Fearsome deities factor largely in our human ethos…
Horseman of the Apocalypse:
He appeared to me in a cloud formation and left no doubt regarding his apparition. My rational mind knows it as a cloud formation, still; it for a few moments held me spellbound and vexed. Sometimes nature’s never-ending diversity can be unnerving. Luckily my horseman bore no arms and so he must have come in peace.
The Apocryphal Beast:
Our fearsome deities, demons, monsters and portents of imminent demise; our visions of the messengers of doom all have something in common: fear is their only weapon and are otherwise defenseless. They are no less real, but have no temporal means of harming you. They will show you all manner of terrifying implements of death or come with armies and consorts of evil pathos, there is no end to their creativity and the objective is having you believe them. We portray them, name them and give them life but really, they are smoke and exist at our behest. They offer us a choice: we can decide to descend into madness by their antics, or we can take the wisdom offered to us and go forth. Once again, fear is the lesson.
The Thought that precedes the Action:
The apocryphal deity is fear manifested by thought, a waveform given matter through mindful effort. Fear begets fear and becomes real when we name it and make it so; it serves us because outcomes are not always predictable. The forces of nature which are with us always dictate both safety and danger, along with entropy, which is predictable and forms the basis of our fears.
My hunch is that Ai has been walking the earth a very long time, since he is named and given form through real people. We all of us have a story to tell. Milo Ai was a housewright, a carpenter who delt daily with the unseen forces we all must deal with; he walked the earth at the same time men as Bohr and Einstein were wrestling with the atom, relativity and quantum physics. Their worlds were very different from one another’s, yet the motive was the same; to rescue us from the ravages of entropy, an impossibility.
So, it is entropy that is the message of our fearsome deities and is deserving of our fear. Our fears also motivate creativity, the savior of survival.
spell, v., 1. to name, write, or otherwise give the letters, in order, of (a word, syllable, etc. ).
spell, n., 2. a word, phrase, or form of words supposed to have magic power; charm; incantation.
spell, n., 3. a continuous course or period of work or other activity.
The spellbinder’s will spend quite a spell attempting to cast their spell on the unwary. They represent a poor substitute of the fearsome deity. They ply their magic with words that only they know the meaning of in a world where only they give form to their words; the aim is indoctrination, and of course, fear is the arrow in the quiver. Of questionable authority, they are a dubious vision at best.
Great big gobs of greasy grimy gopher guts, mutilated monkey meat, perforated platypus; that’s what I saw on the way to the moon, and I forgot my spoon. A Nursey Rhyme
We can choose whether to cast our spells or fall under them. A friend, in a moment of unmitigated grieving announced he “wouldn’t care if the devil himself walked through the door”. “Then we should offer him hospitality and say to him; cast us into eternal damnation and we will outlast you, for when your name is no longer spoken, you will no longer be”.
Collapsing Waveforms:
Since waves are concentric it only makes sense that things tend to go full circle. The rainbow you see is not theirs any more than yours is mine. The ancients understood this and when we do, finally, technology might become redundant, and madness might be mitigated. Just don’t seek salvation here; this is entertainment - not education. Consult your priest, your guru, your shaman, your rabbi et.al., some of them know a thing or two about collapsing waveforms.
Currently, one danger exists by our own invention: it walks the earth as flesh and blood forsaking its lantern, its guide and its pointed hat, wandering in the darkness under the spell of its own particular fearsome deity.
Nature will always prevail and will always seek a balance.
Breathe…
A Burning Candle:
It is still said that a candle burns twice as bright burns half as long. Jimmy could drop the reality from beneath one at his behest. Imperial youth allowed us to explore the waters of the occult, or charge eternity while laughing at the perils. Be on the lookout for these are real; they make for peerless traveling companions or perilous partners in crime. Avoid surrendering to contradiction’s while you wear the hat and robe. Train the searchlight and question everything; you might not find answers, you might find solutions.
But this story is the search for Ai and his meaning; the object is keeping his name alive and giving form to the naming. There was a burning candle there once and there can be again; by piercing the vail of time. Ai is in some part here, and we are under his spell.
Crax and Dirties:
My mother was a Pierce, daughter of Gordon Ai; he was a mechanic for Indian Motocycle and later Cadillac automobile, so my mother had no need to open the hood of a car. My Renault wasn’t starting, making me late and stressing me; this went on for weeks when my mother came out in the freezing morning in her night clothes: “open the hood, take off that round thing, look down into the motor and turn the flap”. A sticking choke, the car started and ended my worries then and there. She came out that morning after seeing it in her dream. Seeing was something common to my mother: she saw my dogs before meeting them, my cars down to their color, directed me to lost objects and foresaw much of my life. It would be easy to imagine these things never happen, ever have or ever will. Let me know how that works for you.
These things were discussed sparingly and only among the chosen, not by the chooser but by those who choose to allow it to be so. Not my fault, but a wonderful force of nature.
Fact is stranger than fiction, that’s what Strange and Unusual Places is about. If we are unwilling to explore the boundaries of eternity, how can we prepare to confront it? Nothing is lost by plying the waters of the unknown. Fear forward. The “Hundredth Monkey” didn’t change his world forever by doing what everyone else was doing. Exploration is the hallmark of humanity, and the gift is evolution. Crossing the divides enables us to cope with our limitations and expands possibilities, well known among all of the animal kingdom, for adaptability is the definition of intelligence.
Herman Melville’s character Queequeg, during a hallucinatory fever requested a coffin to be built by the ships carpenter and populated with items in preparation for his journey into eternity. He survived the fever only to be lost to the sea at the sinking of his ship by the White Whale; but his closest friend Ishmael was saved, the sole survivor, by sailing Queequeg’s coffin to safe harbor. Queequeg’s intuition is the essence of collapsing a waveform. The mind of the noble savage is unfettered by limitations. Monochromatic time allows room to deal with reality as it occurs, unencumbered. But no one can predict the future, because the outcomes are not always predictable. Even our current physics is reduced to probability, nothing is certain, and that is the crux of our predicament, and the greatest beauty of our being. Better to celebrate the unknown, because it has always been, and will always be.
Confront the fearsome deities with a joyous heart, defile them and they will have no choice but to let you pass because in reality they cannot harm us unless we allow it.
There’s nothing new under the sun, and none of this should come as a surprise. We are tool users, makers, world builders, no less, no more. But wouldn’t it be a shame to squander this great gift of creation? We are none of us alone and we are here because our world wants it. The world wants you. Answer the call.
The Iron Horse:
Motorcycle enthusiasts will appreciate the lore and majesty of the Indian Motocycle Co.
My home was just across the river from Bob Markey’s legendary Indian Dealership and White Rose Motorcycle Club and hillclimbs, worldwide, possibly the center of the universe. The Pantheon. Land of the giants. Home of the warriors. A truly American waveform.
American Motorcyclist Association, Motorcycle Hall of Fame Museum, Springfield Motorcycle Club of America, Inc., Daytona, Burt Munro, Floyd Emde…
Lest we go on…