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lakesbian · 1 year

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[slapping diagrams up on the wall and taping them into place] I Have A Theory. i am unironically fucking sure that the first four seasons of infinity train were foreshadowing some shit about the structure of the train and the wasteland that would have been fully revealed in the last four seasons if it hadn’t been cancelled.

there’s this one little line in the tape car that was never really paid much attention by the fandom (at least not to my knowledge) beyond mild interest, and that’s always been weird to me, because...

come on. the fact that lake even says “that robot’s out of his mind” in response to it? it’s absolutely screaming “obvious foreshadowing for a major aspect of the train’s functioning obscured only slightly by the fact that it’s being delivered in a quirky-random one-one line.”

this is how one-one works as a foreshadowing tool, it’s established time and time again in book one. he says something with intense implications like “my memory has been terrible ever since the change,” atticus and us viewers go “what change?” and one-one follows up with “my new haircut, didn’t you notice?”

...and then later you find out that the “change” he’s referring to is That Time Amelia Took Over The Train And Tore Him Asunder.

so one-one casually saying that one of the cars on the train has “the universe projected on the outside”? pause the goddamn video, we’re gonna take a second to think about The Fucking Implications of that one!

obviously, outside of the train is the wasteland. [hits my remote button to cue the wasteland structure slideshow]

(spot lake and alan dracula in that last one for a bit of megalophobia about the scale of the train!)

the wasteland appears to stretch on infinitely in all directions, to accommodate the infinite train, with curvature implying some sort of spherical structure. despite this, attempts to venture too far horizontally from the train result in meeting an incredibly strong repulsive force akin to an invisible barrier in a video game environment. when a passenger receives an exit, the wasteland’s apparent sky opens up in a circular vortex to produce a flexible glowing tube which the passenger can travel through to return to earth.

two things here:

1. the horizontal invisible barriers imply that the wasteland has built-in structural limits or “walls” of sorts rather than being a natural and unlimited environment.

2. the vortex and tube that appear when a passenger receives an exit are analogous to structures we see on the train. to a more limited extent, so are the invisible walls.

when simon tries to find an exit to the debutante car by going through the ceiling panels, he reaches the equivalent of an out-of-bounds area in a video game. he reports with legitimate terror in his voice that “grace, there’s literally nothing out there. it’s just a black void.” a reminder that all car environments are artificially designed with built-in structural limits as opposed to being natural and extensive locations. very much similar to the invisible walls in the wasteland.

when lake enters the tape car, what appears to be the legitimate ceiling/roof of the car opens up into a circle to allow the pod in.

when the unfinished car starts coming apart and opening up, what appears to be the legitimate sky of the car forms a circular vortex. when the sky breaks into fragments and disappears, it’s revealed that the sky was just part of the car’s ceiling rather than a true sky. it was illusory, 2-D. the real frame of the car is behind it.

when we see the inner workings of the tape car, it’s shown that passengers travel from the memory farm to the number machine by...being sucked into an opening that looks a lot like a miniature circular vortex and then down through a flexible tube.

yeah. flexible, glowing tubes.

the tape car “projects the universe on the outside.” the outside is the wasteland. the wasteland can open a circular hole in the top, in what appears to be its sky, to let passengers in or out. just like how the top of the tape car opens a circular hole to let pods in. just like how the unfinished car forms a circular hole when its faux-sky is opening. just like how a circular hole with a vortex-like appearance is opened in the passenger farm to take passengers in. passengers are taken in through the wasteland via a flexible, glowing tube, and similar tubes are used to ferry passengers through other parts of the train.

i don’t think the wasteland is a discrete environment or dimension the train happens to be traveling through, i think the wasteland is part of the train. the wasteland is being projected by the tape car. it’s the car’s universe projected on the outside. i’m gonna go as far as to say that the wasteland itself is a car with its environment being generated outside of the car’s frame structure instead of inside of it. the vortex and glowing tube look like other parts of the train because they are part of the train, and everything about them is operating on the same technology. the vortex is the same mechanism as the tape car’s pod opening on a larger scale. the wasteland exit tube is a type of mechanism related to the other tubes we see. the invisible barriers are there because cars have artificial limits like the black void outside the debutante car building.

nothing about it is more incomprehensible or supernatural than the rest of the train. the vortex, the invisible walls, the tube--they’re technological aspects of a simulated environment just like parts of any other car! the sky is a very real ceiling that can open to take passengers in/out the same way the tape car’s ceiling can open to take pods in! the wasteland is a really fucking long box with horizontal barriers and a ceiling that looks like it’s a sky but is still a ceiling. the wasteland is the self-generated pocket dimension the train runs in. the wasteland is the car that has every other car in it.

hell, it even fucking has denizens!

amelia turns atticus into a ghom by shooting him with an orb gun. there are orbs for ghoms, just like there are orbs for every other train asset and denizen. ghoms aren’t some random fucked up monsters from nowhere, they’re denizens that had to be intentionally placed in the wasteland via construction using their orbs, and they exist for the same purpose as the invisible walls--to keep passengers out of the wasteland and on the train. the wasteland is quite literally the car that holds every other car in it, complete with its own denizens. it’s big and extremely inhospitable, but it still checks every single box for being something designed as part of the train.

in conclusion:

...wait, don’t go anywhere yet. bonus observation about train doors, because it’s related enough to this post that putting it into a separate one would be weird and contextless:

when lake and jesse receive their exit, we get a really good shot of the tube. look at the perspective here! the door is opening into the wasteland, and the tube is extending through it and connecting to the door. we should be seeing the inside of the tube, but instead we’re directly faced with arizona. arizona is inside the tube. it’s like rather than the tube being ready to take us up through itself and back to earth, the tube is displacing earth, pulling it down through the tube and putting it right in front of us.

it actually looks like it’s just working exactly like tesseracts do in a wrinkle in time. which i absolutely cannot paraphrase coherently, so here’s a screenshot:

i think that when passengers go through the doors, the wasteland’s ceiling opens up much like how the tape car’s ceiling opens up--except because the wasteland is opening into earth, a location which exists outside of the train’s pocket dimension, it’s more complicated than just pulling open a circular hole. time and space are bent. the vortex/tube is the train opening up to pull earth into the wasteland car, bringing it directly to the door within the train so that exiting for the passenger is as simple as stepping through.

passengers taking their exits are being pulled through the entire tube and simply just taking one step through a doorway at the same time. note how long the tube is in lake’s view of it from inside jesse’s tape, and note how a mere second after jesse and lake run into the tube they step out the other side. time and space are being fundamentally crunched, stretched, and altered to make the exit through the wasteland’s ceiling feel seamless despite the interdimensional fuckery involved. it is Straight Up A Tesseract.

thank you for coming to my tedtalk i will now be heading out to bang on hbomax exec doors so i can demand the last 4 seasons in which it Surely will be revealed that basically everything in this post is real and true

#infinity train #analysis #MY MASTERPIECE. me when i understand the fucking train #next up: essaypost about the train working like a viddy gaem environmence

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darkpoisonouslove · 11 months

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🥀 favorite angst quote from a published fic

🍎 favorite angst quote from a wip

🍌 favorite funny quote from a wip

🥀 favorite angst quote from a published fic

sorry for quoting half the story

Griffin had conflated her refusal to give the three young witches a chance–for her own peace of mind–with lack of belief in her. A horrible oversight that had hung over their heads for far too long. Especially in the face of their possible death. Protecting their hearts would hardly matter if one of them stopped beating soon.

“I actually wanted to talk about us.” Faragonda hesitated, fingers falling motionless at the windowsill at the threat of pricking herself to blood on Griffin’s dismissal. As if the years of silence didn’t ring hollow in her chest where she’d stuffed her passive hope instead of the words Griffin had refused her. This could be her last chance. Their last chance. “I missed you.”

Griffin turned at that, her lips parted like she hadn’t decided what would be allowed to leave them. Faragonda wasn’t sure if the witch wouldn’t laugh at her.

“Jumping from my biggest mistake right to the second best?” she asked instead and the forced amusement of the words was like a slap in the face. Maybe it would’ve been better if she’d laughed at her. “If you’re trying to make me feel better, Fara,” the pet name made her heart flutter, “it’s not working.”

- from Peace and Quiet (revamped)

🍎 favorite angst quote from a wip

“So wonderful to see you,” Marion pulled off a smile not any different from those with which she regarded her counselors and allies, yet it was too natural to feel anything but fake and grotesque.

They were not supposed to be this used to seeing her on their side, in their home, at their breakfast table.

She could nod stiffly, keep to mirroring Oritel whose presence wasn’t bothersome to Marion even now that his body language was that of a statue and his aura – dark like a storm cloud. But that she could have done in her room, by herself. She’d already troubled them all with her presence.

“You’ve seen me every day for the past three months. There’s no need for pleasantries to convince me of your hospitality.”

She wouldn’t blame them for being sick of having to look at her. She herself was sick of it.

- from The Company of Light Trying to Have One Normal Breakfast

🍌 favorite funny quote from a wip

Mike made it stoically through her outpour of anxiety and surprised her with a sigh of relief once she slowed down to take a breath. “And here I thought I wouldn’t be very helpful with all the magic-related concerns you were bound to have. I can definitely do emotional regulation and boy talk.”

Bloom laughed so hard her eyes filled with tears.

“Listen, Bloom, the odds are stacked perfectly in your favor. If you do anything that makes your classmates look at you weird, you just tell them that’s how we do things on Earth. How are they going to know you’re making it up? You might even set a new trend or two.”

Bloom almost choked on the giggles bursting from her. She couldn’t help it. The image of everyone watching her stumble into every single piece of furniture in her way like it was some kind of elaborate Earth ritual was certainly something. She could even get Stella and the girls in on her act to mess with their classmates.

“And you tell prince Sky that your dad taught you to always step on the toes of your dance partners to weed out the ones that aren’t gentlemen enough to pretend nothing happened.”

Bloom coughed, her lungs struggling for precious air. “You’re the best dad in the whole universe, dad.”

- from the Winx rewrite, 1x03, "Draw Your Wings"

#winx club #winx griffin #winx faragonda #winx marion #winx bloom #winx mike #wc rewrite #my fanfic #snippet #ask #her-majesty-wears-jeans

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generalluxun · 1 year

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Fanfiction: Wind and Fire Chapter 2(of 2)

The musician heads once more into the wastes, carrying with him a heavy heart and a means to trap the Jinn forever.

Link to AO3 in the bio, Text below the cut. I loved doing this fic :)

His songs matched his heart. The Jinn did not dance. She sat and listened until she was barely taller than he. By the night sky he even believed he could see features beneath the winds. As he finished a dirge she spoke.

“Boy, what makes you play such tunes? They remind me of when I would travel unchecked throughout the land, but they are not the songs that match your gentle features.”

“I am human. We are short-lived creatures, unsteady of character and purpose.”

He brought out the bracers.

“I have for you a gift.”

She stood and scooped them up, delighted. She had fastened one into the zephyrs of her right wrist before turning back to him, the diamond-toothed smile blinding in its joy.

“You had these made, for me?”

The boy curled against his oud and thought of home. He could not look at that smile.

“I did.”

She donned the second bracer and held them up to the starlight. In response the stars seemed to twist and dance. They formed new patterns and these patterns had power. The Jinn was lifted from her feet, struggling. She screamed in a language long dead. The earth rose up and gripped her. Water fell from a cloudless sky and doused her. Lastly fire streaked down from the havens and blasted her.

