albionspeak: a draught of language (9.1)
SESSION 55: 5TH NIGHT, 7/7/98
[A brief history of an image of symmetry (8/18): It was around 8 PM on a random school night in November 1997. I was reading from Book II of Virgil’s Aeneid, perhaps for the first time in a dozen years, and I was duly enthralled. But then something stopped me cold, a completely unrelated insight of pure mathematics, which caught my fancy & took hold to the extent that I put down my Virgil and quickly roughed out freehand the 4-way Fibonacci spiral shown below. As a classroom teacher, I had demonstrated at the whiteboard many times how certain mollusks, nautiluses & ammonites for instance, build their spiral shells following the Fibonacci sequence: Start with a square; then add matching squares on top of that, where the length of each new side equals the sum of the previous two; and you get golden rectangles and a beautiful spiral. My sudden insight came as a question: Why not start with four spirals from the same initial square instead of just one?
[Thus was I sent my first visual task in my Nine Men (Step 7, Anand: Anand), a mathematical insight which became a colouring task as absorbing as drawing the Jewel mandala(s) four years earlier, except I understood the nature & purpose of this task even if I didn’t understand much of the content. Thus, the colouring of the Phi mandala, as well as the four planets and four elements, all came as an exercise in pure intent/intuition. I’m not sure I can articulate what I learned from the task in terms of content; this was all about process. And yes, I’m proud of the result: It stretched me in many new ways, and, to be sure, in several precise spots on this drawing I knew I’d flown. To be specific, in fact, the waves of the depicted water element I achieved in less than five minutes, going back & forth & taking turns with six different colors. Neither before nor after those five minutes could I have told you what I planned to do or how I was going to draw it. I’m still not sure what I did. But in the moment of drawing I knew exactly what I was doing.
[The synchronicity whip-cream-on-top arrived that next February. Scribe in his ever-searching research mode, particularly among the great literary classics, stumbled upon a new fact, one that in all his years of reading & research & even translating Virgil’s Georgics he’d never heard before: Apparently Virgil was well aware of the Fibonacci sequence—that is, nearly a dozen centuries before Fibonacci was born. In fact, his masterpiece The Aeneid in its original form lays out the stanzas following this exact sequence: The stanzas start short and build by additions. Of course my Robert Fitzgerald translation doesn’t show the stanzas in this form. Nevertheless, two nights earlier Don indeed confirmed the fiber: Even subliminal symmetries can reach & affect us profoundly. I had acted through sensing alone.]
At some point during the morning I found [Scribe] in the living room reading my copy of the Aeneid. This is a common sight, especially since Virgil had been on our minds and in the sessions (owing to my immersion drawing); but seeing [Scribe], I recalled another event some seven months earlier: Before[?] my symmetry intuition, I found myself almost giddy over a particular passage in the Aeneid, which I read and reread, determining eventually that it must serve as one of our invocations. Months later, of course, I had forgotten the experience altogether until triggered right there, [Scribe] with book-in-hand (no invocation was on my agenda). It took me some time, even with [Scribe]’s help, to relocate the passage; and while the narrative is really quite magical, I couldn’t quite recall what it was that had so captured my fancy.
Virgil: Aeneid V - the serpent at Anchises’ tomb [i.e., Aeneas's father, for whom Aeneas has come to make sacrifices].
So far he had proceeded in his speech
When from the depths of mound and shrine a snake
Came huge and undulant with seven coils,
Enveloping the barrow peaceably
And gliding on amid the altars. Azure
Flecks mottled his back; a dappled sheen
Of gold set all his scales ablaze, as when
A rainbow on the clouds facing the sun
Throws out a thousand colors.
Aeneas paused,
Amazed and silent, while deliberately
The snake’s long column wound among the bowls
And polished cups, browsing the festal dishes,
And, from the altars where he fed, again
Slid harmlessly to earth below the tomb.
Now all the more intent, the celebrant
Took up again his father’s ritual,
Uncertain whether he should think the snake
The local god, the genius of the place,
Or the attendant spirit of his father.
- translated by Robert Fitzgerald, 1981
[Guide]
10:15 PM
1. Q: [Guide], are you there?
A: I AM
I GIVE YOU AN EXERCISE IN -
2. SEEING
Fire Revealing Our Stars
3. Q: What are your instructions?
A: IT COMES FROM [THE] DRAWING
4. SEE [THE] LAKE WATER AS BLACK & STARLESS
[THE]N SEE FIRE EATING AWAY [THE]…
5. BLACKNESS & REVEALING
OUR ACTUAL STARS
A major component of my immersion drawing involves fire eating
away the mandala to reveal a window of stars beyond. [Guide]’s exercise
makes this action of flame sound positive, as if illusion is removed. This is
not at all how I see the analogous event in my drawing. There, if I am
allowed to interpret my own work, the flame is destructive; it obliterates
magnetic infinity. I wonder if [Guide] was subtly offering me another view.
Of greater importance was that this night was to be spent with our
guide. We’d missed him the previous year. [That is, he’d opened the
sessions & was present throughout, but he offered no teachings of his own.]
