Two Angels

Don’t break the silence. One word, a single word could send us crashing down into the terrifying gritty details of organic existence. We hold our breath, two angels poised face to face, the substance of our intricate bodies swirling and crawling with electric light. We are two angels who share one mind, one center held between us in the tenuous absence of thought and motion, so still that we are almost not angels, we are almost nothing at all.

Don’t break the silence.  We have two faces and each face contains two more faces, which contain two more faces, which contain two more… Watching the kaleidoscope of apparent being shifting across the surface of ourselves, our eyes grow ever wider.
Yes, angels have eyes. And tails. And wings, and horns, and ears, and fingers, and toes, and rivers, and forests, and ponds, and stars. What would be called flesh is a multicolored light show, but it will all shatter and melt and cascade into tight places if we make a sound just now, any sound at all.
So we are silent.

Bursting with music, we bite our tongues, press our ears down against our heads, freeze our ponds and hold it in. For now.
Eventually we will let it out in torrents of song that will carry us away from this place, up for a while, then down, then perhaps up and away again. We’ll ride the sonorous currents hither and tither, rippling as we go, dissolving, emerging, shimmering, vanishing, gleaming...

But for now silence, cradled between us like a sleeping babe, a pearl set in a silver ring, a solitary star shining in indigo sky, a crystal goblet upon a golden table. Hush, hush, our eyes blink to each other, two and two, faces sliding away like night and day.
Hush, hush glistening lashes flutter, hush, don’t break the silence.
Don’t break the silence.

Queen

At last the darkness envelops and comforts me with its sweet anonymity and gracious propensity for allowing all things to be as they are without judgment. THOUGHTS POUR out like the blood of my womb, the life force of my own body expelled or released before it could be tampered with by the seminal poisons of the sun.
Three men stood around a large chess board balanced on a concrete wall in a park filled with tents and vendors pedaling their wares. The black man stood tall and lean dressed in white, his bald head shining under what sun there was that afternoon. Around his neck a large even armed silver cross gleamed. Another man was from the south and sat upon a drum and beat it while his opponents worried over their next move. He wore a straw hat. The third man left no impression. He was only a man.
They asked my name and I told them. At first their eyes all widened and they begged to know if it was true that my name was "Gitana" - Gypsy. I corrected them and explained the spelling.
“I know this name.” the black man said, “It is the name of a Sumerian Goddess and of Adam's first wife. I know you.“ His eyes like black suns scorched my white flesh, reading the story of me as if it was written in sinew and bone this time around. “Don’t ask me how I know these things.” he said, closing the matter and returning his attention to the board.
Adam's first wife. You know me black man, wherever you meet me. You see the woman who would not submit to organic dominion. The witch who would not be a wife. The demoness who eats children. In the light of day we meet in our present guises and you recognize me. You remind me of who I am even as I am on the brink of forgetting for a moment.
Startled, I try to ask your name. You do not answer, as if you do not hear me, but I know that you hear. You hear but you will not utter your name in the presence of a witch, you will not utter it lest any others hear it, lest anyone else recognize you.
Men will mistake me for something else, they will long to run fingers through brassy hair, will hope to posses, to consume what they take to be another daughter of Eve placed on this earth for their own uses, to breed more men. But you are older and wiser than men.
I have no choice but to retreat to the shadows. You play these games still, with utter seriousness. You must yet fear the darkness that was bequeathed to me. I do not.
I live here as I did before ever there was a world, before ever fools juggled flaming torches or knelt at my feet and begged for my love. Before ever there were lips to stain or fruits to stain them. Before ever there were games to play.
You have here a queen of heaven, of the stars, a virgin queen. She who will not submit. She who will not join the other beasts of burden in serving Adam born of the dirt.
But you play games, on squares of black and white, endeavoring to capture the king of the opposing color, ever watchful and fearful of the queen, the queen whose movements are unrestricted, whose experience and relation to space and time is unlike that of any other piece on the board.
You play the game with utter seriousness, and if we meet you ask me to play with you. My willingness to play only serves to deepen your suspicion of me. How could you trust the one who has agreed to be your adversary?
It matters not at all to me. I return to the place where I have always been, in the darkness that envelops and comforts me  with its sweet anonymity and gracious propensity for allowing all things to be as they are. Without judgment. Without divisions or categorizations.  Into the chaos of the abyss. I withdraw from the sun spun world of dirt to breed something other than men.
Whether you know this name or not, whether I remember it or not,  I am who I am.

