Don't Know

I don’t know yet and I probably never will.
Everything is better that way. Not knowing anything for certain, so certain so certain so certain. Let it be a mystery.
Whatever it is let it touch you, kiss your mind open your face with mouth yawning wide in response to a curious sensation. Want to chop it up, box it label it, display it? Such a pathetic response to the real deal.

The real deal, ha! No real way, no way. Something comes out and we say, “don’t let it stop!” Just one moment after the next, never knowing, like a snow bird, robin was it?
Cardinal poised on the branch, little red riding hood. Nobody knows, nobody knows. The trouble I’ve seen? It didn’t trouble me at all when I went all jiggly like jelly melting over hot cake.
What the hell. No mind. Don’t nobody mind what’s going down here.
Didn’t I sing to the walls last night? Waking them up to the starlight and moonbeams and the little exploding lights in the sky.

I am so far from home, a weary traveler.
There is no such thing as home after all. We’ll always be moving if we want to remain alive, some part must always be in motion. If it isn’t the outside that lacks the charms of home then it’s the inside rearranging, that sensation of loosing my mind.
Loosing it is so different from letting it go. Loosing implies the grasping, the desperate urge to contain, while letting is a form of adoration.

What is more important than love?
Such a stupid word for a thing that stands outside of the kingdom of syllabic moaning and groaning. In human bodies, out of human bodies.
What is it, this thing we call life, now, love?
I don’t know and why strive to know through entrapment and dissection. Let it flow freely through whatever I am, wherever I am, whenever I can. Ride this pale horse this strange fleshy creature, a mighty big dog,
Oh death the eternal dark place from which we emerge and to which we return like a bright and shining eye eclipsed by a lid, in with a blink.
Flash one life, flash two life, flash three…The blink of an I . I am this, I am that, I am that I am, say on sayer. Whatever you wish is my command.

 I can change my mode, mode, mode, mode. Cause I’m a billion different people from one day to the next. A slippery sliding whatever it is.
I already told you I don’t know. I don’t know and you don’t know because it can’t be held without dying, like butterflies or opals or those dripping stalagmites beneath the earth.
You can’t hold life, liberty, love in your hand or even in the intestinal coils of the brain. God, it’s stuffed with packing peanuts.

The main point is not what I think with words, the main thing is conductivity. We just need to let it flow right through, and knowing most definitely obstructs the flow because when we know we no longer seek, we hold the crumpled dead thing in our hand and say this is a butterfly.
But this is not a butterfly. This is a crushed dead thing. Butterflies fly and extend long black tongues into flowers to extract nectar from bright blooms, all things that cannot happen when they are held in your hand.
In that moment that you reach out and grab it, it ceases to be what it was, because we are motion.
That is all. We are not what we think. We are what we do. You only exist when in motion.

You are nothing when you are speculating, thinking, waiting. Of course I can’t be certain about this or any of the things that can be said.
They will wiggle away, change into something new, and leave me holding their jackets, looking shocked. I can only let it roll out, rush through a thing in motion, something that I call love or life or liberty.
What I call it and what it is. Two separate animals. An arbitrarily designated connection.
Everything is better this way, not knowing anything for certain, letting whatever it is unfold unimpeded.
Go go little butterfly, dragonfly shape shifter. Questions are so much more useful than answers.

