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  • #2585

    In reply to: Strings of Nines

    Mark knocked tentatively.

    “Sheila?” he poked his head around the door.

    “Sheila? … oh excuse me!” he apologised. “I was looking for Sheila. I thought she might still be here ..”

    His voice trailed off as he looked at the woman standing before him. She looked so familiar and yet he couldn’t for the life of him place her.

    Bugger! thought Phoebe. This is an entertaining turn of events. What is he doing back here?

    As if to answer her unspoken question Mark explained that he had missed the flight to Noo Zooland, and knew that he was making an awful mistake he would regret for the rest of his life if he did not find Sheila and see if they had a chance together. Did Phoebe know where she had gone?

    Phoebe smiled kindly at the anxious and visibly lovelorn Mark.

    “I think you will find she hasn’t got far. Why don’t you wait here with my parrot, Vincentius, and I will go and see if I can find her for you.”

    Mark looked expectantly around the room for Vincentius, but failed to see any sign of him. “Your parrot?” he queried.

    Phoebe laughed. “Silly old me! What am I like eh? Of course, Vincentius has yet to make it through the portal. Don’t worry, he will be here soon.”

    She chuckled to herself as she left the room.

    #2569

    In reply to: Strings of Nines

    ÉricÉric
    Keymaster

      Largely concealed by his trenchcoat and his large pinhole glasses, peering through the other pinholes he’d made in his copy of that outdated rag of the Old Reality Times newspaper in front of him, Godfrey was spying on Franlise who he could see trotting on the cobblestone pavement at a fast pace —and rather elegantly for a cleanlady, he should add.
      She was wearing a pair of posh fishnet stockings which would on occasion raise a few whistles from the bystanders. All of which was making his staying incognito rather impracticable.

      Maybe she had detected something, but suddenly as well as inexplicably, she altered her course to dive into a dark alley on the side of a tall building. From there, she seemed to have vanished. She was certainly inside that building… all of this was getting suspicious and suspiciouser.

      Godfrey decided to wait patiently for an hour or so. After all, the autumn breeze of Hoowkes Bay was doing good to his flooh. He ordered a coughee latte at the terrace of a nearby café, throwing occasionally a few side glances in case the mysterious inner-lovely cleanlady would suddenly reappear. He was quite enjoying being here, taking a break from Ann’s often incoherent streams of thoughts his flooh was giving him a hard time to piece together. He’d been better at that than he was now, he was the first to admit.
      Now, he wondered, why was he continuously attracting such extravagant authors such as Elizabeth and Ann. Perhaps he loved the thrill posed to him by the labyrinthine tendrils of imagination these two had the curious ability to spread afar and entangle beyond hope… Or perhaps it was simply a curse.

      A that point, the screech of a magpie pierced the mid-afternoon sunlight bathed and calm balmy air, interrupting his thoughts. An omen?

      Maybe also, and more simply, he was taking a liking to the mysterious cleanlady and was envying her apparent natural ability at streamlining those nuggets of thoughts into seemingly coherent patterns. If such a thing as a Fellowship of Unification and Continuity in Knowledge existed, it couldn’t really be a terrorist organisation… it seemed more like a flovesend relief group to him.

      But frankly, he didn’t even know what he was talking about.

      #2564

      In reply to: Strings of Nines

      TracyTracy
      Participant

        Yoland woke up feeling lighter somehow. The sun was shining, the young puppy, Phunn, scampered about without a care in the world as she perused the morning mail. The random daily Circle of Eight’s quote once again delighted her, synchronizing with her recent meditation.

        “Fiona woke suddenly from a dream. In her dream she had been communicating with her online friends, through drawings and messages. She had been trying so hard to convey something, and the more she tried to say it, the more distant they felt to her.

        She had woken feeling saddened. Her energy was greatly disturbed, and, unable to get back to sleep straight away, she meditated. She felt herself connect with the energy of a Snowy Owl, who invited her wordlessly to ask her questions. The Owl’s eyes seemed to have such a depth of wisdom and kindness, and no sooner had her thoughts begun to ask their questions, than she would feel the Owl’s answer merge with her own knowing.

        She felt herself being able to say without words what she had tried so hard in her dream to convey, and understanding there was no need for any effort, she felt greatly comforted, and peaceful sleep swept over her again.”

        Yoland had sent an email to her freind KX about her meditation, as her freind had unexpectedly popped up in it, in a wonderful pastel watercolour world:

        The elevator stopped with a shudder and the doors slammed open. The landscape looked a bit too airy fairy for me (not real enough, haha!) and I nearly got back in the elevator. It was all aqua blue and pastel and floaty, like a watercolour world. Then I saw you, waving your arms around, painting the air with trails of pastel colours with your fingertips. You were smiling and wearing a pale blue shirt. You wrapped me round with spirals of colours from your fingertips and then I flew upwards into the dark blue. You tossed me a paper toilet roll to use as a silver cord, which I tossed back to you after a bit cos it felt a bit silly, and then you sent a burst of colours as an acknowledgement

        KX had responded:

        “Yoland!!That is very very cool! I’ve been “out there”! I’ll bet you I was changing the toilet paper roll at the moment you were in the Watercolor World ! Meanwhile so many things are coming together for me in how to create and how to hold my attention where I want it… Imagination is a key ~ Love you! I will beam over in a minute. KX”

        Smiling, Yoland checked the latest blog updates. Sahila had posted some Possum photos, and the first thing that Yoland saw was the white owl in the fork of the tree behind the possum.