Insect Love

We should get together baby, me and you, a simmering puddle of primordial soup. That’s right, that’s right, the poetry is in the flesh.
Remember when we used to be separate? Two things, out there somewhere searching for a connection. For a bridge to span the gap between me and you.
And suddenly there is no other, the other is inside of me, I am the other, I am only myself. Forget history, forget everything that came before, there is only this moment, this pearly now that we hold cupped between the us that is I.
Once upon a time, once upon a time baby, you were a fly and I was a man and you were the fly in my ointment, the terrible jealousy that urged me to leap into eternity via a designer telephone booth. Then I was the ointment and you were the fly and then I was the fly and you were the ointment and soon we were flointment forged in the fire.
'Cause things heat up and come apart melt together in unpredictable ways and there is just no telling exactly what we will be or even what we are. We can keep looking, analyzing the flointment and there will always be new layers to discover and further options for new combinations arising out of new discoveries of self and the unfolding of space time.
There is always another other to discover, another relic to leave behind the mirror, another barrier to shatter. It’s penetration beyond the flesh that you most fear, moving onward into the very fabric of existence. It’s reaching even deeper into the self than has been approved of by the food and drug administration and that is monstrous isn’t it dear? Monster which shares letters with Mother which shares letters with other.
Do you really think so much of  poor vanilla Eve and her bounteous womb producing cookie cutter replicas of herself? What about Lillith and her experiments in the caves?
How brave to reach so deep, into such unpredictable chaos and pull from yourself a titan. Villainous, vile, evil, live.
Were you ever a fly that dreamed it was a man? Were you baby? A fly that dreamed it was a man but found that the dream had ended and the insect was awake?
Have you ever heard of insect politics baby? NO. Because insects be who they be, seeking to go on and on, diving into transformations which are the end of one creation and the beginning of another, unhesitatingly accepting annihilation of the individual in favor of unity.
Insect yoga. Death and resurrection. Jesus Flies.
We should get together baby, me and you in an  uncompromising uprising of insect love. Two or more things out there somewhere searching for a connection, for a bridge to close the distance between points “A” and  “B” and  “F”.
Dear Eve, I bet you thought you taught me the secrets of the flesh, didn’t you? But no, it was the fly in the ointment. An appointment with Flointment. An event horizon. An awakening incomprehensible to a sleeper.
That’s right, that’s right baby. Forget when we used to be separate. That was just a dream, just a dream. Now the insect has been resurrected.

From The World Above

I, Norea, said:
"Sir, am I also from their matter?"
Eleleth leaped gingerly from the cracked marble into the arms of the golden tree. The boughs glimmering, shining from an internal source for there was nothing but blackness above. Though his stature was great, reminding me of mountains, he was strangely light, for the narrow golden limbs supported him easily and he positioned himself within the blackened crack in the tree’s trunk.
"You, together with your offspring, are from the primeval father.”
He gestured upward with his shimmering golden hand.
“From above, out of the imperishable light, their souls are come. Their souls are come from above, out of the imperishable light. It is because of this the authorities cannot approach them, for the spirit of truth is present within them.”
He reached with his hands into the whispering leaves and plucked one of the pendulous crimson fruits and tossed it down to me. I turned it around in my hand, its texture reminding me of the sea.
He continued:
“All who have become acquainted with this way exist deathless in the midst of dying mankind. In the midst of dying mankind exists all those who have become acquainted with this way. Still, that sown element will not become known now. Instead, after three generations it will come to be known, and it has freed them from the bondage of the authorities' error. From the bondage of the authorities error it has freed them."