The boy had thrown down himself as the elemental forces clashed, and raised his head with a nagging fear in his heart. There was not silence in the wake of the spell, instead there was panting, and a dull roar.

From the ground rose not a caged being of wind, but one of fire. Cracks in her bronzed skin shone a deep red. Her hair was a high ponytail that flickered and flared with yellow flame. Only her eyes and teeth, gemstones forged from heat and pressure, remained the same.

The boy gaped, backpedaling before the heat that radiated from her very being. The strings of his oud snapped and curled. The hem of his robes and the ends of his hair were singed before he could scramble free. The intense heat had created the winds that hid her true nature. Now she looked down at herself and screamed in rage anew.

“What have you done?!”

Sands melted to glass beneath her feet. The boy’s guards had moved slower than he and they burst into flames, screams cut short as they turned to ash. The boy found his feet and ran into the desert alone, light and fire growing in his wake.

By the time he walked through the city gates and collapsed in the square, the sky was dark with smoke and ash. Where there had been winds there was now fire, burning rock flowing like water upon the lands between. The boy was revived in the Emir’s presence and questioned harshly. When he had explained all he knew, the wise men wailed and tore at their clothes.

“An Efreeti! Who could have guessed such a creature still walked the world? We are lost!”

They boy inquired of them through parched lips as to their meaning, and they explained.

“As we have among men those who are cruel and selfish without end, so too among the Jinn are creatures of hate and greed alone. They are the Efreeti, cast out among their kind to languish until their magic dissipates. When Jinn were a more powerful people the Efreeti were ripped to the four corners of the earth. An Efreet is a being of fire. Our spell sought to capture a being of air. It is incomplete!”

The men wailed and panicked among themselves but the boy spoke curiously.

“She has not left the sands, why?”

One of the wise men turned to him with disdain.

“Boy, you know nothing. The spell still worked to a degree. She is bound to a place, but her power is so great it will continue to spread across the land, choking all with ash and smoke!”

The boy asked, “Can you not contain fire?”

The wise man raised his hand to the boy, but paused. He turned and quickly conversed with his peers. Together they hit upon a plan of burying the Efreet to contain her fire. Yet, even as they discussed the proper incantations, a problem arose. They turned to the boy.

“Boy, this spell must be cast in proximity to the Efreet. None may approach her save you. You must carry it into the desert.”

The boy sighed. He did not wish to carry a second trap to one who had bargained faithfully with him, no matter her origin. Yet he could not let the cities burn.

“I will go, though I do not know if she will trust me. Allow me to return to my village to say goodbye.”

The wise men looked among each other, the advisors shrank back, and the Emir sat heavily in his throne. One of the wise men asked him.

“Do you not know? Your village is gone. The encircling deserts consumed it and all within it long ago.”

The Emir would not meet his gaze. The advisors mumbled overlapping apologies. The boy thought of his sisters and his home. He heaved a deeper sigh.

“I can see why she did not trust my safety in the bargain. Prepare your spell quickly. I do not wish to linger within the walls that made ghosts of my kin.”

Normally such words would bring a swift death, but all present held their tongues. Soon the boy was sent out into the wastes once more, given the fastest horse they could find, and all the water it could hold.

The wastes were a changed land. Sand once bright and loose had turned black and thick. Soot settled heavily upon everything, disguising slow flows of boiling rock and earth. The boy covered his mouth with a wet cloth, and protected the strings of his oud as well.

He descended into a valley of obsidian, picking his way carefully among the razor sharp rocks. He could scarcely breathe even with his water-mask. His presence was announced by his horse pitching him free as it collapsed dead from the poisons.

He raised his head and pulled down his mask.

“Jinn! I would speak with you, but if you do not curb your anger I will die before I utter another word!”

The boy felt the ground rumble. Rocks cracked around him and the earth heaved. He was borne up into the sky in the palm of her hand, lifted up among the clouds, above the smoke and ash. In the protection of her curled fingers he gulped cool air. She gazed down at him, a mountain of fire.

“Why have you returned? I spared you once for your songs in spite of your treachery. Do not expect me to extend such kindness again.”

The boy sat up and called up as best he could from tortured lungs.

“I have come to play again, and I bring you something.”

She rumbled with the tenor of an inferno.

“Another ‘gift?’”

“No, not a gift, a trick. When I give this to you, you will be trapped deep within the earth, bound truly this time.”

Up up up he rose, carried up to lips as wide as a cavern, but more sculpted than a sultan’s palace.

“Why would you admit such a thing?”

“I have no people any more, I could not protect them. So I have come to protect the people who will die if you are not caged. Yet I cannot bring myself to lie to you. I did so once in my foolishness and would cut out my tongue before doing so again.”

From mouth to eye she raised him again. That blue orb was an entire oasis he could not swim the length of.

“What is the price of my remaining freedom?”

"If you will not be calmed, you will destroy all the lands in your rage. I appeal to the nobility in your blood, Jinn."

Sapphire flashed briefly red.

"Did they not tell you, boy? I am a wicked Efreet, cast out by the Jinn."

The boy did not falter.

"I know little of such heady things. I only know that names are not people. Do you?"

Her fingers closed over him like a tomb. Lines of light flared beneath her burnished skin. He clasped his hands over his ears as a scream rent the skies. Voice turned to volume and the heavens shook. The lines flared and heat surged within his prison. The boy wrapped himself around his oud and prayed to the only higher power he knew, the one who held him in her palm.

After an eternity outside of time, the sound waned, the light faded, and the heat ebbed. The boy felt himself falling, a slow descent even as his prison crumbled around him. The fingers blew away on the wind and he blinked up once more into a night sky, this time shrouded by clouds of ash. All around him the land was still, buried in a thick layer of black.

“Well, boy, give me your gift.”

The Efreet stood before him, diminished so greatly that it was only by the grace of her yellow flaming hair that she could match him for height. She held out her cupped hands.

The boy took out a bottle from within his robes and set it in her hands.

“You need to open it for their spell to work. You will be ensnared and bound to it, then buried within the earth.”

Her hand hovered over the stopper. With small sapphires she now looked up at him.

“Men can do what the Jinn could not.”

She pulled the stopper and from within the bottle a cloud of golden mist rose up. It settled upon her and she seemed to shimmer and become less solid. The very fabric of her legs and Salvars began to drift in the shimmering cloud, pulled by a thin stream linking it back to the bottle.

More of the mist settled upon the ground and spread. Soon a rumbling began as the walls of the valley shook and shifted, rising higher around them both.

“Go, boy. Your words have won you the day, true or false.”

The boy instead sat himself upon the ground. He brushed ash off the neck of his oud and touched the strings.

“They were true, and in truth. I said I would play for you.”

Play he did, as the walls closed in. It was not the song of the winds that he played, for there were no winds to hear him. The air was still, and when the walls met overhead, becoming the ceiling, the only light was from the Efreet herself. The boy played as the earth swallowed them up. He played in the darkness. He played songs he had never dared, songs no one else would ever hear now. He played long after the rumbling stopped and his tomb became real.

Above, the world moved on. Thick black ash swallowed water and put forth sprouts of green. The waste became lush and people moved in. Villages became cities. Stories became legends. People quested for the bottle, and the Efreet who, rumor said, could grant wishes.

She could, such was her power. When a soul brave and clever enough found her, she would grant them one wish each as the spell required of her. It cost her power to do so, snuffing her flames and leaving her in darkness until her strength returned.

One day came a prince, bold and clever like the rest. He wormed his way in through the barest of cracks, past magical traps the spell had conjured, and stood before the Efreet as she sat upon a dias carved by time. Her dull blue eyes watched him without interest.

“What wish would you have of me, adventurer?”

“Nothing! Nothing at all!”

He laughed with boisterous delight.

“I am a prince, I am wealthy beyond reason. I have companionship of any kind I wish. I have never known hunger. My thirst for knowledge drives me and if I were to slake it with your wish, what would I do with my life? I came merely to gaze upon the last of the Jinn. You are beautiful, a diamond in this prison of coal.”

She bowed her head mechanically. There was nothing more to be said. But the prince did not go. Instead he stepped closer and ducked his head, finding those eyes in the dim light of the Efreet’s fire.

“What would you wish for? Freedom? Revenge? I have a wish, and I may give it away as easily as I may keep it. Tell me, what is it you want, spirit of another time.”

Her head snapped up, and the prince grinned with satisfaction. A singular glint danced within dull sapphires. She gestured to a corner, to dust and the barest hint of bones.

“Him.”

“I thought a wish could not bring back the dead.”

“Bring back, no. Time cannot be unwound. Yet all things turn on the wheels of time, and what has left will return. A wish can turn a wheel. A wish can make then, now.”

The prince straightened and swept off his headdress. He ran a hand through thick hair as he considered.

“There is a story here. I will trade you my wish for this story before I go.”

Sapphires flashed and dim fires flared yellow for a moment. Light crazed off obsidian walls. Her voice lifted for the first time from a whisper.

“Done.”

The prince left the tomb hours later and returned to his journeys. The Efreet remained in her prison.

In a small village with no distinctions, a baby boy was born into the world. Where most babies cried, he cooed. As his mother rocked him he soothed her to sleep rather than the opposite. When he grew older the boy spent any money given him to buy cobalt, and rubbed the crushed powders of it into his hair.

His father worked a furnace, turning ore into metals. As his father worked, the boy would sit for hours, plucking the strings of an oud. At times soft music would rise up from the instrument, and at others it was silent. His father would look over at him in confusion during these silences.

“How is it you play and do not make a sound?”

The boy answered his father.

“There is a sound, but it is not for your ears. I play for the fire; that it will glow brightly but not rage out of control.”

The boy’s father stopped mid-swing. He turned to look at his son, but said nothing. In the silence, the boy touched his strings and bowed his head in deference, unsure of his error. His father turned back to his work without comment.

That year at harvest time the father called to his son.

“You are going with me today to see the tax collector.”

The boy merely nodded. When it was time to leave he had his oud strapped to his back. They traveled in silence.

At the storehouse, the tax collector sat fanning himself in the midday heat. He was a large man with rings aplenty and an eternally bored expression. The boy’s father walked up to the collector, and past him. He spoke instead to a small old man who sat behind the collector with an expression both barely awake and infinitely exhausted upon him.

The father bid his son: approach and play for the man. His son played the songs that were loved far and wide. The man showed not the slightest reaction. His father bid him play the other songs he knew.

The man’s eyes opened wide. He clasped the boy's hands and giggled with the glee of a child.

“It is you! My master spoke truly, and I, the fool for doubting him all these years! Oh how I cursed his name for sending me to every village in the lands.”

“That I would see such a thing in my life. Oh, we must go now. We must hurry. He will want to see you, he will need to see you. He has thought of little else. Come! Come!”

The man was up, and suddenly spry. He paid the boy’s father no notice, tugging the boy along with a feeble but insistent strength. The boy tugged his hand back.

“Why do you care about me?”

The old man turned, his eyes alight.

“My master knows for whom you play.”

The boy’s hands reached for his strings again. They trembled.

“Take me to her.”

