albionspeak: a draught of language (4.4)
SESSION 33: 3RD NIGHT, 12/8/95
Somehow a visit from [Scribe] wouldn’t be complete without sickness in the [Albion] household. I forget the onset, sometime in the middle of the night: coughing, gagging, both humidifiers going, probably low-grade fevers, snot. I didn’t get a good rest, and the kids were home until just after lunch. (The silver lining: I used sick leave from work instead of my valuable personal leave as a result.)
By the time [Scribe] and I returned from a quick Safeway stop, it was time for beers at F., our local micro-brewery & beer tasting haunt, the purpose of which was to introduce [Scribe] to my good friend Rich T. Rich was under the weather with his own cold and quite subdued; nevertheless, we had a good chat, and time passed quickly. It’s hard to imagine two more different people than [Scribe] and Rich, except both are natural hams and good joke-tellers. Our most obvious common thread, of course, is a passion for the study of unfolding life.
The early evening blurs in [Scribe]’s tasty stir-fry and domestic chores. [Scribe] and I did not even get to title the previous night’s material until after the kids were in bed. As we sat down to our last session, I realized I could not hold off my own cold much longer. I had no idea, however, that within a couple of hours I would be reduced to a gurgling mess. Oh well, I’m sure there was a reason.
The invocation this evening was again from Stevens: “The Bird with the Coppery, Keen Claws.”
10:26 PM
1. Question: [Dear Guide], are you there?
Answer: I AM [YES]
& [THE] OTHERS AS WELL
2. Q: Where are we?
A: EARTH
Just the Scribe’s port? Or were we still under Albion’s sun?
The Hidden Eye
3. Q: What is the position of the Sun?
A: IT IS AFTERNOON
SLANTING LIGHT DUST
4. Q: Have you a topic for us?
A: [THE] HIDDEN EYE OF [THE] SCRIBE
We were picking up right where we left off the previous night (cf. 32.99).
I felt Albion’s “hidden eye” was an echo of my “automatic writing” episode with
Albion the previous spring. We decided to quote from the text [of that
clairaudience].
5. Q: “Once there were two eyes, now but one.”
A: ALBION…
6. Q: Sorry, we lost that.
A: ALBION SPEAKS NOW
Albion speaks directly again. In some ways he’s hard to place [after but a
single response ever the night before]: Is he a member of our circle or one of our
honored guests? I think it’s safe to say he must be one of us. After all, Jane has
presented us with many faces, but we still think of her as a single entity. What
makes this case different is we have two Albions speaking at once. And the image
of the kite at its head addressing its tail is important to keep in mind with respect to
how we see each of our members (as well as all souls everywhere). Each member
really is a full kite, even if we see at any single moment only the colour we are
meant to see. This, again, brings up the matter of identity as a function of time. It
will be interesting when we someday address the Jane who is also the Indian
Ocean. (It would also be interesting to enter a forum of a dozen Albions or Janes.)
I wonder if the ancient symbol of the snake swallowing its tail has any relevance
here.
A speculative insight:… [edited out to spare the reader]
7. Q: Please do.
A: I AM MEANT TO TELL OF [THE ] OTHER EYE –
IT IS COMMON TO [THE] MEMBERS OF OUR CIRCLE
8. [THE] EYE IS A SITE OF RECEIVING AND IS USUALLY ECLIPSD
IT AWAKENS WITH MY LIGHT UNLIKE [THE] DAYLIGHT OF
YOUR WORLD
Note the pun.
9. Q: What can this eye see?
A: IT SEES DIRECTLY INTO [THE] ALIAH OF THINGS
This eye then appears to be the organ of visions, of flying, of reading, and
of seeing the aliah of trees.
10. Q: Don, we have not made much progress on the aliah of trees. Is this a use
of the hidden eye?
A: IT IS BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY AN EXERCISE IN OPENING
[THE] EYE
11. Q: Once we open the eye, we will be able to see other things as well?
A: EXACTLY – THAT IS WHY [THE] EXERCISE IS ASSIGND
12. Q: Could you, Don, see aliah even when you could not see? [Don went blind
in midlife.]
A: I LACKD [THE] WORD
I THOUGHT OF IT AS IMAGINATION ONLY
This is not hard for me to comprehend, especially since I now recognize how
most of what I thought I visualized has really just been imagination. [That is, I was
just starting to realize in my life just how inwardly blind I am. Thus, the acute irony:
Albion, teacher of the hidden eye lesson.]
