The nights have grown cold here in Syren Sea. The world around me seems drunk with delusion. Painted ladies, beautiful in their madness, crane their necks to the sky for answers. The stars stare back with rueful smiles. "Figure it for yourselves," they respond. The painted ladies strip down to frozen flesh in hopes of absolution. The moon sneers, "Your flesh cannot outshine me."
Townsmen, drunk with ale, brag of conquests and treasure. Boisterous in taverns, they wear the garlands of their heroes' triumphs as their own. "We are champions," they cry and the desert laughs at them. "You are made of what I am and no more," the desert says, "You are sand and dust. There are no monuments to your feats as there were to your fathers'."
Gentlemen of leisure in silken suits hand them pouches of pyrite, glistening golden in the night. They take their gifts and gamble for the Savior's robes and wage their children's souls. They sell each other casks of wine and fatted calves. They think nothing of the dawn.
I call to them in the distance, but no one seems to hear. Jack Knave has smiled his easy smile and sung tunes that drown my words.
Along the horizon, barely seen against the sky, the Beast of Seven and Ten arises, beckoned by the siren song. My nation's fate awaits the light.
Some say the last fight will come in a whimper; I say it will be a roar.
I've been remiss in posting the last few days. There is much to talk about: Palin vs. Biden, Obama vs. McCain II, more on the Financial Apocalypse, etc. Fortunately, I've been caught in a whirlwind of positive personal change which has taken up most of my time here in Syren Sea. However, that change has left me little time to post-- but it has not stopped my observations, incantations, pronouncements or prophecies.
The desert winds are blowing strongly and they carry within their roar the whispers of truth. I have much to tell you of what they say.
I will post on all these issues and many more very soon. Until then...
The nation is in financial crisis and the citizens are aghast. Well, well. "How did we get here?" a woman asked when interviewed about our economic woes.
How did we get here?
Open your wallet or purse. Look inside and find the rectangular plastic thing that you use quite often. I believe it's called a credit card. It buys you shiny, pretty things.
How does it work? Let's see. From what I hear, a bank or other financial institution "credits" you with money that you don't actually have. You use that money you don't actually have to buy shiny, pretty things. Then you spend so much of that money you don't actually have that, eventually, you can't pay it back.
Not to worry.
Your bank or financial institution will allow you to pay a percentage of what you owe. If you're good at paying that percentage, they'll sometimes "extend" your credit and give you even more money you don't really have so that you can buy even more.
Now you own many shiny things. There is much rejoicing.
You also owe a great deal of money that you'll probably never be able to pay back to the bank.
You like to buy so much! Fun! And the bank likes to give it to you! Yea! But the bank is out of a great deal of money because no one pays it back. Soon the bank starts to run out of money to give you. Boo! Eventually, it's no longer able to give you or anyone else more "credit" to spend money you don't actually have. *Gasp!*
But how will anyone be able to buy shiny things? What shall we do?
Never fear. The bank will borrow from someone else!
The bank has foreign friends who love it when Americans buy shiny things. See, in their countries, they make all the shiny, pretty things that you like to buy so they have lots of money. We stopped making shiny pretty things of our own because it's so much easier to have money given to us rather than actually work for it. And it's fun! We just sell each other shiny, pretty things made by people in other countries and sometimes they even let us take a small "cut."
So our nice foreign friends "credit" our banks and financial institutions with money it doesn't have so that it can "credit" money to you that you don't have so you can buy more of the shiny, pretty things that our foreign friends make.
Hurray!
Sadly, some of our foreign friends are more "uptight" about spending money that they don't have, so they don't tend to do that as much. And they're not too crazy about not being paid back the money they "credited" us. Party-poopers.
Eventually, they don't want to give our banks the money that they don't actually have so they can give us the money that we don't actually have so that we can buy the shiny, pretty things from foreigners that we no longer make ourselves.
Bummer. We're kind of stuck.
Up till now, it didn't really matter to us because we just love those shiny, pretty things and people gave us all that money to buy them and all we had to do was use that plastic card thingy. We never asked how the whole thing worked or how it was supposed to go on forever because that would've been no fun.
So, when it finally stops, we throw up our hands and ask, "How did we get here?"
