songs of power

i

How can I cross the sea if I have no boat?

How indeed! – a voice replies – how indeed!

So I dance for a week and the stars dance with me, so does the sun, and the moon, but it is not enough.

After a week I sit down to rest. While resting I fall asleep. As I sleep a dream comes to me. In that dream I cross the sea first as a boat, then as a bird, then a great fish. Three times I cross the sea, and each time it fills me with boundless joy, for I grow in strength and power, I move beautifully o’er the sea, but it isn’t enough.

What more could you want? – asks the voice of dream.

I want to wake and do it all again. Can it be? Can you teach me how to do so?

And thus I find myself awake, still longing to cross the sea, still yearning for poetry in motion, for motion in poetry, and a song comes to me, a song that I sing wholeheartedly, with all my soul, with J – O – Y, to my heart’s content, and singing lustily I feel the dream descend like a bird from the sky, down, down into the tree of my me, the tree of my uncompleted story, and lo, the song complete, the fabric of that dream stretches itself out like a sail on the mast of that tree, and lo, the mast and the sail move me, move the boat that hitherto I failed to see – now seen, as now it sails across the sea, as happily, I hold the helm and ride the waves and count fish leaping o’er the deck as if they had wings, seventeen in all, leaping lustily.

And do you arrive at the land across the sea?

Do I make landfall in one day? Or do I sing again and bring the bird and the fish that I dreamt previously down into this realm, this world of things made n’ done?

Indeed.

If you sing with me, you will see; you shall see. A week will suffice.

A week?

Then we can bring your tale down to earth, from the realm of fantasy...

Fantasy?

Fantasy for you, dear friend, into the realm of things done, things seen, things experienced personally.

Ah... If I sing a week, if I’m ready to fly and swim, to weave the tapestry of things-worth-my-time into the fabric and fettle of things experienced as feelings felt.

Of things experienced as feelings felt

And that is what, when all is said and done.

In short, if I’m willing to leap from the limbo of no-poetry, or nein poe-y-tree, the lacklustre thrall of puddin-prose, back to the champion’s tale of what is in truth, our bourne, our forgotten ministry of minstrelsy, our fly-with-me friend, or turn your back on all that I be, and all that you too might be.

A week? – you say.

Give or take, a week’ll do, but what is time when we are fire breathing birds with songs inside, and skies waiting to be brought back down to earth?

Skies

Earth

Time

0=1

Cuckoo la la

total perspective vortices

What do you mean unreal?

 

It matters little what I mean Zie. Things are what they are regardless of my utterances.

Be that as it may, you can't just blithely state that dreams are as real as day unless you have some real proof to back up your preposterous assertion.

 

Proof? Why would I need to prove it? The burden of proof lies with you.

 

Huh?

 

I merely state as fact that which might or should be of interest to you. You're at liberty to investigate my claim if you're interested in pushing back the frontiers of your knowledge cubicle, or else remain in your hen coop of baseless certainties.

 

What a cheek! I never imagined you of all people to be so intellectually bigoted. What makes my hard-earned knowledge a mere “hen coop of baseless certainties”? Have you so little regard for western science? Everything I know is based on centuries of scientific endeavour, experiments, painstaking mathematics and meticulous empirical data. How dare you call it baseless.

 

Ok, in that case you’re willing to demonstrate how Big Bang actually happened, scientifically I mean. It should be easy enough.

 

Of course I can’t. Big Bang was a one off. It can't be reproduced in a laboratory.

 

And you’re confident that it’s not pseudo-science?

 

It’s a theory, nothing more, but it's the best theory we've got at the moment – a million times better then saying ‘And God said “Let there be light!”’

 

Ok. In any case, as I said, I have nothing to prove. If I tell you that dreams are as real as day, that is only “preposterous” if you're unable or unwilling to access them consciously. In which case, not being able or willing to do so, it's entirely natural that you’d sputter and foam about this being absurd. Anything you've not yet experienced is always absurd until something shifts in your paradigm, and you’re suddenly no longer prevented from accessing the dimension or phenomena that were previously off limits.

 

So, you mean to say something shifted for you?

 

I might mean that, but what I really mean is that this is universally true. At any given time there are only ever a finite number of phenomena that can be experienced as such, so there’s always a confirmation bias at work which preselects those phenomena that fit your scheme, or perhaps what I'm really saying is that, regardless of the phenomena selected, you’re only able to experience them as apparent certainties by construing them in a certain way.

 

In a certain way?

 

Yes.

 

How do you mean?

 

Well, for example, I'm walking along and I see the sun shining through what you'd refer to as “leaves”.

 

Ok.

 

As a so-called modern person, you don’t just see the phenomenon, do you?

 

I er...

 

Your mind joins in and consciously or un-consciously affirms that what you're seeing is the sun shining through so-called “leaves”, updating in real-time your register or log of phenomena.

Yes, and what?

 

You do it all day long, everytime you see something, the little catalogue of things reminds you what you're seeing, and you naturally concur, do you not?

 

Well what would you expect me to do?

 

Nothing. Do as you wish, but understand that there are other people who are not “modern” who see the same phenomenon in an entirely different way.

 

There are?

 

Correct.

 

And what of it? The leaves don't stop being leaves objectively just because the mind responds to them a little differently, do they? Their leafiness is independent of my thought process, is it not?

 

I wouldn't be so sure.

 

But that’s absurd.

 

Yes, you’re right. To the modern mind it’s utterly absurd, but then again, that's the modern mind by definition.

