2020-11-05 Cast from Alexandria in Flames
Cast from Alexandria in Flames
Location: A hidden cave
Date and Time: November 5, 2020
Summary: Stories in flames
Mood Music: Coil - "Batwings (A Limnal Hymn)"
The Diving Reflex is an automatic response that the human body has to the face and nostrils being submerged in cool water while holding one's breath. Observed in virtually every mammal to date, the diving reflex allows a person’s body to relax while they’re underwater. Characteristics of the response are a cessation of breathing, decreased heart rate, and an increase in peripheral vascular resistance leading to a redistribution of blood flow to adequately oxygenate the brain and heart while limiting flow to non-essential muscles, making survival that much more likely. Add in deep, meditative breathing beforehand to pump more O2 into the blood even more, and even someone not entirely trained in underwater swimming could hold their breath for several minutes.
Not that they’ll need that amount of time, of course. But it is nice to have that in your back pocket just in case.
“Are you ready?” Jinny asks from the spot where she’s kneeling next to the pool, checking the contents of a dry bag one last time. This is the path that leads to the Node; a path underwater that heads into the stifling darkness but, inside? Inside is everything. She breathes slowly and carefully, running the mantra she’s written in her head with a silent movement of her lips over and over again, committing it to memory. Several flashlights have been set up in various spots around the room, the beams low, to provide enough light for them to see in here. If memory serves her correctly, any amount of light coming from outside the pool will make getting out that much easier than getting in. While she could measure the distance, part of the ritual of getting into the place is not knowing the way. To trust the destination is there, and to not panic while one is swimming.
Jinny stands and straightens, dusting the fine sand off her bare knees and feet, turning to look at Luu before casually peeling off her thin undershirt, standing completely naked in the pale light given off by the flashlights. The rest of her clothes are folded neatly and set aside and high, along with her boots and socks, out of the way of inadvertent splashes or surges. No sense in getting all that stuff wet when the dry bag she has contains all that’s needed on the other side. A reflective orange strap is tied around her hips, the other end clipped securely to the bag, allowing it to follow along behind as she swims.
The still pool beckons and, taking one last deep, steady breath, Jinny looks over to Luu, studying the other woman’s bare form. “See you soon.” she says, then takes one step forward and smoothly pikes into the chilly water with barely a splash, the dry bag following behind into the pool a few seconds later as she starts the swim to the space that contains their node. The power source of their chantry.
What lies on the other end is both known and unknown, and Jinny’s heart quickens at the anticipation of what’s to come.
Double checking the lights, the batteries of which had been freshly changed back at the Chantry, Luu proceeds to casually remove her clothes – a rather utilitarian outfit, though still perfectly tailored, and with hidden embellishments – and artfully folds them up into the dry bag.
“Ready,” she confirms, her voice confident, even though she knows caving accidents claim the lives of numerous professionals, and she is hardly a professional in these matters. On paper, the hidden path they’re about to take through this cave system has all the hallmarks of danger: a cramped and narrow passage of some length, and all under water; incredibly dark water, with only a faint light to point out where they need to exit, and even that is not always visible during the journey. If either or both of them get stuck, there’s not going to be any dramatic multi-day rescue, just brief terror with the finality of a personal watery cofffins within a watery grave. True, they might have certain magicks that could get them out, but panic and severe confinement make such will-working quite difficult. Besides that, what instruments might they be able to use while in that watery passageway? Attempting to speak words of power in the languages of Angels? That would just make her drown faster.
A nod is given to Jinny as she says ‘see you soon’ and drops into the water. There’s no doubt in Luu’s mind that the two of them will see each other again soon, but will that ‘soon’ be measured by a clock or The Wheel?
Only a few brief moments of waiting are needed before Luu can safely follow Jinny, but sometimes in a cave, time seems to stand still. For now, there is nothing left of Jinny, but a faint echo mixing with the sounds of dripping water and the distant fluttering of bat wings. Naked and alone, waiting to plunge into darkness, Luu feels a draft pass over her flesh, raising the hairs on her arms. Her nostrils fill with the scent of cold and wet stone, briney lichens and molds, and the faint of an entire life cycle of animals, their musk, feces, and decay. The slow deep breaths are necessary for moving through the passage, and once she arrives at her destination, that first inhale of the powerful essence of its air will banish any sense of this faint miasma.