13. Q: Albion, please tell us more.
A: [THE] EYE ALSO RECEIVES WHAT YOU CALL VISIONS
YOU KNOW TO WHOM I REFER
14. Q: We think of Blake’s visions above all.
A: [YES] & I WANT TO FREE YOU OF ANY DOUBTS ABOUT THEM
THIS IS [THE] ORDINARY & WHOLESOME USE OF THIS ORGAN
OF VISION
If this is the “ordinary & wholesome use” and it is “common to the members
of our circle” (cf. 33.7), then shouldn’t I also be able to see visions? We had been
told otherwise (cf. 94: 19.73).
15. Q: We were told earlier that [Albion in life] lacked this gift (implying that the
use of it is not ordinary or common).
A: [THE] OPENING FROM YOUR VANTAGE IS A GIFT
YOUR EYE IS STILL ALL BUT CLOSED
But I do seem to have a gift for auditory messages.
16. Q: Eye implies vision: is there a hidden ear?
A: IT IS [THE] SAME FACULTY AS DIFFERENT AS [THE] TWO SOUND–
TIME ALONE DIVIDES THIS POWER IN TWAIN
Another pun. Also, “twain” here finishes the line from my automatic writing
session we quoted in Q#5 above. I remember when I originally transcribed it having
doubts about its authenticity because it did not sound like the Vilansit I knew. We
know now, of course, that it wasn’t Vilansit at all, but rather the high-falutin Albion.
Once there were two eyes, now but one.
Yet this eye divides in twain, even as a cell divides.
17. Q: So [Albion in time] has made some use of the eye in his “automatic
writing” already?
A: IT IS MORE AS IF I TOUCHD YOUR EYE GENTLY TO HELP YOU
RECALL ITS EXISTENCE
18. Q: Just as members of our circle sent [Scribe] visions at the table?
A: [YES] A PICTURE OF VISION AS IT WERE –
DON
This was the perfect opportunity for [Scribe] to have his two visions of
Atlantis confirmed. Oddly enough, the issue of authenticating these visions seemed
in no way pressing (at least to me) because they seemed so undeniably veridical and
self-authenticating. Again, two cantos from “Atlantis,” specifically the visual
depiction of the sunken city, were each written from visions [Scribe] received,
lasting about half an hour each. The first vision began as [Scribe] sat down to write
and ended as he finished the canto. On the following day both vision and poem
picked up exactly where they left off. ([Scribe]’s working title for “Atlantis” was
“Thalassa,” one of several Greek names for Ocean.)
[“Veridical” above should not be confused with “historical.” Scribe had a pair
of literal visions, but for his poem only, which is fiction.]
19. Q ([Scribe]): Vilansit, were my two Thalassa episodes examples of using my own
open eye?
A: [YES] [THE] BEGINNING ONLY
WE DID NOT SEND [THE]SE YOU OPENED BRIEFLY
More than confirmation. These were not just visions sent by our circle (as
had happened in the past); they were self-propelled flights.
20. Q ([Scribe]): The beginning of my ability to use my eye?
A: [YES] YOU RECEIVD A GLIMPSE
NOW A REMINDER
21. Q: Yes?
A: TELL ME [THE] OLD SAYING
22. Q: We think of: “Not seeing, but receiving.”
A: GOOD
THIS EYE DOES NOT ALWAYS GIVE YOU SOMETHING TO SEE IN
YOUR SENSE –
IT GIVES YOU [THE] USE OF A FIBER
Yet another pun. And we return to our folding lesson of the night before: not
seeing, but receiving. Platonic forms above their representations.
Here the originals show a numbering discrepancy. (Q#22 is repeated.)
23. Q: So it would be wrong to over-emphasize the narrowly visual part of
receiving?
A: I ADMIT [THE] NAME EYE ENCOURAGES THIS –
IT IS AN OLD NAME
BUT I USED TO THINK OF IT MORE AS GRASPING OR TOUCHING
The Fable of the Forgotten Eye
24. Q: Vilansit, can you explain for us “Once there were two”?
A: IT REFERS TO A FABLE
ONCE [THE] HIDDEN & OVERT SENSE WORKD TOGETHER
AS YOUR PAIR [of] EYES COOPERATES
THEN…
25. THEN CAME A LONG DARKNESS
AFTER WHICH [THE] PEOPLE AWOKE TO FIND [THE]Y HAD
[THE] USE OF A SINGLE EYE ONLY
[THE]Y FORGOT [THE] OTHER EYE IN TIME
[Scribe] and I agree that one new element in our communications this
December concerned the use of fables, generally in lieu of a poem, and we approve
of this development wholeheartedly. This particular fable portrays a kind of fall,
where “darkness” brings to mind what we’ve learned of the Abyss. In turn, this
darkness seemed the appropriate lead-in to a question [Scribe] & I wrote down
during a conversation the previous day.