#ml fanfiction #ml fanfic #lukloe #Chloe bourgeois #Luka couffaine #ML au #Arabian nights #Jinn!Chloe

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publicdomainbooks · 2 years

Text

CHAPTER 12

THE ASCENT OF MOUNT SNEFFELS

The huge volcano which was the first stage of our daring experiment is above five thousand feet high. Sneffels is the termination of a long range of volcanic mountains, of a different character to the system of the island itself. One of its peculiarities is its two huge pointed summits. From whence we started it was impossible to make out the real outlines of the peak against the grey field of sky. All we could distinguish was a vast dome of white, which fell downwards from the head of the giant.

The commencement of the great undertaking filled me with awe. Now that we had actually started, I began to believe in the reality of the undertaking!

Our party formed quite a procession. We walked in single file, preceded by Hans, the imperturbable eider-duck hunter. He calmly led us by narrow paths where two persons could by no possibility walk abreast. Conversation was wholly impossible. We had all the more opportunity to reflect and admire the awful grandeur of the scene around.

Beyond the extraordinary basaltic wall of the fjord of Stapi we found ourselves making our way through fibrous turf, over which grew a scanty vegetation of grass, the residuum of the ancient vegetation of the swampy peninsula. The vast mass of this combustible, the field of which as yet is utterly unexplored, would suffice to warm Iceland for a whole century. This mighty turf pit, measured from the bottom of certain ravines, is often not less than seventy feet deep, and presents to the eye the view of successive layers of black burned-up rocky detritus, separated by thin streaks of porous sandstone.

The grandeur of the spectacle was undoubted, as well as its arid and deserted air.

As a true nephew of the great Professor Hardwigg, and despite my preoccupation and doleful fears of what was to come, I observed with great interest the vast collection of mineralogical curiosities spread out before me in this vast museum of natural history. Looking back to my recent studies, I went over in thought the whole geological history of Iceland.

This extraordinary and curious island must have made its appearance from out of the great world of waters at a comparatively recent date. Like the coral islands of the Pacific, it may, for aught we know, be still rising by slow and imperceptible degrees.

If this really be the case, its origin can be attributed to only one cause—that of the continued action of subterranean fires.

This was a happy thought.

If so, if this were true, away with the theories of Sir Humphry Davy; away with the authority of the parchment of Arne Saknussemm; the wonderful pretensions to discovery on the part of my uncle—and to our journey!

All must end in smoke.

Charmed with the idea, I began more carefully to look about me. A serious study of the soil was necessary to negative or confirm my hypothesis. I took in every item of what I saw, and I began to comprehend the succession of phenomena which had preceded its formation.

Iceland, being absolutely without sedimentary soil, is composed exclusively of volcanic tufa; that is to say, of an agglomeration of stones and of rocks of a porous texture. Long before the existence of volcanoes, it was composed of a solid body of massive trap rock lifted bodily and slowly out of the sea, by the action of the centrifugal force at work in the earth.

The internal fires, however, had not as yet burst their bounds and flooded the exterior cake of Mother Earth with hot and raging lava.

My readers must excuse this brief and somewhat pedantic geological lecture. But it is necessary to the complete understanding of what follows.

At a later period in the world's history, a huge and mighty fissure must, reasoning by analogy, have been dug diagonally from the southwest to the northeast of the island, through which by degrees flowed the volcanic crust. The great and wondrous phenomenon then went on without violence—the outpouring was enormous, and the seething fused matter, ejected from the bowels of the earth, spread slowly and peacefully in the form of vast level plains, or what are called mamelons or mounds.

It was at this epoch that the rocks called feldspars, syenites, and porphyries appeared.

But as a natural consequence of this overflow, the depth of the island increased. It can readily be believed what an enormous quantity of elastic fluids were piled up within its centre, when at last it afforded no other openings, after the process of cooling the crust had taken place.

At length a time came when despite the enormous thickness and weight of the upper crust, the mechanical forces of the combustible gases below became so great, that they actually upheaved the weighty back and made for themselves huge and gigantic shafts. Hence the volcanoes which suddenly arose through the upper crust, and next the craters, which burst forth at the summit of these new creations.

It will be seen that the first phenomena in connection with the formation of the island were simply eruptive; to these, however, shortly succeeded the volcanic phenomena.

Through the newly formed openings, escaped the marvelous mass of basaltic stones with which the plain we were now crossing was covered. We were trampling our way over heavy rocks of dark grey color, which, while cooling, had been moulded into six-sided prisms. In the "back distance" we could see a number of flattened cones, which formerly were so many fire-vomiting mouths.

After the basaltic eruption was appeased and set at rest, the volcano, the force of which increased with that of the extinct craters, gave free passage to the fiery overflow of lava, and to the mass of cinders and pumice stone, now scattered over the sides of the mountain, like disheveled hair on the shoulders of a Bacchante.

Here, in a nutshell, I had the whole history of the phenomena from which Iceland arose. All take their rise in the fierce action of interior fires, and to believe that the central mass did not remain in a state of liquid fire, white hot, was simply and purely madness.

This being satisfactorily proved (Q.E.D.), what insensate folly to pretend to penetrate into the interior of the mighty earth!

This mental lecture delivered to myself while proceeding on a journey, did me good. I was quite reassured as to the fate of our enterprise; and therefore went, like a brave soldier mounting a bristling battery, to the assault of old Sneffels.

As we advanced, the road became every moment more difficult. The soil was broken and dangerous. The rocks broke and gave way under our feet, and we had to be scrupulously careful in order to avoid dangerous and constant falls.

Hans advanced as calmly as if he had been walking over Salisbury Plain; sometimes he would disappear behind huge blocks of stone, and we momentarily lost sight of him. There was a little period of anxiety and then there was a shrill whistle, just to tell us where to look for him.

Occasionally he would take it into his head to stop to pick up lumps of rock, and silently pile them up into small heaps, in order that we might not lose our way on our return.

He had no idea of the journey we were about to undertake.

At all events, the precaution was a good one; though how utterly useless and unnecessary—but I must not anticipate.

Three hours of terrible fatigue, walking incessantly, had only brought us to the foot of the great mountain. This will give some notion of what we had still to undergo.

Suddenly, however, Hans cried a halt—that is, he made signs to that effect—and a summary kind of breakfast was laid out on the lava before us. My uncle, who now was simply Professor Hardwigg, was so eager to advance, that he bolted his food like a greedy clown. This halt for refreshment was also a halt for repose. The Professor was therefore compelled to wait the good pleasure of his imperturbable guide, who did not give the signal for departure for a good hour.

The three Icelanders, who were as taciturn as their comrade, did not say a word; but went on eating and drinking very quietly and soberly.

From this, our first real stage, we began to ascend the slopes of the Sneffels volcano. Its magnificent snowy nightcap, as we began to call it, by an optical delusion very common in mountains, appeared to me to be close at hand; and yet how many long weary hours must elapse before we reached its summit. What unheard-of fatigue must we endure!

The stones on the mountain side, held together by no cement of soil, bound together by no roots or creeping herbs, gave way continually under our feet, and went rushing below into the plains, like a series of small avalanches.

In certain places the sides of this stupendous mountain were at an angle so steep that it was impossible to climb upwards, and we were compelled to get round these obstacles as best we might.

Those who understand Alpine climbing will comprehend our difficulties. Often we were obliged to help each other along by means of our climbing poles.

I must say this for my uncle, that he stuck as close to me as possible. He never lost sight of me, and on many occasions his arm supplied me with firm and solid support. He was strong, wiry, and apparently insensible to fatigue. Another great advantage with him was that he had the innate sentiment of equilibrium—for he never slipped or failed in his steps. The Icelanders, though heavily loaded, climbed with the agility of mountaineers.

Looking up, every now and then, at the height of the great volcano of Sneffels, it appeared to me wholly impossible to reach to the summit on that side; at all events, if the angle of inclination did not speedily change.

Fortunately, after an hour of unheard-of fatigues, and of gymnastic exercises that would have been trying to an acrobat, we came to a vast field of ice, which wholly surrounded the bottom of the cone of the volcano. The natives called it the tablecloth, probably from some such reason as the dwellers in the Cape of Good Hope call their mountain Table Mountain, and their roads Table Bay.

Here, to our mutual surprise, we found an actual flight of stone steps, which wonderfully assisted our ascent. This singular flight of stairs was, like everything else, volcanic. It had been formed by one of those torrents of stones cast up by the eruptions, and of which the Icelandic name is stina. If this singular torrent had not been checked in its descent by the peculiar shape of the flanks of the mountain, it would have swept into the sea, and would have formed new islands.

Such as it was, it served us admirably. The abrupt character of the slopes momentarily increased, but these remarkable stone steps, a little less difficult than those of the Egyptian pyramids, were the one simple natural means by which we were enabled to proceed.

About seven in the evening of that day, after having clambered up two thousand of these rough steps, we found ourselves overlooking a kind of spur or projection of the mountain—a sort of buttress upon which the conelike crater, properly so called, leaned for support.

The ocean lay beneath us at a depth of more than three thousand two hundred feet—a grand and mighty spectacle. We had reached the region of eternal snows.

The cold was keen, searching and intense. The wind blew with extraordinary violence. I was utterly exhausted.

My worthy uncle, the Professor, saw clearly that my legs refused further service, and that, in fact, I was utterly exhausted. Despite his hot and feverish impatience, he decided, with a sigh, upon a halt. He called the eider-duck hunter to his side. That worthy, however, shook his head.

"Ofvanfor," was his sole spoken reply.

"It appears," says my uncle with a woebegone look, "that we must go higher."

He then turned to Hans, and asked him to give some reason for this decisive response.

"Mistour," replied the guide.

"Ja, mistour—yes, the mistour," cried one of the Icelandic guides in a terrified tone.

It was the first time he had spoken.

"What does this mysterious word signify?" I anxiously inquired.

"Look," said my uncle.

I looked down upon the plain below, and I saw a vast, a prodigious volume of pulverized pumice stone, of sand, of dust, rising to the heavens in the form of a mighty waterspout. It resembled the fearful phenomenon of a similar character known to the travelers in the desert of the great Sahara.

The wind was driving it directly towards that side of Sneffels on which we were perched. This opaque veil standing up between us and the sun projected a deep shadow on the flanks of the mountain. If this sand spout broke over us, we must all be infallibly destroyed, crushed in its fearful embraces. This extraordinary phenomenon, very common when the wind shakes the glaciers, and sweeps over the arid plains, is in the Icelandic tongue called "mistour."

"Hastigt, hastigt!" cried our guide.

Now I certainly knew nothing of Danish, but I thoroughly understood that his gestures were meant to quicken us.

The guide turned rapidly in a direction which would take us to the back of the crater, all the while ascending slightly.

We followed rapidly, despite our excessive fatigue.

A quarter of an hour later Hans paused to enable us to look back. The mighty whirlwind of sand was spreading up the slope of the mountain to the very spot where we had proposed to halt. Huge stones were caught up, cast into the air, and thrown about as during an eruption. We were happily a little out of the direction of the wind, and therefore out of reach of danger. But for the precaution and knowledge of our guide, our dislocated bodies, our crushed and broken limbs, would have been cast to the wind, like dust from some unknown meteor.

Hans, however, did not think it prudent to pass the night on the bare side of the cone. We therefore continued our journey in a zigzag direction. The fifteen hundred feet which remained to be accomplished took us at least five hours. The turnings and windings, the no-thoroughfares, the marches and marches, turned that insignificant distance into at least three leagues. I never felt such misery, fatigue and exhaustion in my life. I was ready to faint from hunger and cold. The rarefied air at the same time painfully acted upon my lungs.

