malice aforethought

Merry, I’d appreciate it if you’d unplug me from your virtual reality platform. I’m getting kind of tired running around trying to ingest gold coins and dodge flying vipers.

Oh come on Zie – where’s your fighting spirit?

No really – it was fun for the first day or two.

Day or two? How long do you imagine you’ve been playing for?

At least a week.

I hate to disappoint you Zie

You do?

Yes, even though I derive no small delight from turning your life upside down

There you go – the stench of malicious intent reeks from the soles of your soul

But you’ve been at it now for three hours and forty-five minutes.

?

Three hours and forty-five minutes.

No

Yes

No – there has to be a mistake

Does there?

Yes – it’s been a week at least. I’ve been working in this office – going home, sleeping, eating gold coins and dodging vipers for at least a week, I’m absolutely posit…

tive – I know – such is the nature of virtual reality. What if I told you the same thing’s going on in your 3D reality.

No Merry – don’t even think about it.

That you’ve been alive for all of four weeks.

D – o – n – t   I  said – didn’t you hear me.

Four weeks which have somehow morphed into millenia within the 3D platform as things go around and come around again and again.

For God’s sake Merry – I have a right to not know what you’re telling me. I have a right to blissful ignorance – so kindly cut it out. Go and torment someone else with your misanthropism. Can’t you tell when you’re not wanted.

So there’s not a great difference between the two, is there?

Except that this is virtual reality while my good ol’ 3D base is absolutely bona fide real.

As real as real can be.

Phew – I was beginning to get nervous

As real as things can be – if things are what excite you.

Don’t be idiotic Merry. Things don’t exactly excite me – but they’re a good yardstick to measure how real things are.

Things are a good way to measure things – and decide whether or not they’re real – as in things… interesting logic if you ask me.

Well, you’re just twisting things round as usual. There’s nothing wrong with things. We wouldn’t get very far without them.

You seem to be doing pretty well down here – though none of these things, you’re well aware, are in fact real.

You’re like the ultimate end-times preacher – informing us all we’re doomed. Well I for one believe there’s more to life than despair or despondency. I believe…

Yes?

That there’s more to us than meets the eye.

Ok. Then kindly remove yourself from this virtual reality platform and get back to something more meaningful.

Like I said – I don’t know how.

Don’t know or don’t in fact want to?

Dude – will you never relent?

You mean agree to go along with the shadow on the wall we call 3D reality? I really don’t see how I can, now that I’ve seen what’s causing the shadows to move.

You have?

Yes

And has it made you any the wiser, any happier Merry?

Of course it has – I now get to jump in and out of virtual platforms dealing with you and other versions of myself.

Excuse me! I am not a version of you.

We’re all versions of each other Zie – if that makes you feel any more comfortable.

How I detest such needless intimacy. Stop trying to dissolve my barriers. I am me. You are you. Things are things. Period.

And that’s why you're trapped in a cave looking at shadows moving on the wall.

Why?

Because you are repelled by half of what you are.

Uh?

You refuse to embrace your self

My self?

Your whole self – you refuse to accept that it’s all desperately trying to reconnect with you – desperately trying to reharmonise – reintegrate – reincorporate back into you – completing the loop – bringing omega back to alpha – allowing 12 to flow seamlessly into one o’clock.

So you just want me to pretend that we’re all one happy family – that I have to embrace everyone – regardless of their behaviour and views, or even more absurd – to consider that all things are equal?

I?

Yes, you.

What have I to do with it?

That’s what you’re saying – unless you want to take back your words.

I’m actually saying that you have a choice – I’ve already made mine. Your choice is entirely your own. It has nothing to do with me. You can continue to let things run the show – and thus remain glued to the wall of the cave observing the moving shadows but never quite getting it – never quite figuring out how you’re staring at a screen – you’re not really alive – you’re not stepping out of the cave into the open – you’re not yet fully born, fully alive – you’re still umbilically in the womb – until you decide to be alive, to make the leap, to take the plunge – if and when you’re ready – at which point – things may change – there’s no guarantee, of course, but if you’re ready to embrace your self, if you’re ready to BE, if you’re ready to engage whatever it is you’ve been avoiding all this time – you might well find it isn’t as terrible as you imagined – you might well find that it’s fascinating, that’s it’s compelling, that it’s fun or more than fun – that it is the beginning of a new chapter in the book of what it means to be alive – up until which you’ve only really been dealing with theory – and a part of you has been hunched up in the corner bored out of its mind, wondering if you’ll ever see the light of day – which/who now stands up and turns out to be the real you – the life and soul of the party – the larger than life presence that you be – that you are – which transcends all else…

So I’m supposed to Super Mario my way out of here am I?