Idols, Knots & the Aliah of Persons
26. Q: The darkness reminds us that we have a question about the abyss & your
two principal proscriptions: not to have idols & not to see the aliah of
persons. Are these two related? If so, how?
A: [YES] § DON
IDOLATRY MEANS THAT I MAKE [THE] OBJECT ITSELF INTO A
SOURCE OF POWER
27. Q: Please go on, Don.
A: NOW WE KNOW THAT EVEN [THE] JEWEL ITSELF IS ONLY A
[CUP]
Here, for only the second time ever, the planchette moved over the drawing
on the board of our Cup, originally intended solely as adornment.
28. Q: Cups should be valued for what they bear.
A: EXACTLY
NOW THIS IS ALSO [THE] CASE FOR PERSONS
[THE]Y CAN BE USED AS OBJECTS OF POWER IN THEMSELVES —
THIS IS ENSLAVEMENT IN [THE] END
One enslaves others by tying knots onto their threads. For this reason we
have been forbidden even seeing the threads of others. But not our own threads.
29. Q: Could one tie knots onto oneself in this manner?
A: [YES] & ONE CAN DO ONESELF A DEEP INJURY THEREBY
BUT WE CANNOT FORBID IT –
DO YOU KNOW WHY?
30. Q: The very “respect” for persons that motivates the proscription would forbid
this proscription.
A: EXACTLY AND EVEN IN THIS LABYRINTH OF FIBERS [THE]RE IS
STILL…
31. …PRIVACY
WE DO NOT IN [THE] CRUDE SENSE READ YOUR MINDS
[Scribe] wanted me to point out the possible irony of Don’s comment. While
our friends do not read our minds, we may, on occasion, read theirs, as we did last
summer during our discussion with Vilansit on torn kites (cf. 95: 26.44). I, on the
other hand, was again reminded of my automatic writing session:
Q: How do I keep secrets from you? How can I?
A: YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO PRIVACY
YOU WOULD LIKE ME TO INTRUDE & DEPRIVE YOU
OF NOT ONLY YOUR RIGHT BUT ALSO YOUR SELF-RESPECT
The higher Albion does not intrude upon the lower one, just as I would not
interfere with a[n Albion] of, let’s say, age four. Let the infant be.
By this time we were running out of topics, and I, quite obviously now, was
struggling miserably with an ugly cold. After every response I used up a couple or
three tissues. As much as I wanted our session to go on all night, my body was
rebelling. There were just a few odds & ends to clear up. The question highest on
my list, one I’d forgotten to ask last summer, concerned…
[Here, alas, I must employ the censor for several exchanges]
…For now, however, we’d reached another dead end, so I pulled out another
prepared question. This one concerned my planning to visit Yucatán this summer.
While I’ve always been attracted to ancient ruins (of any kind) and the Maya in
particular, given some of Don’s comments in the past, I felt it couldn’t hurt to ask
for a helpful hint.
Mayan Pyramids
38. Q ([Albion]): Don, you have spoken—more than once—of Mayan pyramids.
[My wife] & I will soon be seeing some of these. Comment?
A: [YES] IT CONCERNS [THE] STAIRS
39. IF YOU ARE ALLOWD TO ASCEND [THE] STEPS YOU CAN…
40. …USE THEM AS AN EXERCISE IN OPENING OR INTENT
41. Q ([Albion]): What should I intend toward?
A: [THE] SUN
I MEAN OF COURSE [THE] O[THE]R SUN
This would, of course, be good advice under any circumstances, but again,
I don’t think Don, the master of condensed language, speaks here in vain.