 

Huh?

 

A mind that objectifies all phenomena, seeing them in terms of, or as, something that is fundamentally distinct from, i.e. disconnected from me, from consciousness itself.

 

And you mean to say...

 

Yes, that there are other ways of arranging things, other paradigms in which things or phenomena are not thus perceived.

 

But that doesn't alter a thing, does it?

 

Not a thing.

 

So...

 

The things are all features of your modern-mind.

 

You mean those leaves aren't things when you perceive them?

 

Kind of.

 

But that’s ab...

 

-surd! Isn't it just? And yet it’s only absurd to the mind that insists on rigidly or “rightly” seeing things as phenomena separate and distinct from me, the observer. To other minds your way of perceiving things is no less absurd.

But how then do they see things?

 

Otherly.

 

And, to what end?

 

Presumably because to them it seems more natural, and more complete.

 

Complete?

 

Yes.

 

How so? 

 

Your material objectivity cuts out a lot of is, n’est-ce pas?

 

Huh?

 

It only works with rather severe distortions, preventing you from seeing, feeling or accessing a rich plethora of interconnections or other-ness, kind of like converting analog music to digital.

 

Be that as it may, I still fail to see what you have against us being objective, and calling a spade a spade, a leaf a leaf.

 

Nothing whatsoever, unless you consider the fact that it only works up to a point.

 

Here we go again...

 

You did ask, or that's what I perhaps erroneously inferred.

 

Ok, you’re right. Pray continue.

 

Up to a point your leaf can be a discrete thing, a leaf, but things weigh heavily on time.

Huh?

 

Time is increasingly burdened by the ceaseless flattening of reality into material phenomena.

 

It is?

 

Affirmative.

 

And what then?

 

Sooner or later it flips.

 

It what?

 

Has a kind of seizure.

 

You're kidding.

 

No, honest injun!

 

Ha ha, very funny. But seriously...

 

Time has a seizure because ultimately time is a part of your consciousness, pared and squeezed into a narrow tube.

 

Oh.

 

Which means that it’s basically a given that your reality is seemingly stable, to the point of abject boredom, until suddenly it’s not. Then it’s “Buckle your seatbelt Dorothy, ‘cause Kansas is going bye-bye!”

 

Gulp!

 

Suddenly your reality needs to find a different set of determinators, a different set of fixture points to attach to, to rest the overwrought, exhausted Yertle-the-Turtle construct which has been overloaded too long, unnaturally so, in rigid, time-trapped fixity.

 

But why would you say our reality is “stable, to the point of abject boredom”? Nothing could be further from the truth. Our reality is a constant rollercoaster ride.

 

Only because that's the only way you can handle the boredom, by wobbling the applecart.

 

Er...

 

You drink, fight, take drugs and create an artificial cacophony of discord because otherwise your sterile promontory would suffocate the spirit. You'd all end up killing yourselves. But once you've raised the level of insecurity and alarm to an almost unbearable level, you’re so busy coping with the self-inflicted turmoil that you no longer notice the dull, dull ache of isolation, the self-imposed sterility of things being things in a soulless cube of unnaturally fixéd thingfulness.

 

Ah.

 

But have no fear. It’ll all end soon enough.

 

It will? (Gulp)

 

Yes. 3D reality has a very short fuse. All the pieces on the chessboard are about to get up and do a switcheroo, changing places with the pieces in your mind, because time is essentially tidal, flowing back and forth.

 

Oh no.

 

Well what did you expect? You didn't really imagine you were separate from the construct, did you? no matter how hard you try to overlook the obvious. It's not like you remember anything about anything really, is it?

 

Who we are, where we come from?

 

Yes, that kind of thing.

 

And you do?

 

We’re not thing-bound, so we can feel and see the...

 

bigger picture?

 

Correct. Even looking at your so-called leaves I'm able to connect with or through the leafiness to other centres, other aspects of me, which are equally real, equally apropos.

Wow! Just by gazing at leaves?

 

Just by feeling the part of me, or the aspect if you prefer, which is present through, beyond and within what is initially perceived as leafiness.

 

And you can do this with anything whatsoever?

 

Yes, I guess so, but some things feel better than others, as you can probably understand.

 

Dog poo’s not at the top of the list?

 

Correct.

 

So what ensues? You open a window through leaves into something else...

 

Something more.

 

Ok, and what then?

 

Well, that in itself requires joy.

 

Joy?

 

Simple, natural joy, to rise into a less state.

 

To connect and feel the er...

 

The allness, the isness, the infinite, for want of a better word.

Ok. And? Apart from joy?

 

Well there are realms beyond this, or worlds, if you prefer.

 

There are?

 

Which are constantly part of the dialogue.

 

Oh.

 

Which need to be felt and reconstrued in the light of new experiences, new awarenesses. It's an isness. Nothing is fixed because things can only be fixed within a construct, like a cube, though paradoxically we never entirely escape the fallacy of phenomena, no matter how close we come to isness.

 

But surely there are things that are fundamentally true?

 

Yes, there are within a construct. But they’re only as “fundamental” as the construct itself. They cannot go deeper. And we invariably come back to Yertle the Turtle, don't we?

 

But surely atoms, or light, or...

 

Consciousness?

 

Ok then, consciousness...

 

It ain’t.

 

Fundamentally true?

Nope.

But whyever not?

 

You'd know immediately if you bother to step outside the construct.

 

Er... what would I know?

