albionspeak: a draught of language (2.3)
Letter to Vilansit – On the Mandala
2B To Vilansit-On the Mandala
Images & Attributions (in order of appearance)
1. Banner: Rhiannon C. 2016
a) Jewel Mandala (2): D.C. Albion 1994
b) Albion Glyph: "Glad Day" or "The Dance of Albion," William Blake, c.1794
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/47/William_Blake_-_Albion_Rose_- _from_A_Large_Book_of_Designs_1793-6.jpg
2. Jewel Mandala (2): D.C. Albion 1994
3. Jewel Mandala (2) (center enlarged): D.C. Albion 1994
4. Jewel Ouija Board (2): D.C. Albion 1994
5. Portrait of William Shakespeare https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a2/Shakespeare.jpg
6. (enlarged) Jewel Glyph (Vilansit's Triangle) taken from Jewel Mandala (2): D.C. Albion 1994
I remember well the climax of this project, that still moment when abruptly I took four coins & a button and in a single effort created the picture’s central solar system. It is important to analyze this event, not just because it was major act of reception, but because it didn’t feel like inspiration at all. Yes, it came suddenly, in about fifteen minutes to be exact. And yes, in response to an intractable problem a solution of entirely new form was presented—in this case, one that was both representational & asymmetric. More significantly, the solution leapt over scores of derivative problems which invariably arise when first exploring a new form: how to draw a sun, where to place the planets, shading, etc. But again, Vilansit, what made this intuitive experience unique was I got from it almost no feeling of exuberance, that thrill I’d forever associated & identified with inspiration. Mostly what I felt was exhausted relief. Because I received neither a poem (which could later be studied) nor scored the game’s winning goal, I didn’t feel I’d achieved something of value. I didn’t know what I’d done, so I couldn’t bask in the glory of it. And what this lesson teaches, I believe, is that true inspiration has nothing to do with the afterglow we chase. It is the difference between extrinsic and intrinsic reward. I’ve long known that to receive deeply, one’s ego must be so utterly subsumed to the immediate task that reflection is not possible. Now I understand this alone is the goal. We cultivate inspiration not for what it brings, but for its own sake.
To my credit I never once believed I’d wasted my time on this drawing. Even at the nadir, when I realized the mandala—precisely because it does succeed as a power-image—proved unsuitable as a background to anything, I still knew I had grown from the process. Left then with a bizarre artifact and not knowing what exactly to do with it, I basically just slapped it on the back of my new, hastily-contrived ouija board and filed away yet another anomalous chapter in my otherwise “normal” American middle-class existence.
William Shakespeare
1564-1616
It came then as sweet synchronicity when, a month later, Scribe & I sat down to this new ouija board and learned finally of our own mandala. I refer, of course, not to the circular image used for contemplation, but to our own occult definition of the word: a “learning circle,” which includes one’s closest family outside of time and constitutes the nucleus of each person’s existence within our network. It seemed my drawing marked the occasion for this lesson: We eight comprise a mandala. Mandala is our home. Mandala ist Familia.
It’s funny how instantly Scribe & I embraced this concept, especially when we’d only “met” you & Don (i.e., heard of your existence at the board) just a few nights earlier. Looking over the transcript notes, I find no hint of the rambling theories which normally characterize my views on new subjects. Scribe immediately valued the warmth of human closeness, while I derived abstract pleasure from the mandala’s symmetries & architecture. Soon we also learned that all persons in our karass belong to at least one such circle and that our relations within the mandala are virtually organic. We are, by our own choosing, eternally bound to persons “vastly unlike” ourselves, each of whom has unique tasks & burdens, and for whom each bears unique gifts to utilize.