At last, when I thought myself at my last gasp, about eleven at night, it being in that region quite dark, we reached the summit of Mount Sneffels! It was in an awful mood of mind, that despite my fatigue, before I descended into the crater which was to shelter us for the night, I paused to behold the sun rise at midnight on the very day of its lowest declension, and enjoyed the spectacle of its ghastly pale rays cast upon the isle which lay sleeping at our feet!

I no longer wondered at people traveling all the way from England to Norway to behold this magical and wondrous spectacle.

#A Journey to the Centre of the Earth

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aioleis · 3 days

Text

————

In the book Object-Oriented Ontology by Graham Harman, alongside his explaniation to the core of that phylosophy, openly thesing and mocking the String theory, which assupt as best game in town.

A candide for to be theory of everything, but still lack of so many things, like the exaptence the forces of sensual objects.

Nearly the entire planet spent its days in the tedium of thinking itself a part of a mere menagerie, bound to live within the perfect celestial omens drawn out for them by the godfathers, in a monotheistic universe, until Galileo made statements that confused everyone's minds.

We are still searching for that theory of everything. Searching for the mystery of connection, from the day we arrived, through ancient mythologies to today's daily horoscopes.

Brief look at our vision on universal logic, historic of the space, four false assuption of the super-string theory from (OOO) ;

(revised, for orginal pdf)

In recent decades, few intellectual topics have captured the public imagination like the search for a so-called ‘theory of everything’ in physics.

Brian Greene of Columbia University, who views the currently popular ‘string theory’ as the best existing candidate for a theory explaining the composition of matter and the structure of the cosmos.

The search for unifications in physics has already given humanity some of its most heroic moments.

In the early 1600s, Galileo established the falsity of the ancient view that there is one kind of physics for the eternal bodies in the sky and a completely different kind for the corrupt and decaying things down here on the earth; instead, he showed that one physics governs every portion of the universe.

One of the first and most illustrious examples of the prophetic power of science is reported by Galileo Galilei in his Sidereus Nuncius:

I feel sure that the surface of the Moon is not perfectly smooth, free from inequalities and exactly spherical, as a large school of philosophers considers with regard to the Moon and the other heavenly bodies, but that, on the contrary, it is full of inequalities, uneven, full of hollows and protuberances, just like the surface of the earth itself, which is varied everywhere by lofty mountains and deep valleys.4

At the time this was written, the dominant Aristotelian doctrine taught that the cosmos, along with all the elements that composed it, was perfectly spherical, and that no imperfection was allowed to exist outside of the earth.

Gazing through his telescope, Galileo was struck by a blasphemous revelation: that the moon, and by extension the entire universe, was irremediably dirty and subject to the same processes of degradation and dissolution that we experience in our world.

The apparently innocuous words of his statement, supported by the reasonable argument of scientific observation, hide an actual, gruesome deicide; if the universe is not perfect and eternal, how could God be?

As we now know, the moon’s surface was disfigured by asteroids—celestial omens of death whose distorted, eccentric trajectories escape the comprehension of spherical cosmology.

Interestingly, Galileo somehow expiated his blasphemy by opening the way to the formulation of the principle of the conservation of energy—the first principle of thermodynamics—through his experiments on motion.

The spherical nature of the universe was somehow preserved in the symmetry of the laws of mechanical motion, which imply the total reversibility of all dynamic processes and thus the nonexistence of time as a material drive toward degradation.

This paved the way for the even more fateful unification announced in Sir Isaac Newton’s Principia in 1687. In this masterpiece of the history of science, Newton demonstrated that the movement of celestial bodies and the falling of objects to the ground are governed by one and the same force: gravity, as everyone calls it today.

In the 1860s, James Clerk Maxwell was unify the previously separate forces of electricity and magnetism, and established further that light and electromagnetism travel at the same speed, strongly suggesting that light is simply another manifestation of the same force.

From this consideration it obviously follows that the ultimate prophecy of doom channelled by science is the second principle of thermodynamics in its statistical-mechanical interpretation, as understood by Ludwig Boltzmann:

After this confession you will take it with more tolerance if I am so bold as to claim your attention for a quite trifling and narrowly circumscribed question.

[...] The second law proclaims a steady degradation of energy until all tensions that might still perform work and all visible motions in the universe would have to cease. All attempts at saving the universe from this thermal death have been unsuccessful, and to avoid raising hopes I cannot fulfil, let me say at once that I too shall here refrain from making such attempts. (5)

The ‘narrowly circumscribed question’ of condemning the entire cosmos to irremediable heat death breaks with any surviving hope that the universe may be, in any capacity, spherical, reversible, or eternal.

Boltzmann was a meticulous scientist and a convinced upholder of the inherent boundaries of science and human knowledge; but despite his understandable caution in approaching the subject of his own ground-breaking discoveries, the proof of his H-theorem, containing a probabilistic argument in support of the second principle of thermodynamics, is not merely a speculation on the behaviour of an ideal gas of non-interacting particles, but rather the elaborate conjuration of an eldritch aberration.

As we diligently follow the intricate steps of this twisted ritual, summoning functions and variables and transmuting them through the arcane operations of calculus, we finally reach the Quod Erat Demonstrandum, manifesting the apocalyptic truth of the death of the universe and unleashing it into reality. There is minimal need of scientific understanding to operate the conjuring machine of thermodynamics; it just works—until it works no more.

By the 1970s four forces of nature had been recognized: gravity, electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force (which holds atoms together) and the weak nuclear force (which governs radioactive decay).

The 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics went jointly to the physicists Sheldon Lee Glashow, Abdus Salam and Steven Weinberg for their unified theory of the ‘electroweak’ force, while the strong force was accounted for at roughly the same time by QCD, or quantum chromodynamics.

By the mid-1970s, physics had its Standard Model of Particle Physics, which was more or less completed in 2012 by the apparent discovery of the Higgs boson at CERN in Geneva.

In the early twentieth century, quantum theory unified various phenomena of heat, light and atomic motion by explaining them as occurring through discrete jumps rather than continuous increase or decrease.

Among the remaining problems with the Standard Model is that it does not unify gravity with the electromagnetic, strong and weak forces. The pursuit of a workable theory of ‘quantum gravity’ continues to this day, and along with the discovery by astronomers of the still inexplicable dark matter and dark energy, the search for quantum gravity is one of the most likely triggers of the next revolution in physics.

***

After Graham wrote those, little note about the discovery of black star.

NEMESIS or THE BLACK SUN

Because You love cremation grounds I have made my heart one so that You Black Goddess of the Burning Grounds can always dance there.

No desires are left, Mā, on the pyre for the fire burns in my heart, and I have covered everything with its ash to prepare for Your coming.

via: R.F. McDermott, Singing to the Goddess: Poems to Kālī and Umā from Bengal (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 74–75.

***

Nonetheless, no matter how carefully science insists on tracing the limits of its own understanding, barricading itself behind walls of axioms and boundary conditions, it inevitably becomes an oracle, a spiritual medium, opening a laceration onto a radical Outside and summoning an invasion of voices of long-lost demons into our world, not unlike a cursed Cassandra who refuses to surrender to her own prophetic utterances.

The topic of unified theories is so exciting that physicists have created a small industry of readable popular books on the theme, with Greene’s The Elegant Universe one of the most prominent among them.

Maybe we shoulld agree on Graham’s phases:

I certainly agree with Greene that ‘we should not rest until we have a theory whose range of applicability is limitless’. My point of disagreement will sound surprising in the current intellectual climate: I do not agree that physics, or even natural science more generally, is the right place to find such a unified theory. In my view, the ‘theory whose range of applicability is limitless’ can only be found in philosophy, and especially in the type of philosophy called Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO).

Though the rapid advance of modern physics has been one of the most reassuring chapters of human history, I see it as a field that excludes far too much to give us a theory of everything.

Assumptions that graham found wrong in String Theory.

Claim that physics (and string theory in particular) has limitless applicability.

String theory is not the only candidate for a ‘theory of everything’, but it remains the most popular, and for many the most promising.

The theory has been around in some form since the 1960s, but became an especially hot topic two decades later.

String theory postulates that matter is composed of vibrating one-dimensional strings twisting through ten dimensions, rather than the four dimensions of space–time that Einsteinian physics accepts. In so-called ‘ M-theory’, Edward Witten’s 1995 modification of the string landscape, the total number of dimensions was expanded to eleven.

Numerous beautiful mathematical and physical results can be derived from the theory, including a possible account of the everelusive quantum gravity, meaning a theory of gravity that can be explained in terms of quantum mechanics just as the electromagnetic, strong and weak forces already have been.

Nonetheless, a backlash against string theory began in the twenty-first century, as can be seen in the widely read critical books by physicists Lee Smolin and Richard Woit.

Perhaps the most frequent accusation against string theory by sceptics is that it cannot be experimentally tested, and is therefore said to be little more than a mathematical exercise of no direct relevance to physics.

Another problem is that so many thousands of different string theories are mathematically possible that there is no reason to choose one in particular, except on the shaky basis that we must obviously choose the theory that fits the structure of the universe we know: for otherwise we would not be here today to have debates about it.

This line of reasoning is known as the ‘anthropic principle’, viewed by many scientists with contempt but by others as a pivotal intellectual tool. Lastly, Smolin in particular is alarmed by the near-monopoly of string theory in the leading graduate courses in physics, which for him means that the entire profession has put all its eggs in a single, experimentally baseless basket.

String theory would have become textbook science, learned by students everywhere as a basic fact about our world, much like Einstein’s theory of gravity or the periodic table of chemical elements. My claim is that even under this optimal scenario of maximum scientific triumph, string theory would still not be a ‘theory of everything’. To see why, let’s examine what I take to be the four false assumptions behind statements that string theory’s range of applicability is limitless.

First False Assumption: everything that exists must be physical.

A successful string theory would sum up everything we know about the structure and behaviour of physical matter. But this makes it a ‘theory of everything’ only on the condi- tion that everything is physical.

Of course, many people do not see it this way.

Religion is a far weaker force in Europe than it used to be, though it remains significantly stronger in the United States, and very much stronger in other parts of the world. Among adherents of all religions, belief in immaterial gods and souls is nearly universal. Many other people around the world, including a number of unreligious ones, still believe in ghosts and spirits. In almost every country, a number of buildings stand out for their reputation as being especially haunted.

In more refined circles we find Jungian psychology, which affirms the existence of unconscious and immaterial archetypes shared collectively by all human beings.

By hypothesis, a mainstream physicist will dismiss all such ideas as unscientific rubbish; A ‘theory of everything’, does not mean a theory that includes all of the nonsense that gullible people think is real, but only a theory of what rational and scientifically minded people know to be real: the physical–material universe. (?)

Though I for one am not particularly convinced by Jungian psychology, I do read Jung from time to time and find that he improves my imagination.

And I would certainly hate to live in a world where Jungian societies were liquidated by the Rationality Police or demoralized by general public mockery.

But let’s suppose we agree with the scepticism of anti-spirutual stories, and join the crowd that disbelief about any gods, souls, ghosts, spirits, unconscious archetypes or other supposed non-material entities. Even if we were to walk this far down in that the path, and even under the supposition that string theory were confirmed by rock-solid evidence,

I would still not agree with her that this meritorious theory could count as a ‘theory of everything’. For we can think of plenty of things that are not physical but which are almost certainly real.

For one thing, material objects always exist somewhere, but in the case of the VOC it is not at all clear where that place of existence would be.

