves, the selves they were born with.

Mankind too gets bored with playing the game; this is why we have revolutions. We're due for a big one. Read my blogs about The Grid to see why this is an important topic to me.

Among humans, though, there are some people, who for one reason or another, recognize early on that it's all a game. They decide they will keep their childish selves alive, and take out their social selves whenever they need it. These are some of the most intelligent people around, and the most interesting. But they can also be the most dangerous. Childish impulses can be hurtful, especially when the child was reprimanded with pain. This produces mean abusive adults. You have to watch out for them; they look for people who keep the childish innocence in their eyes, and take the rules of the game very seriously. These are the people who are easily fooled.

I say these things largely because this is what I feel like talking about right now. But also, I look back at my post about Michael Jackson. He was an old soul, too, you know. As a soul, he had become so old that he was just always a child. This can be good and this can be bad. People like this sometimes get confused, and think they can play certain childish games that one really can't play when they've grown out of their childish body.

Yes, that's one of the benefits of just not having died. My body has remained my own; I'm very aware of the stages of its aging. And it is aging, now; it has been, for hundreds of years, aged rather slowly, but it's becoming a little more noticeable these days. In this body, and having never left the earth, I know what I can safely get away with. Michael kept coming back, kept getting new bodies, and he kept forgetting that bodies have this problem with growing up.

I still have so much to share, but I am getting weary. I performed Turandot at the Met tonight, and even though I love singing Turandot, and this bass Ramey is not bad for an old man, well, I am exhausted. But I'll be back, sooner rather than later.

the beginning of the end of my stories

I tend to feel that humans are a bit like cats. As T.S. Elliot helps us see, cats all have that jellicle name, that name that captures their essence and is their true name. Humans rarely name their cats by their jellicle name, because, quite frankly, we don't take the time to get to know them before we name them. Same with kids.

Makropoulos is really just a character in a story that was originally written by Karol Capek, in a play called "The Makropoulos Case." This was later made an opera by Leos Janacek, which of course I have sung in many times. I like singing my own story. The last time I saw it - yes, literally saw it from a seat in the audience - was at the English National Opera, sometime in the 1990's. It struck me than, as I watched someone up there performing the character that is me, that I have become somewhat frozen in time, and yet, look how the theatre itself has changed! My own changes have not been external. I've just continued to gather information, through novels and essays and poetry and plays and newspapers and magazines, and radio and television and movies and now the internet. And whether I like it or not, that information is all related to a similar modest theme, that being the meaning of life. Of my life? Yes, in a way. But I think I realized very early on that my own life is of very little consequence in the larger scheme of things, though I can make it meaningful for myself, and I've tried to do that. The real challenge has been to make it meaningful in a way that it's also meaningful for others.

This blog is my most recent attempt to make my life meaningful, or to capture all the meaning I've gathered over my 424 years, and to put it into some logical sequence. Yes, that's right, I've been around for at least 424 years - or at least those are the years I remember. I remember, for instance, Shakespeare. He was a skinny little runt of a man, not much to look at. But pompous and confident - and that was what made women fall for him. He thought all women loved him, and to be true, I did for a time. But he was sloppy, way too sloppy for me, both in and out of bed. And, as you might imagine, he talked way too much, and treated his wife like crap. But I'm here to tell you now that he did create most of those plays, though the actual language was often the product of a game he played with some of the other actors, like Burbage and Alleyn. Sometimes Ben Jonson came along for the fun of it, though most of the wordsmiths were actors. And there was a woman - not Shakespeare's sister, as Virginia Woolf imagined - but a woman nonetheless. Her name was Liza, as I recall, though everyone called her Val. I never really asked why.

But that was way too long ago to dwell on it. I am here, now, in 2009. A most trepidatious year. Everyone seems to be frightened - of the economy, of the weather, of the earth, of themselves. I do feel I've come to an end, perhaps an end of my life, perhaps an end of life as we know it, perhaps just an end, packed with all the hopefulness of a new beginning. Everything I see seems to be aware of the endings around us, and the changes that come with them.

I could make myself miserable thinking about endings, and - quite frankly - sometimes I do. However, I force myself to be more optimistic. There is a new beginning beyond the ending, even if that beginning is the beginning of an eternal, sweet, silence. It's something, and if nothing exists, than silence is something. It has form and dimension, when cast against the platform of nothing.

But I diverge. . . . I must tell you of a dream I had, about six years ago, and that marked, for me, the beginning of the beginning . I don't know if I can truly categorize it as a dream, except for the fact that it happened at night. What it really was was a voice, and it wasn't the first time I had hear this voice. Let me tell you.

I heard it first around 1984, when I was living in my grandmother's house, shortly after her death. My father's death preceded hers by a few years. I was always a bit of a loner, but a pleasant one. And dating back to my childhood, I had this horrible tendency to have premonitions or visions. Dead people would appear in my dreams and give me messages for the living. When this voice came to me in the 80's, my premonitions had subsided a little. But there I was, sleeping in my grandmother's bed, when a voice ripped me out of my slumber with one statement: "we are entering a new era."

The statement itself did not appall me. I was about to go off to begin my M.A., so I figured it was pretty much a personal message, though I really did find the voice to be quite creepy. It did not come from me. It came from outside of me. It hovered over me, like a protective mother over her child. Its tone was deep and cavernous.

I'll honestly tell you that, until I heard the voice again, in 2004, I hadn't thought that much about it. But then I heard it again. This time, I was in New York State, and it was the first weeks of my new job there. I was comfortable for the most part, and vere excited about the new position. And I was sleeping.

Suddenly, during the early morning hours, a voice - the same voice - ripped me from my sleep. The voice was deep, as I said, and it sounded terrifically hollow. It also seemed to be straining to produce itself, as if it needed ana apparatus, with a throat, to creat the sound it needed to make. The sound, too, seemed to be coming out of a skeleton, like ti was pushing itself through an impossible aparatus, in order to b e able to speak and make words.

What was shocking, though, was the news it gave:

"Jesus will come as the scholar on the four days of the grid."

I woke up, right away, and wrote it down, then went back to sleep, hoping it would continue, and tell me, for instance, what the grid is, or who Jesus would be. It said nothing more.

I went to a psychic and explained the message to him. He said it was probably personal. The Jesus it referred to is the Jesus in me. OK, fine, that works (I thought.)

I forgot the message for a little while, but not long. It was just too odd of a message, and the voice that bore it was so urgent. Whenever I try to explain that voice, I think about it this way: it was a compulsion to speak. But to speak requires an apparatus. So somehow the compulsion to speak found some form of semi-physical apparatus, and the words tore through it, as they might through a skull or a boney aperture. Thus, the voice itself is hollow, almost the negative image of a voice.

Anyway, I eventually found myself thinking about the message again, and especially a couple of its key words: the Grid and/or the Age of the Grid. Jesus. The scholar.

It seems the term "the grid" has been in popular usage for a little while, and, in particular,it has come to refer to electronic media, We have companies called "National Grid," and the phone service is on a grid. Grids surround us.; they help us make life manageable.

And then there is the matter of Jesus, an image who many people on this planet feel they have a personal relationship with. But do they really know him? What's he like? Will he like candy or ice cream? Will he be a person at all? Or many? Or just an impulse?

And then there's the matter of scholarship. Sophia Knowledge. In the book of Proverbs, wisdom is the most important thing a human can work towards.

Ever since I received that message, I've been pursuing its meaning. I have some ideas. I'll share them with you later. I hope you enjoy them, but alway remember: they are fictions. Even I am a fiction, and a product of fiction.

Thanks for stopping by --