albionspeak 2: the gates of dis (10.3)
SESSION 59: 3RD NIGHT, 9/20/99
Our invocation: Virgil’s Aeneid, Book II, The Fire Portent; translated by
[Scribe].
10:34 PM
1. Q: [Guide], are you there?
A: I AM HERE
2. Q: Are we still at the grotto?
A: [NO] DON IS LEADING US ELSEWHERE
3. Q: Is Don with you? If so, we greet him.
A: I AM PLEASD TO HAVE TONIGHT FOR A LITTLE CONVERSATION
WITH YOU
Don (a)
The Stone Room
4. Q: Where are you leading us?
A: I THOUGHT WE MIGHT GO TO A PLACE I CALL [THE]
STONE ROOM
5. Q: Is it like the room [Scribe] saw surrounding the Olmec mask?
A: IT IS ONLY NOT SO ELABORATE
DO [NO]T IMAGINE PICTURES OR GLYPHS
IT IS SMALL & SIMPLE
AN OPENING IN [THE] CEILING ADMITS NOON
6. Q: A bit like the Scribe’s place of absence. (Narrow gorge, noon.)
A: [YES] DON…
7. Q: Sorry, Don. [Scribe] couldn’t follow that.
A: DON’S PLACE OF ABSENCE -
MINE INCLUDES A SIMPLE BUT IMPORTANT…
8. Q: Difference?
A: IT SUGGESTS CULTURE AS [THE] GORGE DOES [NO]T
9. Q: How shall we see it?
A: LET’S DIVIDE [THE] WORK
ALBION SEE THE VERTICAL LIGHT
& [THE] SCRIBE WILL SEE [THE] ROOM ITSELF
ALL OF US WILL SIT THERE &…
10. HAVE [THE] SHORT TALK
PROMISED LAST NIGHT
11. Q: We are ready to travel. We begin now.
A: THERE IS A WORLD UNDER [THE]
WORLD
IT IS HERE NOW
12. Q ([Scribe]): An inexact quotation: “Our underworld is not the land of the dead,
but that Outside we long ago told you of.”—[Guide].
A: INEXACT AND APT
13. Q ([Scribe]): Another quotation, exact this time: “Noctes atque dies patet atri
janua Ditis.” [“Night and day the doors of black Dis stand open.” - Virgil]
A: I SEE YOU FOUND MY CLUE
CONGRATULATIONS
14. Q ([Scribe]): You’ve left us a number of them.
A: I TRY TO HIDE [THE]M IN OBVIOUS PLACES
PATET ARCANUM
[Scribe] translated Don’s last sentence twice: “The secret is in the
open.” Also, “A hidden thing is obvious.” For the record, [Don] in life did
read Latin. [Prepared, Scribe jumped on the allusion, to one of Don’s own
fictions.]
[censored, Don’s story X.]
15. Q: In your story [X.] a man dreams of his future self who is in turn dreaming
him.
A: DIS IS [THE] PLACE WHERE THIS IS POSSIBLE
16. Q: Is Dis the same thing as the forest?
A: IT IS RATHER [THE] PLACE WHERE DREAM…
17. MEETS WAKING &
EACH SEES [THE] OTHER
18. Q: But in the story, both men are dreaming
A: EACH SPEAKS OF NOTHING EXCEPT DAYLIGHT CONCERNS
HOWEVER
19. Q: Hence night and day in the Virgil quotation.
A: EXACTLY - IT IS ONE DEFINITION OF FLYING
20. Q ([Scribe]): Josef did say—I quote inexactly—that flight was a meeting between
waking & dream.
A: [THE] WAY OF NIGHT MEETS [THE] WAY OF DAY
I WOKE TO FIND MYSELF IN A DARK WOOD - DANTE
[I note what might seem discontiguous to the reader, how we jump
from [Don] to Virgil to Dante. For us, however, this is one landscape, where
Dante especially, obviously, flows from Virgil when one is about to enter the
underworld with a companion. Don quotes The Divine Comedy’s first line.]
Dis
21. Q ([Scribe]): In my dream, I’d been to Dis once before.
A: [THE] FIRST VISIT EQUALS WHAT WE CALL MOMENTS OF
FLIGHT WHILE…
22. Q ([Scribe]): The second equals “being a flyer”.
A: [THE] SAME YET DIFFERENT
[THE] TWO MEN IN [THE] STORY
23. Q ([Scribe]): The later man has accomplished what the earlier “can only
dream of.”