So here I sit, Vilansit, gazing over your rare gift to me. That I ascribe this colorful image principally to your influence has never, in fact, been confirmed. Indeed, before we learned of your existence, our guide named Josef, himself, and “some others” as contributors. The first hint of your sway (seen only in hindsight) came that morning before meeting you at the board, when Scribe awakened not so much from a dream than the language of Shakespeare, a phrase which lodged itself in his consciousness and lingered with him throughout the next day:
“Hail, many-colour’d messenger, that ne’er
Dost disobey the wife of Jupiter;”
While these lines (from The Tempest) announce the figure of Iris, goddess of the rainbow, we soon learned that both “rainbow” & “messenger” apply equally to you—that somehow these epithets, along with another, “Mistress of the Loom,” comprise your distinctive attributes among our fellowship. It was as if soft trumpets signaled your arrival a dozen hours before you’d graced our table.
So it didn’t take us long to connect Scribe’s literary echo to the painted spectral band surrounding the mandala, a nice coincidence. Still, it took another full year before I got the real picture, before, in a burst of clairaudience, someone finally made me understand. It came suddenly, without antecedent. Before this very computer I found myself transcribing a conversation, which, among other things, included instructions from a sagacious female voice: Go get the mandala, she commanded. Then, in an interrogation that mimicked our ouija transcript format, she grilled me on the mandala’s many separate components and stations. One by one I answered each question, surprising myself with my own degree of certainty—hitherto I’d never even touched on this subject. All that I heard I typed, so that when, after twenty or thirty minutes the dictation abruptly ended, I was left with a key, a legend, to unlock and divine this higher geometry: The mandala is a map.
It remains for future insights to interpret this map fully. Clearly, however, my inspired drawing charts our respective relations within the learning circle. Each of us, in fact, is personally represented in the picture by a port, the site of which serves as both symbol and destination for our intent. When we wish to visit with Jane, for instance, we focus on the small purple planet at the edge of the solar system. Then, using an organ I cannot explain, we “pull” (with great physical effort) toward the idea of that point, Jane’s port, where, under her auspices, we can receive instruction from any of our fellowship. While most of these ports are depicted as celestial bodies, yours, Vilansit, comes to us as the prominent many-coloured triangle, in fact the first region of the mandala I intuited, easiest for me to color in. Your port was also retained as the only color cluster common to both my mandala and Scribe’s, which suggests you are, indeed, mother to both of these images.
Jewel Mandala (2)
12" x 12"
March 1996
Dear Vilansit,
On the computer table before me lies the mandala, our collaboration. Vilansit, what a strange knot you put me through! Often when I reflect on my current “lean years” (as Josef calls them) and find myself compelled—out of feelings of inadequacy—to recount a list of spiritual accomplishments, I fail to acknowledge this image as one of genuine inspiration. I tend rather to look to poems or soccer games, areas where my flashes have yielded demonstrable results. But the mandala, as an artifact, eludes category. I cannot, for example, appreciate it as art. And because I have no standard to judge it against, I can’t even say if it’s a good mandala.
As a process drawing the mandala was equally unprecedented, if not downright alien. To think I spent most of a year laboring on this lone image—waiting each evening for everyone to go to bed, then stealing like an addict to my compass, ruler & magic markers. Few can imagine the hours spent tinkering with the minute curves & triangles, struggling blindly with permutations of color, before finally locking on to the single, unintelligibly certain choice. Of course, I never would have attempted the task for its own sake. I had to have a goal, even a false one, to keep me aligned with your intent. In this case, I thought I was designing a new ouija board—or rather, a color background to Scribe’s earlier arrangement of letters. I expected a minor exercise, a brief experiment with color, which would give me new visual insights since I’ve always lacked a trained eye. Vilansit, it is not for you that I now recount this project, this study in receiving, but for myself & with your guidance, as I embark upon a project of much greater magnitude. You and I both know the history of this mandala. Still, I feel there were lessons in this task I will likely miss, should I not contain them here in language.
