albionspeak 2: the gates of dis (15.2)
SESSION 84: 2ND NIGHT, 8/5/03
[Scribe] and I didn’t do a whole lot. We walked around town a bit and met [my friends R. & A.O.] at [F. Pub] at 4:00 PM. We arrived an hour early, however, to discuss -- in a deliberate & focused manner -- our riddle, et. al. In discussing our riddle (absence, cost, cricket, aliah, plus…?) we found many more questions than answers. Most of our thoughts solved nothing specific but did in fact draw lines among concepts heretofore considered to be disparate & discrete.
Our invocation: “To the Moon” by Shelley.
10:55 PM
1. Q: [Guide], are you there?
A: I AM AMIDST
2. Q: We’ve been pondering last night’s puzzle a bit, today.
A: ACTUALLY MANY LINKD K PUZZLES
Last night it was “cirkle,” tonight just “k.” Although long a part of [Scribe]’s private vocabulary, saying “k” rather than “karass” has never really been my style. It seems [Scribe]’s abbreviating has become standard for our friends as well (generally as a running joke or divine wink). Of course this is not the first time our friends have used “k” in their diction, but the reader will note a sharply increased usage.
[Scribe] & I turned to our riddle, not with any intent to come up with a definitive answer at this time, but simply to clarify some of the questions raised in our discussions. We were sure such clarification was not only appropriate to the task, but a designed part of the curriculum.
Continuity With a Cost
3. Q: So we sensed, and we shan’t solve them all in a hurry. Is there one [of the four listed words] you suggest we take up first?
A: I SUGGEST COST BEFORE [THE] O[THE]RS
4. Q: [Cost] is the first curious term you brought up last night. (“Continuity with a cost”) How shall we start?
A: CONSIDER TEXT WITH NO PUNCTUATION GAIN
5. Q: Your statement itself needs punctuation (beyond inferred word spaces) to seem complete to us. But the gain [from no punctuation] might be flow, immediacy, sense of language (verse) as an unbroken stream.
A: VERSE AS AN UNINTERRUPTED FABRIC ANALOGOUS TO COSMOS
NO ABSENCES NO ABYSS
([Scribe] notes in the original transcripts “a piece of our history,” a lesson from [Guide] years ago which described how humans in the past had a slightly different mode of perception. I forget why [Scribe] wrote this. The subject never quite returned.)
6. Q: Yet: full stops and commas give (us) a sense of flow.
A: [YES] BECAUSE YOUR SENSE OF ORDER OR COSMOS DEMANDS [THE] MEDIUM OF DELAY & FRACTURE
7. Q: Other senses of order do not demand such.
A: [THE] DAIMONIC COSMOS IS ALIEN IN THIS SENSE
WE ARE IGNORENT OF MUCH
BUT WE DO NOT THINK OF [THE] WORLD AS FRAGMENTS
ONLY AN ONGOING ORDER [sic]
Recall, daimones really are many-minded, inhabiting many worlds fully and at once. (Notice also [Guide]’s spelling error seems just too good.) I’m not sure we were asking after orders quite so alien however. I think we were just considering apparent continuities that humans do come into contact with: time, space, music, logic, narrative, cause & effect, etc.
8. Q: Were our forebears deluded in their image of an “unbroken world”?
A: ONLY IN A SENSE NEARER TO THE DAIMONIC MIND
NEITHER DISTANCE IS ILLUSORY
DO…
9. YOU FOLLOW?
10. Q: You imply then that our need for discontinuity also has its corresponding cost.
A: [YES] CONSIDER YOUR OWN LIVES IN TIME
In some ways our “own lives in time” are so discontinuous, even chaotic, as to render the example exasperating.
Enter the Cricket
11. Q: On the negative side: delay, jumpiness, “wasting time,” lack of focused attention -- and so on & on.
A: ENTER [THE] CRICKET
§ JANE & ANAND
The reader will recall that the cricket (a.k.a. lizard) in our k-vocabulary refers to that nagging part of each individual’s personality described by the negative adjectives listed above. It is also the voice of doubt and represents, as it were, the false self. It stands in contrast to the serpent, which is our true self & essence. Old words gaining new usages: we felt it necessary to pin down the definition further.