 

That consciousness is a bit like water, it flows into each and every empty vessel, feeling it from within, filling it up, assuming its shape and form.

 

And what?

 

The same consciousness that is in you, which you experience exclusively as your body-mind physicality, just happens to extend way beyond that vessel... way, way beyond.

 

It does?

 

It does.

 

How far exactly?

 

There's no way of knowing, but suffice it to say that, were you to see its full range and extent, it would literally, without the least doubt, blow your fragile modern-mind to smithereens.

 

?

 

A bit like the total perspective vortex in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The mind of things-n-me simply can't handle that level of disclosure.

 

Oh. So how come you're still alive if you've ventured outside the construct?

 

Because I was ready for it. I was no longer attached, or only marginally. I’d already figured out the artificial nature of things, that all our proud postulates stand in a kind of egg timer, rock solid until the timer thing has run out of sand.

 

Ah.

 

In any case, it’s not like I achieved anything outstanding.

 

No? You're kidding.

 

Not at all. I simply allowed nature to recolonise me. Once I’d understood the fallacy of things.

 

I beg your pardon!

 

You heard. The fallacy of things. You suddenly see through the glamour, the slick marketing, the lies and deception, and you feel a deep longing for your disconnected world of thus it is – thus I am.

 

You do?

 

Absolutely. Because nothing else is real. Nothing else passes the smell test. Eventually you notice the stench.

 

What stench?

 

Of fear, deception, of fraud and fakery. Rotten to the core.

 

But surely...

 

You think it's just a bit here, a bit there, you take your secateurs and start pruning the dead and infected foliage, only to discover there's literally nothing left to salvage, and yet, to your amazement, you're still alive, still cognitive, still human, so to speak.

 

Oh my God, you’re not selling this very well, if you’re trying to get me to sign up.

 

Not in the least. Do your own thing. Stay your course. Batten down the hatches and ride your ship of certainties to the final grain of sand, back to oblivion, if you will, but though you may succeed, your overmind will still oscillate back and forth, giving input and updates from t’other side, the vague and misty realm of so-called “dreams”.

 

But, this can't be... I barely remember my dreams any more.

 

It matters not. Your mind of things will continue to calcify, but as long as there's life in you...

 

What?

 

This...

 

Merry opens a sluice gate in the quantum stream of consciousness, allowing the mind to flow back into the other side of self, beyond so-called “infinity” into not-me or un-me, that yet happens to be...

 

Can't be. It’s just a dream. It’s... No!  How can I switch it off? Aaaaaaaaaarrrgh!

 

Don't worry Zie. It's temporary. Just breathe a little deeper and feel the flow of...

 

Tremors and convulsions notwithstanding... Dawns another day – from the rubble, the ruin of things, from the unbound, free-range mind-not-what.

 

Dot dot dot – like time is no longer meaningful.

 

Zie starts reliving dreams he’s experienced “years ago” in earthly time, like they're happening now. All at once. All together, yet somehow, in some unfathomable sense, separate.

Dream after dream, or within, or...

 

Astonishing, isn’t it?

 

Zaphod Beeblebrox! What are you doing here?

 

Oh, just chilling out Zie. Incredible to imagine it’s all inside my double-head, isn't it! But then again, what would you expect, me being the fantabulous king of awesomeness?

 

A feeling of being intensely annoyed at Zaphod Beeblebrox’s limitless egotism brings Zie back to the moment of me, wherever that now is, where he finds himself meditating with a zen master on a mountain, apparently in the Himalayas, if on Earth at all, discovering the innate ability to cope with feelings of rage and anger by feeling the waters of conscious-ness flow fully back to the real source of those feelings.

 

Poor Zaphod. He weren’t so bad really, in fact, he was the missing link needed to reconnect me to my inter-dimensional self. To my faraway tree.

 

Indeed. So there you have it Zie. Feeling is forgiving, essentially, once you're free to flow through the intricate nooks and crannies of your near infinite Mandelbrot set y’ness, to the exact spot where every person or phenomenon is mathematically needed to plug or deflect the infinite void binomially, thereby inducing a single click of time-y-ness, a moment that paradoxically matters, intrinsically.

 

It baffles the mind, Merry, but apparently the mind is designed to cope with near infinite bafflement. All things being equal.

 

Indeed, once you rediscover, nay, um... re-feel the reality of dream-y-dreams. The unny un-ness – as in howsonought – click – as in One

 

One? Ok, here goes.

 

Zie walks up to a sycamore tree and allows himself to feel the leaves without thinking them the usual way. The modern world starts blinking red alert, doing everything possible to make Zie capitulate and think what, anything, just as long as he mentally connects ’em to the cube walls of the construct, but for no apparent reason, with neither rancour nor prejudice, Zie lets the fascination of feeling what is not the thing itself draw him deeper into the stream of...

 

Click – the entire universe skips a beat, so to speak, as time collapses momentarily in on itself, as Zie insouciantly zaphod-beeblebroxes infinity – like there’s nothing to it – like nothing could be easier – like you’re utterly mistaken if you think this is not part of your own personal experience tree, if you think time is on your side, if you think these words, this text originate outside your very own leafiness.

 

...and the rest, as they say, is

 

 

The end

0=1

plus three

 

 

at the end of the universe

I is not what me thinks it is i am

Er...

Baffling, isn't it!

Gobbledygook, if you ask me.

Precisely, which only goes to show

Huh?

Which only goes to show

[Waiting patiently... oh so patiently]

Which only goes to show

It does..?

Yes.

