update from sparkleup

writing/post-self/idumea/007.html

@@ -30,13 +30,13 @@
 <p>And at some final point — final! — she came across a square set within the cement of the sidewalk perhaps two meters on a side where the concrete gave way to a metal grate in the form of a sunburst, and in the middle there was a circle of soil, good and clean.</p>
 <p>There, within her dream within a dream within a dream, she smiled. She smiled and she sank slowly to her knees in that ritual circle described in steel and dug her fingers down into the soil. Down and down and down she pushed, and as she did, she felt her fingers lengthen, stretching and twisting, seeking nutrients and water, seeking final — final! — purchase. They twisted and stretched down as roots and spiraling up her arms was a texture like bark and the bones of her neck and back elongated and her eyes sought <em>HaShem</em> or The Dreamer or some greater void and her hair greened to that of leaves and drank thirstily of the sunlight.</p>
 <p>Finally — finally! — with one orgasmic flush of joy, The Woman became The Tree, and there was a joy everlasting in such stillness.</p>
-<p>This is my supposition because this is my dream. This is a world I have seen and a world I have dreamed and it is a world that I have found a way still to love, even after it turned in on itself and ate so many of its own, even as The Dreamer who dreams us all stumbled skinned eir palms and elbows on the brick pavers of this land. Since I have become myself, since your humble narrator was first called Dear The Wheat And Rye Under The Stars, that has been my dream. I have dreamed hundreds of times over the centuries that I have lived that I, too, fell to my knees and dug my fingers into the soil and became, in some pleasure-bound process, something still and sky-reaching, something earth-eating and water-drinking.</p>
+<p>This is my supposition because this is my dream. This is a world I have seen and a world I have dreamed and it is a world that I have found a way still to love, even after it turned in on itself and ate so many of its own, even as The Dreamer who dreams us all stumbled skinned eir palms and elbows on the brick pavers of this land. Since I have become myself, since your humble narrator was first called Dear The Wheat And Rye Under The Stars, that has been my dream. I have put it in verse. I have put it in prose. I have put it in story — this story. I have dreamed hundreds of times over the centuries that I have lived that I, too, fell to my knees and dug my fingers into the soil and became, in some pleasure-bound process, something still and sky-reaching, something earth-eating and water-drinking.</p>
 <p>This is my supposition for The Woman and her dream after she came home from my house, because I think within her all along was that stillness, that sky-reachingness and earth-eatingness and water-drinkingness.</p>
 <hr />
-<p>The longer we live — and, my dear readers, I will remind you that I am now 323 years old! — the more evident it becomes to us that there is fractally cyclical nature to life: the years spiral up and the months spiral around and the days spiral forward — weeks are a construct borne out of our inherited faith — and so we live within a fractally cyclical tangle of time.</p>
+<p>The longer we live — and, my dear readers, I will remind you that I am now 323 years old! — the more evident it becomes to us that there is a fractally cyclical nature to life: the years spiral up and the months spiral around and the days spiral forward — weeks are a construct borne out of our inherited faith but perhaps they too spiral — and so we live within a fractally cyclical tangle of time.</p>
 <p>I know this. You know this, I am sure, on however instinctual a level, for you are clever and bright and you see the world with fresher eyes than I have. You are cleverer and brighter and fresher than your humble narrator who paces the empty rooms of her house and fills them with the quiet muttering of the mad.</p>
-<p>The Woman knew this as well. When she woke from her nap — for my astute readers remember that that is how this rambling chapter began! — she could now — in a way she could not before — feel and perhaps even see these spirals. She could see the way that her 317 years had spiraled up around her. She could see the way that time bound her, tied her up in coils and coils and coils and coils and coils. She could see these coils — however metaphorically — as they twine around her legs and torso. She can feel these coils — however metaphorically — slowing her down, holding her arms to her side and limiting her reach. They — these coils and coils and coils — obscure her.</p>
-<p>Ah, my friends, I am struggling. I can feel and see these coils and coils and coils and coils and coils, yes, and am obscured.</p>
+<p>The Woman knew this as well. When she woke from her nap — for my astute readers remember that that is how this rambling chapter began! — she could now — in a way she could not before — feel and perhaps even see these spirals. She could see the way that her 317 years had spiraled up around her. She could see the way that time bound her, tied her up in coils and coils and coils and coils and coils. She could see these coils — however metaphorically — as they twined around her legs and torso. She could feel these coils — however metaphorically — slowing her down, holding her arms to her side and limiting her reach. They — these coils and coils and coils — obscured her.</p>
+<p>Ah, my friends, I am struggling. I can feel and see these coils and coils and coils and coils and coils and coils and coils and coils, yes, and am obscured.</p>