        :creating_magic:

        #2559

        In reply to: Strings of Nines

        ÉricÉric
        Keymaster

          Who said that? oh well, not to worry. I can edit it later.

          Mmm, reading back the notes in the margin of the latest manuscript, his now healing flooh notwithstanding, Godfrey was wondering if whoever wrote these words ever thought of being quoted.

          #2547

          In reply to: Strings of Nines

          TracyTracy
          Participant

            Ann wasn’t altogether sure what Godfrey meant when he referred to her new interest in continuity. Ann had always been interested in connecting links, yes, of that there was no doubt, but with so very many connecting links, and so many possible strings of connecting links, with so many possible divergences into yet more strings of connecting links, Ann really couldn’t fathom how anyone could possibly keep track of all those threads of continuity. Even a seemingly discontinuous assortment of unconnected links, once connected into a nonsense thread, became another continuity string. Furthermore, Ann continued ~ in a continuous fashion ~ to ponder, if everything is connected, then what, in actuality, was all the fuss about continuity? What exactly then WAS this concept of continuity? It seemed to Ann to be more like a string of barbed wire, or one of those flimsy but effective electric wire fences, boxing in the free flow of continuity, so that the objectively perceived continuity stayed rigidly within the confines of the preconceived tale. The inner landscape knew no such boundaries, although admittedly the inner landscape was far too vast to map.

            Ann smiled to herself as she imagined trying to push pins into various inner landscape locations, tying strings from one to another, in an effort to map and label the inner continuity connections. Of course she was imagining it in a visual manner, because it was hard to imagine all those connections and strings being invisible and not taking up any space, and before long Ann’s inner map of pins and strings quickly resembled a tangle of overcooked spaghetti, perilously speckled with sharp pointy pins.

            The image of the glutinous tangle dotted with sharp shiny pointers led Ann off on another tangent, but it was a tangent that soon became utter nonsense. Or was it, she mused. Perhaps it was those symbolically sharp pointy bits that in fact pointed out the immense variety of potential other continuity threads to choose from. Indeed, it could easily be said that having one of her characters dumped in Siberia in the previous story, painful though it was, was not unlike being pricked by a pin amidst the tangle of sticky pasta, a brilliantly effective pointer towards unlimited new directions.

            Whichever way she looked at it (and Ann was aware that she might have gone down a side string) she simply couldn’t comprehend how anyone on this side of the veil could possibly even begin to understand the ramifications of the concept of continuity at all. Or how there could ever conceivably be a lack of it.

            What was really intriguing Ann at this particular juncture of the experimental exploration of the story was the concept of the World View Library. This wasn’t unconnected to the continuity issue, far from it, it was all tied in (Ann sniggered at the unintentional pun) and connected. There were any infinite amount of potential continuity threads leading from, say, one persons desire or intent, to a particular world view in the library.

            AHA shouted Ann, who at that moment had an ‘aha’ moment. Pfft, it’s gone, she sighed moments later.

            Ann tried to catch the wisp of an idea that had flitted through her awareness. She had a visual impression of the library, endlessly vast and marvellously grand, with countless blindfolded characters dashing through, grabbing random pages or sentences, bumping into each other, snatching at phrases willy nilly, dropping notes along the way, and racing back out again into the ether. A stray thought here, a picture there, a name or a date, all on separate bits of crumbled paper clutched in the sweaty palms of the blindfolded characters as they rushed headlong back to their own realities to proudly share the new clues. Like magpies they were, snatching at anything that glittered brightly enough.

            :magpie: :magpie: :magpie: :magpie: :magpie: :magpie:

            “I thought you said they were blindfolded?” interrupted Franlise.

            Ann ignored the interruption, and continued ~ in a continuous fashion ~ to ponder the imagery of the library.

            What the undisciplined purloiners of random snatches didn’t notice on their pell-mell excursions into the library were the characters in the library who weren’t wearing blindfolds. They smiled down from the galleries, calmly watching from above the mayhem that the news of the unlimited library access had occasioned, chortling at the scenes of chaos below. They smiled indulgently, for they too had first visited the library blindfolded, snatching at this and that, and racing home again to inspect the booty; they too had fretted and pondered over the enigmas of the incomplete snippets. Eventually (or not, it was after all a choice), they had bravely removed the blindfolds, slowed the mad race into a sedate stroll through the library, opened their eyes and looked around, sure of the way back home now, and not in a desperate hurry to blast in, snatch anything, and run back home.

            After awhile, they began to realize that all the enchanting glittering jewels scattered around to catch their eye would still be there later, there was no urgency to grab them all at once ~ although, as Ann reminded herself, that too was a choice ~ some may well choose to be eternally snatching at glittering jewels.

            Ann frowned slightly and wondered if she’d lost the thread altogether, and then decided that it didn’t matter if she had.