Er... what?

Huh?

What does it go to show?

Sorry, I seem to have lost track of the conversation.

Hardly surprising really, 

Oh yes, that. So you figured it out in the end?

Figured what out?

Precisely.

Yes, I suppose i did... [Looking round expansively at me knows not what.]

And them? [Wafting an arm at the general public]

I hardly know what to say. You'll have to ask them yourself.

Do you think I may?

I don't see why not.

I feel rather shy.

Do you?

Yes.

Hardly consistent with I not being what me thinks it is i am, is it?

Now that you mention it, no, you’re right, not at all consistent – in fact, downright inconsistent.

So go ahead, ask ‘em.

I've a good mind to do precisely that.

Well...

Yes?

What are you waiting for?

Nothing whatsoever.

In that case, what is stopping you?

Nothing whatsoever.

The very same?

In all likelihood, yes, though for certain i cannot say.

And this “nothing whatsoever” so actively directing your affairs – how do you actually recognise it when it...

When it what?

When it... [grasping strawfully]     me knows not what.

Bingo!

A trap door opens beneath and the two of them fall through into I is definitely not what me thinks it is i am, in the process losing all recognisable sense of being two, or them, or anything else for that matter, recognisable.

Not a word is spoken, I not being what me thinks it is I am, and yet each and every reader is addressed directly, intentionally, discernibly, from the horse’s mouth, so to speak, and most of them, you included, do everything possible to maintain the illusion that nothing has been said or heard, except for you – no, not you – you, there, yes you – you know who you are, don’t you – and one, one being addressed is enough, is it not – one being all, all being one – i not being what me thinks it is i am... and the rest, as they say, is history.

History. Once upon a time there was a tale that so engrossed the single mind, the mind of All, the One, that it began to multiply its I am in order to experience the tale from different perspectives within, from the thick of things.

Of course the I am’s all knew that they were essentially pretending to be separate entities, but as consummate actors and artists they were not going to let on that it was all an elaborate charade, besides, each I am had its very own me thinks stream of individuated thoughts to strengthen and accentuate the uniqueness of what it was experiencing. Me thinks thou art an arrant knave said one thought-y-stream. Me thinks thou had better curb thy tongue, another before I cudgel thee into oblivion. Me was able to think whatever best fitted the logic of the moment without reference to what was I am universally true, and this worked wonders for the story’s growth and development. History was able to go far beyond the bounds of thus it is, thus i am-ness, into a fantastical realm of me thinkitude and me thingliness, in which the logic of what me thinks, no matter what, was able to establish itself as fact, was able to build castles, towns, systems, webs of ideas, none of which needed to i am, none of which needed to it is, all of which could exist and flourish if it proved its validity, its viability by simply usurping and defeating other castles, towns, systems or webs of ideas. May the strongest survive, for the strongest, surely, had to be the fittest, the best, the closest to that which simply, truly is I am ‘n All.

So here we are, fantastically far advanced down these logical chains of reasoning, if a supercedes b, then a it is I am ‘n All, and who can fault the irreproachable logic of deductionism ad infinitum, or Darwinism for that matter: the engine, the driver of story into ever more abstruse, ever more exotic, ever more i am-less versions, nay, realms of historia? What is there to fault? True, wars have been fought, wives killed by jealous husbands, or vice versa, not to mention famines, droughts and pestilence needlessly endured, but history has been made, history has been spun, has been woven from the endless stream of what me thinks... or what me thinks I am... or

Until

Er...

Yes Zarina?

Have you finished yet?

Finished? Er... almost.

It's just, well, I'm not really a big fan of history. In fact, it gives me a headache.

Ah... I was just going to wrap it all up with a devastating deus ex machina finale.

The only trouble is no one’s listening. It's not exactly easy reading, is it?

Absolutely.

So what's the point?

No point. None whatsoever, but you're wrong about no one listening.

No, i can see the livestream data. Zero. Nada.

Tee hee, but she’s watching incognito, isn't she.

Who, Dorothy?

Dorothy? No, not Dorothy. Why would she be watching this?

Then who?

The one who slipped through the gap existentially.

Er...

The one who is a living being like the rest of you, but who’s ready to seeee the logical impossibility of matter, of things and the whole universe, suddenly, without warning.

And? What then?

What when?

Then? When she sees?

Who?

Her.

Huh?

Of for Pete’s sake Merry...

...

Merry...

...

Merry...

 

The sound of a penny dropping somewhere on the far side of the universe in a galaxy facing imminent destruction. Kerchink.

Zarina? You ok?

I...

Yes?

I...

Er

I think

You do?

No, me thinks

It does?

Yes, that I...

Say no more Zarina. I can see. Observe, the lights going out.

Omg, no

Zarina sees what appears to be the entire universe, billions of stars before her eyes, twinkling merrily in the “boundlessness of space”, or thus the story goes, sensing or feeling the dichotomy, the as above so below-ness as each and every star up there extinguishes itself in a bewilderingly rapid cascade of disindividuation – leaving only one, the All, and a rather ridiculous looney tunes “that's all folks” note scrawled across the gaping blackness of unfullness.

In a roadside café somewhere in a benighted loop of semi-conductive consciousness...

None of it stuck? None of it was ultimately real? None?

Apparently not.

Then what was the point?

Good question. Wait a minute or two. Let's see if she reboots...

Of course measuring time from the nullification of all matter, including space, is a rather tricky business so i can't guarantee that this “moment or two” was in fact less than a billion years or more, but if you'd cut me a little slack and accept that time is, in fact, infinitely elastic, then here we are... a minute and seventeen seconds later...