12. Q: Greetings and a quick first question. Is the cricket the behaviors mentioned above -- or is it the voice between moments of attention?
A: IT IS RA[THE]R [THE] WISH TO WIDEN [THE]SE SPACES BETWEEN MOMENTS
13. Q: Is the cricket a substantial thing or just the absence [like a shadow] of what should be there?
A: IT HAS A DEFINITE ROLE IN [THE] MIND & SO OUR K NAMES IT AS AN INDEPENDENT BEAST
14. Q: But emotions too have a definite role, yet they received no “beast” (name) in the teaching.
A: THAT IS BECAUSE IN [THE] MIND [THE]Y ARE NEITHER AIDS NOR HINDRANCES TO FLIGHT
15. Q: Should we then identify the cricket with “the cost”?
A: IT IS ONE RESULT OF [THE]IR BEING A COST [sic?]
Another questionable “error.” The three homonyms of “there” are statistically the most misspelled words in the language. Here I think the speaker (Anand?) deliberately fudges in order to impartcost with its own ontology: thus, it takes on incipient bestial attributes.
16. Q: There are other results, which we might give other names.
A: [YES] EXAMPLE TIGER ANOTHER IS A LOVE OF [THE] ABYSS
Tiger, a beast well known to us.
17. Q: We associate aliah with continuity because it links the k. members to each other & the Jewel.
A: ALIAH IS A MEANS THRU [THE] DISCONTINUOUS MIND INTO [THE] ETERNAL CENTER
ANAND
Anand says little, but what he says is often profound. I would like to help the reader with an explanation of aliah, but I can do no better than Anand’s definition above. Our own “eternal center” is the Jewel, each karass having its own. (I’ll add here that in Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle language, from where the word karass itself is lifted, “eternal center” is called a wampeter, though we never use the word at the board.)
At this point in our conversation [Scribe] became inspired and initiated a process without telling me his intentions. -- Normally we confer on every question. -- Afterwards, [Scribe] told me he felt we needed to speed up the definitional process; and since we were speaking with our taciturn ferryman anyway, it made sense to switch gears a bit. The reader need only look at the 2001 or 2002 sessions to understand the advantages of this different process.
Yes-&-No Round With Anand
18. Q ([Scribe]): A quick inspiration, Anand. Let’s do a short Yes-&-No round. Agree?
A: [YES]
19. Q: Our medium is consciousness primarily. Correct?
A: [YES]
20. Q: (Our) consciousness is discontinuous. Correct?
A: [YES]
21. Q: We can construct certain kinds of continuity.
A: [YES] & [NO]
Note: our numbering goes off by one at this point from the originals.
Sometimes in Yes-&-No we need to ask a single question from opposite sides just to pinpoint or confirm with certainty. Metaphysics is rife with paradoxes; “yes” and “no” are not always mutually exclusive.
22. Q: Is (our) consciousness continuous? [compare to Q#20 above]
A: [NO]
23. Q: Is all perception of continuity illusory?
A: [NO]
24. Q: The continuity we perceive exists (arises) outside our minds.
A: [YES]
25. Q: Aliah is an instance of an independent continuity.
A: [YES] [YES]
26. Q: Can aliah be discontinuous?
A: [NO]
[We didn't think so; but confirmation sometimes is everything.]
27. Q: Our awareness of or participation in aliah sometimes makes it seem so.
A: [YES]
28. Q: Such intermittent episodes allow moments of flight?
A: [YES] --after some delay
We felt we’d exhausted that particular line of questions, so we moved back into our normal ouija protocol. I turned to a different, though possibly related topic: fear. I’d been reading Krishnamurti recently -- including excerpts from his May 12, 1981 talk witnessed by both [Scribe] and me -- and was now struck by similarities between discontinuity and Krishnamurti’s comments on fear. Fear, he said, arises from thought & hesitation. True action has no gap between actor & act, subject & object. But most of the time there is a gap, resulting in all sorts of second-guessing, doubts and fear.