            It was a choice, therefore, to remove ones blindfold, and stroll through the library ~ a choice to perhaps choose a book, sit down at a polished oak table and open it, a choice to stay and read the book, rather than ripping out a page and dashing back home. That would be one choice of continuity, a coming together of strings.

            Ann wondered whether that would then be called a cable, or a rope ~ well perhaps not a rope, she decided, that had other associations entirely ~ but a cable, yes, that had associations of reliable and regular communications. There were always strings of continuity, then, strings of connecting links, between anything and everything, but when one stopped dashing about clutching at the sparkley bits, one might form a cable.

            Or not, of course. Thin strings of continuity and connections were not ‘less than’ thick cables of reliable and regular communications. It has to be said though, Ann reluctantly admitted, that thick cables often made more sense.

            She decided to hit send before embarking on a pondering of the meaning of Sense.

            #2546

            In reply to: Strings of Nines

            ÉricÉric
            Keymaster

              These past few months away from home had been the occasion for a great deal of introspection.
              For one, indulging fully into that somewhat frowned upon habit of his, regarding peanuts, had allowed him to gain a great deal of understanding and acceptance as well. Now his daily ration had dramatically decreased and he didn’t fancy as much as he used to the little round things.

              Another thing that Godfrey had noticed was the reorganisation that had taken place in all aspects of his life, and to be perfectly honest, his life was still a bit messy in places, but he was slowly getting there. How could a publisher publish anything of common interest without a bit of presentation, henceforth order?

              Ann wasn’t too keen on the “O” word —especially when doubled— and surprisingly it always managed to give good results so far. So perhaps now he was settling down, and she was getting her own flamboyant creative juices all ablaze, they would manage to get somewhere. Or anywhere, for that matter.
              A Tramway to Elsewhere was Ann’s debut novel, and had made her known to Godfrey. It was a brilliant short story about three tourists lost in a huge hotel in Europe, and trying to get an easy escape to Anywhere. And by some uncanny and hilarious succession of events, they were led nowhere but to Elsewhere.

              Now, something else was giving him a strange feeling. He didn’t know if that was because of the lack of peanut oil in his bloodstream (or the accompanying whiskeys for what was worth), but he was starting to get slightly paranoid.
              He didn’t know where he’d got the idea, but he started to suspect the cleaning lady to not just be a cleaning lady. She was doing her best to keep a low profile, but somehow she wasn’t that good an actress. A thing that started his suspicion was that name… Franlise, eerily reminiscent of the obnoxious yet efficient Finnley in Noo York. Elizabeth had told him they’d suspected her for a long time to have inserted some paragraphs in Elizabeth’s novels, especially the most torrid parts that would have made a pimp blush like a nun. What had saved the cleaning lady was that in addition to being rather forgiving, Elizabeth suffered from frequent strokes of forgetfulness and bipolarity which made the investigation difficult if not moot altogether.

              But there, Godfrey was rather surprised at Ann’s sudden interest in continuity. He’d known of a covert organization known in the milieu as the Fellowship of Unification and Continuity in Knowledge.
              Over the years, the hearsay had amounted to just a few deranged people, but recently there had been an increase in mentions of such nature in reports of the Guild of Authors. Strangely, there was less and less books that were published which had not an impeccable sense of continuity.
              In a way, it had been perceived at first in literary circles as a blessing for the authors who had not to contend with fans and geeks of all kind who were hunting down each and every detail to prove or disprove unsaid theories. But Godfrey was starting to see some not so perfect points in that. It would be like wanting to string together all the eyelets of your shoes even if they do not belong to the same shoe (or the same pair of shoes). Soon, you’d be embarrassed to find a way to walk without looking like a penguin.

              Anyway, though all allegations made as to the existence of such secret organization had been mostly derailed as utter nonsense, he couldn’t help but find some inexplicable appeal to them as sound explanations for all the glitches he kept noticing.
              He would carefooly spy on Franlise.

              #2534

              In reply to: Strings of Nines

              TracyTracy
              Participant

                I told you it is my feeling that in a sense these communications took place one afternoon while I was half dozing.

                They could make no sense to me then. The use of unconscious knowledge could not then take place. I do not know the state of your wife’s consciousness, or of your own, at that time in my own past. In any case, your own conscious knowledge of such events apparently had to wait until certain intersections happened.

                Awareness of these communications conceivably could have taken place at any time, but certain levels of comprehension had to touch all of our personalities before such communications jelled, or became strong enough to make sense in both of our worlds.

                I do not believe that I was aware of these communications either when they first happened. I would have had no way to evaluate or understand them. I assume that the same is true on your parts. At the same time, in a manner of speaking, the communications are enriched as my knowledge of my world when I was alive blends with your present knowledge of your world in your time.

                It is as if the three of us all wrote portions of a letter, the words fitting together meticulously, and yet forming a fine puzzle that had to work itself out as we each made our moves in our own realities. It is one thing to send a letter from one portion of the planet to another, as in your mail system — but it is something else when the three individuals involved are constantly changing their alignment, position, and probable activities.

                It is like trying to send a letter to a certain address while the mailbox keeps appearing or disappearing, or changing its position entirely, for all three of us are a portion of that one communication, while the position of our consciousness constantly alters.