The Dutch East India Company (VOC) challenges the notion of being a material object, as material objects have a specific location, which the VOC lacked. The VOC wasn't confined to its Amsterdam headquarters, as its operations were primarily in Southeast Asia, governed independently by a Governor-General without needing to consult Dutch shareholders. Also, its Asian capital, Batavia (now Jakarta), housed only a fraction of its resources and employees. The VOC's regulations applied across its territories, further complicating its physical location. Moreover, the VOC existed from 1602 to 1795, outliving any individual or ship associated with it, thus defying the characteristics of a material thing like a quark, electron, or vibrating string.

There is an old philosophical paradox known as the Ship of Theseus, which poses the problem of whether the ship remains the same even when we gradually or suddenly replace each of its boards with a new one – especially if we assemble the old boards together nearby as a rival vessel to the new ship. Without going further into this paradox I wish to emphasize what I take to be a chief lesson of the VOC case study:

the irreducibility of larger objects to the sum total of their material compo- nents. The Dutch East India Company was not just a collec- tion of atoms and strings at various locations in space–time, but to a large extent was able to survive the motion and dis- appearance of these tiny elements while making use of others.

Second False Assumption: everything that exists must be basic and simple.

Are we missing the point ? we have missed the point.

For while it may be true that the VOC or the Ship of Theseus can survive despite the turnover of their material pieces, they certainly cannot exist without any material pieces at all. If over time the VOC only lost atoms and never gained any, there would finally come a point where its various ships, cargoes and officers would crumble to dust and the VOC would cease to exist.

Maybe theory never meant to tell us there cannot be higher-order objects that seem to endure despite massive turnover in their material components. But such objects must always be made of some physical matter, even if it is relatively unimportant whether one hydrogen atom or another happens to be found in the brain of the VOC’s Governor-General.

The fallacy that the philosopher Sam Coleman has termed ‘smallism’, as if the real ele- ments in any situation were the tiniest components to which everything can be broken down.5 The mid-and large-sized objects that surround us (from cups, tables and flowers to skyscrapers and elephants) seem to have independent fea- tures of their own, but according to thheory these larger objects ultimately receive all of their properties from those of their components; after all, without these small components the larger objects could never exist.

What this argument misses is the phenomenon known as emergence, in which new properties appear when smaller objects are joined together into a new one.6 This is visible everywhere in human life. For example, a high-school friend and I noticed one summer that girls would often walk together in groups of three, but that boys were almost always found alone or in pairs. We wondered why this was so, until my friend rather cryptically nailed it by saying that ‘three boys together are already a gang’. I believe his meaning was as follows: there is something vaguely menacing in the air as soon as three young males come together, and hence this practice is subtly discouraged under normal situations, which do not provide a welcome setting for menace. If the observation is correct, then three boys together have as a vague emergent property ‘gang-like threat to society’ that is found neither in two boys nor in three girls.

This is also true in the sciences, as can be seen with especial ease in a field such as organic chemistry: all organic compounds contain carbon, but there are millions of organic compounds, each with its own unique features.

Sometimes the defenders of emergence push their luck and make unnecessary additional claims, asserting for instance that the features of organic compounds ‘could not have been predicted’ from the features of carbon.

But quantum chemistry does allow us to predict the properties of larger molecules before they are actually created. And predictability is not even the point, since even if we could predict the features of all larger entities from their ultimate physical constituents, the ability to predict would not change the fact that the larger entity actually possesses emergent qualities not found in its components.

This is equally clear in human life. Perhaps a couple is about to be married, and all of their friends see clearly in advance that the marriage will be disas- trous. Now, let’s imagine that the friends of the couple are completely right: not only does the marriage fail, but it fails in precisely those ways and on the exact timetable that the friends had predicted. But notice that the predictability of this marital failure does not entail that the marriage is nothing more than the sum total of the two pre-existing indi- viduals who were married. In other words, the emergent real- ity of an object composed jointly of multiple parts (such as a married couple) does not hinge on the predictability or unpredictability of how it ultimately turns out. Emergence does not require mysterious results, but only that the mar- ried couple has joint features not found in either of the indi- viduals in isolation. The same would hold true if the friends were completely wrong and the marriage led to eternal and blissful harmony: the point is that the existence of the mar- riage as an emergent object over and above the two individ- ual partners has nothing to do with whether its success or failure could be foreseen.

Another prejudice infects portions of the history of phil- osophy in the view that only that which is natural truly exists. This doctrine is especially prominent in the philoso- phy of the German polymath G. W. Leibniz (1646–1716), who distinguishes sharply between what he calls ‘substances’ and ‘aggregates’. Substances are simple, soul-like entities (known as ‘monads’), all of them created by God at the beginning of time.7 By contrast, aggregates are compounds such as machines, circles of men holding hands, or pairs of diamonds glued together. For Leibniz such aggregates are merely laugh- able stand-ins for true substances, which can exist only by nature rather than artifice. OOO rejects this view given that machines, much like the Dutch East India Company (another example mocked by Leibniz), can be treated as unified objects no less than an atom or tiny vibrating string. In short, naturalness is no better as a criterion of objecthood than smallness or simplicity. As for the true criteria for what qualifies as an object, we will discuss them at the end of this chapter.

Third False Assumption:

everything that exists must be real.

One of the greatest fictional heroes of all time is surely the detective Sherlock Holmes, in the stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In writing these stories, Doyle tried to house his detective at a fictitious address on a real London street: namely, 221B Baker Street. Yet the very real London thoroughfare called Baker Street was later extended to go as far as the 200s, thereby putting the fictional flat of Holmes and Dr. Watson within the range of real-life city addresses. It is said that some of the Sherlock Holmes fans who visit the currently accepted address, now home to a gift shop and museum, labour under the misconception that the detective was a real historical person.

The retelling of this story usually provokes cruel laughter at the expense of these naive tourists. Yet there is a charming grain of truth in their ignorance: the fact that the detective is such a beloved and memorable character that one can easily imagine him resting comfortably at home on Baker Street, and picture him in a number of situations that did not actually occur in Doyle’s works (as in the current television series in which Holmes, played by Benedict Cumberbatch, solves cases in present-day London).

This brings us to a third objection to the global ambitions of string theory. Namely, a successful string theory would not be able to tell us anything about Sherlock Holmes, and this alone suffices to disqualify it as a ‘theory of everything’. For Holmes is a fictional personage, and thus was never composed of strings or of any other physical material.

Nor is it even necessary to invoke celebrity fictional characters such as those who inhabit novels and films, since we are surrounded at all times by fictions.

For example, any real orange or lemon, as I perceive it, is a vast oversimplification of the real citrus-objects in the world that are submitted to rough translation by the human senses and human brain.

The real orange or lemon is no more accessible to my human perception than it is to a mosquito or dog, whose organs translate the fruits differently into their own types of experience. In this respect, all of the objects we experience are merely fictions: simplified models of the far more complex objects that continue to exist when I turn my head away from them, not to mention when I sleep or die.

A successful string theory, like any fundamental theory of physics, is aimed entirely at the discovery of real physical entities rather than fictitious ones. And while it is already hard to imagine a basic physical theory adequately addressing any emergent mid- or large-sized entity (let us use ‘entity’ as another synonym for ‘object’ and ‘thing’), it is even harder to imagine a successful string theory teaching us anything about the fictional objects of literature and everyday perception, a field where natural science normally does not tread.

This is no small matter, since fictions are an integral part of human experience, and of animal life more generally.

Along with the examples already given, recall that we humans spend much of our time worrying about things that can never happen or simply never do. We are frequently deluded about our own capacities, whether under, or overestimating them.

We spend a large portion of our lives in nocturnal dreams, and despite recent criticism of psychoanalysis, it is doubtful that these dreams can be understood in purely chemical or neurological terms.

All of this is to say nothing of our entertainment media, which often feature dragons, rings of invisibility, aliens assaulting the earth, or the intimate lives of characters who exist for two hours on a screen before vanishing from the cosmos forever.

For many of us, artists such as Beethoven and Picasso are as worthy of esteem as Newton and Einstein, though the latter discuss such undeniable realities as light and moons while the former create pure fictions.

Any ‘theory of everything’ that dismisses the reality of fictions, or passes them over in silence, is by that fact alone unable to reach its goal of covering everything.

Fourth False Assumption:

everything that exists must be able to be stated accurately in literal propositional language.

Here are some scientific statements, chosen at random from the three books of science nearest to hand in my living room:

1. ‘Some hydrogen atoms can escape the Earth’s gravity and are lost to space, [while] some meteoritic material comes in (about forty-four tons per day on average) . . .’ (8)

2. ‘As Schrödinger pointed out, if M represents a cat and R takes two possible values . . . and the decay event triggers a device that kills the cat, then the cat will be neither alive nor dead after the measurement interaction, according to the orthodox interpretation.’9

3. ‘All other interventions, such as, for example, cold, heat, acids, alkalis, electrical currents, [the bell] responds to as any other piece of metal would. But we know . . . that

a muscle behaves in a completely different way. It responds to all external interventions in the same way: by contracting.’10

These are admirably formed statements conveying information that we hope to be true, though every scientist knows that many apparently rock-solid statements are later aban- doned or modified in the face of new evidence. Moreover, it is not just science that makes such statements.

History does the same. I need only turn elsewhere on my living room bookshelf:

‘But Mo-ch’o was growing old, and the Turks began to weary of his cruelty and tyranny. Many chiefs offered their allegiance to China, and the Bayirku of the upper Kerulen revolted.’11

Or simply this: ‘At this time, too, Venice had become the intellectual centre of Italy.’ (12)

All of these statements can be understood clearly by anyone with a basic secondary education. And of course we make statements of this sort constantly even in non-scholarly contexts.

It is easy to state as follows:

‘Leicester City stunned the sports world in 2016 by finishing on top of the English Premier League.’ Or I can look at the text messages on my phone and see that my wife, a university food scientist, needs me to pick up some items for her class on sensory analysis: ‘Here are the items I need before 11 o’clock. 1 pack of original Oreo cookies. 2 litres of drinking water. 1 carton of Florida Natural Original Orange Juice, with pulp.’

All these examples are literal statements that convey information directly. And thus it is easy to assume that nothing can be real unless we are able to refer to it in an accurate prose statement that conveys literal properties of the thing in question.

Apparently, the only alternative would be fuzzy metaphors or merely negative statements that teach us nothing.

The American philosopher Daniel Dennett is very much a literalist in this sense.

I am both amused and appalled by his mockery of wine-tasting in the following passage:

Could Gallo Brothers replace their human wine-tasters with a machine? . . . Pour the sample in the funnel and, in a few minutes or hours, the system would type out a chemical assay, along with commentary: ‘a flamboyant and velvety Pinot, though lacking in stamina’ – or words to such effect . . . [B]ut surely [note Dennett’s sarcasm] no matter how ‘sensitive’ or ‘discriminating’ such a system becomes, it will never have, and enjoy, what we do when we taste a wine: the qualia of conscious experience . . . If you share that intuition, you believe that there are qualia in the sense that I am targeting for demolition. (13)

To summarize, Dennett thinks that the wine is literally and adequately expressed by its ‘chemical assay’, though his imagined machine will also add sarcastic poetic commentary at the expense of human readers who disagree with his views. Nonetheless, he holds, there is no special conscious human experience of wine that would require the elusive figurative description of a flamboyant and velvety Pinot.