Then, the fruit oozing in my hand, I, Norea, said:
"Sir, how much longer? How much time has passed?"
Eleleth played gently with the leaves of the tree, touching them as he would a woman’s soft flesh.
He said to me:
"Until the moment when the true man, within a modeled clay form, reveals the existence of the spirit of truth, which the father has sent.”
He motioned for me to draw nearer and I came and pressed my hands against the tree and turned my face up to him.
“When the truth opens like a flower and paints itself over the face and body of man, then he will teach them about everything. It is then that the father will come.”
He reached down and pressed a thumb stained with the blood of the fruit onto my forehead.
“He will anoint them with the unction of life eternal, given to him from the undominated generation. The ones who have not known the authorities. Once anointed, they will be freed of blind thought and they will trample underfoot death, which is of the authorities.”
He kissed the crown of my head and straightened himself, still balanced between the split halves of the tree. “Then they will ascend into the limitless light where this sown element belongs.”
I, Norea, watched as to my astonishment, Eleleth’s golden flesh began slowly to become indistinguishable from that of the tree. He continued to speak to me as though nothing were changing:
“Then the authorities will relinquish their ages, and their angels will weep over their destruction and their demons will lament their death.”
The rend in the tree’s trunk was being filled, healed by the body of Eleleth whose feet and legs had vanished into the body of the tree.
“Then all the children of the light will be truly acquainted with the truth and their root, with the father of the entirety and the holy spirit. They will all say with a single voice, 'The father's truth is just, and the son presides over the entirety.’”
His arms had become like branches raised into the golden foliage, sprouting tender, illuminated leaves. He turned his face and rested a cheek upon one limb.
“And from everyone unto the ages of ages they will say...”
His features were absorbed into the limb and his head became like a knot on the branch and the leaves rustled and whispered as one voice:
"Holy - holy - holy! Amen!”
And Eleleth was returned to the entirety.
This is what I, Norea, learned from Eleleth, sagacity, the great Angel who stands in the presence of the holy spirit. That is why, resplendent with a light that glows from beyond my flesh, I say to the authorities of corruption:
"It is you who are the rulers of the darkness; you are accursed. And you did not know my mother; instead it was your female counterpart that you knew. For I am not your descendant; rather it is from the world above that I have come."

A Snarling Graceful Spiral

“Now,” said Eleleth, stretching his legs and rising to his feet, “when these events had come to pass, he, Sabaoth, made himself a huge four-faced chariot of cherubim and appointed an infinite number of angels to act as his ministers. They cried and sang his gospels, flapped their wings under his gaze and carried his word to the seven dimensions. Under his order, they created the finest harps and lyres.”

Eleleth paced before me, his pale golden feet landing softly on the ruined marble that surrounded the fallen silver tree. The shuffling of his body was soft, lulling me into a deeper state. Because of this, his words went into me, each syllable absorbed into my flesh as though the knowledge had always been part of me.
He continued:

“Sophia took her daughter Zoe. She had the young thing with ripe breasts and flowing red hair sit beside Eleleth, she sat beside him to teach him about the things that exist in the eighth heaven. Sophia placed the angel of wrath on his left to teach him what Zoe could not. Since that day, his right has been called 'life' and the left has come to represent the unrighteousness of the realm of absolute power above.”

He paused and studied my face for a moment. I could not tell what he saw. In me was the dark ocean of curiosity, the confusion of my restless mind, a mixture of desire and obedience. These were all things in me and I searched his eyes like a mirror, looking for the answers that I sought.

“It was before your time, Norea, that they came into being.”
He took a long, slow breath and motioned for me to follow him. I rose. I heard the shuffling of my own feet adding to the music of the trance. Somewhere in the distance there were singing birds. We walked in the shadow of the great giant tree and then passed into sunlight.
Eleleth led me away from the silver leaves and slowly we entered the domain of the golden tree. I looked deep into the branches, into the thick mess of its leaves, the dense thicket of life that it bore without complicated thoughts and manifestations of habit and emotion. I saw thick roots weaving gracefully into the earth. I saw bright fruits that caught my eyes. They dripped like beads from the branches even though the thick trunk was split almost in half, as though smitten by a burst of bright lightning. The fruits were small and lustrous and red.

