Starbound

Starbound

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Ten of Swords. Art by Timothy Von Rueden.

"Zeus and Ganymede"

Secrets accumulate atop my tongue, making beds in rooftop ridges and gap teeth.

After dinner I spit them out, all blue and crazed in a bathroom sink on another Sunday.

A girl prays to a god she feels unworthy to be loved by-

anything, or everything, or nothing at all

It is the wonder every September:

I feel her heart beat again.

My feet

thump,

thump,

thumping atop gravel.

"Listen," she says.

"Do you hear that?

Do you feel that?"

I try.

I stretch my arms down a drain,

frantically searching for the means to scream, to be anything, or everything, or nothing at all.

I tried honey—

scooping her out,

desperate and stretched,

goop thickening the walls,

syrup-like and sorry for making everything worse

much worse than ever before.

I give up.

I follow the ant trail to a sad pillow,

heating up the center where agony breaks free.

I follow the ant trail to therapy every Monday at 11, and say much yet nothing at all.

I follow the ant trail to the walls I wish I’d step outside of.

I try honey once more.

I shower it over myself in hopes the thing inside is able to thin it out in time,

like tea on an anxious Tuesday.

But my sisters are perhaps weary of what clings to their shoes,

of hands stuck upon doorknobs and kitchen sinks and Wednesday’s dinner engulfed in goop.

I follow it to a mirror.

I am frightened to believe what I have become.

I run to the supermarket and make a mountain of salt in aisle 24,

hoping to counteract the monstrous situation upon me,

smothered in the taste of all the things I needed to say,

in the sour shame coming back home all the same

My god!

on old clocks, windowsills, light switches, and more pillows, cold pillows on lone Thursdays,

Forget the mirrors!

I must not look at myself

slugging around and destroying a home I’ve made none but my own.

Oh but

She is in picture frames,

Lovely and light and easy to hold

behind glass, handled with care.

Pity is dreaded fear, a pungent knock I want to ignore every time.

I weep onto the smile, the what-was, a known.

I try once more,

stretching myself down the drain,

uncertainty a growing depression—a well-known symptom of a heart beating faintly on Friday, under layers of each day before.

She is somewhere in the hollow parts,

in the shadow dancing on the edge of what lives outside,

in the music sticking onto a seen but unexperienced.

Saturday, I am the soles of hurried feet,

thump, thump, thumping like knocking—a thunderous prayer possibly heard.

I follow it to my mother’s voice,

and my father’s wisdom,

and my sisters' cheers—

shoes kept neatly in spaces just for me.

Is she worthy of love?

My god!

Is she!?

To follow the ant trail to the old town lived once before-

She is there!

I feel her heart beat again,

trying to be

anything,

or everything,

or nothing at all.

My heart,

the center where agony breaks free!?

Do you hear it?

Do you feel it?

Thump,

thump,

thumping atop gravel.

An ant trail follows me down to

the places that consume me.

She tastes the sweet outpour of will,

or anything, or everything, or nothing at all.

A girl prays to god, on a Sunday-

Thump,

thump,

thumping..

Do you hear me?

Tree of Void Emanation

The void of non-being emanates existence through a generative process and pattern which produces systems of increasing complexity and representative power. At the twelfth emanation we reach what is likely a limit of usefulness in balance with complexity.

Each emanation builds contains and is connected to the previous emanations. The term “sphere” is used as is common in platonic and qabalistic systems as an to reference the formative principles of each emanation. The term “path” describes the connections between the spheres.

Each sphere is counted in two ways, once by sequence starting from zero and again by prime number starting from one. Zero and one represent the identity functions of addition and multiplication. Each subsequent is then given its own sigil which is produced from merging the numeric sigils of its sequence and prime. The pronunciations of the spheres are similarly generated by combining the pronunciations of these numbers.

From this numeric skeleton the story of manifestation is developed upon it both as structured metaphor and ontological framework. Exploration of this framework reveals formulas and techniques for relating to and manipulating reality through the arts of magick.

Chaos 0⋮1 - nĕsh-hĭn - /nɛʃ.hɪn/

Existence emerges spontaneously and without reason from Void. Existence requires no reason. As the Void has no quality whatsoever it is in no way restricted making it the root generative force. This is the fundamental nature of existence. It is spontaneous and without purpose or design. All possibilities assert themselves into being at once, each becoming a “one”, a unity of existence unto itself while retaining nothing in itself.

Process 1⋮2 - hĕzh-ēsh - /hɛʒ.iʃ/

That which asserts itself into being does not exhaust possibility. Every aspect of being is incomplete, retaining its relation to void while constraining and permitting that which may follow. Each emmanation leaves space for the next emmanation so that the process may continue. All connection is made possible by what is left undetermined and reality is never fully manifest.