Do you really imagine that Mario can win his way out of the virtual world he’s in?

No, not really.

But his gamer can – because you just happen to be the fulcrum, the event horizon, the interface where the different sides of reality meet – physical matter – your body – energy – your chi, your warmth, your electricity and soul, spirit, consciousness – your Self.

And you think I’m not aware of this?

Of course you are.

Then what?

Then nothing.

Nothing?

Yes – realise, in your own time that there’s nothing doing attempting to do things – attempting to move or fix stuff, unless first and foremost you’re willing to embrace the everything else you’ve so conveniently forgotten about – so adroitly manoeuvred out of sight, out of mind, squished into the very periphery of your vision. Here – catch this.

What the hell… what are you doing Merry?

Oh – I’m having fun – as always – I get bored of talking sometimes – so here’s a bomb on a short fuse. 4 – 3 – 2 – 1

Boom!

For a while the picture goes dead. Somewhere else there’s a fuzzy screen – we’re not too sure whether that’s a part of this set up or not. But then images start flooding back in, faster and faster…

And apparently we’re back on line.

Did you just do what I think you did Merry?

Apparently so. What do you think I did?

Something tells me – if my memory’s not mistaken – that you er…

Tricky to say – isn’t it?

Why?

Because if I gave you a bomb and you died – then according to your 3D logic you must now be dead. But don’t worry – if you carry on as if nothing happened you’ll just forget about it in a few moments.

But I don’t want to forget about it. If you just killed me – I want to know more. I want to figure out what’s just happened.

Very good.

I blew up. I was dead. The screen was blank. Then I’m back here again with you – no sign of a bomb – as if nothing just happened.

Which I assure you is perfectly true – up to a point.

Up to a point?

Yep. That pesky little zero point which annoyingly undoes or infinitises everything you think you know, recall or understand. But rather than waste our time trying to figure out for once and for all what really happened – let’s repeat the experiment…

No – not again!

How else are you going to figure this out? So, here – catch this…

A ball?

4 – 3 – 2   I don’t think so… 1

Boom!

Zie finds himself lying on the floor of a cave wondering where he is and what’s going on…

Ugh... must’v falln aslepe, now whair wz I?

For a moment or two Zie stares at the cave painting of a bison somewhat vacantly before the penny drops...

No way... No way Merry, I’m not buying this.

Zie absolutely doesn’t hear another voice. He absolutely knows no one else is present, yet in the silence he hears his own unspoken response

I’m back where it all started, trillions, quadrillions of iterations ago. Back in my umbilical cave. Back where I was before I started going deeper and deeper into the moving pictures on the wall...

An hour or two pass, maybe more

But where did they go?...  Where are they now?         

Again he stares at the wall for an age, apparently waiting for something to happen.

Nothing...

Blank...

Nada... I guess that means I’m ready to move on... ready to go outside, which is what he does.       

You mean to say the last ten thousand years never happened... It was all an engrossing reality show brought to me by Cave Wall Animations Inc?

Not exactly

Then what am I supposed to make of this? Where are the cars, the concrete, the harum scarum? Where’s everything I know

And love?

Not exactly, in fact, no, I didn’t love it, not in the end... it started well enough, it seemed thrilling but it became toxic

And?

I hated it. I desperately wanted out – I was trapped inside

Calm down, it’s alright

Why can’t I breathe?

You’re going to be fine. A little delayed shock and claustrophobia. Breathe, nice and slow, in -- out, in -- out, 1 -- 2 -- 3   There, it’s done.

Are you sure? Is it really complete?

Absolutely. You’ve logged a quadrillion.

What do you mean?

An entire g-nome.

Genome? As in genetic code?