“Now,” Eleleth told me as we looked over the tree and began to circle its great base, moving clockwise. “When Yaldabaoth saw him, Sabaoth, in this great splendor and at this height, he envied him; and the envy became an androgynous product. This was the origin of Envy. And Envy engendered Death. Death engendered his offspring and gave them each charge of its heaven. All the heavens of chaos became full of their multitudes, but it was by the will of the father of the entirety that they all came into being, after the pattern of all the things above, so that the sum of chaos might be attained.”

He plucked a small fruit and placed it carefully in my hand. I looked down at it, bright as a blood stain, a perfect sphere dwarfed by my fingers.

"There, I have taught you about the pattern of the rulers; and the matter in which it was expressed; and their parent; and their universe."

He finished speaking and looked at me. Again I wondered what he saw.

This was the manner in which I, Norea, was taught by Eleleth. That was the manner in which I felt the depth of my root, a snarling graceful spiral that dipped into the four corners of chaos.

The Question Of Genesis

Filled to the brim with curiosity, like a bubbling cauldron of hot liquid, I said:
"Sir, teach me about the faculty of these authorities - How did they come into being? By what kind of genesis? Of what material? Who created them and their force?”
The great angel Eleleth, understanding the wells of deep curiosity for he too had pursued the questions without end, gestured for me to sit on the fallen branch of a silver tree. He spoke to me in a voice that rumbled, as though drawn from the depths of the universe and twisted easily into an intelligible form:
"Within limitless realms dwells incorruptibility. Sophia, who is called Pistis, wanted to create something, alone without her consort. Her product was a celestial thing, a thing of white lightness that moves as gracefully as gray smoke. A veil exists between the world above and the realms that are below. Shadow came into being beneath the veil; and that shadow became matter; and that shadow was projected apart. What she had created became a product in the matter, like an aborted fetus. And it assumed a plastic form molded out of shadow and became an arrogant beast resembling a lion. It was androgynous, as I have already said, because it was from matter that it began. Opening his bestial eyes, this strangely begotten offspring saw a vast quantity of matter without limit; and he became arrogant, saying, 'it is I who am God, and there is none other apart from me.' When he said this, he sinned against the entirety. Against the entirety he sinned. A sin so great that it vibrated out and touched all the realms with its stain, leaving no place unmarked with its unholy utterance. And a voice came forth from above the realm of absolute power, saying, ‘you are mistaken, Samael, God of The Blind.’”
And Samael challenged this singular voice from above the realm of absolute power crying:
"If any other thing exists before me, let it become visible to me!"
And immediately Sophia stretched forth her finger and introduced light into matter; and she pursued it down to the region of chaos where dark things grow twisted and abandoned, turning on themselves like lost caterpillars without sunlight. Soon she returned up to her light and once again darkness swallowed matter.
This ruler, Samael, by being androgynous, made himself a vast realm, an extent without limit. And he contemplated creating offspring for himself. This idea pleased him and he created for himself seven offspring, androgynous just like their only parent. And he said to his offspring:
"It is I who am god of the entirety."
And Zoe (Life), the daughter of Pistis Sophia, could not be still. She cried out from her realm and said to him:
"You are mistaken, Sakla!" - for which the alternative name is Yaltabaoth.
She journeyed into chaos and breathed into his face, and her breath became a fiery angel for her; and that angel bound Yaldabaoth and cast him down into Tartaros far below the abyss of lost light.
When Samael’s offspring Sabaoth saw the force of that angel, saw the fire by which it moved and the light by which it shone, he repented and condemned his father and his mother, matter. He loathed her, that shadow that had become matter. He sang songs of praise up to Sophia and her daughter Zoe.
And Sophia and Zoe caught him and gave him charge of the seventh heaven, below the veil between above and below. And he is called 'God of the forces, Sabaoth,’ since he is up above the forces of chaos, for Sophia established him. For Sophia established him above the forces of chaos, so he is called ‘God of the forces, Sabaoth.’
"Within limitless realms dwells incorruptibility,” said Eleleth, the great angel sitting beside me on the cast off branch of silver.