A: LITERALLY AND METAPHORICALLY
24. Q ([Scribe]): An hypothesis: Dante achieved flight by going to Dis (Inferno).
A: [NO] BY SENDING HIS DOUBLE [THE] CHARACTER DANTE
INTO DIS
25. Q: Was Dante not a born flyer?
A: I HAVE NO IDEA BUT EVEN A BORN FLYER MAY TAKE YEARS
TO DISCOVER IT
Don employs several “Dis” puns in this conversation.
26. Q ([Scribe]): Dis seems such a strange image in some ways for flight.
(Downward, dark, deep)
A: OUR BEST IMAGES ALL INCLUDE [THE] IDEA OF DEPTH -
[THE] DEEP EYE & EAR
EVEN [THE] PYRAMID WE ASCEND IS MIRRORD BY ANOTHER
27. Q ([Scribe]): Somehow the dark part seems more in your domain than in Josef’s.
A: BLIND PEOPLE DO NOT SEE [THE] DARK BUT [THE]Y DREAM OF IT
[As I’ve mentioned, Don went blind in life.]
28. Q ([Scribe]): I had a dream of Dis—it broke off just as I was about to descend.
A: IT IS AN EXACT REPRESENTATION OF YOUR PRESENT
WHEREABOUTS - PAST [THE] GATES
The Guide and the Friend
29. Q ([Scribe]): But not yet descending.
A: IN ORDER TO DO SO YOU NEED BOTH [THE] GUIDE & [THE]
FRIEND
FOR DANTE…
30. ONE FIGURE
FOR YOU AS FOR ME THEY ARE TWO
31. Q ([Scribe]): Did I mistake the guide for a (mere) doorkeeper?
A: [YES] IN FACT [THE] DOORS WERE OPEN [THE]N AS NOW
32. Q ([Scribe]): So Virgil’s quotation says. But the doors in the dream were shut &
lacked handles of any kind on the outside.
A: THAT IS ALWAYS HOW IT APPEARS
DOES IT [NO]T ALBION?
[I must insert what I still recall with clarity 22 years later: I’ve never
seen Dis. Don’s question here to me was purely rhetorical & pedagogical, not
a true question, but rather a tactic I personally mastered in my own classroom.
The reader must imagine how long with ouija it takes to spell out each message.
By this point in the discussion we’d been on the topic of Dis for some time—
fascinating stuff, to be sure, but perhaps a bit too literary for my taste &
attention span. Dis was Scribe’s dream & adventure, and I’d come along for his
ride, but maybe was drifting off a bit… That is, a quick & direct question is
almost always preferred to classroom discipline.]
Where is the Handle?
33. Q ([Albion]): I would welcome shut doors in a dream if I knew they were the
gates to Dis.
A: EACH TASK IS A SHUT DOOR -
WHERE IS [THE] HANDLE? YOU ASK - [an important pun, advice]
34. Q ([Albion]): In [Scribe]’s dream he just knocked.
A: NOTICE [THE] ACT
IT IS DIRECT AND DOES NOT INVOLVE REQUESTS OR QUESTIONS
OR ARGUMENTS
35. Q ([Albion]): All of which are aspects of the cricket
A: YOU CANNOT NEGOTIATE OR REASON WITH [THE] CRICKET
36. Q ([Albion]): I have used your formula of voicing my intent aloud.
A: I SENSE YOU ARE STILL DISSATISFIED?
37. Q ([Albion]): Yes—I want to move faster.
A: [THE] ONLY WAY TO SAVE TIME IS TO STOP [THE] VOICING &
MOVE DIRECTLY TO ACTING
“In the Beginning was the Deed.” —Goethe.
38. Q ([Albion]): Any recommendations?
A: [YES] IT IS SIMPLE
39. CHOOSE ONE DAILY ACT OR TASK THAT YOU REGARD AS
RESPONSIBLE
[THE]N FAIL TO DO IT
40. Q ([Albion], slightly distressed): Would you explain?
A: IN PLACE OF THAT ACT PUT [THE] ONE YOU INTEND -
THAT WAY YOU WILL KNOW
Intent on the Agenda
41. Q ([Albion]): Know what?
A: THAT YOU ARE INTENDING & THAT INTENT IS NOT [THE] LAST
THING ON [THE] AGENDA
42. Q ([Albion]): It’s strange that such a subversive method might work for me.
A: ACTUALLY YOU FIND IT NATURAL AFTER A TIME
43. Q ([Albion]): Can sleeping an extra hour be an act of intent?
A: I ALWAYS LOOK ON SLEEP AS A VICTORY
44. Q: We’re ready to close. What would you like to tell us in parting?
A: [THE] DOOR TRULY IS OPEN
DO [NO]T SPEND TIME LOOKING FOR A HANDLE
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