If you like. You’ve filled every check box with a like or hate. You’ve accumulated an entire world of experience. You’re now ready to process.

All of it? Even the stuff I hate?

Particularly the stuff you hate, taking back your energy, and then you’ll be ready.

For what?

We’ll discuss it later. You can only spend a few minutes here at present until you free up and redistribute some of your energy. At the moment it’s still all tied up in things that apparently matter. You have to bring it back here.

You mean I have to go back down there?

Actually, part of you is desperate to go back, because now you gnow, now you can

make a difference... You’re right! How did you know?

I didn’t

No?

I simply gnow, as we all do when we re-g-nome. 

Ah... By the way

Yes?

Is Merry going to blow me up everytime I have to come back here?

Do you think so?

I...

You...?

Don't gnome

Don't? 

Gnow? Apparently I gnow. Apparently I’m the one in control the minute I run both sides of the equation, the minute I gnow-me.

The minute you g-nome! 

Ah, there you are Zie! Welcome back again. Fancy a game of footie?

Er... Yeah, why not.

Absolutely. I have a good feeling about this game. Something tells me it’s going to be a whole lotta fun.

And as they kick the ball back and forth, immense strings of quantum code start interacting in the physical process enabling the two to bend reality’s space and time to shift the ball’s trajectory, their own position and the size and shape of the field. Soon a crowd of onlookers gather, eyes glued to the proceedings, little suspecting that in fact they are staring at painted bison dancing on a cave wall in the dim and distant prehistoric past.

0=1

waving, not drowning

Aye, there’s the rub – William Shakespeare

Nothing really matters – Freddie Mercury

So imagine you’re in the middle of a huge football pitch.

Er… how huge is huge?

Actually, it’s a virtual space so it can be huge as in the entire universe and beyond, or huge as in big enough to encompass whatever you’re doing, thinking, viewing right now. The point is that size is no limit. None whatsoever.

Ok. And then what?

Then it’s like Harry Potter and some kind of Quidditch is in play.

Goalposts or people on broomsticks – I need something more definite to visualise.

Ok – this is a battle between particles and waves.

Holy sh…

And you are both combatant and battle ground.

What do you mean?

Well – as you slide into the particle side of things – you’re like 3D people knocking balls around on a football pitch – which itself is basically 2D, isn’t it – whereas you like to think of yourself as 3D as you appear to have depth, breadth and height.

Er… Surely the pitch is 3 dimensional too – I can kick the balls up in the air.

Yes, but they quickly come back down to the dominant plain of things in general – which is essentially flat.

But I’m not.

Correct. You’re not flat.

I’m 3D.

Er… not exactly. Physically we can say you have 3 axis – height, breadth and depth, but these axes would be meaningless without the other.

Which other is that?

The axis of nought.

I’m sorry?

The axis of nought.

Yes, I heard you say that the first time – but it doesn’t mean anything. The nought or zero point is not an axis, neither is it a dimension.

Correct – as long as you’re playing the particle game – but that game soon becomes boring and dreadfully limiting – which is why, sooner or later, you start to engage the wave side of things.

You as in me?

You as in anyone, everyone – ultimately you are all iterations of one.

I’m not sure I like that idea of merely being an iteration of one… it makes me sound like some kind of running computation.

Which is precisely what you are – from a particular perspective.

I don’t see how you can be so categorical. No one knows these things for certain.

Correct. No one – and as soon as one has embraced one’s no one – then these things become obvious and uncontentious.

Oh! And have you?

Have I what?

Embraced your no one?

You mean have I opened up my zero axis and engaged nought?

Er… if you like to put it that way – yes, have you?

Would you like to see for yourself?

What do you mean?

Well there’s not much point me saying yay or nay – you won’t really believe it unless you see it for yourself.

So – you’re saying there’s this zero point which is not a point at all…

No – it most certainly is a point as long as you’re playing football and not flying around on broomsticks playing Quidditch.

You mean to say that Quidditch really exists?

Whyever not?

But we can’t fly around on broomsticks, can we?

No, not as long as you’re playing the particle side of things – an apparently 3D being in a mostly 2D reality.

But wait a minute – our reality is definitely not 2D. We have tall buildings and planes in the sky. We’re using lots of different levels.