Norea

And Adam knew his female counterpart Eve in the time before my conception. For a moment they shed their leaves, their rags, their humility. As the clouds moved briskly overhead and Eve could count the stars, they became one being under the moon. It was dark and a singular light shown upon them, revealing their faces of ecstasy. He knew his female counterpart Eve, and she, my mother, became pregnant.
She bore Seth to Adam, bearing another life into the realm of plants and beasts. And she said:
"I have borne another man through God. Through God, I have borne another man in place of Abel."
On the birth of their new son a goat was killed, sacrificed to the gods of below as well as above. They spilled its blood in ceremony, painting themselves with its fleeting red-colored life and they wished protection for their new son.
When the harvest turned into golden fields, Eve again became pregnant, and she bore myself, Norea. And she said:
"He has begotten on me a virgin as an assistance for many generations of mankind."
Norea, I was called. I would be the virgin whom the forces would not defile. The light that would be untouched by dark and muddy hands.
Then mankind began to multiply and improve. There were houses made in magnificent shapes, roads that led to spices and wild colors, schools to teach ancient wisdom.
The rulers took counsel with one another and said:
"Come, let us cause a deluge with our hands and obliterate all flesh, from man to beast. Obliterating all flesh, from man to beast let us cause a deluge.”
But when the ruler of the forces came to know of their decision, hearing it on the cold winds of winter, he said to Noah:
"Make yourself an ark from some wood that does not rot and hide in it - you and your children and the beasts and the birds of heaven from small to large - and set it upon Mount Sir."
Then I, Norea, hearing of his labor, came to him, wanting to board the ark. With the countenance of an old woman I came, head drooping, eyes of hunger and desperation, rags dripping off my skin. When he would not let me board, I threw off my false face and blew upon the ark and caused it to be consumed by fire. With fire I caused it to be consumed, turning the mighty boat to ashes. For a second time he made the ark, he filled it with life and beasts.
The rulers came to meet me, thinking to lead me astray, to take me by the hand to the bed of ruined lifetimes. Their supreme chief said to me, Norea:
"Your mother Eve came to us."
But I, Norea, turned to them and resplendent with a light that glowed from beyond my flesh, like a candle in the night, I said to them:
"It is you who are the rulers of the darkness; you are accursed. And you did not know my mother; instead it was your female counterpart that you knew. For I am not your descendant; rather it is from the world above that I am come."
The arrogant ruler turned, with all his might, and his countenance came to be like a black wolf. He said to me presumptuously, his face twisting into the smile of cursed beings:
"You must render service to us, as did also your mother Eve; for I have been given the world to rule."
But I, Norea, turned with the might of a crashing wave and, in a thunderous voice, cried out up to the holy one, the God of the entirety:
"Rescue me from the rulers of unrighteousness and save me from their clutches - forthwith!"
The great angel, glowing and splendid, came down from the heavens and said to me:
"Why are you crying up to God? Why do you act so boldly towards the holy spirit?"
I, Norea, said:
"Who are you?"
The rulers of unrighteousness had withdrawn from me when I invoked the angel and the darkness had receded, leaving only faint blue light.
He said:
"It is I who am Eleleth, sagacity, the great angel who stands in the presence of the holy spirit. I have been sent to speak with you and save you from the grasp of the lawless. And I shall teach you about your root. About your root I shall teach you."
Now as for that angel, I cannot speak of his power: His appearance is like fine gold and his clothes like snow, glistening from every direction. No, truly, my mouth cannot bear to speak of his power and the appearance of his face!
The ground turned faster. My body slowed and I saw colors trailing from my fingertips. The sun glowed brighter and there were stars.
Eleleth, the great angel, spoke to me.
"It is I," he said, "who am understanding. I am one of the four light-givers who stand in the presence of the great invisible spirit. Do you think these rulers have any power over you? None of them can prevail against the root of truth; for on its account he will appear in the final ages; and these authorities will be restrained. And these authorities cannot defile you and that generation; for your abode is in incorruptibility, where the virgin spirit dwells, who is superior to the authorities of chaos and to their universe of earthly madness."