 <p>I am going to lay down, and perhaps I will dream.</p>
 <hr />
 <p>I have slept now. I took a cue from The Woman and took a nap, and while it did not come quite so easily to me as it ever did to her, it still offered some respite.</p>
@@ -44,8 +44,8 @@
 <p>And above was the sun which was also The Dreamer who dreams us all.</p>
 <hr />
 <p>When at last The Woman returned home, she performed a new ritual. She performed a ritual of mourning.</p>
-<p>This, you see, was the start of her final task. Her set of five tasks, of food, of physical pleasure, of entertainment, of creation, of spirituality was not quite complete, and had within it one more step, and she felt most a connection to the spiritual in the act of mourning.</p>
-<p>My friends, I think it may well have been our conversation, that of The Woman and The Oneirotect and I, that set her mind thus in motion, for was it not then that we spoke so freely of my beloved up-tree and the way it mourned over Should We Forget? Did not the pair of long lost tenth stanza lines come up as well? Death Itself and I Do Not Know? They, too, perhaps felt some of this too-full-ness that The Woman struggles with, for back and back and back and back, six decades back, they lay still and thought and, before long, before the week is out, quit. They bowed out. They dipped. Committed suicide. Quit the big one. They push now up some perhaps daisies in the mind of The Dreamer who dreams us all.</p>
+<p>This, you see, was the start of her final task. Her set of five tasks, of food, of physical pleasure, of entertainment, of creation, of change was not quite complete, and had within it one more step, and she felt most a connection to the spiritual in the act of mourning and hoped in that to seek change.</p>
+<p>My friends, I think it may well have been our conversation, that of The Woman and The Oneirotect and I, that set her mind thus in motion, for was it not then that we spoke so freely of my beloved up-tree and the way it mourned over Should We Forget? Did not the pair of long lost tenth stanza lines come up as well? Death Itself and I Do Not Know? They, too, perhaps felt some of this too-full-ness that The Woman struggles with, for back and back and back and back and back and back, six decades back, they lay still in thought and, before long, before the week was up, quit. They bowed out. They dipped. Committed suicide. Quit the big one. They push now up some perhaps daisies perhaps columbines perhaps nasturtiums in the mind of The Dreamer who dreams us all.</p>
 <p>There is loss in our lives and in our hearts and in our minds.</p>
 <p>But the tenth stanza knows <em>these</em> losses with a particular keenness. They leave empty seats and full plates at the table for these three who are gone. They speak the names of the dead on at least their Yahrzeit when they light the candle, and, for some of them, far more often, for The Woman&rsquo;s Cocladist was very fond of Death Itself, as the two loved each other fiercely, and it was perhaps this loss that drove Her Cocladist&rsquo;s bitterness and aught-elses.</p>
 <p>Friends, you must understand that <em>we</em> love <em>us.</em> Even those of us who bore hatred for the others, the hatred of much of the sixth and seventh stanzas for others within the clade, even they love <em>us.</em> Some of us just bear a particular love for others of us. I have my beloved up-tree, yes? And ey has eir trickster partner, yes? And My Friend has The Musician, yes?</p>
@@ -66,16 +66,17 @@
 <p>Instead, she sat down near the end of it, across the room from Her Cocladist, for both beds had at their feet matching beanbags — when you have a tail that flickers into being at moments not under your control, you are limited in your seating, you see, to the types of seats that can accommodate such caudal majesty that skunks sport — where once Her Cocladist and Should We Forget would sit at times and talk and share in kindnesses such as touch when their forms permitted.</p>
 <p>There, The Woman remained still.</p>
 <p>She had within her an idea that there was mourning to be had in proximity.</p>
-<p>She had within her an idea that there was stillness to be had in mourning.</p>
-<p>She had within her an idea that there was joy to be had in stillness.</p>
-<p>The Woman wondered whether or not there was stillness in prayer. While Michelle who was Sasha inherited the faith of her parents and grandparents before them of Judaism, she herself did not inherit much of such from Michelle who was Sasha — this was the realm of the third stanza, of Oh But To Whom and Rav From Whence and What Right Have I — and yet the kernel of such lives within us all for such is the nature of an inherited faith.</p>
+<p>She had within her an idea that there was change to be had in mourning.</p>
+<p>She had within her an idea that there was stillness to be had at the end of change.</p>
+<p>She figured that if proximity allowed her to mourn and mourning allowed her to process, and processing was a change that might bring her to stillness, here, <em>here,</em> there was a chance at a hint of a taste of this potential.</p>
+<p>And besides, perhaps there was stillness in prayer. While Michelle who was Sasha inherited the faith of her parents and grandparents before them of Judaism, she herself did not inherit much of such from Michelle who was Sasha — this was the realm of the third stanza, of Oh But To Whom and Rav From Whence and What Right Have I — and yet the kernel of such lives within us all for thus is the nature of an inherited faith.</p>