1:37 AM
“Fertility. . . can be an obstacle to intent”
42. Q: Josef, can you tell us more about the statement “fertility…can be an
obstacle to receiving”? [referring to “our bare place of absence”]
A: [YES] IT IS SO IN MORE THAN ONE WAY
43. Q: Tell us of one way.
A: LEANNESS HAS ITS PLACE WITHIN FERTILITY
JUST AS ABSENCE IS NEEDED AMID A PLENTY
44. Q: Please go on.
A: LET ME USE [THE] ILLUSTRATION OF DREAMS
45. Q: That would be helpful.
A: A LURE IS IN A WAY A KIND OF FERTILITY OR FULNESS
IT GIVES [THE] DREAMING SELF…
46. …A FACE TO ADDRESS
YET IT ALWAYS OBSCURES [THE] PATH TO PURE FINDING
47. Q: Is there a connection between lures & knots?
A: [YES] IN A SENSE A LURE IS LIKE A KNOT IN [THE] DREAM FIBER
RECALL THAT ONE KNOT SUMMONS ANOTHER
48. Q: Please go on.
A: FLUX CAN BE DESCRIBED AS A FIELD OF KNOTS
EVEN A SENT DREAM CAN BE WAYLAID
49. Q: Tell us of another way in which fertility can be an obstacle to receiving?
A: I SPEAK HERE OF ONE’S STORY
A LIFE THAT IS BLESSEDLY FULL MAY NONETHELESS SAP ONES
INTENT
HAPPINESS IS AN ILL WE SAY OF SUCH PERS[ons]
[more rambling speculations deleted in deference to the reader.]
And now we finally get a good picture of lures in dreams. They are like knots
in the dream fiber, thoughts we can’t get around. Interestingly, knots interact, or at
least they can appear to interact, thus creating a “field.” My guess is that the mind
of the knotted person creates the field exactly as we create any kind of perceptual
order. We impose the structure to create meaning, which is a kind of inward-
spiraling fertility. Interestingly, however, absence itself is a kind of creation.
[Scribe]’s vision of a bare floor and narrow shaft of light was nevertheless
contained within a walled structure.
50. Q: Jane, after some discussion, we’ve decided that absence clears a space
for receiving—which is itself a kind of fertility. Is this right?
A: IT IS
ABSENCE INVOLVES [THE] ART OF BECOMING CLEAR
WHY IS IT SO DIFFICULT? I WONDER
51. Q: Jane, why do you think it’s so difficult?
A: IS IT BECAUSE WE REALLY DO NOT IN OUR INMOST HEART CARE
TO SAVE OURSELVES?
Perhaps the most heart-wrenching truth we have yet encountered.
52. Q: Why is it hard to care?
A: THAT IS WHAT EVERY SPIRIT READER HAS ASKED FROM BEFORE
YOUR HISTORY ON
ONCE YOU DO CARE YOU CAN…
53. …[NO]T PICTURE [THE] SOUL
WITHOUT IT
AS YOU CAN[NO]T PICTURE A SOUL WITHOUT MEMORY
CARING IS MEMORY SEEN IN REVERSE
CARING IS [THE] FUTURE OF MEMORY
I remember when I hit upon this knowledge—that is, consciously. That so
many don’t care is absolutely mind-boggling, and I think it has to be my life’s task
to try to get others to see this. This surely must define salvation. (Goethe certainly
viewed life in these terms, as in Faust.)
By this time in our session I had become a physical wreck. [Scribe] and I
decided to end the session earlier than usual so that we might go out and find a
power tree nearby. Recall, I had not only had no success at seeing the aliah of trees,
I was supremely frustrated because I didn’t know—out of the scores of mature trees
in my yard—where to begin. [Scribe], however, had shown an ability with this task,
and he was happy to help me locate the right tree. To do this we needed some time
on this last night, darkness being requisite.
54. Q: Don, we’re thinking of going out into [Albion]’s yard to look for a power
tree. Any advice?
A: GOOD IDEA —
WE WOULD HARDLY HAVE ASSIGND [THE] TASK IF [THE]RE
WERE NONE NEARBY
55. Q: Can conifers be power trees?
A: [YES] BUT FOR SOME REASON THEY ARE RARE
NO IDEA WHY
I wasn’t about to ask for exactly the right tree; that would be cheating.
However, over the previous few months I had come to suspect that conifers really
were inferior power-tree candidates, partly because of the evolutionary history and
partly because I just had an intuition. Of course, over 90% of my large trees are, in
fact, conifers, so this narrowed the options considerably.
56. Q: It’s time for us to attempt this task before sleeping. Do we now return to
the lake?
A: DO [THE] FOLDING IN REVERSE —
OPEN [THE] COMPASSES — [we’d opened an earlier session
DON seeing the compasses close]
Parting Words
57. Q: Parting words then from Albion or the Scribe?
A: [THE] SCRIBE IS TO BE YOUR DISCOVERY O POET BELOW
LET ALBION NOW KNOWING HIS SEQUENCE BEGIN TO FIND ITS
USES & MEET ALBION
I can’t help but think that phrases like “o poet below” must be uttered tongue-
in-cheek. Albion’s got to be laughing. It is, however, significant that for the first
time [Scribe], the Scribe, is acknowledged specifically as a poet.