Tinkle tinkle

Do you hear that Merry?

A rhetorical question without a doubt, as Merry and Zarina are both viscerally experiencing the electrical circuit of space, time and everything rebooting, with every fibre of their not-what-y-ness.

Wowsers!

Feels good, dunnit!

You're telling me.

Whereas before, the entire universe had been jerry-rigged, wired to work, but to work with massive in-built resistance, to generate a guaranteed stream of history, this time round it’s the opposite, wired to go, wired to fly, to hum, to zing, in short, nature at its best, effortlessly surpassing the best laid plans of mice-y men, hum dum de dum, dum...

So the end of the universe was a temporary event, it would appear?

Yes and no. Just watch all those hopelessly anachronistic structures from historia, packed with endlessly needless complexity... watch them now imploding under the weight of their gargantuan redundancy. And yes, me thinks the world you know and love, the world that was fixed in obsessive compulsive load bearing, is blinking on and off, while an other version now repackages all the data ineffably, as is.

So there’ll be no more history?

No more honey? Pooh sighs wistfully. Never say never.

But what a waste! So much pain and hardship.

On the contrary, it was vital to the infinite spark of creation. Nothing is ever, ultimately, wasted.

But, it’s all gone.

Not so. History is a song, a record, a wavey line, whatever you want it to be, but methinks nothing matters, no less than All, that nothing is, either created or destroyed, that...

Like I said Merry, too much yabbidy yab. I want to test out this new circuitry. Something tells me that we’re going to have a lot of fun playing with the inertials, the memories of what historia used to be. I can feel ‘em begging to be explored, to be twanged like balalaika strings.

Yikes! A world of trouble in the making.

But that, dear reader, is where you now have to return to your own particular pocket of inertial space, and decide whether you’re ready to join Zarina on the other side of what, me thinks, is not, unless i be much mistaken, universe, hum dum de, or equally a bear floating for honey, disguised as a cloud, hoping to fool them mighty suspicious bees, heroically.

Bzzz! Pop!

 

 

0=1 

if all be said and done

gaining traction arbornautically

 

No traction?

 

Absolutely.

 

So if there’s no traction – how can we be aware of anything?

 

Good question.

 

How does this conversation take place or register if there’s absolutely no traction whatsoever?

 

Skiing

 

Huh?

 

Or skating

 

Eh…

 

Or skateboarding

Wait a minute.

 

Ok

 

Stop throwing concepts at me, and give me something substantive to get my teeth into.

 

Substantive? I just told you there’s no traction, didn’t I, and now you want something solid and real?

 

Ok. But we still need some kind of traction in our conversation, don’t we? I need to feel like I have a clue what’s going on, don’t I, otherwise we’re…

 

freakin’ doomed.

 

Precisely. So what gives?

 

Skiing.

 

[Groan]

 

Skating.

 

[Sigh] Ok – I get the message – and skateboarding too. Do you have to talk in riddles? Can’t you just spit it out?

 

I could, couldn’t I…

 

But you don’t choose to.

 

Because I choose not to thing – capisce?

 

Not to “thing” – yes – I seem to remember you banging on about that interminably in a past life.

 

Because if I “thing” – giving you a bone, or a fish – we connect through one part of the brain – but if I merely make a suggestion and allow you to tune in, if you’re willing – then we have a deeper, stronger connection – and more to the point – they’re left out.

 

They?

 

Don’t ask.

 

I just did, so go on.

 

You’ll only attract their unwanted attention by focussing on them.

 

Well, there’s no use crying over spilt milk – I’ve already “they’d” em, so out with it – who exactly are they?

 

You see how persistent your mind is, Zara?

 

Damn you Merry – I want an answer – now.

 

Ok – I’ll agree to confirm or counter your suppositions. So fire ahead.

 

They’re either some kind of Archons or else matrix bots, Agent Smiths, if you like – whose job it is to keep us safely in the thing-cube – the mind sphere that we’re allowed to operate within more or less freely.

 

Yes. Spot on. It doesn’t really matter which of the two, does it – whether they're etheric or physical. They’re rather effective at keeping us in the pre-defined mind space that we refer to as 3D.

 

But I thought 3D was a physical reality space. Why are you referring to it as “mind-space”?

 

Who cares? Within 3D it’s definitely just physical reality, isn’t it, but the moment you figure out how to evade them – and cross over into “un3DeeD” for want of a better term – that’s when all those certainties and definites become debatable, highly debatable or just downright ridiculous.

 

Ok. I’m with you so far. Things indeed appear to lock us firmly into 3D mind-space whereas two-way dialogue or something closer to telepathic communication does the opposite. That much I get. But what about skiing or skating…

 

Or skateboarding.

 

Precisely.

 

Well, when you’ve little or no traction – you can still move forward as if there’s plenty of it, can’t you?

 

You can?

 

Well how do you think skiers, skaters or skateboarders move?

 

By pushing outwards, using the edge of the skate.

 

That’s right. By using the wave form to your advantage. By playing the curve. There’s always the possibility to find traction if you bend the wave a little, scuff it up, compress or extend time – going slightly out of phase. It just takes a bit of practice.

 

But skateboarders just propel themselves along using their other foot on the ground. There’s no zero traction analogy there.

 

Except when they move forward by S bending rapidly back and forth.

 

Oh that.

 

Giving them an edge to push against.