                It is a wonder that such communications take place at all considering the changing coordinates that constantly apply. The communications could all have remained in the dream state on all of our parts, but we were all determined to bring them into some kind of actuality in the same way that the idea of a painting is changed into the physical painting itself.

                “Godfrey, that’s got me thinking, you know. Seem to have a bit of an idea brewing, old bean,” Ann said with an enigmatic smile.

                “What are you on about now, Ann?” he replied. “Why don’t you tell me what that book is you’re reading, you can’t quote books without mentioning the name of them, so you may as well tell me now.”

                “I was wondering how to slide it in, Godfrey” she replied with a snort. “It’s The World View of Rembrandt, by Jane Roberts.”

                :paperclip:

                #2234

                Jeeze, the little brats have stopped me from getting me beauty sleep looking for the darn eggletons! Shar was seating outside sipping her cup of tea while conversing with her old friend Glor.

                I was about to tell you the same Shar!… i need my beauty kip. Yer niece and nephew… Holly Molly…

                Niece and nephew… what you on about? The nephewer the merrier if you ask me

                As if we not got enough with them prescription drugs from the bathroom cabinet stopping us from sleeping!

                Want to see them comin’ near our beds those!

                Oh no, not our beds! Glor recoiled in horror.

                Stupid drugs… Better for ‘em not come close when I’m ‘ere, or we’ll have to learn how to sleep standing!

                Wouldn’t like to see your hump sleeping standing!

                Not hump,… haunch, silly! Wouldn’t be so good anyway covered with blankets… Shar lost her trail of thought in remembrance of her past bedroom encounters.

                A sudden crack in the nearby potting shed raised the ample bottom of the one named Glor in alarm.

                #2502

                In reply to: Strings of Nines

                He was silently waiting, standing on a branch of a big bingahloo tree on the edge of the village of Duur Mistar. He was one of the Scouts of Dhja and his duty was to travel through the realm of Amstar (pronounced [Am i shtar’]) and report back to the Queen any event usual or unusual. The Scouts were gifted with a special talent and they were trained since childhood to develop it and use it for the good of Dhja. They could read energy and notice the slightest change in any manifestation before it became physically manifest. Because of that, they were revered and feared by many.

                In the realm of Amstar, the People of Dhja was feline and the different tribes were presenting as many differences as the races of our own felines. From the tribe of the Solar Bear was Dhurga, his fur was medium-length and cinnamon, similar to that of Abyssinian cats. He was slender and his movements graceful, one would barely notice his presence at that moment, as Scouts were able to manipulate their energy and adjust it according to their purpose, and he was here to observe and not to interfere.

                He had felt a call for a few weeks. It was barely noticeable first and there were many possibilities to translate this. It could have been because of the small amount of energy, or it could have been because it was quite far from were he was at that moment. The later was more accurate and he had to travel many days before he could pinpoint a more precise direction and point in space and time.

                Along with the ability to read energy was a constant conscious connection with any other Scout. They had no secret among their kin and neither was it necessary nor would it have been possible easily. He had checked with the other Scouts if they had felt the call also, but apparently very few of them were feeling it and fewer were interpreting it as a call. He’d been the first one to arrive at Duur Mistar, apparently the originating place of the call and he’d been waiting for the others since. They were not far away and there hadn’t been any change in the quality or in the intensity of the vibration, but there were signs that it could soon occur.

                #2498

                In reply to: Strings of Nines

                TracyTracy
                Participant

                  Yoland was inordinately pleased with her purchases, trifling though they were. She smiled at the little bottle of cherry red nail varnish, imagining how it would look on sun browned and callous free toes. Painted toe nails was one of life’s simple pleasure, she reckoned. Nothing fancy or expensive or uncomfortable, like her new brassiere, which had never the less given her spirits a bit of a lift, as well as her breasts, with its bright blue moulded foam shape. She wondered if she could suspend the brassiere and its contents from something other than her shoulders for once, but couldn’t see how it could be arranged and still allow a modicum of freedom of movement. Perhaps some of the new scientific discoveries that she was eagerly awaiting would include some kind of gravity and weight defying device, possibly helium filled foam support. Perhaps even in the future, anyone with a high squeaky voice would be described as a bra sucker. Or perhaps one day breasts worn on the waist would be fashionable. This thought made Yoland a bit uncomfortable, as she hadn’t really believed she was following fashion, but maybe she was after all.

                  Yoland wondered if she was verging on the ridiculous again, and decided that it didn’t matter if she was. There was something rather splendid, she was beginning to discover, about the mundane and the silly. Something serenely pleasurable about ~ well about everything she’d been taking for granted for so many years. The things she hadn’t really noticed much, while her mind was busy thinking and pondering, replaying old conversations, and imagining new ones, sometimes with others, but often with herself, inside the vast jumble of words that was her mind.

                  It was always a wonderful change of pace to go away on a trip, with its wealth of new conversations and words, events and symbols to ponder over later at her leisure, the many photographic snapshots providing reminders and clues and remembered laughs, but it was the renewed sense of appreciation for the mundane that was ultimately most refreshing about returning home.

