albionspeak 2: the gates of dis (15.5)
SESSION 87: 5TH NIGHT, 8/8/03
Our invocation: Shakespeare The Tempest, IV, 1
10:22 PM
1. Q: [Guide], are you there?
A: [YES] [THE] LAKE IS ALL AROUND US
2. Q: We haven’t been to the grotto yet this year.
A: LET US BE ABOARD OUR CRAFT & ADDRESSS WHOMEVER WE WISH [sic]
3. Q: Have you an exercise?
A: SEE [THE] MANDALA IN ITS SIMPLEST FORM
LET [THE] TRIPOD GLIDE OVER [THE] WATERZ
A Quick Review of AC CA
4. Q: {We are to see a circle, with minimal points} We begin now.
A: ABSENCE A QUICK REVIEW
YOU - U - TELL ME - JANE
5. Q (Duncan): [Absence is] a moment set aside for quiet penetration/distillation of a topic not held in attention, yet neither forgotten nor abandoned.
A: DISCONTINUITY AS A MODE OF PROCEEDING
6. Q: We need absence.
A: COST - YOUR BEST RESPONSE PLEASE - E
7. Q ([Scribe]): An inevitable & undesirable result arising from a gain in energy or intent.
A: COST ARISES WHENEVER…
8. YOUR POWERS INCREASE & IN PROPORTION TO [THE]M
9. Q (Duncan from deep personal experience): Cost arises if your powers do not increase, as well.
A: EXACTLY D SO AT THIS POINT YOUR TEACHING PATHS RECONVERGE
10. Q: It must be time to bring up cost.
A: A NEEDED IF DIFFICULT ADDITION –
JANE
Jane signs off, so we quote the title of a Borges poem as an open invitation (not summoning Don specifically).
11. Q: “To whoever is reading this”: Is cost itself need, or simply a byproduct of the path?
A: I HEAR [THE] CRICKET SOUNDING ITS DIN HERE -
DON
12. Q: Don! Cost is just there.
A: THAT IS [THE] SERPENT SPEAKING
Question #11 was mine, and I confess to a kind of mischievousness, a semantic hair-splitting that would probably have served me better as a lawyer than a potential flyer. [Scribe] gets credit for Q#12.
13. Q: Don, we recently learned that aliah is not a “spoke” in Circle-k but the rim. A surprise to us.
A: ALIAH MAY REACH EVERY POINT YET [THE] MIND MUST REACH ALIAH
14. Q: To think of the self as the hub/center is a mistake.
A: YOU ARE AMIDST BUT NOT A HUB
AIM FOR [THE] SPOKE
I felt (and feel) the word “amidst” was used here in part because it’s phonemically close to “mist.” That is, in lessons years ago on the firefishes we learned that “infant” human minds (most of us) resemble a flickering mist. A developed human mind, however, more resembles a meteor, a (willful, concentrated) shot from one point to an intended other. This meteor, of linear geometry, resembles a spoke.
Of course of greater interest is the concept that we ought not identify ourselves with the center of this wheel. Might I, our fallen friend, have held on foolishly, selfishly, egotistically to this center point? Was his error/sin to put himself first?
15. Q: We hypothesize: I wanted to be (or set himself up as) a hub. We encode this “missng I” at the center of our board.
A: YET WHERE IS YOUR I REALLY?
After all our “missng I’s” I’m not sure what to make of Don’s response here. It is important to note that the vowel “I,” although centermost among the central arc of vowels and aligned with the board’s y axis, is not the board’s centerpoint, not on the x axis. Actually there is nothing at all at the circle’s true center. “I” is amidst, but not amidmost.
16. Q: Fallen member I is encoded as a circle “amidst” but not central. The same goes for U and E. I as identity cannot be central.
A: DON - LEARN THIS THROUGH AN OBJECT OF YOUR OWN MAKING
[THE] BOARD A MEDIUM?