Once she knows it’s time, Luu takes a step forward, vanishing into the water. The darkness of the cave is nothing compared to the inky blackness of its waters. The lights they set up beforehand, little more than faint stars by which to navigate a return, but right now she must move away from them, and travel across the abyss to the cave’s hidden star.
Submerged in its water, her hands grope blindly against the cave’s walls. Even though she knows where the passage is, it still takes a moment for her to find it, avoiding the sort of panic that might befall a less willful traveller. Her hands grip the wet stone on either side of the opening, as she pulls herself deeper into the hidden opening.
There’s no way to move fast, but moving slow is not an option. She begins to travel through the waters, her movements developed through chance and intuition, in relation to the limited options of the narrow space. Not enough to truly swim, she moves herself through with small kicks and strokes, combined with pulling and pushing against the cave walls. A certain number of scrapes and bruises and bruises are inevitable along the way, but she hardly takes notice of it. Deep concentration on following the path to her destination is required, she’s not sure if somewhere in those dark waters there might be other passages forking off that an unfocused mind could mistakenly find themselves traveling down, and right now, she’s not prepared to find out. Though all she can see is darkness, her goal is held firmly in her mind’s eye with determined Will, her persistence and exertion rewarded as she catches the faint light of the cave’s true star piercing the darkness. Energized by the light she moves towards it, feeling as if it was also moving towards her, its presence enlarging, until there’s nothing to do but merge with.
With great mystical and physical urgency, Luu emerges drenched from navigating the hidden passage of the cave, immediately taking in a deep breath; the air warm, richly scented, and sacred. As her eyes open and begin to adjust the light, the first thing she sees is Jinny’s legs around the small eternal flame which radiates unmistakable dynamic energy. This is the source of their power, and through it they will change the world, and reach Ascension, together.
Jinny’s journey through the inky waters falls into that strange combination of time. From one point of view, it was a simple dip into a darkened pool, a wriggle through water-worn passageways with the occasional bonk on the head or scrape on the shoulder if she were to swim faster than her hands could feel. From another, it was a trek from one world to an entirely different one, wriggling naked and afraid through a tight canal into an unknown world of magick and spirits that lie beyond. No matter - the bumps, scrapes, and bruises suffered on the journey through the water are a small sacrifice to pay for the potential prize of Ascension for all.
For the longest time, Jinny swims with her eyes closed, imagining life as a blind fish in these waters, seeking morsels by touch and scent, making her way through the tunnel. It’s relaxing, being in this space, surrounded by darkness. Cut off from all of her other senses, she’s keenly aware of the slightest touch and sound. Turning to swim on her back, she listens, one hand dragging over the stone of the roof of the tunnel. There’s the sound of the water surging around her, the rhythmic thumping of her heartbeat in her chest, low and steady, and the sound of the dry bag bumping along the ceiling a few feet behind her, the little air trapped inside keeping it buoyant enough to float. She both feels and hears Luu joining her in the pool, a small surge of cooler water surging past, and then? And then she feels the star, glimmering in the distance in a place above and when she opens her eyes, she sees it, flickering brightly through the crystal clear water.
In normal circumstances the Node’s light would be the same strength as a candle or a campfire burnt down to embers: a pale yellow-orange that reminds one of a fall’s day at sundown, the chill of the evening being held back by this single, solitary flame. She lets out a breath, a giggle, bubbles collecting on the roof of the cave, the same silver as mercury, pushing off with one foot to emerge from the water, only her eyes and the bridge of her nose as she looks around at first before she pulls herself to the smooth, warm stone and stands, basking in the faint light of the node. The warmth of the cavern she finds herself in feels as soothing as a blanket on a cold winter’s day.