Evil Queens and Dwarves

I have little to say about the nature of dwarves or evil queens.  I have little to say. I say little.
In regards to dwarves, they are very little if you are bigger than they and quite large if you should happen to be smaller. Evil queens are generally old. That’s all. They want to be beautiful again, and powerful. They don’t care about love because they know better now. They want to be in charge.
Dwarves may sometimes be the servants of evil queens or sometimes they are her enemies. They are fickle folk that way. I imagine that if an evil queen showed up and cleaned their house they’d help her hunt down and kill that pesky maiden with the lips as red as blood and skin as pale as snow.
Evil queens are practitioners of magic. Put  simply, they are witches.
Good queens die in labor or mourn when their children are abducted, or die without mention of the cause. They are disposable.
A word about Kings. They often marry evil queens after their good queen dies. They are generally dupes, loosing their kingdom or wealth to dwarves, wandering soldiers, and evil queens (not to mention witches who never become queens). Only their sons are clever, though generally not as clever as wandering soldiers, millers’s sons, tailors, or talking cats.
Princesses are always fair and must choose between two possible additional virtues; being clever or being kind. (There is a strong possibility that clever princesses will end as evil queens one day.)
Two out of every four princesses  are destined to fall into a sleep like death. (They are usually the kind ones.)
Princes often need the help of  witches or dwarves to get anything done. Witches who help princes and princesses are usually called “good” witches. Nobody feels it’s necessary to call the dwarves “good” dwarves.
(From this one may deduce that the default setting of dwarves is neutral whereas witches are all wicked unless proven to be “good.”)
This is what I know of the nature of dwarves and evil queens. I have said little. I had little to say.

The Breath Of Incorruptibility

I have sent this (to you) because you inquire about the reality of the authorities-
and the authority of reality.

On account of the reality of the authorities, (inspired, perplexed, stunned, and spun) by the spirit of the Father of Truth-
the truth of the father,
the great apostle,
referring to the "authorities of the darkness" -
"the darkness of authorities."
He told us that our contest is not against flesh and blood; rather, it is against the authorities of the universe and the spirits of wickedness.
Against the universe of authorities and the wickedness of spirits.

This is for you- for your mind of clay, for the soul that has been breathed into you, for the spirit you might achieve, for the truth you might know when the shell is cracked and the blind have been subverted.
It is for the gods who have fallen, who have towered, grown, plunged, killed, and suckled at the nipples of death and power. For the spirits higher up, touched only in brief moments by dreams of dying brothers.

This is for you, for you should know that their chief is blind, blinded chiefly because of his power and his ignorance. In his arrogance, with power bellowing from his naked loins, he said:
"It is I who am God; there is none apart from me. It is God who is 'I.' Apart from me there is none."

When he said this, he sinned against the entirety.
The entirety sinned against him.
And this speech got up to incorruptibility. It wavered and floated high above, right to where incorruptibility dwelled and grew and sometimes waned- high above like a silver moon in flux.
Then there was a voice that came forth from incorruptibility, saying:
"You are mistaken, Samael" - which is to say: "god of the blind."
"God of the blind, you are mistaken. We mistook you."
And Samael’s thoughts became blind.
And his blindness became thoughts.

And, having expelled his power,
the power to expel-
that is, the power to blasphemy, to speak,
he pursued it at the instigation of Pistis Sophia.
And, having expelled his power, the power to create
at the instigation of Pistis Sophia, he pursued it.
Down to chaos and the abyss, his mother, he pursued it.

It was she in which he came from- spurting forth with pain like the demon that would one day fully form. And she established each of his offspring in conformity with its power -
its power of conformity
after the pattern of the realms that are above. By starting from the invisible world, the visible world was invented. By starting from blindness, sight was dreamed.

As incorruptibility looked down into the region of the waters,
her image appeared in the waters;
the authorities of the darkness became enamored of her, for she was what they could not be.
But they could not lay hold of that image which had appeared to them in the waters because of their weakness.
Beings that merely possess a soul cannot lay hold of those that possess spirit -
for they were from below, while she, incorruptibility, was from above.
They saw shadows who saw shapes that could cast no shadow. It was an image whose content could not trespass into shadow.

This is the reason why.
Reasons? Why?
Incorruptibility looked down into the region so that, by the father's will,
she might bring the entirety into union with the light.
She might instigate, causing the father to expel his power, which was the power to create.

The rulers laid plans and said:
"Come, let us create a man that will be soil from the earth. A soil from the earth that will be man."
They took chunks of clay and spat into it, turning it into dark mud. They modeled their creature as one wholly of the earth.
Their creature modeled them, as one wholly of the earth, and pursued it down to chaos and the abyss, for its eyes would not open.

Now the rulers created another body, female with the face of a beast.
They had taken some soil from the earth,
earth from the soil
and modeled their man after their body, and modeled hers after his,
and his after the image of God that had appeared to them in the waters.