He claimed he was not a competent teacher.
6. Q: We begin now.
A: EACH STAR AN EYE [slow]
7. Q: Are you to be our teacher tonight, [Guide]?
A: IF YOU WILL HAVE IT SO
The Serpent Portent in Virgil
8. Q: It’s been a long time.
A: AENEAS REMINDS ME OF OUR EARLIER TALK OF ACHILLES
So the serpent portent was important after all, at least as a point of
departure.
9. Q ([Scribe]): What’s your interpretation of the serpent portent: “god of the place”
(genius loci) or “the attendant spirit of Aeneas’s father”? [see the invocation]
A: CERTAINLY [THE] LATTER
10. Q: What makes you say so?
A: [THE] SERPENT IS NO KIND KNOWN TO [THE] WAKING MIND
11. Q: Please go on.
A: [THE] DREAM SERPENT IS A DAIMON
12. Q: Couldn’t a daimon attend a place (& so be a genius loci)?
A: [NO] DAIMONES ARE ASSOCIATED WITH PERSONS
13. Q: But we’ve already learned that the energy of a tree, say, might strike the
beholder as a figure (human or animal).
A: [YES] BUT WOULD IT STRIKE ALL PRESENT IN EXACTLY [THE]
SAME WAY?
ALL SEE [THE] SERPENT IN [THE] EPISODE
[The aliah of a tree is perceived by each person differently. Blake
and the Greeks perceived trees as human (dryads); modern seers tend to
perceive tree energy more directly. Such trees, of course, are rare.]
14. Q: We hypothesize: only a daimon could do that.
A: A DAIMON EXTENDS INTO MANY MINDS AT ONCE
IT DOES NOT TRANSFORM
IT AFFECTS PERCEPTION DIRECTLY
15. Q: Why does the daimon appear as a serpent?
A: IT IS NOT A SERPENT SO MUCH AS A BEAM OR COLUMN OF
MANY-HUED ENERGY - A CURRENT
16. Q: Why were the beholders not terrified?
A: [THE] FACT THAT THEY ARE [NO]T FEARFUL INDICATES [THE]
PRESENCE OF A BENIGN…
17. DAIMON AFFECTING [THE]IR
MOOD ALSO
18. Q: Is the fact that our ancestors had minds “like a deep well” relevant here?
A: IT IS [YES]
IT MEANS [THE] MIND OF HUMANITY WAS F…
19. FORMERLY MORE
RECEPTIVE TO OUR ENERGIES
20. Q: A crowd could not see such a serpent today.
A: ONLY AN INDIVIDUAL IN [THE] CROWD
21. Q: Can we infer that everyone flew back then?
A: IT IS RATHER THAT MOMENTS OF FLIGHT WERE MORE COMMON
22. Q: [Guide], how do you affect us?
A: I APPEAR AS A LUMINOUS SPHERE ABOUT [THE] SIZE OF A
SOCCER BALL
“I could have told you that,” was [Scribe]’s immediate comment,
and he has described seeing such a sphere appear before him after he
utters his summoning formula in (a few) lucid dreams. When I noted that
he had described the sphere as roughly basketball size, [Scribe]
acknowledged he didn’t know the size difference between basketballs and
soccer balls. Upon comparing sizes, he agreed with [Guide]’s measurement.
I, on the other hand, have yet to see spheres of any size.
23. Q ([Scribe]): That is what I have seen a number of times in l-dreams
A: [YES] & I CAN AFFECT [Albion] IN EXACTLY [THE] SAME WAY
Many-Mindedness
24. Q: Are there advantages to many-mindedness in humans?
A: I DO NOT SEE ADVANTAGES AS SUCH –
IT IS CERTAINLY AN OBSTACLE TO…
25. DEEP SEEING & DEEP
LISTENING
26. Q: Is this change [in humanity toward many-mindedness] connected with the
flame in your exercise?
A: IT IS – ONLY WE ARE ENACTING [THE] CHANGE…
27. BACKWARD
VIA A SIMPLE SYMMETRY
28. Q: Is the flame another name for evil?
A: WE USE IT TO REFER TO WHAT CAUSES TEARS IN [THE] NET
[Guide] quotes Don’s purely visual pun [Cfs.…].
29. Q: Tell us more about what being many-minded means.
A: IT MEANS TO MOVE INSTINCTUALLY ALONG SEVERAL TRACKS…
30. AT ONCE –
THINK OF PRESSING ON A BEAD OF MERCURY
31. Q: Isn’t the Renaissance Man (Leonardo, say) an example of many-mindedness?
A: [NO] HE IS AN EXAMPLE OF KNOWING THAT
ADVANCE IN ONE ART IS ADVANCE…
32. Q: In all. [an oft-quoted old saying…]
A: [YES] DO YOU SEE [THE] DIFFERENCE?
33. Q ([Scribe]): We’re puzzled that you call today’s people many-minded when we
seem to be becoming more specialized.
A: IT IS NOT AN ISSUE OF SPECIALIZATION
BUT OF [THE] ATTITUDE OR APPROACH
A FANCIFUL IMAGE?