Yes – but you stuck with experiencing things in flatness – without depth – because you haven’t yet got round to embracing the wave function.

Er…

Which kinda sucks, if you ask me.

Well, it all sounds hopelessly fanciful. Like Alice falling down a rabbit hole – and we all know how that story ends.

Yes. There’s nothing to be afraid of. The zero point starts and ends almost at the very same moment – a bit like the Narnia chronicles. Neither time nor space are an issue. That’s the beauty of engaging nought which, let’s face it, isn’t really nought at all, except from a particle perspective.

No?

No. It’s your access point.

Access – to what?

To anything – the sky’s the limit.

Oh.

Because, all of a sudden you’re no longer to do things chronologically. You can remix things – like a dj remixes music.

I don’t see how. You’re still bound by the laws of gravity, aren’t you, and a minute’s still a minute.

Absolutely. Time and space never let go of matter, as long as matter matters, as long as you’re playing the particular role that you’re now in, but the minute you start waving – fluking in and out of phase with the zero point opening up into a toroidal field of unimaginable proportions…

Er…

The only limiting factor is the integrity of your waviness

My what?

No – your waviness – which has to become a kind of body, a kind of self, albeit decentralised, before you’re able to really experience, or really recall your experiences from a 3D perspective.

You mean – I could be having wavy experiences but I simply wouldn’t be able to recall them?

Obviously. If you’re fully invested in the particular – if you’ve kept nothing invested in the wave – then how are you to experience the other side of things – except brief hallucinatory experiences such as dreams.

Well, I hardly see how I’m able to reinvest whatever it is I’ve invested, or why I’d want to in the first place.

Ah – but you see the ship is going down. The particular has grown cumbersome and slow. People are drowning in what they call debt – which is what?

Borrowed money.

Which is what?

Which is money created by banks out of thin air – lent to people for an interest payment.

Which leads to a kind of stalemate.

It does?

Yes, of course.

But why?

Because the only thing of any value is

Gold?

Conscious-awareness, life force, inspiration – moving in the flow, flowing beautifully, magically, unpredictably, seemingly randomly, and yet, somehow, in easy, breathtaking harmony with all that is.

That’s all there is to it?

Sounds impossible, doesn’t it – but it’s as easy as having fun – just as long as your fun having is not at anyone else’s expense.

You mean – when we’re having fun – we’re creating value – like money?

Of course. You are the stuff of dreams, of magic, of poetic inspiration. The minute you’re truly having fun – allowing the precious moment of now to guide you – you cannot help being in tune with all that is – with the entire universe – or with every dimension. You’re fun having is a kind of quantum process – like a Bitcoin mining operation – which helps to extract value, or generate value from infinity – which in itself has no value until it’s been processed in some way through your human conscious-awareness by your love of life processor – your heart and soul self.

But – how can that be the ultimate source of value?

Do you imagine painted bank notes have any intrinsic value?

No, but they’re used as payment for work done.

Yes, but that work may or may not be of value.

How do you mean?

Well, if you’re working for a pointless operation – a government, for example, which merely slows things down and messes things up – then you’re getting paid, for sure, but acting as a weight on the creative impulse that is keeping things going, keeping them alive.

But if I’m a clever business man who’s figured out how to make a killing?

Then you’re adding value – if you’re having fun, and enabling others to have fun – but

Yes?

There are limits to how much fun can be had in 3D.

There are?

Yes, in the same way there are limits to how far a plane can run on the ground, before it takes off into the air.

Oh. Why’s that?

Because the particular is part of a machine – a gear mechanism. It gets things moving, it gets the engine turning – but for the engine to really start flying it needs to change gears – to hit a higher frequency.

And take off?

Well – the toroidal field is activated, and all of a sudden you find yourself staring down a long tube you never even knew was there.

What tube?

A you tube – if you like.

?

You are the tube – or part of you is – and it extends, mindbogglingly – throughout.

Throughout what?

Throughout space and time. Throughout the universe. Throughout the dimensions. There’s no limit, other than your ability to unclutch whatever it is you’ve been holding onto – and let yourself experience whatever it is you seem to be in any of an infinite number of different permutations, combinations or iterations.