 <p>And yet regardless of her faith, there are, I am told, four kinds of prayer: words of thanksgiving, words of supplication, words of wonder, and the silence of meditation. I think, though, and perhaps you may think as well, that there are words of woe, of distress, of pain and fear and of the yearning for something — <em>anything</em> — when our <em>HaShem</em> does not feel near.</p>
-<p>I think The Woman, as she sat across from Her Cocladist and watched how she looked now out the window, unseeing, silent tears coursing down her cheeks and leaving tracks on cheeks or marks in fur, leaned hardest on the last. One might think that she would in her seeking of stillness lean harder on the silence of meditation but I also think that it hurts too much to witness some pains. The Woman was kind. She was empathetic. She could sit there in pain with Her Cocladist and pray: how long, <em>Adonai,</em> will You forget me always? How long hide Your face from me? How long shall I cast about for counsel, sorrow in my heart all day? Regard, answer me, <em>HaShem,</em> my God. Light up my eyes, lest I sleep with death. My heart exults in Your rescue my heart exults in You my heart exults in You my heart exults in You my heart exults in You my heart.</p>
+<p>I think The Woman, as she sat across from Her Cocladist and watched how she looked now out the window, unseeing, silent tears coursing down her cheeks and leaving tracks on cheeks or marks in fur, leaned hardest on the last. One might think that she would in her seeking of stillness lean harder on the silence of meditation but I also think that it hurts too much to witness some pains. The Woman was kind. She was empathetic. She could sit there in pain with Her Cocladist and pray: how long, <em>Adonai,</em> will You forget me always? How long hide Your face from me? How long shall I cast about for counsel, sorrow in my heart all day? Regard, answer me, <em>HaShem,</em> my God. Light up my eyes, lest I sleep with death. My heart exults in Your rescue my heart exults in You my heart exults in You my heart exults in You my heart exults in You my heart–</p>
 <p>Perhaps this is how she prayed, perhaps this is how I pray. Perhaps I cast about for something — <em>anything</em> — to anchor me to <em>this</em> world, to <em>this</em> reality, to <em>this</em> life and call out: why am I forgotten? Perhaps I do my best to trust. Perhaps I do my best to cause my heart to exult in some god in whom I am not sure I believe that I may be regarded, that I may be answered.</p>
 <p>Perhaps that is not how she prayed. Perhaps she rested her cheek on her fist and looked as well out the window and cried, or perhaps not, but still she sat in silence. Perhaps she leaned not on psalms of anguish but on the silence of meditation</p>
-<p>Perhaps she did not pray at all. I do not rightly know, and can only surmise.</p>
-<p>Perhaps she, like me, like Job, struggles with maintaining a faith disinterested in reward or punishment or relief from sorrow. Perhaps she, like me, wishes she could in the hope that such disinterested faith might still provide a soothing balm against pain. Perhaps she, like me, struggles not to fall into the cynicism of Qohelet, the gather of the assembled who mused aloud: I set my heart to know wisdom and to know revelry and folly, for this, too, is herding the wind. Who mused aloud: what gain is there for man in all his toil that he toils under the sun? Who mused aloud: everything was from the dust, and everything goes back to the dust.</p>
-<p>Perhaps she spoke to The Dreamer who dreams us all, perhaps not, but either way, she did not find joy in the keenness of sorrow, nor spirituality in the change wrought by mourning, nor aught else but pain in the unending stasis of Her Cocladist, looking now out the window, unseeing, silent tears coursing down her cheeks and leaving tracks on cheeks or marks in fur.</p>
+<p>Perhaps she did not pray at all and sought only to grow beyond that which she was by internalizing this loss. I do not rightly know, and can only surmise.</p>
+<p>Perhaps she, like me, like Job, struggled with maintaining a faith disinterested in reward or punishment or relief from sorrow. Perhaps she, like me, wished she could believe in the hope that such disinterested faith might still provide a soothing balm against pain. Perhaps she, like me, struggled not to fall into the cynicism of Qohelet, the gather of the assembled who mused aloud: I set my heart to know wisdom and to know revelry and folly, for this, too, is herding the wind. Who mused aloud: what gain is there for man in all his toil that he toils under the sun? Who mused aloud: everything was from the dust, and everything goes back to the dust.</p>
+<p>Perhaps she spoke to The Dreamer who dreams us all, perhaps not, but either way, she did not find stillness in the keenness of sorrow, nor spirituality in the change wrought by mourning, nor aught else but pain in the unending stasis of Her Cocladist, looking now out the window, unseeing, silent tears coursing down her cheeks and leaving tracks on cheeks or marks in fur.</p>
 <hr />
 <p>The Woman wanted to unbecome.</p>
 <p>We know this, you and I. We know this because that is the story that I have been telling this whole time, is it not? I have written thousands of words, now, about how she was seeking joy. I wrote of her eating wonderful things, of having sex with her lover and holding hands with her friend, of reading and listening to music, of the conversation she had about creation with me and my beloved up-tree, The Oneirotect, of the mournful prayer she shared with Her Cocladist. I wrote about all of her successes and how each was tainted by an incompleteness, a failure to find the joy she sought, but I have made it so tenuous as to why these two ideas of joy and unbecoming are connected.</p>