Don apparently signs off here, a disappointment for me personally. Aside from Don’s being my teacher & literal guru, among our friends his has been the “loudest” voice, in terms of quantitative dialogue. We just love talking with Don. His relative absence these sessions, I suspect, was largely a consequence of my own lack of progress. (This is analogous to the disciple who returns to the zen master without having solved his koan: generally the master says nothing and merely rings the bell to leave.) Don’s absence furthermore marks a significant departure from years of ouija work (and I feel is a signal for me to go back and re-read Borges’s huge corpus -- after all, what fool wouldn’t give his eye teeth to have his teacher’s words neatly bound upon the study shelf!).
[Scribe] came up with another good reason for Don’s absence. He writes for Don: “If I entertain you, I have your attention for a moment, but I also delay you by making my serious message seem merely entertaining.”
17. Q: It encodes many facts we’re only now grasping.
A: § VILANSIT
18. Q: Thank you for your discourse last night.
A: I ASK YOU NOW TO NAME [THE] FIF[THE]LEMENT
Measure
19. Q: You & the rest have pointed us to measure as the medial element in the line.
A: [YES] & AS YOU KNOW WE HAVE REPLACED ONE PUZZLE WITH ANO[THE]R
20. Q: The second puzzle (“riddle”) is the more profound. Comment on our guesses?
A: I LISTEN
21. Q: The measure (as in fencing) is the radius you can reach from your position. It is: your project, your construct. [The OED quotes Shakespeare’s Two Gentlemen of Verona: “Come not within the measure of my wrath.”]
A: EXCELLENT
TELL ME IS THIS INTENT?
Once again [Scribe] & I are led down a false path and, to credit our progress, recognize the trap. As a teacher, I employ similar pedagogical strategies.
22. Q: No. It is a plan or course, along which intent may (or may not) run.
A: IT LAYS DOWN A PATH FOR [THE] ENERGIES?
23. Q: From earlier today: A spoke is not a fiber. (Traversing a spoke, one may make use of a fiber.)
A: INDEED ONE MUST DO SO IN ORDER TO ARRIVE
From what we’ve previously learned (though without explicit confirmation) fibers differ from filaments in that while both serve as links between “things,” filaments form the natural & default connections once the course of something has been set in motion: for example, the history of a stone. Fibers, on the other hand, always imply connecting items disparate enough that the connection would not otherwise so occur and necessarily involve choice, free will, locomotion. If correct, then traversing a spoke necessarily is a choice. To reach the rim, to survive, necessarily is a choice.
We noted an apparent contradiction.
24. Q: Sessions ago [Cf. 95 24.55] Jane told us: “You need not to plan.”
A: IN THOSE DAYS [THE] DISTINCTIONS WE NOW MAKE WOULD HAVE MEANT [NO]THING
25. Q: Measure: a musical increment involving (encoding) elements with respect to their timing.
A: TELL ME IF A WRITTEN OR PLOTTED MEASURE DETERMINES HOW ONE PLAYS OR PERFORMS?
“Obviously it does,” I said, missing the trap. [Scribe] got it though.
26. Q: Yes and no. Determines is the wrong word: guides, points [are more accurate]. (Spoke: rim :: Measure: performance) [an analogy/proportion]
A: ALIAH IS [THE] ACTUAL MUSIC OF [THE] CIRKLE
27. Q: That being said, “know the score” implies “learn your own medium.”
A: EASILY SAID
Even Vilansit’s benign sarcasm has deeper levels: Note the grammatical structure of our question.
Two Readings of the Riddle
28. Q: We know! Our minds are the medium.
A: LETS LOOK AT [THE] ENTIRE LINE
§ [Guide]
READ IN TWO WAYS TWO SENSES
D BEGIN - ACMCA
29. Q (Duncan): [Note the] C’s point left to right. A: absence [is] necessary for gathering intent, but there is always cost. One must have a plan -- a measured plan (workable, directional) to attain the goal. Inevitably, the cricket creeps in to sow doubt (misdirection). If the cricket is silenced, the measure leads to (attains) aliah. (Note, C “faces” A.)
A: AN EXCELLENT READING
A MEASURE IS A PLAN BUT ALSO MUCH MORE
30. Q ([Scribe]): I’ll give the second reading, which is in two parts [from the center out].
A: TELL ME [THE] FIRST MEASURE
31. Q ([Scribe]): Measure suggests the powers of the centered mind, our medium. Life presents us with costs (plural), but we preserve what’s vital by traversing thru cost to the needed place of absence.