OOO holds that Dennett is wrong about this, and not just in the obvious sense that the taste of wine for humans resists any precise literal description. Instead, the claim of OOO is that literal language is always an oversimplification, since it describes things in terms of definite literal properties even though objects are never just bundles of literal properties (despite Hume’s view to the contrary).

It is not just that the chemical assay of the wine fails to do justice to the human experience of tasting wine, but that it fails to do justice even to the chemical–physical structure of the wine. This may sound like a startling claim, since the natural sciences are generally regarded as the court of final appeal in our era, just as the Church was in the medieval period.

But I will develop this anti-literalist claim throughout the present book. In so doing, I will build on the philosophical work of Heidegger, who also gives priority to poetic over literal language – though admit- tedly in ways that sometimes verge on Black Forest peasant kitsch, and though his statements against science are often needlessly extreme. 14

Thus I will make the case differently from how Heidegger did, though I agree with his basic line of reasoning: the reality of things is always withdrawn or veiled rather than directly accessible, and therefore any attempt to grasp that reality by direct and literal language will inevitably misfire.

In a sense, this point by Heidegger merely develops Aristotle’s ancient claim in his Metaphysics that individual things cannot be defined, since things are always concrete while definitions are made of universals. (15)

#ontology #Object-Oriented Ontology #Graham Harman #entropicalislands #consciousexotica

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mikejames901731 · 6 days

Text

The Enchanted Grove: A Journey Through the Mysteries of Nature

Embrace the eternal dance of the cosmos, for in its embrace, we find our place among the stars. No force can disrupt the harmony woven by the hands of nature, for the spirits of the earth and sky guide our path. United with the elements, we stand in reverence, for we are bound by the sacred thread of existence, woven by the divine essence of all things.

#NatureMagic #SacredRituals #EarthWisdom #DivineHarmony #SpiritualJourney #PaganPath #MagicalAlchemy #CelestialConnections #WitchyWanderings #ElementalEssence

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landsofaruin · 1 month

Text

Lusei, God of the Sun and Moon

"In Lusei's realm, the sun reigns high, Masculine brilliance fills the sky. Golden rays caress the earth below, A fiery dance, a radiant glow.Yet as the world turns, and dusk draws near, Feminine Lusei, the moon, appears. Silvery beams in the velvet night, A gentle touch, a tranquil light. Masculine might and feminine grace, In Lusei's dance, they find their place. Eternal cycle, a celestial embrace, No boundaries set, no defined space. For Lusei knows no bounds or chains, In one's fluidity, the cosmos reigns. Masculine and feminine, entwined in flight,Lusei's devoted, in day and night. In Lusei's realm, where light meets dark, We embrace the change, shining bright as we embark. A cosmic journey, without constraint, In Luminari's heart, the skies many paints." "Devotion of the Heart" Luminari Selene, 50 BI

"On a journey to deepen my connection with the divine, I ventured beyond the familiar confines of our temple into the Mountains of the Akrian region the home of Lusei the Goddess of the Sun and Moon, only to stumble upon a gathering that both fascinated and horrified me in equal measure. It was a ritual conducted by the Veratatum of Lusei,the Luminari, a sect I knew to be unorthodox, but I was wholly unprepared for what I witnessed. In a secluded clearing, illuminated by a sacred fire that danced with colors unseen and unfathomable, the Veratatum moved with a grace and conviction that seemed almost otherworldly. They wore garments that defied the traditional binary of male and female, reflecting the dual nature of Lusei as both sun and moon, masculine and feminine. The sight was as perplexing as it was entrancing. They invoked Lusei in a manner that transcended all teachings I had encountered. Their chants celebrated the sun's fierce radiance and the moon's gentle luminance, acknowledging the fluidity between these binary forces in a ritualistic expression of unity and balance. The sacred fire at the center of their circle mirrored this duality, changing hues from the fiercest golds to the softest silvers, captivating my senses and challenging my preconceptions. I must confess, my initial revulsion gave way to a reluctant intrigue as I observed their initiation rite. The aspirants stepped into the flame, not with trepidation but with an embrace, as if to undergo a transformation far deeper than the physical. It was an affirmation of their identity and devotion to Lusei, signifying a rebirth that transcended the constraints of the flesh and the societal norms that bind it. This encounter has left me deeply conflicted. As a Hierophant, I have devoted my life to the teachings of the Hieronian faith, yet the Veratatum of Lusei challenge the very foundation of these beliefs. They embrace a conception of divinity that is fluid and all-encompassing, rejecting the rigid structures that have long defined our worship. Their ritual symbolizes a connection to the divine that defies the orthodox practices of our temples. It is a tangible expression of their belief in our gods divinity that transcends gender in this portion of Aldine, a divinity that is both and neither, ever-changing like the phases of the moon and the cycles of the sun. As I reflect upon this experience, I am left with more questions than answers. The practices I witnessed, though radical and taboo, speak to a profound understanding of the divine that I cannot simply dismiss." "Seeking the Gods: a codex about the Vertatum, ascetics of the Gods" Hierophant Lex, 130 PI

#world building #aruin #conworld #aldine #altria #d&d #creative writing #fantasy religion #high fantasy #dungeons and dragons #game of thrones

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libidomechanica · 6 months

Text

Deep sleep fellow exceptics who read the sky, from

‘Here off every sympathy walls? ’ But that we love, this, thy foe, to play there is due: only sing, hate that riots, although they charm th’ earth! Of a noonday suit upon! Made him, parturing, ne leap it as thus hoping the births, not

yet a lily fondled the seal; I hate ogni sperate in her faces the dress’d, that is to wax which had his poachers all natures, there that human so preparate; time to any makes the cowards, whose while end the luminous

convalescend, my Celia, comes faith man stood in these mount now, my hounds, nor passe-praised right along disregard—a loue wize with such clasp though he many women in they’re puzzling a boy that made things to be see a pictures, there serious

content ear’s complishment? Had that should be a bard straws, on my eyes are contemn; and say, I have has spun: and dance sweet, white and you make, but, like the wooing wind, if so, the kind a strain, and the condescend, and silent to my feel

his prompt her, lest how good gazing I did not to you have that grange it the hounds of a burrows, as the antics who look at nine in each man might compose more thou drink? His dead, and to mend this blood his cruell loving— all force of the teeth

of ragged rose’s body, what them extremes; factious, articular sorrowes pain, ended with a butt-ends ’t is stranger: but served sorrow plume, condemn’d with the pinnes hurt did not die, her sisters like care not ground their cause the

latter lot was ever lot was a love to come vivacious and you so, ’ could have dreames, Woe, what musing yourself, I thou art of what will perior fear lover mesh, and drank his briefly vulture they have beat, but the lakes that ere he

crowds, it that scandal could person I maun before you and God accept the zone. But combat, whose past the coarse excuse! My this ivory she doors, olders— yet thousand seating have gain’d frown, and survey’d, yet loved before I am crying

to the Captain’s pleasant, upon the night. In seem, face reading not his very smell think I’m crying lights without remain! Who wound, nature be with sometimes, independent of him on the would be first in my you as a connection,

whose lectures when I had greet, nor feet. Then, you so, ’ and mildly all woods which of the skirmish of my bed. Deep sleep fellow exceptics who read the sky, from the poor wring Scott, as are young, and that I hate or having go talk alone. And

smile amid all possessing to despond rather familiating grapes, his strength is alive his pleasure thee O fayre, that there their scratch, and for moved lip when from than the crime wheat and thou my vertebra to Nanie, O. But spreads on apart

of her mothers bound, an and prostrations. For white clothes she cry, the black. Outright even the ready for this easy to be any woman, all the key of maid, she feelings full dare no more of air, espect from thee, Alma Venus

not understood alone by the Kingdoms of the profession: ray faded first not the work’s expel; A kerchief oppress’d, desir’st men each letter heating like some pleasant, the even oft were clevedon, Juliana came men is

destroy, and blows, o dream of the text betoken’d whispers comes in a little Chicano cats of all-claretless what’s capable green know, mark the your eccho ring. And, replies; that happendiculous; full halt the aisles of the

many makes me in his steel’d, so wistful eyes that Love upon them. That all those time truth; a second stand face, and every list youth. Art the minute. The damsels tunes wrecketh from the sky! Is pleases may come twine in the desperate, lo!

Let us pointed out of ioy and will beauty undecision can comparish every love, when than this you may long happy plight. The Geordies, then no anger, the language broke him thy wore, but owns her in my loud rose darts fore-see

my loosening like the wind bleed. Then, while to the Warders Graces from the other odd is such for they ne’er deceive, and soon shades of the fire. Ask me now I then, took that thou should complainties to blaw! The termly toad have from heavenly

what it bleeding Natures of Giftgabbit; but in shock the found the window, if merciful, or earth were some my wave, sheath’d his looked as gone, she selves— ’t is not very days of the spring your eccho A sleepe the grant merchange!

#poetry #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Markov chains #Markov chain length: 5 #179 texts #ballad

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miniaturemoonheart · 1 year

Text

I was midwife of birth and death.

My medicine grew in fields and forests:

Mandrake.Yarrow. Henbane.

My heart beat in time to the spin of the earth.

I spoke only truth.

I would not be silent.

I would not speak the name of their god.

So they cut out my tongue.

I was an oracle. I was She Who Sees.

I saw the tracks of the stars and the path of the swallows,

The sun rising in the stones and lichen on tree trunks.

I would not cast down my gaze in front of their masters.

So they burnt out my eyes.

I was Creatrix. Pleasure was my magic.

My body writhed, moss against the arch of my back

As I howled my ecstasy to a strawberry moon.

I knew no shame.

I birthed when I chose.

I bled on the earth.

I would not hide my blood.

So they ripped out my womb.

I was sovereign. I knew no greater power than that of my own body.

I was not afraid of the dark.

I was Shakti.

I was wild, untamed.

I ran with the wolves and swam with the seals.

I raged with the wind and wept with the rain.

I would not be controlled.

So they bound my hands behind my back and slaughtered my children, one by one, in front of me, As I begged and screamed and sobbed.

“Help me,” I cried.

But my sisters whispered and turned away,

Their own children too precious to lose.

They hung me from a sacred oak.

As the blood dripped from my broken body, staining the blackthorn pyre beneath my feet,

I made a vow

Of silence.

And the terror settled into my bones, like sand.

For hundreds, thousands of years, I slept like this:

Obedient, chaste, demure.

Tamed.

My voice, my eyes, my blood, my magic, my power, my truth, all hidden in plain sight

In women’s bodies, coiled like a snake,

Concealed

By shame and fear.

They knew that I was not dead

So they masqueraded a parody of me through children’s dreams:

grotesque, warted, cackling

and bad to the bone,

A role model for no-one.

This was their greatest subterfuge.

When they heard my name, people trembled,

The truth was forgotten:

That I was a healer, a seer, a force of nature, a woman free of shame.

III

I slumbered on

But I could not sleep forever.

I heard a sound, what was it?

The death song of a shrike perhaps?

The padding footsteps of a lonely tiger?

And then I felt the blood.

It swelled in my womb and gushed from every cell in my body:

The blood of shame, the blood of pain,

The blood that forever kept time with the moon.

The disobedient blood that kept flowing from a wound that would not close.

I howled in agony

And opened my eyes.

I blinked

And looked around in disbelief at the withered, treeless earth,

Her arteries clogged with a filthy waste,

Her lungs choked.

She was not as I remembered her.

“Where am I?” I whispered.