And so it began rather innocently. Because an ouija board is above all an alphabet, my first job was to trace & illuminate the letters on onion skin typing paper, which I then oiled and dried to make transparent. In this way the silver ink characters would appear to hover in space above any background I desired. Two weeks of breathless scrivening were required, especially as the ink was hard to control, and errors twice forced me to start from scratch. Following this came the geometric outline of the mandala on a separate sheet of paper, which proved very easy actually, since the structure was already delimited by the radial & bilateral symmetries of the letter page. No doubt I intuited this structure, but at the time I felt no strong sense of purpose or creativity. I think this was because I employed the same general hexagonal design I first developed many years before, as a boy of nine or ten, and have practiced many times since. The structure had so long been part of me, in fact, I got it on the first try, leaving only the colors and a few blank areas (particularly the center) to be filled in later. (And where did the boy get his design?)
Next came the coloring, which, as a process, stood in sharp contrast to outlining. Instead of working from an overall concept, or even a basic color scheme, I was constrained to the mandala’s simple elements, the irreducible polygons, which I never tackled more than a pair at a time. To avoid large-scale regrets, every element was endlessly measured out & copied onto scratch paper, doodled on, (drooled over), then carefully cut & set into place for trial. I do not understand why, as I progressed, this process became increasingly difficult, even exponentially so. Yes, I started with what seemed easiest; but one would assume that as more colors got filled in, their inclusion would limit the selection in the remaining spaces. Not so. I look now at those final two pairs of triangles—those four nondescript corners which together barely suggest two square inches. Vilansit, I still can’t imagine how such minutia could have required so much painstaking labor (120 hours?), especially when everything else had long since been set in stone. Certainly no third eye of mine intuited their final hues. Rather it was brute obsession—along with the hope & faith that the correct color combination existed somewhere in Platonic space, where it was both available to me & mathematically inevitable. What’s important, of course, is that once I found it, I knew it.
Or did I? For no sooner had I sealed the letter page onto its background than I realized I’d got it all wrong—that the mandala I’d spent months slaving over was just a first draft. (I thank God that a small, uncorrectable error in laminating forced this recognition; otherwise I might have given up and settled there for less.) How could I have been so certain each step of the way and then, in my moment of triumph, feel such strong disappointment, even revulsion, toward the finished product? And the near-sense of horror I felt when, months later, Scribe actually seemed to prefer this false draft—this usurper—to my final masterpiece!
Old woman, I know of all people you do not laugh at my folly. I believe you would have spared me this suffering had not the process required it. That Scribe now has in his possession this initial draft and has used it extensively as a vehicle for his own writing—that he has gazed upon it with his hidden eye and witnessed its extra dimensions and personae—these testify to its authenticity. No, Vilansit, I know now, years after the fact, that I did not err. I made two mandalas, one for Scribe, one for me. And because, in my total ignorance, I surely would have turned elsewhere had I first completed my own, Scribe’s sibling mandala was first-born.
And so I began my project again, this time with less confidence and greater secrecy. Obviously I didn’t want [my wife] to worry that her husband might be hopelessly obsessed (or worse, losing his marbles). And somehow this seemed especially true since the object of my obsession held in her eyes no practical value (namely, it didn’t clean the house or make money). Thus while I worked even harder, I was extra careful to refrain from my coloring exploits until well after bedtime and particularly to tidy up all the evidence every night. I think with time we came to one of those unspoken (& necessarily short-term) marital agreements: She didn’t inquire much, and I volunteered even less. With my stepped-up efforts my own mandala, the true mandala, followed in due course, albeit with due struggle.
We realize now, of course, that the eight colors of your rainbow were not arbitrarily drawn—that each color corresponds to a particular member of our circle, and that your triangle depicts each one of us in an exact diagrammatic association with the others. Jane’s orange, for example, lies next to my yellow, indicating she is my contact. Next to her is Scribe’s vermillion, showing he, in turn, is the first to whom she must apply for inspiration. Among other relations still to be revealed, we see also our student-teacher pairings and who among us acts as our working partner.