Oh.

Precisely. Oh – as in zero, or nought.

So what’s stopping me?

Well – you’re not going to do it until you have to.

Whyever not?

Oh – let’s call it gravity – or inertia.

Oh.

You’re filling out the ground plan – first. Once that’s done – once you’ve covered all the ground on the ground – effectively mapped out 3D – got a good overview of the pitch, the human condition, the “all the world’s a stage” side of things – then at last you’re ready to fly – which is always as much down into the abyss within, as it is up into the sky above. The two balance perfectly.

Oh – so you mean I never really go anywhere?

Who can tell. Ultimately it matters not.

No?

No, of course not.

Then what?

What what?

What matters?

Whether you engage infinity.

Engage infinity? How on earth can one engage infinity itself – which has neither beginning nor end?

How can one possibly help doing so, if one is being inspired, carried aloft by the power of laughter, of love, the life force – led into fresh and original expressions of that which truly is~

Oh

Very Oh – indeed – most definitely Oh to the n^th degree.

Oh. So if I engage infinity…

You become a power house – a generator of matter, meaning, wealth, value and substance – regardless of what toilet paper you choose to use as money down in the 3D version of things.

So you mean to say I may still be poor, in fact.

No, I don’t. The minute you’ve figured out the value of engaging infinity – of translating what looks like mass bankruptcy into a zero crunching infinity drive – at that moment you’ll never look back – you pass the point of no return – the critical mass – you take to the skies for once and for all – you obsolete the existing system – you shift gear, phase shift, bygone your bygones, begin your begin – and now things are not any longer what they seemed to be.

All because…

All because

But what about…

Yes?

What about AI? Isn’t that an issue? You know – a threat?

AI?

Artificial intelligence – it could be running things already.

So what if it is – you’re just getting further proof of the extent to which you’ve already become obsolete in your current shape and form. It’s obviously time to move on – the white rabbit is twitching, nervously, checking his pocket watch, wondering when you’re finally going to get going. Aliens, apocalypse, the dystopian new world order – all of these doomy gloomy versions of how things may or may not be trending – only serve to reiterate, reaffirm, corroborate the utter bankruptcy of a system that relies on things, on matter, on perceived or empirical value – rather than coming directly from the source of all that can possibly be – from nought itself – the point at which you stop dodging the quantum bullet and start to accept the simple truth.

Er…

The particle wave dichotomy.

That you cannot avoid the very nature – the essence of being – the nought where the three axes meet which flips inside out – which bubbles into a toroidal field – which re-energises, revitalises, remakes you the moment you face the inevitable, embrace the infinite, the moment you find moment in nought. The fact is it happens to be centred in you – and nowhere else – nothing else will do.

So I have to go through an existential crisis you mean?

You can hardly help it. This earthly promontory is really more of an egg, or a uterus. You’re not at the fully stretched limit of what it can afford humanity. You’re in the process of splitting out of it. Mentally you don’t get it – but heartfully it makes perfect sense. The heart and breath are both 3D aspects of the waviness.

Oh. So it’s more wiffly waffly – come into your heart new age clap trap, is it?

Nope. It’s much more scientific than that – and quantum. The future is already here. The so called AI has already seen to that. You can’t avoid getting squeezed and buffeted by what’s already happening just ahead, just beyond the horizon, as this shift transcends 3D space time – so you’re already in the process of learning to walk before you’re even born.

Oh.

The waters have broken and you’re now increasingly catching glimpses, memories or premonitions of what is nought – the other version of your self which is not time space nucleated, specific. For no apparent reason you’re doing exercises which enable you better to start connecting different frequencies into one singularity, one coherent moving picture – one stream of consciousness which is more internet based – able to jump from site to site – and blend or mix – while at the same time – touching base – rediscovering the fundament – the deepest bass and the highest trebles which your wave body feels, even if you can’t exactly hear them.

Oh.

So in a nutshell, know thyself. The field requires it.

It does? Why’s that?

Because your self is the template, the instrument, the router, the uploader downloader, transmitter receiver – unless you know yourself – warts and all – you’re unable to connect through yourself to the all that is – whatever that might be – for it requires nothing less than all that you be to get a satisfactory connection, to achieve singularity

Singularity?