Pattern 2⋮3 - ēs-ŭzh - /is.ʌʒ/

As the process of manifestation proceeds the shape of the unmanifest spaces influences that which may follow. This causes patterns to arise that unify the discrete units of being. Though each is completely free and separate, they are also manifest as a unified pattern. It is precisely because of incompleteness that these units are able to also become a new unity.

Form 3⋮5 - ŭm-o͞os - /ʌm.us/

Within pattern there emerge forms defined by the pattern and yet independent within it. For example, 5 & 7 are a twin prime pair as they are both prime with a difference of 2. Other twin primes pairs include 11 & 13, 17 & 19, 29 & 31. All prime pairs greater than 3 & 5 have the property of having their sum being evenly divisible by 12. This form of a “prime pair” is well known in mathematics but primeness, divisibility, and addition were not in any way defined in order to produce this form. Number emanates the form of the prime pair. Likewise we may take nearly any game and learn its rules rather quickly, but to learn a strategy is an entirely different matter. Games like Chess or Go give rise to whole vocabularies for naming forms within them. Though the rules teach us how to play, one must become familiar with these forms to play well.

Change 4⋮7 - ăou-chăz - /aʊ̯.t͡ʃæz/

Manifestation may stop at Form to make a complete but static world. The universe of number is a perfect example of static manifestation. Alternately manifestation may remain forever in flux, manifesting and collapsing back into the unmanifest. This gives rise to time and change. Further manifestation takes on a destructive aspect as forms that were can now also cease to be. We move up a level in our analysis to describe types of change and change itself becomes a new type of form. The mathematically inclined may find it useful to meditate on the relationship of a mathematical function and its derivative.

Self 5⋮11 - o͞or-fĕm - /uɹ.fɛm/

In the flow of change through time forms emerge which influence change in order to sustain themselves. These forms are agents of change. Like the first cellular organisms self-organizing around volcanic vents on the ocean floor in the chemical soup of the earth’s ancient oceans. The basic aspect of these agents is homeostasis. These agents direct change to create a dynamic constant. As these agents guide change we may now call this activity Will. In the fullness of emanation we come to identify one of these agents with the self.

Sense 6⋮13 - jŏth-tŏi - /d͡ʒɑθ.tɔɪ/

Agents may be blind actors, no more than a self-catalyzing reaction, or the agent may develop the capability of sensing and reacting to its environment. Sense is the essential element of the encounter of that which is beyond the self. It is the beginning of external self-organization that leads to external manifestation. It is an echo of Process yielded through the incompleteness of the agent.

Thought 7⋮17 - chō-kou - /t͡ʃoʊ.kaʊ̯/

If what is sensed leaves its mark upon the agent then we find the seed for the emergence of representational systems. The agent can now experience itself in time, forming memories, and gains the ability to not just change behavior based on current circumstance but also based on past learning. These internal marks can then be sensed and manipulated and so give rise to symbol, language, and communication.

Desire 8⋮19 - ät-thĕl - /ɑt.θɛl/

Having formed memory the agent now is able to experience the external as something to be sought after or avoided. Want and fear and all the aspects of emotional attachment emerge. Desire attaches the agent to the external and so opens a channel for the external to truly manifest. It is attachment to the world that makes the world. We regard this as a positive development, an overcoming of the limited solipsistic self through desire.

Object 9⋮23 - ĕ-pĕp - /ɛ.pɛp/

Through desire the agent manifests the objectively real. The external is truly manifest beyond whatever sense, thoughts, or desires the agent may hold regarding it, so completing the self-overcoming of the agent. The objective binds the agent while also making possible the emergence of the next level of agency within objective reality. The agent has surrendered its naive omnipotence in its embrace of a new greater level of being in which it only has marginal and indirect power in exchange for a greater state of being.

Subject 10⋮29 - vŭ-sōb - /vʌ.soʊb/

The manifestation of objective reality allows the agent to itself become a manifest object. By surrendering itself into objectivity and becoming limited the agent is able to enter into a space where it can come into authentic contact with other agents manifest as other subjects. Each aspect of the agent obtains and is constrained by a physical correlation. For us humans, this is our brains. Every thought, sense element, and desire is within our brains and is lost to us with disruption of this fragile tissue.

Kia 11⋮31 - fĕ-shĕr - /fɛ.ʃɛɹ/

Kia is the void which remains within manifestation. In the twelfth tree all has manifested and yet Nothing remains. This Nothing is experienced as consciousness, free will, and ecstasy. More than that, Kia is the basis of having any experience whatsoever. All of the aspects of manifestation through the agent can carry on quite well without any conscious experience or free choice within it. In dreamless sleep and in normal waking when on auto-pilot Kia retreats. Kia manifests as the absurd, wonder, the presence of the undefined and unknown. Kia can arise in quiet contemplation, ecstatic overload, and in many ways that open the fundamental questions of being.