Taking a deep breath of the still, pure air, Jinny reels in the dry bag, setting it on the edge of the connecting pool and unfastens the loop from around her waist, her bare feet on smooth, clean rock, opening it to withdraw three simple towels - natural fiber, natural dye, in the three primary colors of light. Red, Blue, Green. It will be crowded if they ever decide to bring anyone else here, Rhode, or those they had visions of, but that is for the future. This place is warm and dry and the air is fresh and pure.
When Luu emerges, there are no words. None are needed. A hand reaches down to help Luu from the pool, then a towel is draped over her shoulders, matching the one around Jinny’s. Hand is taken in hand and she turns both to face the flame, the guttering, sputtering light seeming to respond to their presence, fluttering feather-like as they approach. Only a few steps from the pool, the flame and all that it entails can be found in a space not much bigger than one of Luu’s closets. Claustrophobia could be an issue.
The third towel is laid down for the pair to sit on and Jinny sits on the right, her legs crossing in the Lotus position, her back straight. Another deep, cleansing breath is drawn in through her nose and blown out through her mouth. There’s no need for clothes. Puritan views of the sanctity of modesty have no place here. Jinny feels more connected to the vibration of creation that moves through this place when she’s bare, and besides, wearing anything besides themselves could contaminate the energy of the Node, and this is so important that doing anything that might make that possible is a no go for her.
She remains silent, reverent. Waiting patiently for the world to reveal itself.
One hand pressed against the floor of the cave, and the other grasping Jinny’s, Luu pulls herself up out of the water into the small room which is the Chantry’s secret power source. As a small amount of water drips from her body, dropping on the shore and rolling back towards its source, Luu takes one of the towels to dry herself off.
No words are exchanged, a small smile suffices to acknowledge what they both just went through. Her violet hair gets one final tousle, before satisfied, Luu neatly folds the towel and places it to the side. Moving the few steps available to her in the cave, she takes a seat next to Jinny on the other towel, their lotus positions nearly touching as they sit beside the small flame.
The walls of the cave around them are marked with petroglyphs, left in an unknown past by one of the few others who had been where they are now. Who they were is less important than the stories they left, many of them likely not known and yet anticipated by the mystic artists and storytellers who came here before them.
A symbol set, rich and complex in its simplicity adorns the curvatures of the stone walls. The flickering of the flame reveals and hides them, placing them into a constant dance of transformation and reconfiguration. It is a living cinema of place and mind. An artform of light, eternal and yet archaic. The way the cosmos, nature, and humans evolve their light sources over time create whole new worlds of possibilities, and yet earlier practices remain as something far more dynamic than mere fossilizations of imprints.
Watching the dance of this microcosm of reality, seated to the left of her Chantrymate in meditative positions, Luu begins to intone sacred vowels. At first little more than whispers, the mantra slowly builds, a second quieter tone higher than than the main vocalization, acting as in harmony. The cave’s resonance joins in, singing back creation towards them. The air is largely still, and yet coming to life with precise vibrations. The petroglyphs begin to become adorned with these vibrations, their movements now taking on new characteristics and meanings, their relations find themselves in a specific time and place, and they begin to share one of their stories.
Sitting here in the node that powers Wayak'il Ts'onot náak'Chi'ha, deep within the cave situated beneath a mountain range somewhere in the California desert, Jinny can’t help but feel a sense of wonder that is rarely experienced in the modern world. From what she’s observed, movies and television shows tell stories with beginnings, middles, and ends, all wrapped in a neat package for an hour and forty five minutes of consumption. Games start with a tutorial, throw you into a story that may have a twist or turn but, in the end, it’s more or less a straight line with little diversions to hide the fact that it’s actually a straight line. Here, though? The symbols scattered over the smooth walls hint at stories on top of stories that change depending on how the firelight hits them or where one is sitting in relation to the symbols. If they were to bring powerful lights in here, the symbols would be utterly chaotic, covering every surface and each other in a way that would make it impossible to recognize anything. A shape in red ochre could be a buffalo or could be a mystical god. With the flickering of the node, though, the artwork seems to dance, the colors presented in such a way that each change in light causes them to move.