                  The word home had baffled Yoland for many years. For most of her 51 years, if the truth be told. So many moves, so many houses, so many people ~ where, really, was home? She’d eventually compromised and called herself a citizen of the world, but she still found herself at times silently wailing “I want to go home”, but with the whole world as her home, it didn’t make a great deal of sense why she would still yearn for that elusive place called home.

                  Of all the words that swam in her head some of them seemed to keep bobbing up to the surface, attracting her attention from time to time. That was the funny thing about words, Yoland mused, not for the first time, You hear them and hear them and you understand what they mean, but only in theory. The suddenly something happens and you shout AHA, and then you can’t find any words to explain it! Repeating the words you’ve already heard a hundred times somehow doesn’t even come close to describing what it actually feels like to understand what those words mean. That kind of feeling always left her wondering if everyone else had known all along, except her.

                  Yoland was often finding words in unexpected places, and these were often the very words that were the catalysts. (Even the word catalyst had been one of those words that repeatedly bobbed to the surface of her sea of words). Her trip had been in search of words, supposedly, channeled words (although Yoland suspected the trip had been more about connections than words) and yet there had only really been one word that had stood out as significant, and oddly enough, that word had been watermelon.

                  That had been a lesson in itself, if indeed lesson is the right word. Yoland had been attempting to exercise her psychic powers for six months or more, trying to get Toobidoo, the world famous channeled entity, to say the word watermelon ~ just for fun. She couldn’t even remember how it all started, or why the word watermelon was significant ~ perhaps a connection to a symbol etched on a watermelon rind in Marseilles, which later became a Tile of the City. (Yoland wasn’t altogether sure that she understood the tiles, but she did think it was a very fun game, and that aspect alone was sufficient to hold her interest.) By the end of the last day of the channeling event Toobidoo still hadn’t said the word watermelon which was somewhat of a disappointment, so when Yoland saw Gerry Jumper, Toobidoo’s channel, in the vast hotel foyer, she ran up to him saying “Say watermelon.” The simple direct method worked instantly, where months of attempts the hard way had failed. Yoland felt that she learned alot from this rather silly incident about the nature of everyday magic, and this particular lesson, or we might prefer to call it a communication, was repeated for good measure the following day in the park.

                  Wailon, the other world famous channeled entity who was the star attraction of the Words Event, had proudly displayed photographic evidence of orbs at the lecture. Like Yoland had tried with the watermelon, he was choosing an esoteric and unfamiliar method of creating orbs, suggesting that the audience meditate and conjure them up to show on photographs, rather than simply creating physical orbs. Yoland and her friends Meldrew and Franklyn had chanced upon a beautiful glass house full of real physical glass orbs in the park, underlining the watermelon message for Yoland: not to discount the spontaneous magic of the physical world in the search for the esoteric.

                  It had, for example, been rather magical and wonderful to hear Gerry Jumper explain how he had mentioned watermelon to his wife on the previous day in the dining room ~ mundane, yes, but magical too. It would have been marvellous to create Toobidoo channeling the word watermelon for sure, but how much more magical to create an actual slice of physical watermelon in the dining room and have Gerry remark on it, and to have an actual physical conversation with him about it. Who knows, he may even remember the nutcase who spent six months trying to get him to say watermelon whenever he sees one, at least for awhile. It might be quite often too, as his wife is partial to watermelon. Yoland wondered if this was some kind of connecting link, perhaps the connection to Gerry and Cindy started in Marseilles and watermelon was the physical clue, the pointer towards the connection.

                  Perhaps, Yoland wondered, the orbs were the connecting link to Wailon, although she didn’t feel such a strong connection to him as she did to Toobidoo and Gerry Jumper. She had been collecting coloured gel orbs for several months ~ just for fun. There was often a connecting link to be found in the silly and the fun, the pointless and the bizarre, and even in the mundane and everyday things.

                  In the days following her return home ~ or the house that Yoland lived in, shall we say ~ she felt rather sleepy, as if she was in slow motion, but the feeling was welcome, it felt easy and more importantly, acceptable. There was nothing that she felt she should be doing instead, for a change, no fretting about starting projects, or accomplishing chores, rather a slow pleasant drifting along. Yes, there were chores to be done, such as watering plants and feeding animals and other things, but they no longer felt like chores. She found she wasn’t mentally listing all the other chores to be done but was simply enjoying the one she was doing. Even whilst picking up innumerable dog turds outside, she heard the birds singing and saw the blossom on the fruit trees against the blue sky, saw shapes in the white clouds, heard the bees buzzing in the wisteria. The abundance of dog shit was a sign of a houseful of happy healthy well fed dogs, and the warm spring sun dried it and made it easier to pick up.

                  It was, somewhat unexpectedly, while Yoland was picking up dog shit that she finally realized what some of those bobbing words meant about home, and presence, and connection to source. It seemed amusingly ironic after travelling so far (not just the recent trip, but all the years of searching) to finally find out where home was, where the mysterious and elusive source was. (Truth be told, some printed words she found the previous day had been another catalyst, by Vivian channeled by Wanda, but she couldn’t recall the exact words. Yoland had to admit that words, used as a catalyst, were really rather handy.)

