The Spell of Ai.......
chapter 7: more worlds
Joy of the Sophist:
The joy lies in never running out of ideas. Close your eyes and put your finger down on any entry of a good unabridged dictionary and there find a story.
Mol-dau (mol’dou, mol’-), n. a river in Czechoslovakia, flowing N through the Bohemian Forest to the Elbe. 270mi. long. Czech, Vltava.
Moldavia, Rumania, Bessarabia.
moldavite (mol’da vite’), n. a natural green glass found in Bohemia and thought to be of possible meteoritic origin.
And the mind of the Sophist begins to swirl. The visions appear of great forests, dire wolves, wars and peace, feast and famine, sunshine and fires in the sky.
This is the place where worlds collide. If your world is not filled with wonder, then you have my sympathy; you are safe within these portals. Remain while you can and no harm will come to you now or ever. This is the gift of my forefathers, and that gift is to be given.
We enter our world through the birth canal of a mother, a portal from the womb into the Many Worlds. Even the most ardent of sciences must allow for the unknown, greater than the sum of its parts.
We are flesh and blood. We come, and we go. The eyes that look out are the eyes that have seen before and will again. The many faces of those who came before are the faces who are here now, walking the Earth as real as anything can be.
This is Strange and Unusual Places; we live in a strange and unusual place.
Nothing more than a string of lies and contradictions is the world of the Sophist; its what we do; real enough for me, maybe not for you. Your rainbow is not mine any more than mine is yours. Judge the merits according to you.
The motive of this story is established. It is the search for Ai. So long as the mystery prevails, he is enigma. His name is the gift that was given. It is for me to tell. To speak and cast the spell that was cast upon me, and my grandfather and his father and his from long, long ago.
Your ancestors and theirs are with you in some portion. Their Many Worlds will speak to you if only you will allow it.
The worlds of the Sophist, the Arbiter, the Stone Man and the Fearsome Deities. To name a thing is to make it so, and so these worlds live here. And now they live with you. There are many more. They are for you to name.
The Traveler:
Paul Twitchell, the one who in his soul he is free. Sr Ernest Shackelton, the great epic journeyman. Robinson Caruso, the perilous journeyman of land and seas. The list is endless. The Traveler (yet another metaphor) sleeps in one world and wakes in another.
In Paul Twitchell’s world there are no temporal boundaries, and the Traveler comes to you as your shaman, your guru or your angel. Or your Arbiter as Sr Ernest Shackelton might agree. Or a Fearsome Deity as Robinson Caruso might know.
One thing is certain, there are many worlds, and we are travelers.
Space Travelers:
Life on planets other than our own is a possibility; some might say a probability. Carl Sagan, father of SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) would be the first to admit that mathematically a lifeform with technology advanced enough to cross the vast distances of interstellar space just to crash into the Sierra Nevada Range of North America is a great deal more than unlikely. With the baseline as The Big Bang, planetary formation and evolution taken in the equation, there simply hasn’t been enough time elapsed to enable such advanced lifeforms. Sorry, not my fault.
The terrible truth might lie in the possibility that we ourselves are the advanced lifeform, and isolated, at least for now.
But take heart. We are travelers and there appears to be more than one way to travel.
And be grateful we are isolated, because any technology beyond our present physics will not be making the trip on a mission of peace; it’s going to need resources - lots of resources. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Home Room:
Seems to be one everywhere; the kid in the classroom who puts a foot out to trip you as you walk by and when confronted accuses you of stealing their milk money, all the while no consequences are forthcoming since the bully endears itself to your teacher.
Do you know anyone like this? Can you tell me what kind of world they are asking us to live in?
Regenerative Organic Farming and Climate Change: Rodale Institute
Farmers know, at least some of them, the solution to climate warming is agriculture. To go a step farther, most if not all of humanities gnawing issues can be solved by agriculture. Wonderful things are happening with new discoveries all the time. The role of rhizomes and symbiosis, the interconnectivity of soil biology. Technologies that combine modern approaches with ancient ones along with the interplay between life and our environment. Farmers know this. At least some of them.
Farmers also know not many people want to be farmers, not nearly enough. So, it’s a choice. Can we do it? Yes. Will we do it? Probably not.
If ever you matter, this is it.
And as for that kid in your homeroom - settle it - or leave it all behind.
Coming topics:
chapter 8: The Hex
chapter 9: The Agrarian