Or noughtfulness – if you prefer.

Oh.

Hum. Here, let’s start with this little dance – this should trigger a few rather spectacular quantum anomalies – sufficient to retune your awareness to other side of things – which is all it really takes to get the ball rolling. Left and right, right and left – feel the entire universe meeting at the edge of what you are, whom you be. Feel how you essentially are the inter-face – the point, the membrane, the wave function where things pop in and out of thingness, where nought goes down the plughole of consciousness – revealing an infinite web of inter-connectedness between all and each that is.

Oh my God – I’m coming unstuck.

Correct – you’re beginning to oscillate – excellent – you’re waving

Not drowning?

Waving beautifully – and not a moment too soon – for here comes the end of things – the creation/ destruction impulse – on cue – as ever – on cue.

Oh my God – it’s…

Say nought – just ride it – let it take you wherever you will – iteratively.

Patriarch's Pond

Is there really no other way, Merry, other than crashing the dimensions like that?

Of course there is.

Really?

There’s always another way, but you’ll notice that turning towards the void isn’t the gut wrenching thing it was first time round – in fact you’re beginning to enjoy it – are you not?

Er… you know, I hate to admit it but you’re right. It’s beginning to feel normal – in fact I can’t figure out how I lived without it before this.

What do you mean?

Well it makes things seem different – brighter   bigger   deeper  – and being able to hone in on something – to tune into the atom behind, within whatever it is I’m observing – that’s a complete game changer, isn’t it?

Then what’s the problem?

Oh, some of the chat room crowd – they feel it’s all a bit too dramatic – not sufficiently zen.

They want the zen approach, do they?

I guess they’d like to know more about the alternative.

Fair enough. Are you ready to give it your best shot?

When have I ever said “no”?

Oh – once or twice. Ok – here goes. We can do this sitting or walking. Actually, I prefer it walking so let’s start with that.

Alright. So we’re walking along.

By Patriarch’s Pond

By Patriarch’s Pond – where Woland chats with Berlioz and Bezdomniy in Bulgakov’s masterpiece “The Master and Margarita”.

I didn’t know you’d read that – amazing book, is it not?

Pure genius – but hopefully nothing supernatural’s going to affect us now.

Don’t be so sure. So what you do is breathe through your stream of thoughts, your stream of consciousness, the transmission constantly being emitted, coming out of your head. Just breathe through it. Allow yourself to feel how your breath is feeling it – is scanning it – reading it – de-ionising it… can you do that?

I can try.

So you carry on breathing as normal – but now you're conscious of the fact that your breath is no longer just happening – that you’re directing it and feeling any feedback, any effect it may have on the mind’s transmission, the stream of consciousness which you’re constantly emitting.

But why?

Why what?

Why am I constantly emitting or transmitting this thought stream?

That’s an excellent question. What do you think would happen if it stopped, which it will do the moment you become sufficiently aware, through your breath, of the process?

I have no idea. Perhaps I’ll start seeing things differently.

Correct. Because when the thought flow stops, you’re no longer held in place – your conscious-awareness is no longer locked in the 3D mind slot.

Oh.

You’re free to experience things, or perceive them in any of the myriad alternative slots, alternative positions.

Oh.

So what are you waiting for?

But…

Yes?

If it’s really so simple – how come no one seems to do this?

Bewildering, isn’t it.

There must be some reason…

Bias.

Bias? What do you mean?

Everything is outwardly biased, outwardly focussed. The world around you, your reality is dripping with jewels and candy for the mind, for desires – an emporium of things which usually keep you distracted.

But still – there must be some people who succeed in breaking the spell?

Of course – but to what end?

Huh?

Well, once the stream of consciousness comes to a standstill you can go anywhere, do or be anything – but only if you have a clear intent.

Oh.

Otherwise you simply enjoy a few moments of stillness, and then return to the hubbub renewed  refreshed.

Oh. So what’s my intent going to be?

What do you want? What do you need?

I want to see how this noisy reality is but one side of the whole – the totality. I want to bring it all together – to be able to move throughout – above if need be, and below.