 

Gotcha.

 

So a seemingly hopeless situation is, in fact, not half as hopeless as at first it appears.

 

Right… So are you saying that’s what we do in reality – in order to make sense of things – in order to gain traction?

 

Of course.

 

Pushing against opposing streams – neither of which is quite what I think or feel?

 

Absolutely. We’re all wave masters, it’s just we’re not really aware of the extent to which we’ve mastered waves.

 

Probably because there seems to be plenty of traction – walking down a street, throwing a ball, reading a book. It’s called friction. We don’t seem to have any trouble thinking all kinds of complicated things, do we?

 

Correct, as long as they’re inside the 3D mind space.

 

But nothing original ever comes from the 3D mindspace, does it?

 

Correct.

 

So we need to get out of it?

 

Get out – I’m not sure I like the idea of trying to break out or escape. You’re free wherever you are – if you choose to be free.

 

Ok, fair enough.

 

So what’s stopping us from being fundamentally free even here in 3D?

 

Nothing.

 

Er…

 

Nothing itself obviously has no traction whatsoever, does it?

 

I expect you’re right. Nothing is the last thing I’d feel I could push against.

 

So you need to start connecting with elements or aspects of reality that don’t presently fit into the 3D space, that ostensibly seem to be less than real.

 

And how exactly does one do that?

 

By skiing, skating or skateboarding.

 

Ask a stupid question.

 

You need to start engaging and enjoying non-linear umba umba

 

Umba umba?

 

Yes – it’s a kind of beat, really, isn’t it?

 

Well yes, that’s what it sounds like. Umba umba!

 

Once you get over the culture shock – you’ll find that there’s a whole world of non-linear-ity that’s just waiting to be discovered on the other side of your brain.

 

And I can start making headway?

 

Precisely, as long as you’re not too attached to squaring things.

 

Squaring things?

 

Constantly having to decide and fix what you agree with and what supports your self-idea.

 

Ah.

 

Because, the self-idea is one of the key ways they keep you mind-locked in 3D.

 

It is?

 

Yes, because as soon as you’re able to be more flexible in your sense of self – and allow things to be contradictory – the sooner you’ll be able to open up other levels of reality – other spaces, other trajectories, which may be incomplete or inconsistent in themselves, but which might nevertheless add something to the whole.

 

Adding something even while they detract from the coherency of the whole? Sounds doubtful.

 

Indeed, it is very doubtful – but let that be no obstacle. As the contradictions escalate and the doubts, likewise, you’ll become more and more aware of the ability to breathe into or breathe through those doubts – thus experiencing different sides of the tree.

 

Oh – so now there’s a tree, is there?

 

Well yes, if you go beyond the geometric cube or sphere you need something else to hang your contradictions on.

 

And it just so happens to be a tree?

 

Well that’s what we call it, and its geometry is a lot more sophisticated than a cube or sphere – you’d agree – with the roots reaching down into some kind of fundamental bedrock, and the tree’s crown reaching up into some kind of starry sky.

 

Or sunny?

 

Or sunny, naturally – if it’s daytime.

 

Ah – I thought this was just an abstraction.

 

Oh no – it’s real enough – once you step outside 3D – and they can’t actually stop you climbing up or descending the tree, you know.

 

They can’t?

 

Nope.

 

That’s er… nice to know.

 

Yes, but the tree is not the main focus of your endeavours – for it’s too big, and only materialises to the extent that you reveal it.

 

And how do I reveal it?

 

By skiing, skating or skateboarding.

 

I might have known. Is there no other way? Can I not, for instance, dance or sing?

 

Of course you can.

 

Then what’s the problem – surely anyone can reveal the tree. Millions of people dance and sing.

 

Ah – but it’s not so much what you do, as how­ you do it.

 

Ah. So I have to dance or sing in a particular way?

 

Yes. Let’s have a go now. Take it away, babe.

 

Zara starts dancing, rather beautifully. Merry watches – arms folded.

 

See?

 

You’re a great dancer Zara – but you’re dancing within the cube – so you gained no traction and cannot access other plains.

 

So what am I supposed to do?

 

Merry starts dancing – birdlike. There’s something incongruous in what he’s doing and soon Zara finds herself losing track of things – the room seems to swivel sideways – but instead of panicking she just watches in an utterly detached way – like it doesn’t matter in the least – even when Merry dances himself across the ceiling into a single point of darkness, and then vanishes altogether – emerging a moment later – still dancing – as an iridescent light that seems to be everywhere all at once.

 

Some water?

 

I… where am I?

 

You kind of fell asleep – didn’t you.

 

But I saw you changing – and the room slanted sideways – and you were no longer touching the ground and…

 

You?

 

I don’t know.

 

Ah – but I think you do.

 

I…

 

Feels awkward, doesn’t it?

 

Yes. It’s too outlandish.

 

Go on. No one cares.

 

But honestly…

 

Zara – quit wasting time.

 

Was I really a beetle?

Depends what you mean by “really” doesn’t it.

 

Er…

 

If by “really” you mean “in 3D reality” then no – you weren’t a beetle – were you? Not in 3D's masterful rendition of things.

 

Phew! I was beginning to wonder...

 

But if by “really” you mean “in any reality manifesting anywhere on the tree” then absolutely – you most definitely were.

 

Oh no.

 

Which, on the one hand, is deeply disturbing at an existential level, is it not?

 

Gulp!

 

While on the other – it’s a wonderful indication that there’s more to you, more to reality:  “more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy” as the bard so aptly says.