Yet beyond the map and its arrangement of ports & personalities, the mandala remains foremost a vehicle of visual intention. (“Contemplation,” I think, conveys too passive a regard for this engrossing process.) I find my mandala is a powerful attractor, something that draws me out of myself and into it. On several occasions now I have seen past & through its surface dimensions and watched in wonder as it “opened up” into a moving cathedral of spacetime. In each instance I have found myself calling upon individuals within our circle to step forward, whereupon my perception instantly realigns the shapes & colors into a new gestalt, one that corresponds to the proper face & persona. It is not unusual then to engage this member in conversation, although on a level & at a rate which is difficult for the conscious mind to capture. From these events I learn more about who we are & how we each intersect in this nexus; and since I, as the albion, also count among our number, I have seen my own faces, old & young, reflected back at me as in a mirror.
Logic & intuition lead me to believe that while the mandala still has gems to offer—you have said as much—its utility will one day be obsolete. I suspect that as a window of time-released revelations it has but a few years left. Here the ouija board on the obverse provides the biggest clue: No doubt the calendar photo (of Oregon’s Sandy River) was an inspired & necessary choice for the board’s interior. That it is clearly a winter scene, corresponding perhaps to my lean years, indicates (I read & hope) its transitory nature. Another clue can be found within your triangle, Vilansit, where the student-teacher pairings illustrate not the eternal relations within our circle, but merely the non-flyers’ current level of development. Already we know that elsewhere and in other times both Scribe & Albion are masters. We also know a certain woman of the Ganges, still young eleven centuries ago, who despite the innate gift of flight, suffered deeply in life and sought guidance from friends.
One day I hope to rise above the need for a mandala. I doubt if anyone with wings bothers with this sort of vehicle. I expect—since you expect it of me—that during my lifetime I might, like you, rank among the flyers, although right now I hardly know what this means. In the meantime, I grimace through your disciplines (how many hours on this very page?), and I observe in the mirror gray hairs at the temples. Sadly, the mandala itself is showing signs of age. Already the pink has faded completely, while the lavender in your rainbow, representing our guide, is better recalled through dreams and photocopies once made for friends. As a result, the image has grown more skeletal, as though the flesh has worn away; yet the power, the inherent draw it has over me, remains.
I see now how drawing it was good practice for my current project, these letters which threaten to grip me even more obsessively. In the coming months a balance must be struck between my pursuit of these studies and my worldly commitments to others. [My wife], for one, supports me in these bizarre endeavors only to the extent that they don’t interfere with the rest of my life, especially our marriage. I may do my “ouija thing” on my own time (namely, once she’s unconscious), but I better not show too much interest in it around her, lest I provoke her inescapable fears & jealousy.
And it’s good she neither cares nor understands. And she’s right to keep me grounded in domestic tasks. I definitely am at risk to descend too deeply, to trade a little sanity for a quantum of truth. It’s a fine line I tread then: to excavate the knotted labyrinths of soul from 9:00 to 11:00 PM—uncovering riches, platitudes, horrors—then consecrate wholly my remaining hours to wife & kids & career in the community, pillar of emotional stability. As with Jane’s young face, it’s not a matter of acting or pretending. I can’t fool family. I have to live fully in both worlds and not by divorcing my spiritual self from the temporal half, but rather by integrating both worlds as smoothly, as quickly, and as quietly as possible. Somehow, Vilansit, I have to keep it all together, and here I must rely on you and your practical wisdom.
Aliah, hail
§
The Table of Contents below is too long to display fully. If you click to the right of these Lessons,you'll see the primary source documents displayed under each. These original sessions are a world treasure.
Vilansit's Triangle
Student Teacher
Albion - Yellow Don - Cyan
Jane - Orange Vilansit - Blue
Scribe- Vermillion Josef - Indigo
Anand - Rose Guide - Lavender