Or is it not the light but something else entirely? Perhaps the magick of this place has infused the paintings with their own form of primitive life, allowing them to move against the stone on their own as the stories there are told. The memories of those who painted these symbols and shapes with bare fingers, countless ages ago, their fingerprints still barely visible in the pigment if one were to look closely enough. Jinny feels a kinship with those who made their marks on the walls here, their worship and reverence coalescing into something almost tangible, something that can be held and consumed and taken into the self with every breath of the fresh, warm air.
And then the sound. The sound of her heartbeat and the flickering of flame is replaced by something anew. A whisper comes from her right, Jinny’s back straightening at the intonation that touches something primal within her. Her eyes are open, watching the wall arching above her, watching the figures start to shimmer and move as the cave sings counterpoint to Luu’s vocalizations. She reaches up, above the flame, fingers outstretched, palm flat, as one of the figures detaches from the stone hesitantly, then enthusiastically starts to dance upon the skin of her palm in time with the echoes.
Jinny lifts her other arm in a similar fashion, an expression of pure joy on her face as the symbols, long forgotten, dance along the storyteller’s skin. There’s no danger here. One could easily panic if it were not for the story that’s there to be told. Jinny can feel them moving down her arms, over her chest, breasts, and back, down her thighs to her feet, painting her body like she would paint a wall. They undulate in time, breathlessly waiting, twisting. Her eyes close.
“There is only one story here.” Jinny says, her voice quiet, syllables weaving in time with Luu’s chanting. “Only one, with infinite variations. Somewhere, somewhen, someone strives to get something. Power. Riches. Food. Love. Each part of the story affects all of the others in a balanced way. Each part affects another part, and in turn is affected by another. Everything is interconnected.” Her eyes open halfway and she exhales, an iridescent puff of lavender smoke rising from her mouth and nose, moving to dance with the flame, the story flowing from her.
“It was she who held my complete attention. She was a golden brown presence, burned by the Summer sun and with a golden glint in her warm brown hair. It was a glorious summer. We left on a walk and when she grabbed my hand, it tingled like I was playing the largest drum I could carry. I could barely speak. We walked, hand in hand, through the fields of Neakita, our paths intersecting and splitting apart as we danced. The fields were full of life, the grass gentle beneath our feet, the Dyani prancing at the edge of the forest when the storm came.”
Jinny’s skin darkens, the figures gathering to form storm clouds over her face and shoulders, her pale skin streaked with lines of white as she recounts one tale out of the infinite thousands written on the wall. Her voice is not hers, the words not hers.
“We ran to hide from the storm. We ran to the darkness at the base of the hill where the quiet darkness lived. There was something else there, in the darkness. A small flame danced for us, welcoming us into its presence. ‘I have been waiting’ it said. ‘I wish to share my warmth and blessings with you.’”
In the representational, we reinvent ourselves, or sacrifice that agency to the illusory other. What doesn’t change, dies; light to light, image to image. What is red? Across the generations, there are different answers. Among those that lived in the past hundred years, red, true neutral red, connects with the redesign of the color of a can of Coca-Cola. Its warmth and hue was decided for them by a committee out of commercial interest. Humanity’s collective imagination codified, commodified, and sold back to them. Losing touch with their nature as their stories are crushed into landfill; myth recycled into garbage. A tragedy of riches, and yet so cheap.
The walls of this cave testify not to a redesign, but to an evolution. The red ochre of the petroglyphs is dynamic and alive, the interaction of the divinity in sacred earth and the twin lights of human imagination and a flickering eternal flame. In this natural cave, and numerous like it across the world, communities found shelter, and in meeting their simple needs, began to preserve their complex interiors. What was expressed in this cave and around this fire, is still expressed in this cave and by this fire. They were storytellers, but they were not the first storytellers; they were the first librarians, a role they elevated as an art form.
In this cave they sought refuge, running from an older form, and yet carried it in with them, in order to transform it through the sacred alchemy of storytelling. For these generations, red was the color of blood, which ran through them and from them. The key to their magick is so simply intuitive, that it is no wonder it is almost completely lost today. In transmuting blood to ochre, both reds must be alive. The flickering of this cave’s eternal flame, holds all stories in mind, a divine spark passed continuously through the generations. The thread that binds the book of this simple library.