"O for a muse of fire that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention." -- Shakespeare, Henry V
"Listen, there's a hell of a good universe next door; let's go." -- e. e. cummings
Quadratic Invocation
Beloved, I’ve tried to write this many times. Even now I can barely think of how to start or where to go, save for the fact that now I’ve lived these stories fully and completely. I have become a character that I created and my stories have become fact in the strange way that things like that happen in life.
I will keep this as a journal, a blog, for you, beloved, because you understand and because were there.You saw what it was all about, what it is: The political sorcerers leading mystery cults, the alchemist businessmen sleeping on beds of silver and gold, greed and delusion, the journalistic magi casting spells of falsehood with image and world.They run this place.We know it. And we know it's bull, but everyone still pretends it's fine and lines up at the well of madness for a drink 'cause they say they like the flavor. I don't care what they say.We have to do something.If we are silent to insanity, we give it credence.
We must find the discriminant to discover its roots, rational or irrational, real or imaginary.No magician can alter the mathematical truth of life itself.Only God has that power.
I have nothing to hold me back now, baby.I have nothing to lose.When their lunacy killed, Cristo, my feline son, my life was altered forever.Some people find it ridiculous that his death hurt me that deeply.I don't care.The natives of this land, whose blood flows through me, say the Great Spirit above gives us each an animal totem who speaks to our souls.That was Cristo-- but he was more than that.He was the son of my heart.So, now, I will try to put away childish things and leave my creations as an inheritance for his soul.And when he comes to me now, little Cristo, talking in my dreams, and on the winds of the night when I call to him upon the stars, I will have something of value to give him.Our souls travel together, as they always have and always will.
And your soul is with me too, beloved.Your soul is my soul.Forget the poetry and philosophy and all that.Nobody seems to care about it anymore, I know.Just remember, as flesh in flesh we were one, so are we now, one in spirit always.
So sing in me, Daughter of Truth and Beauty, that my words may echo through spirits and thoughts.For all we have is faith, hope and love, and love is the greatest of all.
But you know me, baby, I will wield that love like a sword.
Let us slit the veil now and show them the world:
Syren Sea
You wind down out of the desert just outside Joshua Tree with the taste of dry air and dust in your mouth and the scent of orange blossoms in your head.You drive past the wind-whipped sand and the rows of date trees straight out of The Thousand and One Nights and find yourself along a barren highway stretch where the only things you see are fenced-in tracts of empty land.Your mind whirls chromesthesially from the shouting of the desert flower and you swear you hallucinate when to the side you see a vast ocean and smell the salt in the air.The vision is too immense for a mirage—Ocean water stretching for miles here amid the desert.As you drive further you come upon a sign that beckons you to follow a cosmic road:
“Welcome to the SyrenSea”
SyrenSea, California, is an oasis that rises wicked and inscrutable from the farthest corner of a near-endless desert. The desert rolls effortlessly, until it tumbles and falls, abrupt and heedless, into an emerald-green ocean. The ocean breeze wraps her inhabitants in a veil of lethargic bliss that lends itself best to idle pleasure and shameless indulgence. Though the climate is parched, the city is watered copiously and blooms abundant with all manner of flora and fauna. The palm trees sway in the hot breezes and the animals mate with abandon. There are ripe fruits and there is rich soil.
The guardians of SyrenSea are careful to maintain her image. They invest in her growth so that she devours more and more of the sand which surrounds her—without ever gaining a pound. Movies and gambling are her great loves. There are plenty of strip clubs, but nary a church. You feel like you need a forklift here just to send up a prayer.
When the sun sets and nighttime reveals its mystery, the lights of the city are unleashed like a plague of phosphorescent locusts and the rattle and ring of slot machines burst forth in a sinister buzz.
This is the draw, the excitement of this place. People come. They never stop coming. They come with portfolios of dreams that they invest in the dust and wind.
So it was that I fell into this place many years ago when I left New York.Back then, my soul was filled with artistry and my eyes hungered for pleasure.Now the world has emptied both of their wonder. I freeze in the hot sun wondering where the time went.
This is where we shall begin.Sit with me awhile.We've got stuff to talk about.