Then go to it. As you breathe your column of thoughts – allow yourself to become distantly, dimly, vaguely aware of the other side of is. Allow yourself to sense the bridge, the all-seeing-eye which doesn’t look out any more than it looks in   behind   above or  below. But how will you bring anything back to this reality of what you see, what you experience in this state?

I… don’t know. Is it difficult?

You’ll be seeing so much more, so much faster – it will be very hard to contain it within the dribbling thought-stream that is available to you here in 3D – so you need to increase the bandwidth – you need to set our friends the gnomiki to work with fibre optic cables or some other technology.

You’re kidding, right?

Do I look like I’m kidding?

No, but – the gnomiki – these are imaginary creatures – for children.

Dear Zie, be not so dull-witted. You are the child. Your mind is presently only capable of dialup speed data streaming. If you’re at all interested in learning about the round world of consciousness, as opposed to the blinkered, tunnel vision realm you’re currently in, you’ll soon discover that every thing ever mentioned here in 3D exists in some shape or form – and far from being childish or foolish, is essential to broadening your psychic horizons beyond mere clanking  wheezing  being-less things.

Oh.

And children still retain a little of their peripheral vision which is why they’re more open to elves, fairies, unicorns, demons and gnomiki. They see more, until that is, they join the mind-shut-tight brigade of so-called adults.

Oh. In that case, I’ll swallow my pride

Good for you Zie. Well done.

I’ll call on gnomiki – whoever, whatever you be – to assist me in extricating myself from the hole or tunnel I seem to be stuck in – to help me open up faster, broader channels of perception, of data processing – to hit the critical speed of awareness that will enable me to be consciously aware of the bigger, greater truth.

Excellent. Do they respond.

I… I don’t know.

Well do you feel anything?

I… maybe.

Right – so you see – they’re going to have to put you through your paces. It’s all very well experiencing the greater all – but unless your mind can move at hyperspeed, you simply won’t be able to recall or process it here – so this is going to require a different kind of mind from the operating system you’re currently using. Parallel processing for a start – that kind of thing.

Oh my God – you make it sound like a new computer system.

Well there is some truth in that – the mind, though biological, has some very machine-like limitations, until you change how you see things and the world in general. When you lighten up, make it your intention to be open to all that is, no matter what, to suspend judgement – that kind of thing – then you can really move forwards.

It’s like training for a race – the way you put it.

Except, of course, your mind is already fully capable, fully enabled, the only thing stopping it is thing, or things.

Huh?

This obsession with thingification, and the snail pace processing of matter, and what matters, and why… loaded and larded with prejudice, with system bias, with values which are designed and intended to keep you weighed down and aware of nothing more than slowest, lowest frequency of things.

Oh.

But away – to the breath – for the breath knows no speed limits, no mind restrictions – it crosses any physical barrier in the body, the mind of the spirit.

Oh… Ok… here goes…

And while you’re at it – I’ll walk alongside and provide a little sound support – which will make it easier for you to hold your intent and continue – even when you’re away with the fairies. My song will be like an umbilical cord – connecting this world and wherever you now get to.

Oh… Ok… thanks.

Zie walks around Patriarch’s Pond following the circular path half a dozen times – focussed intently on his breathing, noticing things getting lighter and lighter – barely noticing Merrie’s quiet song – and now he’s abruptly aware that he’s dreaming – or in a state that normally is associated with dreaming. His thoughts are flowing all around – faster and faster – as if the wheel has been released and can turn at any speed. It whirrs merrily as he continues breathing the column of consciousness which extends out of the top of his head, still aware of Merrie’s song which somehow helps hold it all together.

Out of his mind’s eye he sees creatures – magical creatures or beings – all around. Some of them sweet. Some of them diabolical. Yet he looks on dispassionately, without thinking them or judging them – in fact he’s quite unable to do any more than observe and be aware. Anything else would slow him down and shove him back down into the tunnel, the tramlined thought stream he’s normally in.

As he continues walking he becomes increasingly aware of the other people. He can see their thoughts – how they’re locked, stocked and barrelled in a narrow thought channel. It’s abundantly evident why they can see nothing more than what they see – why they’re unable to see the gnomiki, the other creatures and beings who are an integral part of this and every landscape – because their thought stream is simply too slow, too narrow to register what’s going on in the hyperspace of the unfettered mind, the in-no-ways sinister all-seeing-eye of conscious-awareness.