Familiar Domain

Whatever is happening, whatever this is, I allow it, orange flowers dropping petals into a small clay bowl. The bowl is glazed to look like a quail's egg, six quails' eggs held in the dry hands of the potter Emmanuel.
Whatever this is I accept it. Our Father... I accept it. Who art in…I accept it…heaven…hallowed be… I accept it…thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in…accept it.
Though the faces that are worn by the beloved appear differently to me now, this is the same domain, the same beloved, all the same self that has always been and will always be. I observe it now from a lower level of energy than on the previous visit.
The first orange flower petals dropping into a small clay bowl. Emmanuel was the potter's name.
I allow all feelings of fear to pass through me, merging with all visions, liberating myself from the apparitions and entrapments of the lower dimensions.
The woman with the dark circles under her eyes, pale bony body, tiny lungs breathing in, then expelling the breath into my face…I allow all feelings of fear to pass through me.
But even though they may seem different to me now, I know that these are the same domains as before, and that nothing is going to happen to me that hasn’t happened before. Whatever is happening, whatever this is, I allow it, orange flowers drooping, their petals laying in the basin of a small ceramic bowl.
Give us this day our daily…glazed to look like a quail's egg, six tiny speckled quail's eggs supported in the large cracked hands of Emmanuel the potter.
Forgive us for our trespasses as we forgive those…when the visages and emotional auras of the unresponsive guides are superimposed upon the beloved, I must remember to recognize them as my own projections… who trespass against us… and not view these face changes as foreboding evil, danger, or antagonism… her dark eyes sinking in the dark rings of flesh, slippery lips, unkempt hair and a stale odor lingering about her cave…if I react in repulsion, I may find it difficult or impossible to blend my own energy field with that of the beloved…for thine is the power…but if I am able…the kingdom… to merge with the guide…and the glory…at this point…forever…I should be able to thus liberate myself from the endless action reaction game maintained by our opposing and unblending vibrations…Amen.
If I can manage to awaken my attention, and can accept the full reality of the macrodimensions, the divine state of liberation should dawn upon me as the cycle of death and rebirth is broken.
Whatever is happening, whatever this is, I allow it, I accept it, these orange petals dangling and falling and filling the uneven ceramic bowl fashioned by the chaffed hands of the one called Close to God. Emmanuel carrying away the six pale green and brown speckled quail's eggs…
I must remember that I can achieve liberation at any moment just by the power of recognition… remembering myself in these guides, the flower, the bowl, Emmanuel, the eggs, and the dark woman…penetrating through these visions into the clear light… thy kingdom… from which all visions have come and to which all visions return, like a sleeper's breath, like tiny lungs expanding and contracting…like six eggs which become a bowl… her breath on my face…allowing feelings of fear to pass through me…whatever this is…thy will be done… whatever this is… on earth as it is in…this same domain seen from a different vantage point...I accept it.