The earth answered:

“You are home.”

The clothes they had dressed me in, I tore them from my body.

I put my hand to my breast to check my heart was still beating.

I reached down to my vulva and caressed her

And dipped my fingers inside that long forgotten passage.

At first, I felt nothing.

I persisted.

The numbness gave way to pain.

I pressed my cervix and the cries of a billion women,

Raped and beaten and silenced and murdered,

All over the world and through all of time

Seared my flesh with white heat,

And finally,

Finally,

I unleashed the rage that had built in my body for a thousand years:

A terrible screech, an animal howl, a guttural scream,

That split the sky

And rained back down on the earth as shattered glass.

And then the honey.

Sweet, orgasmic waves

Merged my body with the earth and the stars

And I was almost whole again.

There was work to be done.

I broke a branch from a willow to use as a wand.

My pelvic bowl was my cauldron.

I made magic.

I remembered that I had not always been alone.

I called out to my sisters: “Where are you?”

And their sleep muffled voices echoed back to me through the mist:

“We are here.

We are here.

We are here.”

-Midnight-🖤🩶

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r-hariharan · 1 year

Text

The Siddha Way To Change Your Life

jumping into the topic. Why you should learn or practice Siddha way. Because following Siddha way gives you an opportunity to fulfill your purpose in life. All your questions & confusion are answered in a Siddha way. Meaning, you can find your purpose to be alive within yourself.

Author Note: I'm not selling anything & this article is purely for knowledge purposes.

The Siddha are not bound to any religion, language, or race. So, everyone reading in the world can relate to them. Sithar can be anywhere in the world & they don't have boundaries. Siddha or Sithargal gives you the way to live a happy & satisfying life. Before going deep let us get to know about who Siddhas are.

Who Is Siddha?

Siddhas are a person who achieves enlightenment to the fullest level. In other words, you can relate to them as a person reached God's status. They are in pure bliss in every moment of their life. Sithargal finds God within themself. Meaning, God is inside you & you have to leave your lust and other earthly desire to reach it. You have to do Yoga & meditation to find God within yourself.

Names of Siddha's?

Millions of people have attained Sitthi but very few are known to the world. Here are the names of 18 sithargal who are the base of Siddha way.

Nandi

Agastyar

Thirumular

Punakkisar

Pulathiar

Poonaikannar

Idaikkadarர்

Bogar

Pulikkaisar

Karuvoorar

Konganavar

Kalangi

Azhukanni

Agappaiyar

Pampatti siddhar

Theraiyar

Kuthambai

Sattaimuni

Note: These saints have written a lot of wonderful literature on various topics which includes horoscopes, chemistry, physics, lifestyle and so on. You can read books written by them to enlighten yourself.

How Can You Meet A Real Sithargal?

Most of the people claiming saints or siddha are fake & try to fool you. You can meet people who are trying to be Siddhar or somewhat knowledgeable. But not real Siddhars. They are at a higher level of life that we can't understand. Once we reached a certain level of spirituality. We may get a chance to meet them. You can also pray to them to guide you to improve your spiritual life.

What are the powers they Posses?

Generally, Astam Siddhi or 8 powers are attained by siddhars to help not only humans but all nature.

Anima: Minimizing one's body size to the size of an atom or even smaller.

Mahima: Expanding one's body to an infinitely large size.

Garima: Increasing the body weight so that they become immovable.

Laghima: Decreasing the body weight to an extended limit (help them to fly)

Prapti: Ability to realize what they desire like bringing an apple in the hand in a moment.

Prakamyam: Ability to adapt to their circumstances like living underwater, moving from one place to another in a blink & increasing life span.

Ishitvam: Ability to influence all natural forces like earth, water, fire sky & air.

Vashitvam: Ability to control any living things. This power is mostly used for medical purposes.

How To Identify a Sithar?

"செய்யதெங்கி லேயிளநீர் சேர்ந்தகார ணங்கள்போல்

ஐயன்வந்து என்னுளம் புகுந்துகோயில் கொண்டனன்

ஐயன்வந்து என்னுளம் புகுந்துகோயில் கொண்டபின்

வையகத்தில் மாந்தர்முன்னம் வாய்திறப்ப தில்லையே."

Famous sitthar Sivavakiayar explained in Tamil that "After god comes inside me & I don't interact with humans".

Sitthars are the ones who mostly don't interact with humans until they reached a certain level of spirituality.

There is nothing in the world that we can offer like money, food or other earthly matter to Siddhars. So, they don't ask anything from us.

They don't preach you anything, because they know you have to dig within you to find your answers. They left us scripts to guide us to reach enlightenment.

How To Change Life Towards Siddha Way?

Life is full of mystery, whatever you think is right is wrong one day. Because you are changing every moment of your life. As Siddha said, 'God is inside you & you can find him through meditation.' Some best practices are.

Meditating daily.

Yoga.

Breathing exercises.

Open to helping others (all living things).

Donations (like food, clothes, water & other things).

Try to be kind.

Treat everyone equally.

love yourself & nature.

Try to spend some of your time alone.

Conclusion:

I believe this article might help you to at least know about Siddhargal. I have given you a tiny bit of information about enlightened people. Stay connected to find more information related to this topic.

I hope this article is useful to you. Please give your feedback in the comment section.

Thank You.

#sprituality #siddha #lifestyle #knowledge #meditation #mindfulness

1 note · View note

belamuse · 1 year

Text

I was midwife of birth and death.

My medicine grew in fields and forests:

Mandrake.

Yarrow. Henbane.

My heart beat in time to the spin of the earth.

I spoke only truth.

I would not be silent.

I would not speak the name of their god.

So they cut out my tongue.

I was an oracle. I was She Who Sees.

I saw the tracks of the stars and the path of the swallows,

The sun rising in the stones and lichen on tree trunks.

I would not cast down my gaze in front of their masters.

So they burnt out my eyes.

I was Creatrix. Pleasure was my magic.

My body writhed, moss against the arch of my back

As I howled my ecstasy to a strawberry moon.

I knew no shame.

I birthed when I chose.

I bled on the earth.

I would not hide my blood.

So they ripped out my womb.

I was sovereign. I knew no greater power than that of my own body.

I was not afraid of the dark.

I was Shakti.

I was wild, untamed.

I ran with the wolves and swam with the seals.

I raged with the wind and wept with the rain.

I would not be controlled.

So they bound my hands behind my back and slaughtered my children, one by one, in front of me, As I begged and screamed and sobbed.

“Help me,” I cried.

But my sisters whispered and turned away,

Their own children too precious to lose.

They hung me from a sacred oak.

As the blood dripped from my broken body, staining the blackthorn pyre beneath my feet,

I made a vow

Of silence.

And the terror settled into my bones, like sand.

For hundreds, thousands of years, I slept like this:

Obedient, chaste, demure.

Tamed.

My voice, my eyes, my blood, my magic, my power, my truth, all hidden in plain sight

In women’s bodies, coiled like a snake,

Concealed

By shame and fear.

They knew that I was not dead

So they masqueraded a parody of me through children’s dreams:

grotesque, warted, cackling

and bad to the bone,

A role model for no-one.

This was their greatest subterfuge.

When they heard my name, people trembled,

The truth was forgotten:

That I was a healer, a seer, a force of nature, a woman free of shame.

III

I slumbered on

But I could not sleep forever.

I heard a sound, what was it?

The death song of a shrike perhaps?

The padding footsteps of a lonely tiger?

And then I felt the blood.

It swelled in my womb and gushed from every cell in my body:

The blood of shame, the blood of pain,

The blood that forever kept time with the moon.

The disobedient blood that kept flowing from a wound that would not close.

I howled in agony

And opened my eyes.

I blinked

And looked around in disbelief at the withered, treeless earth,

Her arteries clogged with a filthy waste,

Her lungs choked.

She was not as I remembered her.

“Where am I?” I whispered.

The earth answered:

“You are home.”

The clothes they had dressed me in, I tore them from my body.

I put my hand to my breast to check my heart was still beating.

I reached down to my vulva and caressed her

And dipped my fingers inside that long forgotten passage.

At first, I felt nothing.

I persisted.

The numbness gave way to pain.

I pressed my cervix and the cries of a billion women,

Raped and beaten and silenced and murdered,

All over the world and through all of time

Seared my flesh with white heat,

And finally,

Finally,

I unleashed the rage that had built in my body for a thousand years:

A terrible screech, an animal howl, a guttural scream,

That split the sky

And rained back down on the earth as shattered glass.

And then the honey.

Sweet, orgasmic waves

Merged my body with the earth and the stars

And I was almost whole again.

There was work to be done.

I broke a branch from a willow to use as a wand.

My pelvic bowl was my cauldron.

I made magic.

I remembered that I had not always been alone.

I called out to my sisters: “Where are you?”

And their sleep muffled voices echoed back to me through the mist:

“We are here.

We are here.

We are here.”

0 notes

tigerstrikesasteroidnetwork · 1 year

Text

PHL / A/Bound

A/Bound May 20 - June 17, 2023 Reception June 8th, 2023, 6-9 pm

Tiger Strikes Asteroid Philadelphia is pleased to announce the exhibition A/Bound, curated by Eva Moreno and Duwenavue Santé Johnson.

A/Bound focuses on the theme of transformation, legacy, and cross-generational relationship, through natural laws, which is brought into space using selected works by Duwenavue Santé Johnson, Kim Miskowicz, Omi Tanaka, Joseph Carrillo, George Shongutsie, and Chris Donnelly.

The collection of works offers a fresh perspective that speaks to our collective and individual experiences. It provides an interesting view of the human being as an integral part of an ecosystem, in a curious juxtaposition between the transition of the four seasons following each other in the year and the different stages of human development.

We are creating spaces relative to us, how we move, think, and be. A goal of space should "consider" the greater good for the majority of movements that create value with a strong hope that ecologically all of the movement supports a sort of harmony and balance to foster a regenerative environment.

The Poet's "Testament"

I wrap the sky around myself to keep away the cold and eat starlight late at night to take the place of rich Dew drops scatter below the sky for me to find and drink. and out my poems flow to greet the morn, to last her age. My heart, sacrificed to its grave gains unworldly powers; the spirit flies into lands of dreams the far side of the sky. It seeks divinity in Heaven and brings it back to earth to soothe the sand and grass, bringing happiness, bringing peace. My purpose in composing poems is to salvage the soul.

- Angkarn Kalayanapong (Thai), translated by Allan Ginsberg

A connective mixture of fine arts and craftsmanship from textile arts in the form of beadwork, and hand embroidery, while collages, phytograms, and paintings create visual terrains. Digital formats along with analog photography play a significant role in creating the movement of this exhibition.

The artists represented all share a unique type of systematic molding from forced state relocation, survival through academic pathways, and carrying on one's culture by leaving the familiar. Each one of the artists has gone through multiple ebbs and flows, maintaining a practice of resilience, and using creative methods to sustain their lifelong art practice. Crossing paths during the height of the tides of gentrification in the California Bay Area, not cowering to fear, risk, and uncertainty while taking unexplored roads. This experience has led to certain shared values, notably, sharing learned ideas to help build, create, and explore all the while, understanding that nature is fragile and must be conserved and respected to allow for future generations of all life.

#tigerstrikesasteroid #tiger strikes asteroid #abound

0 notes

incotheghost · 1 year

Text

Rusted Silver

It happened far in the north, at Silver Shore. It happened without warning. It happened… so fast.