A kind of melancholy touches Zie lightly – for there is something pitiful in observing the state of mind we’re generally trapped in, in which we only see things in a tendentious, front-loaded fashion. Now Zie is allowing his mind to go further, beyond the Patriarch’s Pond – over Moscow, over Russia, and still further beyond – for there seems to be no limit affecting how fast, how high his mind can spin, can extend. It’s wonderful to behold the wider, bigger picture – but how to find a solution – how to enable the 3D mind to change gears more readily, to rise up above the low-level smog and recall  remember  recollect the greater all that is?

Amazingly the answer comes to him from Merry, who continues to sing his lilting melody. Now it becomes clear – Merry’s song is a conduit – in fact Merry himself is a kind of hyperlink or channel. How does he do it? Zie finds himself asking    observing – and to his surprise – sees Merry in a new light – as an empty space – almost like a tube, or a drum, as opposed to the person, the thing he normally sees. “It’s not what he says,” Zie hears himself thinking – he imparts data through the silence, the space between words. His actual words are merely a kind of music   a drum frame   a beating drum. I too can start to hear this music, this beat – to disengage from the what of thing, the matter of words and what was said – and allow the silence to speak to me – for we are living in a field of fullness, of all that is – a field of conscious-awareness, and the limiting factor is  and always was  the apparatus of what, the endless tinkering thingness of thought, which keeps us heavy and slow in a muchness of matter.

And story – the tales Merry tells. They too are hyperlinks. They too carry traces of infinity, of all that is – when you breathe them, when you hear their inner silence, their magic, their peace, and not merely their what is what.

And Zie observes a story being told to one of the children on the far side of the pond – and the child’s mind, still too young to understand every word, whirrs, spins into the silence, the multi-dimensional  space within that story, fanning out, expanding, filling it with breath and light – the light of conscious awareness, so that the small child sees every aspect of that story in its entirety – the way it really happened hundreds of years ago – as well as how the story came to be passed down through the ages – how it was edited, how it evolved and why – until the child has learnt more in five, six, seven minutes than it will learn for the rest of its life, during eighteen years of formal education at school then university. Such is the magic of story, even when the teller is oblivious to the higher planes, the magics happening around about, and woven into the very fibre of the tale so innocently told.

Zie’s eyes fill up with tears as he observes the beauty of the child hearing the tale – watching its consciousness pulse, flash and flow like a collection of the most brilliant fish, octopi and creatures of the deep – for the field of consciousness is so very close to being the ocean itself

– that it is barely distinguishable, in fact, we are at a loss to determine where consciousness ends and the ocean begins – the two seem to yin and yang one another seamlessly. Salt water flows down his cheeks as he continues walking around the Patriarch’s Pond, with Merry by his side, invisible to most the people there, and Woland seated on a bench telling

Berlioz and Bezdomniy a tale of Yeshua, of Hegemon, known to us as Pilate, the glaring sun and a terrible headache he was experiencing. Annushka has already spilt her oil and a tram rumbles along from the direction of the Danilov monastery, though time has now grown hopelessly muddled in this picture of stories interwoven through ages past and ages yet to come.

I can’t believe how much that child, still a toddler was able to see, experience and learn as it heard the tale its mother was telling it. And as for Woland – to think I’ve come here so many times and never seen him sitting on the bench over there with Berlioz and Bezdomniy. It makes me want to weep what I’ve been denying myself.

Indeed, dear Zie, tis strange, tis strange – the way we humans choose to live.

We?

We. I too started out like you, but the further I proceeded, the more intent I was on living the greater tale, the master story, until I am as you see me now – almost completely empty inside, which explains how I have lasted this long.

Suddenly a kind of shiver passes over Zie as he realises, to his astonishment, how old Merry in fact is. It is as if time itself recoils into the distance, leaving Merry the space to shine a light of his own, and bring in a little, tiny breeze of I know not what – a breath of the gnomiki which is sometimes enough, sometimes all it takes to tip the balance between death and life, between blindness and sight, between nothing and knowing…