A: [YES] MEASURE IS ALSO A MODE OF TRAVEL
CONTINUE PLEASE
32. Q ([Scribe]): Absence is a necessary concession. But on the other side, to arrive at the rim of aliah, measure provides the timing & fluidity to pass straight thru the cricket’s delays, impasses, excuses, undercuttings, detours, ad infinitum -- into the needed arc of energy. Once in (or at) Awe can go anywhere.
A: [YES] A FOR ALWAYS ANYWHERE AND ACCESS ALSO AN ADVENTURE
I could be wrong, but it seems highly likely to me we were here being fed additionally clues to A’s role and/or personality. (Note: none of [Scribe]’s four possible A candidates have names beginning with “A.” The letter must therefore stand for other attributes.)
33. Q: We can’t “resolve” measure tonight, but it will be in our minds in the months to come.
A: I JOSEF AM WITH YOU
A FINAL…
Josef breaks off, again at the end of the steno page. He needs a full page to record the following, our longest single response ever (superlative in several categories).
Toccata & Fugue in D-Minor
34. Q: Josef, we missed that final word.
ONLY A PIECE OF PUNCTUATION
CONTINUITY IS A DREAM YET A NECESSARY ONE
MUSIC IS [THE] IMAGE OF CONTINUITY BECAUSE IT TRAVERSES WITH APPARENT EASE [THE] GAPS & ABYSSES OF MIND & DISPLAYS [THE] FINAL ARC [THE] IMAGE OF [THE] UNBROKEN CIRCUMFERENCE
◊ I & ANAND & ALL YOUR TEACHERS BID YOU PEACE DEAR SONS
JOURNEY WELL
PASS ABOVE FEAR INTO [THE] RADIANCE TO WHICH YOU WERE BORN
I JOSEF SPEAK
◊ ◊ ◊
12:18 AM
In perhaps our lengthiest phone conversation ever (200 min.!) [Scribe] instructed me to include the following disparate, but possibly related items in the transcript notes:
1) Immediately prior to [Scribe]’s call Rhiannon & I had spontaneous ouija conversation that went more than two hours. This was initiated by her, coincidentally on her 11th birthday, and was probably the longest such conversation I’ve ever had with anyone other than [Scribe]. She really did “get” it, and spent much of the morning of [the next day] working on her own at the ouija board (for four hours!). [Scribe] is not the first to note Rhiannon’s remarkable stamina and ability to focus.
2) Several nights ago I had a discontinuous experience: I walked outside and fell right into the 42 inch-deep hole marking our septic tank. One moment I was up; the next I was standing in the hole, very lucky not to be seriously injured. Coincidentally perhaps, on the eve of his receiving a postcard poem series from [Scribe], one of the A candidates did, in fact, suffer a nasty ankle injury. (This presents him, at least temporarily, with challenges which will restructure his life.)
3) Upon [Scribe]’s return to [his town], another A candidate, by the way, had an outrageous anger outburst, ostensibly at [Scribe], though [Scribe] knew not to take it personally. A short time later he apologized and, on his own, acknowledged his need to work seriously to change himself: anger has hurt him; it is (he says) his “Achilles heel," and he himself must get a handle on himself if he intends to make it in life. [Scribe] was impressed.
4) While on a long drive with two of the A candidates, [Scribe] spontaneously proposed that each one think of an “A”-word which would describe him. One suggested “Ardent.” The other, “Aspiring.”
5) [Scribe] and I spoke of intuition. Here are [Scribe]’s thoughts which relate directly to Josef’s final response:
"Intuition is a dream, a dream needed to reach the unbroken arc where aliah abides. Intuition is a continuity which leaps over the gaps and abysses with seeming effortlessness. It is our best working measure."
Finally, I note my subtitle for Josef’s final message. [Scribe] left the task to me, and I spent many days considering it; it became a koan. I believe I have solved this koan, fully aware that my solution violates all the rules of logic and subtitling (even risking a bad precedent) {but that’s the point}.