A replica of a replica of a replica...

They said:
"Come, let us lay hold of it by means of the form that we have modeled, lay hold of her whose image appeared in the waters. Let her see her male counterpart made in our likeness, then we may seize her within that form that we have modeled."
Because of their powerlessness, they said this not understanding the force of God.
They said this not understanding the God of force because of their powerlessness.

And they breathed into her face; heat and cold mixed with the smell of dark earth and living creatures that lacked arms and feet. They forced her mouth open, sending their breath to create hers.
She came to have a soul and remained upon the ground many days, laying naked beneath the clouded sky and their unblinking eyes. They could not make her arise because of their powerlessness. Like storm winds they persisted in blowing. Her body stumbled like a naked white leaf. They breathed out and hard, hoping that they might try to capture that image which had appeared to them in the waters, but they did not know the identity of its power. They could not reach her with their powerless souls and contented themselves instead by playing god with mud and sticks.

The Emperor

I lay on my grandfather’s couch, where he had preferred to sleep during the days, stretched out in front of the television set. The seat cushions were a dark, almost black chocolate color and the back supporting cushions were a gray the color of clay. All of it was soft to the touch and delicately furry. It held the person that lay on it like a gentle beast with silky fur.
The smell of my grandparent’s house was always of wood and vanilla scented candles and black licorice and coffee and the smell of the desert mingled with water and trees and stone. At the table behind me my grandmother was sitting, my father sometimes stood, sometimes sat, beside her, pleading, and my uncle sat at the kitchen bar across from the table. My uncle had a black beard and a booming voice.
The carpet was a rich red orange shag, also soft to the touch. The lace curtains and vinyl shutters filtered the bright sunlight that made its way past the giant elm trees my grandfather had grown all around the house.
My father was asking my grandmother to come and live with us, my mother and my sisters and I could care for her. My grandmother and Uncle rejected his offer. They were mean to him. I felt an intense shock. These people who had seemed to be family were bitterly cruel, they were stabbing my father in the heart. The sounds of their voices were full of a dismissive disdain. They said that my father was a complete fool who could care for no one, that nobody needed him, or even wanted him. I thought that my father would cry. I was filled with rage, my father was here offering help, asking his mother to come with him, and they would not even acknowledge his good intentions. They did not care.
I realized suddenly that they did not like him. That my grandmother and her first bastard son were a special pair, pleased to inflict pain on my father, the other son, the son of the father. They were venting their rage towards the father on his son, because he was not there to receive it.
These were people who had cradled me when I was small, my grandmother particularly. Her skin was always soft, her hair short and white, her body big and round like one of those headless goddess statues. She wore brightly colored housedresses. Now she could no longer walk and could barely speak except to groan a bit and shake her head and sometimes communicate in a slow growling voice like a creature from a swamp.
As a child I had known her only as a benevolent figure who loved me. She did not even love me as much now as she did then. I had been like a pet, a thing which is loveable when it is small and then it is a terrible surprise when it grows too large for the house and drools and barks and wants to run and dig under the fence.
I had already known that my uncle was a wretched cruel heart. When I was a baby my Aunt Peggy shot herself in the head because he ran off with a blonde nurse named Terry and said that he didn’t love her anymore. I was very young at the time and hadn’t been told what had happened, but from the time that my Aunt Peggy became sad and disappeared I disliked and distrusted him. My dislike for him grew when I had to spend time with my new Aunt Terry, because I disliked everything about her. I had loved my Aunt Peggy naturally.
To see my uncle this way was not a surprise, but to see that he had learned such cruelty from my grandmother was terrible. My Father had gray hair. He was tall. He usually seemed rough and uncaring. Now that he was being tender, his new tender feelings were being squashed by a gruesome pair.
I hated them both from then on. I did not want to see my grandmother again. I called once and my Uncle, who was now in charge of caring for her, did all the talking, mostly judging me for my move to a far away city, asking me if I had gone chasing a man, asking what a descent man would want with a woman with little kids (a strange question considering that Terry had a pair of youngsters when he married her).
After that, I would never call again. When my grandmother died, I made little observance of the occurrence. She was a stranger.
Laying on the couch that day, I had noticed that the beautiful tile coffee table constructed by my grandfather had been removed and replaced by the table he had made for my uncle. This one had broken tiles at the corners that left terrible vacancies upon its surface. It made me feel sick to see it there, looking like that.
When my grandfather had been alive the table had stood whole and without fracture. The lawn and trees in the back yard had been green and he had kept a thriving garden of herbs. Now that he was gone, my uncle was here, and with him he had brought a broken table and the death of the lawn and trees and garden. My Grandfather’s land was dead, having been invaded by the desert that in life he had held at bay. His house had become a nightmarish mockery of what it had once been, broken or ill fit odds and ends having usurped the finer objects which had been of his making and had once held sway. And his real heirs wept and were broken hearted by the revolution of death that had turned the father’s kingdom into dust where mites took up residence and ruled over his waste.