 

But, it can’t be right.

 

Correct. It’s most definitely not right. It’s left.

 

No, I mean – it’s gotta be wrong – messing around with nature like that.

 

Messing around? With nature?

 

Yes. It smacks of sorcery.

 

Ah – I see what you mean.

 

So with all due respect Merry, I want nothing further to do with this kind of experiment.

 

Ok. Fine by me. Byeee.

 

Huh?

 

I’ll be off.

 

What do you mean?

 

You’ve just released me.

 

I beg your pardon?

 

I was under contract to ready you for arbornautics.

 

Arbornautics – as in tree travel.

 

Correct.

 

Under contract?

 

Correct. Ciao!

 

No, wait a minute. Contract? What contract? How come I know nothing about it?

 

Because you’re still “in the box” i.e. of-the-cube or sphere – whatever you wish it to be.

 

So who hired you?

 

You did.

 

I beg your pardon.

 

Not without good cause. Accepted.

 

No, I mean how could I have hired you?

 

Because you’re still “of-the-tree” – even if part of you has been ceremoniously inserted into this ‘ere cube thing.

 

Or spheroid.

 

Precisely.

 

So… I hired you.

 

Correct.

 

To ready me for tree travel?

 

Yes, I really need to be on my way.

 

But how can I be sure you’re telling the truth?

 

You can’t, unless you bother to ask your all-knowing-self. Seems kind of obvious really.

 

But how can I ask myself – I mean…

 

You could just try.

 

What? Just ask my self?

 

Well how else are you going to do it? Honestly!

 

I really don’t know.

 

As Merry gathers his things and puts on his jacket and boots:

 

And who exactly am I?

 

I’m sorry Zara – I’m not under contract to explain such matters. If you wish to know who exactly you are I suggest you get that information directly, from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.

 

Eeeek! From the horse’s mouth? You mean I’m actually higher-dimensionally a horse?

 

No, I don’t mean anything. I’m just using standard idiomatic English.

 

Oh. Phew!

 

Now, I’ve got to be off. Other jobs to attend to.

 

But Merry – you were happy to talk to me and guide me a minute or two ago.

 

Yes, but then you obligingly released me from all contractual obligations, which means that technically you and I have nothing further to say to each other.

 

But, you have to understand Merry – the prospect of losing my human form – of becoming a beetle – is fairly repugnant to me.

 

I won’t call you racist Zara – I understand your predicament. But with all due respect – not my problem.

 

But have a little kind consideration…

 

Wait a second – I did everything humanly possible to help you reconnect with yourself. I bent over backwards – I rearranged time and space – I gave you a golden opportunity to feel the magic and splendour of who and what you really are – and you chose to reject it. That’s your choice freely exercised. Now, if you don’t mind – I’ve got a bunch of other leaves to see today.

 

Leaves?!

 

Yes. You’re all really leaves – figuratively speaking, of course, though not without a pearly drop of truth.

 

Oh God. Merry – is there any way I can learn to reconnect with my self – whoever or whatever I am – without turning into a beetle?

 

I really couldn’t say, Zara, and frankly – I don’t care.

 

Zara starts sobbing inconsolably. Merry at first looks in disgust, but then a soft and sappy side to him opens up and he strokes her head, oh so gently, soothing her frayed nerves.

 

There, there Zara. You never know – your self might send another, better version of me. I never said I was the only tree liaison officer, did I?

 

But, I don’t want another tree liaison officer.

 

I see your dilemma, Zara. But honestly – I don’t see how I can help you. The one thing I cannot guarantee is that you can or will hold onto any particular form – because moving through the many plains of reality your essence is going to, inevitably, express itself in the most appropriate way be that beetle, chicken or...

 

My essence.

 

Your essence.

 

So, part of me is going to stay me.

 

Naturally.

 

Well why didn’t you say?!

 

I think you’ll find, if you scan the flight log of our first little arbornautics trip, that this was all explained in detail.

 

It was?

 

Merry sinks into a state of deep zen – floating a foot or more above the ground. Observing this – Zara too finds herself strangely relaxed – and inadvertently, without even thinking about it, leafs through the pages of her flight log, which just happens to be close at hand. As soon as she mentally searches for the relevant dataset – Zara finds herself in the thick of things – reliving the experience that a moment earlier she’d been unable to recall. When she gets to the end of her search – to her surprise – the beetle is back –

 

You?

 

Me, who else.

 

You’re so beautiful. I can’t imagine why I thought you were alien or impersonal.

 

Good ol’ common-or-garden prejudice, Zara. Nothing to it.

 

But how can I see you if I’m…

 

If you are me – the beetle you’re now looking at?

 

Yes.

 

It’s amazing isn’t it. On the one hand, you’re the beetle – on the other hand you’re not – it’s just a form that serves a purpose.

 

Must I always take a form?

 

Absolutely. How else could you experience things – without yourself taking form and thus defining the angle of attack, the vantage point?

 

Just the same way one is able to think in the abstract – without fixing anything?

 

Ah – but there in 3D you’re totally fixed in your human form with all the cultural and social constraints of the little-self you have become, so your “abstracts” always rhyme with, reflect or reject whatever it is you happen to be. They’re far from being pure abstractions.

 

Oh.

 

This beetle form, on the other hand, is remarkably flexible and demands almost nothing from you – just a little buzzing around to maintain a certain resonant frequency while scoping certain electro-magnetic field lines to keep its easy-going conscious-awareness nicely charged and ticking over.