Fear Enlarges Discontinuity
29. Q (Duncan): Thanks, Anand. Jane, should one conceive of fear as an unfortunate result of discontinuity?
A: [NO] IT IS RA[THE]R A MEANS OF ENLARGING IT OR …
30. EVEN COLLABORATING WITH DISCONTINUITY
31. Q: But our minds are discontinuous. Shouldn’t we cooperate with our own medium?
A: [YES] IF YOU MEAN LEARN WHAT IS THERE TO LEARN
Jane echoes [Guide]’s words from the previous night, “Learn your own medium.”
32. Q (Duncan): Recently I came across Krishnamurti’s discussion “on fear” which both [Scribe] & I attended. It seemed so appropriate to my current situation (much more so than my situation at the time). Comment?
A: [YES] A CLUE LEFT FOR YOURSELF
33. Q (Duncan): Left by Krishnamurti?
A: LEFT BY [THE] FACT OF YOUR ATTENTION TO [THE]SE WORDS
Synchronicity, circles, temporal paradoxes. I hear Kathryn Janeway (Star Trek Voyager): “I hate temporal paradoxes!” Hmm…
34. Q: Back to fear. Oddly, there are fears that we do not feel.
A: [YES] INDEED [THE] CHIEF TACTIC OF FEAR IS TO MAKE YOU FEEL AT HOME WITH IT
THUS WHY TURN & FACE IT?
CRICKET AS [THE] VOICE OF REASON
Fear, the cricket (as reason & doubt), discontinuity -- all of these are given, at least in the language of our teachings, the semblance of sentience.
Absence: a Creative Use of the Gap
35. Q: Let’s connect, if we can, discontinuity with absence. Help us.
A: LETS MOVE IN STEPS
36. Q: Tell us the first step.
A: IF DISCONTINUITY IS A FACT ABOUT OUR MINDS WE MUST BEGIN BY LEARNING THIS FACT ABOUT [THE] MEDIUM
37. Q: [We] start with awareness.
A: NEXT WHAT TO DO
WE MAY NOT ALTER [THE] SITUATION UNAIDED
38. Q: For us, the karass is the primary network of aid.
A: BUT DOESNT THAT SIMPLY GRANT YOU ACCESS TO O[THE]R MINDS WITH [THE] SAME DEFECT?
Jane asks a clear & pointed question, but I had a ready answer: If our minds are, as we’ve been told, “vastly unlike,” then maybe my defects can be overcome by your talents, and vice-versa. We also know that, like valence shells, a certain number of different roles (in our case, eight) comprise a circle, undoubtedly balancing & compensating for individual shortcomings.
39. Q: But my gaps may not be yours. Eight minds in a certain configuration make a circle.
A: GOOD RESPONSE BUT CONSIDER [THE] ISSUE AS YOU LOOK FOR YOUR FIF[THE]LEMENT
The running joke: Jane has fun here with our board’s punctuation on the last two words. Also from these last responses, [Scribe] & I deduced that the fifth word had to include something that we (all humans) lack.
(Note: I suspect Jane’s joke offers us a clue about her future role among the living k-members. Now there are four; Jane makes V.)
40. Q: We intend to [look & consider further]. Please continue.
A: ABSENCE IS OUR PRIVATE NAME FOR A CREATIVE USE OF [THE] GAP
USE ONE FINE STRING TO KEEP…
41. HOLD OF WHAT IS MISSING WHILE ATTENDING INTENSELY TO ONE…
42. OF [THE] MEASURES AT A TIME
43. Q: Measures? Measures of what?
A: I LEAVE YOU THIS AS AN EXERCISE
WITH LOVE TO YOU BOTH
FROM JANE
So now we had a second riddle to go along with our “fifth element” riddle. We knew the two riddles had to be related somehow, for the logic of the curriculum (itself a construct in continuity) dictated such. Still, that’s all we knew.
1:38 AM