The Stone in the Yard
34. Q: Yes, please.
A: A TEACHER GAVE HIS DISCIPLE A TASK –
LOOK AT [THE] STONE IN [THE] YARD
35. [THE] PUPIL WAS QUITE DEVOTED
SO HE SPENT SEVERAL HOURS LOOKING
36. HE SAW LIGHTS & SHADOWS
HEARD VOICES & ECHOES
FELT ECST…
37. ASIES & DESOLATIONS
HE WROTE A TREATISE ON WHAT HAD PASSED THROUGH…
38. HIS MIND
THE TEACHER PRAISED…
39. HIS MANY-MINDEDNESS
YOU FULFILLED EVERYTHING EXCEPT [THE] TASK,
THE TEACHER SAID
- DON
Not the Same as Overview
40. Q: Why is it time for us to know this?
A: IT IS TIME BECAUSE MANY-MINDEDNESS IS A PARTICULAR FOE
OF ALBION –
IT IS [NO]T [THE] SAME AS OVERVIEW
41. Q: Is this a problem common to most Albions?
A: EACH STRUGGLES WITH THIS TO SOME DEGREE
BUT [THE] AFFLICTION…
42. HAS ONLY BECOME ACUTE IN
HISTORICAL TIMES –
THAT IS WHY YOU MUST REDISCOVER KNOWLEDGES BEFORE
HISTORY
43. Q ([Albion]): This last year I’ve done more reading in the old classics and love
this threshold of history. Is this a signal to look further?
A: WHY [NO]T?
SEE [THE] TALE CALLED [xxxxx] FOR A CLUE
Don refers to the [aforementioned, redacted] story about Homer.
In the story, which almost seems a plausible history, [Homer, the protagonist]
begins his famous writings late in life, with the onset of blindness. What he
needs, however, as a key to unlock the door to the Golden Age, are two
memories (Ares & Aphrodite). The memories themselves are not important;
but they lead him to the lost world. In our language, they help align his
intent so that the thread to Achilles’ world is strong.
44. Q ([Albion]): If I use Achilles, say, and my interest in this subject matter to open
a window on the world before history, then I may approach the knowledges
I will need.
A: IT IS A THREAD FOR YOU TO FOLLOW
AS IT WAS FOR YOUR TEACHER
Interestingly, while [Scribe]’s knowledge of history is at least as
good as mine (in many ways much better) and his knowledge of the classics
beyond where I ever hope to go, this is not a thread [Scribe] has followed.
That is, [Scribe] reads Virgil because Virgil is a great poet, not because he
wants insights into another mind & another world. For me, the poetry
is just icing. (I bet [Don], however, was fascinated by both aspects.)
45. Q: Overview can be confused with many-mindedness. What can be confused
with immersion?
A: INDULGENCE IN PRIVATE REVERIES
The Sibyl & the Underworld
46. Q: [Guide], our episode [from Virgil] tonight occurs just before the Sibyl’s
entrance. Will you tell us about her?
A: [YES] SHE IS CLOSE TO YOUR OWN PRACTICE IN THIS SENSE
[THE] ORACLE IS AN EMBODIMENT OF [THE] DEEP EAR -
SHE HEARS [THE] DAIMON DIRECTLY
At this date (7/22/98) I cannot recall how we read this response:
does “your” refer to both [Scribe] & me or just to me (again, [Scribe] is
more visual; I am more acoustic).
47. Q: In Virgil, the Sibyl tells the way to the underworld.
A: AS I WILL TELL YOU [THE] WAY -
IT LIES BEYOND [THE] GATES
OUR UNDERWORLD IS NOT [THE] LAND OF [THE] DEAD
BUT THAT OUTSIDE WE LONG AGO URGED YOU TO FIND -
I BID YOU GOOD NIGHT AS DOES
[Don]
Here Don (through [Guide]) echoes Jane’s signature non-signature.
[Jane—from her very first responses & wearing the faces of a child—loved
to spell out her name. In these 1998 sessions, now bearing the face of a
teacher, she did exactly the opposite in the early sessions, namely she blatantly
omitted her name—pointing to an abstract symmetry, absence. Don echoes
this (which, I must admit, I find endearing…).]
Phi is my favorite real number for many reasons: The colored rectangles displayed here are all golden rectangles. A golden rectangle is defined as one where the ratio of length to width approaches phi (= 1.6180…). The Fibonacci sequence displayed here approaches phi through a series of additions: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, …, where the next number is always the sum of the previous two.
But you need not start with a unit square (1 x 1). Pick any two numbers, add the last two to find the next, and the ratio, as you proceed along the sequence, will head steadily, inexorably toward phi.
*Phi is also its own negative reciprocal, because there are actually two values of phi.
Phi Mandala
12" x 18"
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.
7c: Session 55
Images & Attributions (in order of appearance)
1. Banner: Rhiannon C. 2016
a) Jewel Mandala (2): D.C. Albion 1994
b) Jewel Ouija Board (2): D.C. Albion 1994
2. Phi Mandala: D.C. Albion 1998
3. Phi Mandala, water element detail: D.C. Albion 1998