The sacred vowels continue to emanate from Luu. Vibrations of elemental stories, their light projected on the mirrors of their flesh. All motions the dance of reality, telling the story of itself.
The dominant colors in the cave are reds, browns, blacks, and whites, in hues ranging from impossibly bright to barely visible in the flickering light of the node. There are very few blues or purples, and there are no greens at all. These all are colors that were difficult, if not impossible to create using the natural substances that the founders were able to gather. If Jinny were able to reach back in time with her bag of colors they would be just as dazzled as Jinny and Luu are now. The paintings awaken for the first time in generations, eager, the untold stories they contain bubbling up over each other, a wave of information delighted to be discovered anew.
“Her hair was dark; as dark as the moonless sky.” Jinny’s voice changes again, softer this time. Still feminine, but different, the change heralded by an exhaled cloud of creamy white smoke. “She and I, the two of us, were together from the moment we first met. Her laughter and wit rivaled that of the shamans. Her questions frustrated them when she would not accept the answer they gave. ‘Go, then.’ they said. ‘Go to that place in the mountain where we do not go. Go and find your answers. When you find your truth, tell it to the mountain. It will listen more patiently than we will.’ So we went, she and I, to the place in the mountains where the shamans did not go. We explored the depths, lit only with torches made from dried grass. The smoke burned our eyes, filled our lungs, and streaked our skin with oily soot when the wind changed. My skin was streaked with black darker than her hair. We thought to turn back many, many times, but an unseen hand pushed us. Almost like we were being watched and judged. And then….” She pauses for effect. “And then we found it.”
Jinny rises, brushing a hand over the overarching stone as she stands straight and tall, the stone itself shifting without a sound, moving as she does to accommodate her form, drawing away to make space as she tells the tale. “Deep inside we found a light, dancing. And the walls…” She laughs. “The walls were covered in colors, the likes of which we only saw in a chief’s cloak.” She turns and takes a step to the other side of the flame, crouching down, her eyes wild, her mind not her own. The spirits have taken her. “It was as large as the two of us holding hands with arms outstretched. The pond in the back, just there…” She gestures, the paintings on her naked body surging like a wave, swirling, blues and whites coursing over her skin. “The water there was fresh and pure. The air was clean, clear, and warm. When we were here, we did not hunger. We did not want for anything. The stories that we learned would fill a scroll that stretched from her to the blackness beyond the moon, Aya. Don’t you see? Every story is here, on these walls. Layer on top of layer on top of layer.”
Jinny touches the wall again, the surge of color rushing into it, soaking into the stone, leaving her still covered with ancient drawings; painted, but no longer painted with the blues of water. “We added stories on top of stories. We made the cave smaller from all the stories we told each other. It was barely large enough for us both before we realized it.” She says softly, walking the three steps to where she once stood, behind Luu, brushing her fingertips across her shoulders and neck, moving to rest on the crown of her head, leaving it resting there before she sits, retaking her lotus position, her knee touching Luu’s against the towel.
This little bit of contact, it seems, was enough to convince the cave, if there was such a thing as convincing a cave, that Luu was alright to dance with. A triangle-shaped rune slowly drifts down from Luu’s hairline, settling over her face, a fingertip-thick line drawn between her eyes and down to her mouth, framing her nose. Another triangle starts between her eyes and goes down across her cheekbones and the bridge of her nose. Other runes, other symbols, other representations, drift from Jinny, across the bridge between their knees, to move over Luu’s skin in time with her chanting and breathing, painting her vividly, beautifully, the story shared between the two chantrymates.