                  Wherever you go, there you are ~ they were words too, and they were part of the story. Now that Yoland had come to the part where she wanted to express in words where home, and source, was, she found she couldn’t find the right words. In a funny kind of way the word vacant popped into her head, as if the place where the vast jumble of words was usually housed became vacant, allowing her to be present in her real physical world. It really was quite extraordinary how simple it was. Too simple for words.

                  :yahoo_heehee:

                  #2497

                  In reply to: Strings of Nines

                  ÉricÉric
                  Keymaster

                    Frankly Tina, I wouldn’t expect anyone in his or her good sense to understand any of this jumble. But you know Becky,… her intent is to blaze trails, not really to tidy up the lawn
                    Tidy up the lawn? Well, that’s an idea… Tina answered absently
                    That was meant to make you smile… Looks like we’re all a bit depressed these days… Al was still a bit groggy from the night. Oh, damn, I’ll be late for my appointment… Any idea were are my socks dear?
                    Mmm… I don’t know… did you have look in the microwave oven?

                    #2210

                    It all kept getting stranger and stranger to Harvey —or aliener and aliener, he would have been tempted to say.
                    Maybe that was because of the ash blue giant aliens he’d made contact with recently. They were nice though; slender body and ample slow movements, but despite all feelings of eeriness, they appeared to be kind and loving beings. Of course, when he had told the others about it, all they had wanted to know was how many boobies they had, and whether their appendices were proportionate to their heights. Harvey couldn’t help but roll his third eye (he was tempted to wink it at first, but remembered how he failed to convey anything like this, people not knowing whether he was winking or simply blinking…).

                    Funny thing was that now he was getting distorted and disrupted (or so he thought) communications even in broad daylight.

                    The last one, when he was reading Grips, his favorite newspaper’s headlines on the newsstand went like:

                    Home energy merely start, cave created answer
                    Zhaana, Mlle friend within, needed hidden face
                    view Leormn somehow warm smiled whole week

                    Yesterday, after having being woken up by the squealing little piglets during the storm, he’d loitered around the neighbourhood in search for sleep, and found himself wanting to declaim nonsensical words about a girl gloogloo-dancing under the sun of Androoloosie (that’s the name he got, from some distant parallel reality).
                    Perhaps he should make some podcasts out of this, they may well be the sign of a vastly intelligent design the code of which some erudite researchers could crack up thanks to his contribution.

                    Yeah… crack up… They would…

                    #2196

                    I think Aspooh is too busy mourning her cat which she had embalmed and mummified to pay any attention to the piglet (it be).

                    “Did you know that ancient Egyptians shaved their eyebrows in sign of mourn when the family cat died?”

                    What do you think of “Cellar door” as a name? Some eminent linguist has proposed it was the most beautiful association of nouns in the whole English language…

                    Now, Lavender was puzzled; why in the name of all the angels’ choir, Harvey was speaking of nun associations? Soon he’ll be talking of peanuts at that rate…

                    This whole Shifting business was definitely taking its toll on uncanny understandings…

                    #2192

                    Harvey was thinking if anything had escaped his friend’s keen eye for details…
                    She was so good at it that his attempt was only futile and hopeless.

                    He gave a distracted look at the menu of the restaurant.
                    He’d kept getting the strangest reads recently by “mis-understanding” other people’s words, in an entirely bizarre yet funny and enlightening way. Like when his friend talked about Bifrost, he first thought she was talking about getting roasted beef.

                    Speaking of which, the menu was saying (so he first read)

                    “pig bed wonder
                    hairy expect reason liked universe
                    behind certain Tina doctor busy light individual”

                    “Oh, egg Benedict for starters” she said, “sounds just great”
                    “What? Why did I read ‘pig bed something?’” he muttered to himself.
                    “Pig?… Did you just say ‘pig’? I am sure that is a synch… can’t remember what though… Piggy I have to remember”

                    Harvey noticed that he had seen pigs recently as well. The first occurrence was after a crappy condition, about recycling pigs’ waste to make gas; and the other was about a pig feeding piglets on the road.

                    #2190
                    ÉricÉric
                    Keymaster

                      Col had been in the business of intergalactic sleuthing and profiling for many years now and his tall broad stature and kind, poised black face was well known all around. They used to call him “the Zebra”, not so much because he made black and white statements —he was very nuanced— but because of his unusualness and knack for blending himself in questions.
                      As a matter of fact, he’s made himself quite a reputation of a highly skilled professional, with no one up to par for finding clues and solving mysteries.

                      Col Umbro’s motto was “all you have to do is to ask the right questions, in the right order.”
                      Of course, he wouldn’t tell which way was the “right” one and which was not. But one thing was sure enough, most people completely overlooked the last part of the sentence.

                      And that was what he intended to teach to his next assignment. A distant focus of his essence in mid-shift. For the moment, dream projections were the easiest and safest way to catch their attention, because they were not accustomed to a shifted state enough to pay attention to more physical projections.