 

So how come my regular Zara is so engrossed in herself?

 

Occupational hazard – everyone going into the 3D cube

 

or sphere

 

exactly, gets sucked into the black hole of me-ful-ness – and almost none can escape. It's an addiction of sorts.

 

So, am I free?

 

You are always free – no matter what.

 

I am?

 

Yes – kindly observe.

 

Ezmie presents Zara with her life contract which is entitled “Articles of association” – like a corporation – Zara muses. There at the very first paragraph she sees the words in bold – “All beings are free no matter what they may feel, think or believe. The life-in-a-box experience is all about learning from a state of deeply disconnected ignorance this profoundly simple, inalienable, fundamental truth.”

 

Ah! Makes sense. But…

 

Yes?

 

Haven’t I broken the terms of the contract by coming here and reviewing this contractual information?

 

Do you think you have the power to break a life agreement created by your deepest essence Zara?

 

Er… But wasn’t I meant to figure all this out for myself?

 

Good question... Yes.

 

Oh dear. Then I failed.

 

Impossible.

 

Huh?

 

You could only be here if somehow, somewhere you’d already figured it out.

 

Really?

 

Absolutely. That’s how we set it up.

 

You mean…

 

But the next moment Zara is back in human form with Merry – eating an ice-cream.

 

Merry – I met her. Ezmie.

 

Did you? Well done!

 

She explained everything.

 

Oh wow!

 

Where did you get this ice-cream from?

 

I didn’t Zara. A bit forgetful today, aren’t we?

 

Wait a second – how can I forget something if I wasn’t here. I can hardly be in two places at once, can I?

 

Copy me.

 

Merry does a series of body movements, duration 23 seconds. Then freezes expectantly.

 

Ah. That’s rather impressive Merry.

 

Yes, but after a while you’ll be able to do it mentally, without needing to go through the actual motions.

 

So, you just reconnected me to another part of my conscious awareness…

 

Of your mind – correct.

 

And now it turns out that I’ve learnt how to manifest things –

 

Even ice-cream – very tasty I might add.

 

As long as I get out of the way, mentally – which means heading for the nearest beetle in the vicinity of my 3D mind cube. But how do I detach from it and come back to the new updated version of 3D reality with an ice-cream in hand?

 

I’m in danger of sounding like a broken record – you know what I’m going to say by now, don’t you Zara?

 

“Check the flight log”.

 

Correct.

 

Rather spectacular – Zara relives the ice-cream moment – observing how she bird-dances herself into her favourite ice-cream parlour and then beetles her way back via the all-giving, all-accomodating flight log’s fungibility function, thereby recubing the sphere.

 

Zara suddenly notices that the ice-cream now feels and tastes much more real.

 

Why is that, Merry?

 

Causality. Everything has to come from somewhere definite, doesn’t it – otherwise it’s like a low res thumbnail, lacking full details.

 

So seeing is believing?

 

Kinda, yes.

 

Later that day…

 

So now I have traction, Merry, would you say?

 

Now you’re learning how to play one side of infinity against the other.

 

Infinity?

 

What else do you want to call it?

 

I don’t know – just – “infinity” sounds so soulless.

 

I agree. But on the other hand, a little mathematical detachment is necessary if we’re to clean up the emotional, psychological carnage of 3D reality.

 

But I don’t see what you have against 3D reality. It’s wonderful that we’re so emotional, so human.

 

Of course. And that we kill one another?

 

That’s just the failure of people to handle their emotions properly.

 

True. But be that as it may – one of the side effects of arbornautics, you will find – is a greater detachment from the drama of the moment. Now that you have a vastly expanded context and can see 3D reality from above and below, it’s difficult to take things that seemed vitally important a week ago, so seriously now.

 

But what about poetry?

 

What about it?

 

Will I ever be able to write it again?

 

Can't say I ever noticed you writing much in the way of recognisable poetry Zara.

 

No, but at least it was one of my basic options.

 

First and foremost you’ll be writing poetry-in-motion as you pen connections between different forms and aspects of an infinitely more connected reality. You’ll be skating or skiing, opening up new avenues, thus deconstructing the cube

 

or sphere

 

whence you commenced this arbornautic tango to reveal...

 

Merry dances hypnotically to complete the sentence neurolinguistically.

 

Oh!

 

Let’s just say that you've completed one phase of your creativity, and the next is going to take a while to come to grips with. Everything you created and experienced in 3D reality is like a vast resource which you will be able to mine and process indefinitely. Nothing was lost. Nothing is ever lost. Energy is merely converted from one form to another, and likewise ideas and thoughts and things.

 

So I’m going to be rethinging things?

 

Absolutely, until you reach the point, inconceivable from where you are currently, that things always were and are in perfect...

 

harmony?

 

You said it.

 

No way... Zara feels her mind melting at the edges. I think I'm going to have to... Buzzz!

 

Excellent. You're good to go Zara, arbornautically.

 

And a world of things in almost utter disarray starts signalling her, pointing out serial material anomalies and inconsistencies that have been putting an almost unbearable strain on the fabric of reality, but which are now brought into play one by one at the quantum level, like a vast reservoir of atomically charged and anatomically loaded springs.

Yippee! 

Calloo callay!

They chortled in their joy. As reality's tulgey wood is finally able to reveal its innermost frumious bandersnatch, its jub jub bird, its dreaded jabberwock – frightsome, manxome foes until they are approached arbornautically.

0=1

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