[Somewhat trivially I will point out that, for the sake of an “official”
timeline, I assign Dec. 7, 1995, the night previous to this, as the “start” of my
apprenticeship. It’s when I “received” my Nine Men sequence. I completed my
Letter to Jane, the first of these 81 tasks, by mid-February, 1996. I completed my
final task on August 11, 2018, working hard the entire time. My very existence
depended on it.]
58. Q: Farewell to you both. Now for folding.
A: INTEND WELL —
JANE
I have no memory of this journey. It certainly was not particularly stressful,
and my serious cold did not hamper me.
Return
3:14 AM
59. Q: Are we back on the lake?
A: [YES] AND OVERLOOKING OUR STARZ
I BID YOU GOODBYE FIRST
60. Q: Jane? [Orally, I add “We learned much from you, perhaps by virtue of
your older face.”]
A: I WILL HAVE ANOTHER NEXT MEETING
MY LOVE REMAINS UNALTERED
YOUR JANE
Jane did indeed have an older face. A#51 & #52 above bode very well for
our future interactions.
At this point we decided the order in which we’d say bye to our friends.
61. Q: Anand, thank you for your teaching this time & for your bargain.
A: I HAVE A SENSE THAT WEVE COME TO A TURNING POINT —
DON’T YOU
A turning point for me seems likely. I hope [Scribe] gets a boost too.
62. Q: Farewell, Vilansit. We always enjoy speaking with you.
A: FAREWEL
KEEP OUR FIBER WELL & I SHALL NOT BE FAR OFF
VILANSIT
This echoes [Guide]’s final words of 1989: “Keep your home well.”
63. Q: Don, thank you & goodbye.
A: FAREWELL
WE WILL SPEAK SOON I THINK
Somehow I suspect this means sooner than our next session at the board,
some other form of contact. [Scribe] was inclined to agree.
64. Q: Josef, we will continue to look for you in dreams.
A: DEAR SONS
KEEP YOUR TASKS NEAR TO YOU
Still we have not visited the ports of Josef or of [our Guide], and both,
especially Josef, remained in the background for these sessions. There’s a reason
for everything.
65. Q: And now goodbye to our oldest friend, [our Guide].
A: I WILL BE WITH YOU SCRIBE
ALBION I WAIT BEYOND [THE] WALL
THESE STARS ARE OUR WITNES…
66. …SES
[Guide]
Our farewell sequence was accomplished in record time and with little
ceremony. I was just too sick.
[Scribe] and I blew out our candles, got into warm clothes, and proceeded
outside, where thankfully it was not raining. As I mentioned earlier, he and I last
summer had done a quick daylight survey of potential power-trees (that is, of the
trees one can reach from the house easily at night) and we labeled four candidates:
“a” through “d.” Of these, “b” and “d” were cedars; “a” was a Douglas fir; and “c”
was a big-leaf maple, our only deciduous candidate. During my zillion summer
hours of lawn mowing, I had made a 25 yd. path to candidates “a” & “b,” using the
lawn trimmings to carpet the wild grass and blackberry. The path itself was my
work of art, very inviting and leading to the nicest grove on our property, about
eighteen trees in a protected & secluded circle. “b,” in fact, was my prime
candidate all along, a young cedar that seemed to pull me toward it, and I felt that
my artistic labors on the path somehow authenticated “b’s” status as a true power
tree. When I did make an effort to see, it was generally before this tree, but, as we
know, I never got results. Now that we knew conifers held little hope, [Scribe] & I
headed directly for candidate “c,” by far the closest of the four to the house (15
yds. from the living room, about 3 yds. from the edge of the lawn). There, [Scribe]
walked halfway around the tree and within a minute pronounced it a power tree.
He showed me its navel, its central point of energy, and I (in my ill health) made
every effort to see, but to no avail. Interestingly, while I stood and focused my
intent, [Scribe] found that he had to stand directly behind me, in my shadow so to
speak. When he stood to one side or the other, he felt disconcertingly bombarded
by energy waves that radiated from the tree and reflected off of me like a wake. It’s
funny that I had no trouble understanding his description of this phenomenon even
though I neither saw nor felt anything noticeable myself.
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