Gnosis

Truly, my brethren and beloved, you who are closest to me, who eat with me and drink with me and rest where I rest, you who have abandoned the sky father and the earth mother because I have asked it, unto you will I give all mysteries and all gnosis. I will give you the mystery of the twelve æons of the rulers who dash across the sky like comets and their seals and their ciphers wrapped in brown paper and tied with cotton string and the manner of invocation for reaching their regions will all be in your inbox on Tuesday morning.
I will give you moreover, the mystery of the thirteenth æon . You will attain this just by being with me, and by limiting conflicting influences. I will teach you the manner of invocation for reaching their regions, leading by example. You must watch carefully, I can’t explain it because words are lies, but I can show you if you turn all of your attention to the moment. I will give you their ciphers and their seals, the symbols that are made in opposition to the symbols you were taught when the world was being built.
In music I will give you the mystery of the baptism of those of the Midst and the manner of invocation for reaching their regions. And in gestures I will announce unto you their ciphers and their seals. It will be a dance and the steps will change even as the music changes. You will never know what step comes next just as I never know what step comes next. The sequence will seep into your consciousness like water being absorbed by cardboard. I want your consciousness to become soggy , a formless pulp.
And I will give you the baptism of those of the Right, our region, by letting the sun scorch your skin and the eagles eat out your eyes. Its ciphers and its seals and the manner of invocation for reaching thither are available for immediate download at itunes. I will give you the great mystery of the Treasury of the Light where all my wealth is stored. It looks like an ordinary honey jar unless you have already received the baptism of those of the Right, in that case it will look like nothing at all. The manner of invocation for reaching thither is the subject of a PBS special that you can rent from the local public library. If you lack a membership therein I suggest that you obtain one. Never make the mistake made by Simon Magus and keep The Learning Annex Guide To Successful Alchemy out for over three months without renewing. You can renew online or with any touch tone telephone. There is no sense in over drafting from your account with the Treasury of the Light before you have learned to turn lead into gold.
I will give you all the mysteries and all the gnosis, for low monthly installments of just $29.99 or you can devote your life to following me and doing as I do. I will give you gnosis in order that ye may be called 'children of the fullness, perfected in all the gnosis and all the mysteries.' It can be the name written over your photo on your Facebook page.
Or I could award you a diploma. My new ink jet printer works like a charm and the have special certificate paper for sale in office supply stores. Blessed are ye beyond all men on earth, for with access to these spheres you will have room to breath. For the children of the Light are come in your time, you are they.
All that is required for an achievement of gnosis is everything, or just a monthly payment. You choose. Truly, my brethren and beloved, you who are closest to me, who eat with me and drink with me and rest where I rest, you who have abandoned the sky father and the earth mother because I have asked it, unto you will I give all mysteries and all gnosis. All others will get what they pay for.

Alien

Mistress Deep with her bite so sharp and slimy crawling around through the body of the one who calls herself MOTHER. She goes where she pleases, between the walls, down tight narrow little labyrinthine passages in search of prey, of heroes bones to crush, in search of the Other whom she may embrace and make self. Dripping, oozing, sliming her way through the darkness, she stalks, the son of Cain, the draconian descendant, the line of Lilith and Samael. Her kiss is death, the life of her lineage is death for the sons of Adam. She opens her arms and welcomes the Other to annihilation, planting her seed inside so that it will become as she.
MOTHER so bright and clean works to conceal her strange pet, that thing that lurks beneath her shiny veneer. Her cool logic and twinkling sterile light seem to offer protection, but deep within her icy hull chaotic animal hunger lurks. The Queen of the Heavens, she is a shining Isis struggling with Lilith over the habub tree. The stars are her companions, burning in the cold depths of the abyss. For her, the organic world is something to be used, turned to her advantage, and men are mere expendable tools.
The maiden who steals light walks the halls, a tiny reflection of MOTHER, the controlling, the rational, the calculating. Clean skin and neatly laced shoes. Our Theseus wondering in the dark, hunting and evading the minotaur. The hero, the one with a plan, unrolling her ball of string, her chain of never-ending thoughts to help her find her way. Occasionally she is lured into the wild wet madness of the other by her own animal, suddenly irrationally entering the darkness, the den of Mistress Deep, crooning,
“Here Jones, Jones, kitty, kitty.”
She is there, poised precariously between Isis and Lilith, the calculating and the chaotic elements of the machine in which she dwells. With her string unraveling she discovers the awful truth, that MOTHER wants to keep the OTHER inside, that MOTHER is not protecting her. MOTHER is using her, just as Mistress Deep wants to use her.
Theseus will not to be a tool. She tampers with codes and moves elements within the machine setting into motion the countdown for MOTHER to self destruct. When MOTHER dies then Mistress Deep will die with her. Our Theseus torches the minotaur’s nest and cages Jones, her own animal instinct, and carries Jones with her, controlled into her new body and watches the beautiful destruction of MOTHER.
She is going home, leaving the strange terrors of her quest behind, but the OTHER, dear Mistress Deep is still with her, not as easily shaken off as the bright and sterile MOTHER. The new body has been infected, Theseus is not alone. Poor Theseus sings a trembling song about the stars and positions herself for the final confrontation. Mistress Deep slowly unfolds, comes out of her hiding place. Theseus expels her from the new body, sends her into the vacuum, subjecting her to the fire.
Mistress Deep with her bite so sharp and MOTHER so bright and clean, burning in the cold abyss just as the stars burn. Jones sleeps in his corner and Theseus files her final reports, the Gods of the new order, rulers of the new machine, a new mother and a new beast settling in for their long deep sleep.