Come In!

It all points back to the early years when it seemed I would be a model citizen once I reached a ripe age. In my youth I was cheerful, kind , and, above all, an obedient little girl. The very sweetest and kindest are most susceptible to conviction, so when they suggested that I ask Jesus into my heart I did just that, rather than pretending, like everybody else did. Everyone in America knows that it’s good to talk about Jesus and justify everything you do by insisting that you love Jesus, but of course that’s all just play acting, a little show on the surface of things, a lie we tell ourselves and each other while deep down beneath the shiny veneer, within the confused tangles of the deep psyche, we maneuver towards our greatest desires and veer away from our worst fears, and plot ways to hide all of this subterranean activity under layers and layers of words and social etiquette.
But I did not know that as a child. I was too slow to catch on to the ways of the world. When they bade me to accept Jesus I opened my arms and flung wide the doors to my little heart and cried:
"Come in, come in!"
And that was how my career as an invocant was begun, very innocently, obediently and with the best intentions. My crime, of course, was, is and ever shall be an indulgence in conviction. While immersed in a culture of fakers there can be no greater sin than sincerity. Jesus was for me a gateway deity. The way some kids smoke pot and then move on to try something harsher, I started with what was friendliest and worked my way outward towards the most forbidden. With time I grew sympathetic to stranger wilder forces, forces without forms, or names, or mythologies to dress them in. To those forces beyond calculation I likewise opened the temple of my mammalian countenance and threw back my head to howl an invitation:
"Come in, come in!"
There was never a more generous or hospitable offer to make, nor shall there ever be. I hear from others that this is a very frightening and naughty thing to have done. I hear from human animals that this is a bad thing. I hear this from fakers, from liars, from cowards. I am not ashamed to have looked into my own innermost quarters, into the depths of my heart, and the secret crevices of my mind and discovered that there was darkness there. I am not ashamed to have discovered that I am but a mere mortal, an animal alike in my fears and desires to all other animals. I am not ashamed that I would make a sacrifice of that animal on the altar that we call a lifetime. What is one lamb more or less to the flock? Maybe there are a few that have missed me down at the trough while I was away acting upon my convictions, living not just for the sake of being alive, but rather questioning the possibilities entrenched within that experience, exploring it, testing its measure, prodding its heights and depths with every sense available to me, beyond hope, shame, or fear. You may keep all of the rewards in store for the good animals, I will take all of the punishments reserved for the strays. For freedom I will pay with responsibility, accepting the consequence of my actions and inactions. I will be faithful to my purest impulses, to my open hearted wonderment and willingness. I will accept my worst nature, my cowardly yearnings, as they are mine too, and I will be the one to master them with open eyes and a gentle hand. I am resolved to be a bad girl until the bitter end, incurable of honesty and true charity, ever biting at the tether and bucking at the reign of the masters of the world. My kingdom is in the invisible heavens and hells, embedded in every shadow and every reflection, in every grain of sand and every tear drop. May it live in small gestures that grow grander, may it breath through subtle shapes, hues, and murmurs, may it flourish under this veil of mortality. I invite it with open heart:
"Come in! Come in!"