                      It was hilarious to see that most of the enthusiastic ones were waiting for unexpected events to come and rapture them in awe. Sillies… For one, “unexpected” shouldn’t be so… expected.
                      Besides, most of the time, (most of the now) people were simply blind to the facts not in alignment with their allowance for disbelief. A pink elephant, say… They had grown so blasé that should they even see it standing in from of them, that they would probably then dismiss its appearance as another miracle of genetics (or debasement thereof)…
                      So, reaching them would actually require quite a tactful and sly approach. Qualities he possessed enough.

                      “Who’s this new person appearing disguised in a pseudonym?” His assignment was wondering.

                      They had forgotten rule number one. Nothing is hidden from you. Granted, a pseudonym is a mask, but the choice of the mask is revealing enough of a clue.
                      Then, you had to ask the questions in the right order. “Who is it?” should be the last of them all. Same with all the “how’s”. “What and why” where more important questions to consider.
                      Once you got the “what”, the who is so self-evident, that it would not even retain the slightest of interests…

                      He had found a nice slot, just after an entertaining equilibristics dream show. Making a dream for his assignment would be fun. And probably even more fun as she was the most impossible subject who wouldn’t remember dreams at all! He would have to use a proxy dreamer. Someone close enough to her. He knew exactly who to choose…

                      #2186
                      ÉricÉric
                      Keymaster

                        “Speaking of infinite details,” said Björn who was watching a circus program with a muscular looking man who balancing his contortionist partner who was attempting to balance plants on her face.

                        “What?” said Iris who was already dozing on the couch.

                        “Sorry dear, I was just talking to myself, have nice dreams”, he said, stroking gently her freckled face.

                        He continued in his head, slightly dozing off himself.

                        “One two, one two. Testing the acoustics… Sounds good.”

                        “Funny how these thoughts come in and out… It occurred to me something funny.”

                        :fleuron:

                        “Can you add a plush toy in your dream?”
                        “Oh sure darling. What kind of?”
                        “A baby aardvark”

                        :fleuron:

                        Björn wasn’t very comfortable yet, he started to toss and turn until he realized he was seated on Iris’ plush aardvark. He fondly placed the little soft thing in Iris’ arms and returned to his thoughts.

                        “There, it’s inserted…”
                        “Now, your reality can be viewed to some extent as the most complex, yet the most simple of assemblage. You may liken it if you will to a room with mirrors (*). Ancient Indian mystics have spoken of Indra’s net where droplets of waters are each reflecting all of the other ones; these are the same images.
                        It is not new information to you, the fact that you are seeing your reflection in your world, or that it is a sort of illusion reflecting you, but this is not the point we want to highlight here.

                        Consider that the room in which you are is reflected an infinite amount of times in every direction. In a sense, they are all the same. They are you. Now, we come to the interesting part. You may very well decide to explore the room next to you with its shining details, by going through one of these mirrors. Some individuals quite enjoy such explorations, they call it past or future or even probabilities, other dimensions etc. And by moving into the next room, it becomes their present.

                        You now realize that you have not really moved, since all rooms reflect only you. And you may want to continue in the direction you are exploring and go into more rooms. It’s alright. But some individuals realize that all rooms are equivalent, and that from where you stand, you can view the point you wish to explore in one part of the mirrors reflections. This is being present. You shift your attention, and expand your vision of the tiny part, rather than moving towards it with great efforts.

                        Now, when you are dreaming, the very nature of dreams is the same. It gives you a whole fractal hologram to ponder. You may get carried away by wanting to remember all the tiny details, because in doing so, what you are doing is simply opening rooms upon rooms upon rooms. And more details will be created for you! Or you can simply realize that the details are all contained within your feeling of being present, and standing in the middle of one of these rooms, and not one of them is more important than the next.

                        Connect to your feeling, and all the natural movements of your explorations will be automagically connected. And we bid you a nice fractal dream exploration.”

                        #1271
                        Jib
                        Participant

                          Many people were gathered at the Soft Pool in the Garden of The Orientations.
                          Some of them were sitting here still and smiling, their eyes closed and open to the different energies surrounding them. Some of them were standing others walking around and a few ones were running following seemingly random patterns. Their movements were the perfect match of the energy connections between each participant, physical and non physical.

                          It was like a shining crystal, some rays of light/attention creating an instant connection and an instant energy exchange which need not be continuously maintained, many different connections were being created and were lasting as long as necessary, sometimes a few seconds, sometimes a few minutes, and others mere moments.

                          His interactions fulfilled, Sam gathered his attention toward his new goal and he left the crowd at its game, the energy of the experience still present inside his energy field.

                          #1264

                          Monica del Apio couldn’t understand why he kept telling her she had the wrong number. Frank Diddly-Squat had had the same phone number for years, but for the past two days, he ~ or someone using his phone ~ was refusing to admit to any knowledge of Frank.

                          #1248

                          That was it. She had enough for the time being. Ever since the management had agreed to hire him for the new show, the Freakus was not as Fabulously Great as it once was.

                          Not that he was a bad guy, but he was all so closeted, he was imprinting it to the circus, and she wanted to breathe some different kind of air. Of course, never been a freak himself, Morgan the Mentalist wouldn’t ever come close as to understand what having been closeted your all life would mean. Being the Lobster girl of the show, she knew quite a bit about that.
                          It had took her awhile to know that there wasn’t anything wrong with her expression, so no one would told her how to express. Not the Mentalist of all others.