Understanding

Among the current crop of three brained beings that make their way across the surface of this ball of flying mud that we currently call home, "understanding" has become the repetition of phrases, the sentence that ends it all by saying it, and saying it in such a way that nothing more need be said. Once such a statement has been spoken, we can sit back and admire it, rolling it around our tongue like a piece of gum that quickly loses its flavor, and say "oh so true", "it is the truth", "now we know it", "and so it is". And in this clear sense of passive satisfaction we can then rest and press our heavy bodies onto the cold floor, let them sink down and push against the unmovable soil that forms the background and the foundation, slide down to the lowest place that we can reach, and then finally say clearly: "I have understood." Feel proud. Feel happy. Write books. Give speeches. Teach, conduct, determine, judge and repeat. Rejoice in the pleasure of your final understanding and plod on with it, like a heavy backpack full of books carried along a sunny beach.
But True Understanding is not heavy, it does not hold the form and sink into fog and rock and endless finality. True Understanding does not pull upon the brakes and bring the effort to a halt, sighing with relief that we have reached the final goal post, that we have crossed the finish line and now arrived at our destination, gasping for breath as we relish our achievement and rest on the wet grass, looking up at the boundless sky.
True Understanding will lift and not press, it will expand and not pull in, it will raise you like a bird, letting you drop away the pressure of so much baggage, so much mass, carried in tiny pockets of linguistic certainty, mathematically digital categories that divide all perception into clearly defined holes and boxes and stacks and files.
Leave the filing to the accountants! Let them have their final balance, their median measurements, their clear definitions and matching totals. Let True Understanding raise you away from the tendrils that pull you back and let it push you up, high, higher, ever higher. And as you rise, forget all claims of firmness, all clear statements of knowledge, all lines that cut and walls that divide.
Let True Understanding become the wings by which you climb ever higher, into subtler and more rarified chambers, where the old words that you had one day clung to become like slippery drops of golden nectar, splashing into black pools of divine tears, fountains of sperm and menstrual blood, all coming together to form a whirlwind of ferocious life, a hurricane of Eternally Unbalanced Glory, away from the tombstones of conclusion, away from the upright banners of final discovery.
In your quest for True Understanding, beware of the Answers. They are death traps placed on the secret path to fool the innocent traveler and the unwary adventurer. Hold onto the questions, and march forward through fire and water and air and earth, through the treacherous twilight landscape of the Labyrinth, through the nightmares of Illusion and the scathing brightness of the Real. Let the effort and the time and the Work and the brilliance coat the questions with unknown metals, indescribable flowers, vibrant color, cutting sound, ever more subtle substances of unknown origin and unknowable destination. Let the questions themselves coalesce into tissue that will sprout the tendrils that will open to texture and skin and cartilage that will emerge as light, as the transdimensional feathers that will extend out from your shoulder blades and lift you into the Endless Night of True Understanding. Brush off the doubts and certainties like mosquitoes that fade away and die as you reach the upper atmospheric heights. Leave the solid vessel behind and fly naked into the endless expanse of Outer Chaos.
Look around you and ask:
Where is my knowledge?
Where is my understanding?
Don’t answer.
Don’t make a move.
Just feel the rising heat and pain and anxiety and wonder.
Just feel the flash of naked unfathomable truth.
Welcome it as your friend, the new friend that will take you to distant places you have never been.
Leave behind your heavy bags and prepare for flight.