“We left our marks here, high on the wall.” Jinny says. “A handprint, left in a dusting of clay, will last countless seasons. Mine is there still. As is my mate. My lover. My daughter. Her daughter. Her son. Generations of storytellers sharing, creating, leaving their marks.” Jinny shivers, arching her back and shoulders, chest out, letting out a soft gasp, relaxing after a second, her head tilted back, gazing into the darkness above. “In here, we learned the depths of our strength. We offered prayers to the moon, to the depths of the sea, to the wolf howling in the distance, to the paths left to explore, to the story that stole the stars from the sky and the thunderhead from the smoke she breathed. To the stars that watched us from above, their tails splitting the sky as they fell to earth with crystal eyes, glowing red. Our stories held back the monsters in the dark, acted as a campfire glowing in the darkness, worked like an axe chopping through a frozen sea in the search for knowledge. Gods in disguise, we are, taking timid steps on our journey to reach beyond the physical and into the world beyond, if only for a breath. Dancing with the spirits. Rising beyond, into a brighter time.”
Jinny whirls to look at Luu, reaching out with her right hand, letting it hover above the flame, fingers outstretched, the orange glow licking at her bare skin, but not burning or blistering. “We were so few, dwindling to only a handful after generations had passed us by. And the world was not ready for the things we had seen. How could you explain villages with more people than you could count? Food of all kinds ready for the picking? Birds large enough to carry an entire tribe across the sea and weapons so terrible that the world cried out in anguish when they were used. They were not ready, so we hid. We moved the stone with what we knew, letting it flow like a wave to close the entrance, letting the fire sustain us until, like the shadows, we flickered and disappeared. Our bodies were not as eternal as our spirits and, with time, our bodies faded and turned to dust. Then the dust turned to dust but we lived on in the story….” Jinny trails off, withdrawing her hand, the flame’s glow suffused in her skin, fiery tendrils outlining the tendons in her hand, the veins going up her arm.
Jinny is silent for the longest time, breathing slowly, her skin shining with sweat, the glyphs and symbols starting to gather over her chakras, linking with each other, the woman telling the story becoming part of the story and tying Luu into it all into herself. “Everything is stories. Everything.” She turns to Luu, resting her glowing palm against the other woman’s chest, just above her heart. “Everything has the potential for creation, but most beings never realize it. The stories are alive, iijikwe. One word….one syllable…one breath of remembrance is like a spark on a dry field, setting alight the memories to dance and reshape themselves, potential building like a wave, awakening those with the ears to listen.”
Jinny slowly withdraws her hand from Luu’s chest, a handprint left there, glowing orange against her pale skin, pulsing with each beat of her heart. She then presses the glowing hand to her own face, whispering words that she cannot, that she does not understand, lifting her right arm high after a moment, Jinny’s face left with a glowing mark as well, her fingertips against the wall, her left hand against Luu’s knee.
“Danakamigizi ayaa waabigwanii-gitigaan…” she whispers.
The runes, the symbols, the stories - all of it - starts to flow from her skin to the wall through the medium of her touch. The last ones to move are the handprints, drifting along her skin like embers on a flame until they both rest high, high on the wall among dozens, hundreds, maybe even thousands of other similar handprints. The light spreads in a ripple, glowing brightly for a moment and then fading into darkness, leaving Jinny and Luu and the flame flickering in the darkness.
As Jinny tells of the stories of the cave, and the cave of stories, Luu sits with the meditatively still posture of the lotus position. The sacred vowels she intones, vibrating through her body into the essence of the cave. Reverberations that subtly move flames, petroglyphs, and stories, connecting with the two women as a living present, a new story for the library of the cave.
The symbols dance across Luu’s body, her flesh acting as an extension of the cave walls; a screen, or perhaps mirror, onto which sacred light, stories, and dust find a receptive other to join themselves. Jinny placing her hand upon Luu’s heart chakra causes no outward movement from the woman. The is only the attuned pulse of heart beat and the linguistic vibration of her chest to be felt through her fire warmed chest.
The mantra of sacred vowels quiets down along with the final whispers of the stories, harmonizing together, as they dissipate into the memory of the cave. Their light and love brightly revealed as eternal, before their present state of being returns to eternal form, momentarily hinting at its boundlessness.
The darkening of the cave, returning the shape of the space to one of the intimacy and boundless potential of three eternal flames.