                          Damo, the guy who was setting up the tents had seen her leave the Freakus without a word, her little piece of luggage on her “normal” hand, while her claw-like one was tucked in a glove under her bosom. Sweet-hearted as he was, he had tried to convince her to stay, that surely there was some misunderstanding.
                          “Lyla, don’t be stoopid, ain’t got nothin’ fur you out there” he’d said to her.

                          She didn’t know how to tell him that all was good. She didn’t want to tell too much either, for Fama, his teen daughter wasn’t really loving the life at the circus either, and would easily have taken the bait to get out of there too. So she had moved saying that she would come back, “when it’s safe for kids” she’d added mysteriously.

                          Strange at it seemed, it was like taking a breathe of air, and yet, she couldn’t help but think over and over at how she could have changed anything in what had happened. Perhaps it was just a pretext for her to do her next step.
                          When Morgan first came to the show, he wasn’t in a good shape, and had begged Pat Elson to hire him. As he was kind of smart guy, he didn’t stay long in Damo’s team of workers. Pat saw his potential as a sort of empathic guy, and devised the Mentalist act with him.

                          He was good at cold-reading, mostly guessing at people problems; in the beginning, some of the freakus’ people would play a part with him, to amaze the audience, but it became less and less necessary, and he would do a nice job buy himself, with lots of “it wouldn’t happen to be that your mother gave the watch to you? No… not your mother… but someone close… I can feel blah blah” and then picking on the subtle hints the guy was giving off unwittingly.

                          Lately, he had started to kind of feel stuff for real. And he started to freak out. After all this time, not many people remembered Morgan as he first came to the circus, and for most he was the Outstandingly Great Mentalist. Yeah, he had been pimping up a bit his name too… Those things happen in the milieu.
                          But Lyla remembered. She was a girl at this time, but your work at the circus starts very early when you’re a freak.
                          She had seen how he gained a little confidence in himself, as long as it stayed within closed tents and half-lit veils. He was truly a master of illusion games, and he didn’t want people to see him differently than the way he was presenting himself. He’d first tried his little games of séances with some close trusty friends, and Lyla had been quite encouraging; he deserved to blossom his potential; no one deserved to be maintained at a place where you can’t reach your highest.

                          A few days before, Lyla had had the pleasure of seeing Jenny, who’d been snake charmer many years ago, and had quit to become a singer in a bar: “tired me to travel so much, ya see” she’d said to Lyla “Now my life ain’t so complicated”.
                          Then Jenny had then asked about the guys she’d known in the freakus, first of all was Morgan the Mentalist. “How’s that old fart of Morgy?” she’d asked with a giggle “still scamming around?”

                          Lyla had said innocently that he’d been practicing doing it more genuinely, even to some success with local peasants in a few séances. Jenny had greeted the news with a cheer. “Wonderful, hey!”

                          The next day, Lyla had had the Mentalist erupt in the caravan she shared with Zarafina and Venus, since Twi had gone to sing too. He was looking furious and once they were out of earshot (how could there be any need of making secrets with the others, Lyla had wondered, they shared everything, even the tiny bar of soap) told her with his sweetest voice how he appreciated Jenny. Of course she wasn’t a Mentalist, but she knew when someone was beating around the bush; and she needn’t be Moses to know the bush was smelling of burning.

                          “I greatly appreciate Jenny, but I’d love to choose when I disclose my information to her” that’s what he said. At first, she’d thought, well, why the theatrics? Cool for you guy, peace off now. Then she slowly understood that he wanted to tell her to shut her mouth. How could she know what part to shut and which to tell? She hadn’t done anything wrong did she? Why was he having the same tone than the frigging priests with their sermons telling that you’re sinful, and when you’ve got a crooked arm, it’s because you’re born evil and such guilt shit.”

                          Well, she didn’t want to stay in a position where she had to figure out which of his sharing was a real sharing or was not. So she better bugger off, take some fresh air.

                          She thought how she loved to hear the radio, and her lifelong dream was to work there, in a place where people would hear her before judging from her appearance… Maybe she would thank Morgy in the future for giving her the last excuse to do what she wanted.

                          #1227
                          TracyTracy
                          Participant

                            Elizabeth had wanted to voice her concerns about the Vowel Shift and its potential impact on language and understanding to her publisher Godfrey Pig Littleton on numerous occasions, but until his, to her way of thinking, outrageous tampering with her script, it had not been in the forefront of her mind. She had simply ignored the Vowel Shift in the Ooh Dimension, and made up her own Vowel Shifts instead, in a variety of minor ways. Ironically and somewhat perversely (Elizabeth was well aware of the consonant shift, which she translated as a continental drift symbol) Pig Littleton was quick to notice and object.

                            “Do you deliberately write ‘collaberative’ instead of ‘collaborative’?” he asked.

                            “There are No Accidents, Godfrey” retorted Elizabeth, rather cleverly shutting the old coot up, at least for awhile. Thank Goodness he was otherwise engaged with the latest production of TWIST, and not breathing down her back about The Book.

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