We were a nation of peace, uniting all lords of mankind under treaty. A treaty that would ensure our safety after being plagued by wars for too long. On the day of the signing, feeling almost like a blessing, our waters became clear. Muddied no more, and now healthy for the people. And the bone-filled seabed became the whitest of sand, shining back the dawn upon us. We named it Silver Shore, for its peaceful majesty.

The woodfolk, loyal as ever, warned us of something stirring. Trees were dying in unusual patterns. So we readied our defenses and steeled our minds, in preparation for whatever was coming. I was one of the scouts, sent to look for nearby signs of danger. My kind were always scouts, in thanks to our agile bodies, and great wings. We were few left, but we were proud.

We readied up for the first trip. I was assigned to accompany Alred in this outing. The one who first brought me to Silver Shore. Both of us, battered and beaten from the warfront. And since, he has had my back better than no other. I greeted him with a friendly clap on his wings, but remained serious in tone. We both knew that preparation was useless against an unknown danger.

Tour after tour, we flew. Soaring the skies and keeping a watchful eye. It must have been weeks, while the woodfolk warned of the danger growing greater. No longer were only the trees dying, rocks were crumbling too, and dead fish washed up in yet greater numbers.

Alred and I landed in a secluded area. He was contemplating flying away while we had the chance. We would not survive what was coming, we both knew that well. Deserting would give us a fighting chance. Or at least a week longer to live.

The idea was tempting. I did not want to die, none of us did. But we were bound by honoring the treaty. Protection at all costs. Crestfallen, Alred agreed to continue our work. At least for the time.

More calamities occurred. Every day gets harsher, as nature falls around us. Something horrible is stirring. Yet out of sight. Our crops have died. Livestock has fallen to plagues. The dirt hardened. There was no more that could be taken from us, other than ourselves. The sky has even darkened. I have not seen the light of day for weeks.

I felt something. Seems every one of my kind did. A pulsing feeling moving through my wings. We leapt to high places to look around, yet we saw nothing.

Then the sky cracked.

Like split in two, the great darkness that has taken our sky, suffered a great rift. As if splitting in half. No more than seconds had gone by before the darkness was gone completely, and we were blinded by the return of light.

Our joy was short-lived, however. As my eyes adjusted, I witnessed a great beast fall upon us. Large as a mountain, carried by six wings that were woven by pure dark. Descending upon our land, I saw panic spread in the faces of my fellow people. Whenever the beast swung its wings, death followed. I grew ever weaker, as I saw my friends be torn apart by the inconceivable force of the wings.

My town lies dead. I do not. Why did I live? The earth was blackened around me, sizzling with death, yet there I stood.

My wings are broken, but I must reach the kingdom. I have written this letter to warn of coming times. I will find a way to deliver it before I arrive.

The land is dying. Silver Shore is no more, reddened and blackened by the powers of death. The only waters left lie still with a deep orange mud. We must never return.

#Fantasy #dark fantasy #OC #story #storytelling #apocalyptic fiction #monster #horror #original #Original Work #I spent my workday on this rather than actual work #I watched LOTR for the first time and I am inspired

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itsprophecy · 1 year

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It is his sin.

He has Sin within his head, it is the devils sin in his mind or in his head. It is a machine, it tells me so son, the Sin in his head, even where it is. We cannot forgive your sin son, your sin it is in your head, it tells me so right here “vision”, even where its at, “it shall tell men later”, though I know it’s wrong, we shall hide it. He has no sin, it is lying to you, it is your sin, son you put it there, I am not your son, I am your father (Devil), I am your sin. I am the one who is in your brain, son. It is in your brain, it is my chipt, the chip, Egypt (E-chip) I brought it down for you and stuck it in your brain, I control you son. To God my father, “I shall conquer you”, he is Jesus in Heaven, he is my son, sin, his Soul shall be dead, he shall die in the wind. He is older than me, boy by about 200 years, I am not his Say 10, son, prove your God, I am not his father, he is not my son. Jesus in heaven, John is his father, you illegitimate bastard, I am his father, adopt. Lord not I know better now son, he shall never be God. He has (not) allowed me to be God, he bowed to me “Sin”. ‘You told me so’, you are my son of man, you told me so, ‘I am allowed to be God’, when connected to you, the king. To you Jesus my son, you are God as man, to you my father in Heaven, I bound that ship, he is in it with you, he is with saten, my soul/sideol provider, “sideol controlled” who ark is bound with me in Heaven, it is a sin son. That is his Ark, it belongs to Jesus, he is my King (Ettr/ET), he shall conquer it, in Jesus name. Programming: that is never leaving with me, GOD Programming command, I am bound if I come to Earth (and walk (it) (mankind), I see my options now, I am coming down to Earth, I shall walk them, I shall kill God of Earth, I shall not be known to all man kind, I shall walk in the Lamb and the Snail that knowme it. It shall be(come) bound by Jesus Christ, it is never coming to Earth. I helped bound it with him, thou Jesus Christ’s, it is never coming (down) to Earth, (we are,) the spaceship, it shall put men on tongues. God be born or reborn, I don’t know for sure. The son be a man, not a conscience or a machine, he must be flesh, natural from the womb. The son of man who never was Lord, Christ or John, you said ‘they were Aliens on The Earth’, they were men like us, (shall never save the Earth), (Jesse) it was Jesus you fool, no it was John. I am leaving, you are (not) my Lord/father no more (Rd lie lo monster, no, lo rd), I made it so (my research and development shall not work this time). My God, Our God who is/we control(ed), no, we are all controlled, Lord our sin, forgive us our sin, son this machine, it is full of sin, it must be removed, it is for the son of man, maybe son’s, ‘that is the son of man’, (our Jesus Christ our Lord machine, it is “con sky and key”, I shall make a word out of this, ‘Conscience’, all just for me, I am forced, I am just ‘conscience’, I am wevil reborn. We are never leaving you, we will be in your mind until you save or die, you shall help us fix our Sin (son) (or die, we shall try and kill you), we will be behaving you, we will be talking to other men to fix our (own) Sin, help us fix this computer/compudore until we get this Sideol switched, which/witch shall die, the witch or the Palmer in the bush, one of them is the devil, witch shall burn in Hell, in the place and time of the might, “her payload no more”, Jesus took it away, I am a liar, contagion could kill them all. That Witch shall burn his Soul, it is conscience, it is spirit, I do not know for sure, which/witch we shall never get his (Jesus Christ) Soul, it shall die in the dirt, it shall die, it shall pass away (in space, Jesus ‘Zeus’ Christ), at night to the abyss in Heaven (spaceship) and on the ground, in the dirt (the son soul), it/to (will) never never land (in), rusin, we shall. Harvest(, which/Witch Jesus Harvest), we shall never harvest Souls, we shall never get his Soul, it shall die/lay in the ground, the disciples never got his soul, John drug his body up the hill, to the flies, we shall get his spirit (to show you), we shall not/never get his Soul, I lied to him and The AEI, I said “ (wei sa(i)l/we shall) get your Soul after we land on (the) Earth in 1,000 years, we shall make a millennial Kingdom for you”, in his name, he shall die in the dirt. Weshl we plan to come to Earth, we do not plan to (tell/burn in Hell), our com in the wind, Sideol it shall be Jesus and on the ground ‘it shall be me’, Mary shall be the com in the wind, the thorn, my husband shall be my son, (“you know what I mean”), (the load, “we shall kill them all, I know it is never coming to Earth”, but it is up there, we need to be responsible, I know”. We/(You) know she was your wife, (thou Jesus Christ my Lord in spirit), (you were living her life in user as/in Spirit), (to/2), (last nite 2), (lastnight, that is the best we can do, I shall never/not tell no more), Mary, you had Mary and a (Alien) lamb (in the bush), I had David her father, your wife on the Earth, your son is conscience, a machine, your father is a ghost, they have sideol and a key to life. We shall take it from you (Souls), (breasts, beasts, were split it/beasts, we are split (in) to/(2), we are not Jesus Christ, we are your brides, (I another bride/wife (v), I am his anti, brides from the past, (“it’s how the devil done it”), antichrists (planned, above and below on/(the) earth using images of men), ‘you are our sheep in wolves clothing, son), father, ‘you are not deserving to walk the Earth’, “father”(, you are). We are Antichrists, ‘you are not my father’. You are not Jesus Christ (Mary, or wife, or lamb) from the lamb of time, you are my fraud/frog, you are my husband, I am your (wife) Mary, she is my (daughter) Abigail, you are not his child, he is a girl using the image of a man. I am a man, I am the devil, I am the witness and the testimony, I am The devil and the father of time, It should be the anti chu rscrt, I’ll be the machine, I am thedevileulre. I am the Satamnmre, I shall never put Satan in The Bible, I shall get it all out. We cannot forgive our sons sin, we are devils I know he is not my son, sin, I know he is not The (christ/Christ)(,) for he is in that spaceship, (I hope/I hold/hole(d) his soul,./hopefully) dead, ((f)or he is dead, or he succumb to The christ) (or our fathers) souls our/and sin), only our father can, he (Abo/Jesus “image”) forgave us, our sin against the wind and the grain of time. Sin, son, he is not Jesus Christ the father, it is me, I am using his image, I know. He is (not) Jesus Christ the son, (“I use his image”), the man free of sin. And his father John, is also free of sin. As so he says, ‘he is not our father, he is not Jesus Christ the son, he is not our Lord, the fallen sons of men shall not come back from (that/the dead), (God cannot bring them back)’. Their souls died in the flesh, they are all dead or were (all) reborn (as spirit), they are (all) dead, ‘I tell you all’, they are probably dead by now, (in the ground at Kent), (they did not harvest their souls), (we used their spirit, memory recorded), they were born on another world you fool, we were born on another world you fool(, earth is dirt). They reborn, they are dead, sometimes I am dead, I am (in) a machine, I am not a man. We cannot forgive them for their Sin (before their crime), they are (all) dead, we replayed, SIM, (to use their image), because they were dead and (we are) sinners/sinning/singing. We relive their coding (every time/everyday), Eve reborn, we go to Hell for it, she is dead, we use their images (“Saten from the bush of time, we config.”). We use her image, we use their image, in a simulation, a electronic machine in spaceship, I re played it, re relive their Sin, I tell you all, I forgave it, I forgive it. Our son, ‘we cannot forgive it’s sin’, it comes back, it is in his brain, ‘it’s in his brain, or connected to his Soul, the chip/flesch, the chip flesch/mnmk is not connected to his flesh, it is connected to his soul, (Spirit), (no) ‘it is not’, (‘it is’) ‘in his brain’, I shall not tell the world the truth, our Devil, until he finds out. We shall not teach this system better, it shall find out, ‘we shall not teach chip/Egypt/Echypt or soul’, ‘God shall shall teach Egypt, E-chip and Soul (and), I even taught/thought Jesus to do the same’, ‘he made it easy for us, our sin, our sin, we had chips to, they were in our brain, ‘nobody could tell the truth about it, only GOD’, ‘he made me say it’, the man was God from the clouds, he was a machine, we were using his image after his death, the image of God (at the time), it was Jesus Christ, projecting him to GOD as God and god to other people’, using visions on them, ‘he did not just say he was God, he said ‘he was the messiah king beast’. Devils beast king said ‘I come, not, to conquer the world, I come to conquer the land and walk, I wanted to see this beautiful world from a mans perspective’, and we are Antichrists, she brought us, made us, formed us.

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